Ulu

Do you guys watch Preston Tucker’s Speed Shop on youtube?

I rolled the frame back and forth today, to get all the floor ledger welds. I put on 50 welds there, plus another dozen on the pan patches and frame closures. I wedged 10 extra legs under the frame for my safety.

Seats will fit ok. Gusseting in these corners will be a pain.

I did have to invert my big clamp to get things on center. It’s still wrong in this pic. But now I finally have the frame flipped back right-side-up. I’ve never seen it in this position before, with the frame rails and firewall crossmember attached. This is indeed a project milestone.

I started cutting away the jig today, and the frame is ready to roll over. It developed about 5/16” of positive camber from full seam welding of the bottom rails. I want a little, but I will probably loose half of that when I weld the top. This frame originally had a crooked sag. More on the driver side, where all the shoddy rust repair had been.

Today I got the entire bottom of the frame seamed up. There are just a few more small welds to get on the bottom, and one big one along the tunnel to the crossmember. Also I repaired Hung-Tonga and a few other more minor welds. I am getting much better at this, and there is one secret that I never understood well before. Never look at the arc once it is going. It is hard not to, But don’t! Look only at the puddle. The puddle tells you what to do. If you have the heat close enough, the arc will be ok if the puddle is ok. Once you are controlling the puddle, your speed will tell you if you want more or less heat (amps). Why didn’t I learn this in 1972?

I have nearly completed seam welding the bottom of the frame. I was just going to skip-weld, but I’m having too much fun. I’ve filled in the skips. Most of the welds are looking like this: Not perfect, but nice enough. But a few times I did this: Welded the electrode right to the steel. This resulted in drilling and grinding and brushing, but fortunately I made about 15 feet of seam welding (in 1” to 1.5” skips) and only screwed up about 3 times. That was the worst one, looking like Hunga-Tonga going off in the Pacific.

I did a lot of cleaning, grinding and welding today. All the brackets and hangers are on solid now. I started welding up the rails, until I ran out of argon. Then it was off to Fresno Oxy for a bottle of gas. All of the welds are ok and some of them look better than I have done before.

Yeah, it is, & it wasn’t my first experience with this technique or my 5th. Speaker holes, antenna holes, patch holes, access holes. . . . Necessity is a muther but this time I just grit-whomped ‘er into submission. For NOW . . . . I’m going to hold out on any more holesaw biz. This was all me stalling for prime welding conditions. Tomorrow AM will be better.

Busting it out with a prybar. Using the saw as a gauge, I slowly grind it out round.

It was too breezy to do any more welding, and I decided I would put some “speed holes” in, to lighten my huge gussets. There were two unnecessary slots in one gusset, and this would make them match. I had an old (new) 1.75” hole saw, so: I was just starting the second one when my hole saw decided to croak. I sharpened it, but that was wasted effort. It has lost temper and is useless for cutting even this mild steel. I should have done this on the drill press before welding. I could cut the welds and use my flycutter, but I decided to do it the hard way. Drilling a hundred little holes, bust it loose, then grind smooth. I want to do this to the two subframe hangers, but not without a better hole saw.

I’ve been thinking about this for a couple days, and I have finally built something that will work, without much effort. This big clamp-on pivot will let me flip the frame over. It took two days of hunting through parts and deciding what to build. But it only took 15 minutes with saw and drill and ratchet wrenches. I know it doesn’t look too substantial, but it is stronger than me, and I can lift the front of the fame by hand. It is 3x heavier on the other end.

I got the subframe hangers drilled and tacked in place. The setup was a pain, but it is getting done.

Yesterday, I finally got my floor pan corners trimmed off & the frame rails tied to the VW frame “clip” with big 0.140” thick steel gussets. Now real steel connects the front and rear frames, instead of the sheet metal pan. I can lift a corner of the frame and it does not flex. Everything is tacked together heavily. Just a bit more welding and I will prepare to flip the frame over. Meanwhile, the neighbor’s cat was out there teasing my favorite squirrel. He was really upset too. I have never heard a louder squirrel in my life. I had to go chase the cat off my fencepost, so I could hear myself think.

Ok, the driver side patch is in now too. now I have to trim both patches to fit the big gussets.

Wow! That’s a lot of cards. I owned exactly two baseball cards in my life. A Tops Mickey Mantle & a Rodger Maris. How did I get so lucky? They must have printed a lot more cards of the popular players. I never bought any more cards before or since. It was that terrible chewing gum that came with them. They ended up being my bookmarks in highschool, and lost over 50 years ago.

Several mundane issues have slowed me down, but I did get one of the floor patches welded down today. I also welded in the pan doubler, and welded it to the cast hook. No pix of that yet. I was about to start the driver side, when my wife brought me another distraction to deal with. More fun tomorrow.

I am just priming with dilute phosphoric acid wash. The paint is self etching too, so this makes it stick well without filler or sealer primers.

I was considering polyurethane, but I didn’t think it would hold paint.

I won’t have any sealer aimed at the sky on this roadster. It will strictly be on the inside and outside of the floor. It will have to fill gaps around the flutes.

What’s the best stuff to use on the bottom? I’m going to have seams to seal in my modified floor pan, which will be mostly pre-painted in black acrylic enamel. Also, some will be applied to bare steel. I’ll want to paint everything after sealing anyhow. It should be easy, durable, and inexpensive. I’m not going for a show car look. But I’m willing to spend what I should.

I have the same dang issue. My compressor is 120/240 with a Doer cap start motor, and I had to wire it for 120 when I moved, 35 years ago. I want to re-wire for 240, but I can’t remember how, and the diagram is scratched away. I need to unwire it, measure the coils with an ohmmeter, draw the diagram, and determine what goes where. It didn’t occur to me that a 40+ year old motor might have diagrams online, until I read your post.

Today I was geared up to start welding all those new parts in; but I needed a field day in the boat yard, and I spent some hours cleaning up my big mess. I still managed to get in some minor welding. I filled an unnecessary hole in the pan, and added a dozen extra spot welds to help hold the pan and it’s reinforcement together. My subframe hangers needed a couple holes and so I drilled them in, but before that, I decided that I didn’t need those original factory holes in my sub frame hangers, so I welded those up.

My dad bought that JCW fly wheel tool in 1967, so I don’t have the receipt to return it. ;( I will have to make a real manly flywheel tool. I have been putting that task off a looong time. Today was just hours of sanding, brushing, and scraping; all to prep for welding. I have to plug some holes. About ten of them. It will be easier to do them later, except one that is right in the way. The front of the rear body subframe Was bolted with one half inch dia bolt on each side. It’s a ridiculous situation for this lite gage metal and I am going to add some plates to those connections and use smaller bolts. Probably two 3/8 diameter on each side.

It’s a plastic body. I can just glue it to the chassis, right? Anyhow, if I survive this job, I have a steel body car awaiting. Body has very minimal rust. Engine is seized. I shot some penetrating oil in the cylinders. It won’t turn. I filled the cylinders with atf and let it sit for a while. 20 years now… I might try again to turn it, before winter, but I broke my JC Whitney flywheel turner.