Project 48 build thread

[falconvan]

Thanks; my trunk was pretty good. Floors were gone but luckily I had a complete floor from a sedan. Dropped it right in with just a few patches. Your floor and firewall came out really nice, was that a kit or did you fab all that up?

[Adam H P15 D30]

I had to fab everything. No one made floors for a Mopar then, I did it 10 years ago. Been sitting for 5 years while I built a 35 Ford Slant. A couple of kids, house construction.......... You know the drill. Now it is almost time to get going again. Been tinkering with a 49 Dodge recently.

[falconvan]

I hear you about distractions; for some reason I thought an old abandon right hand drive mail truck turned Ice Cream truck would make a neat hot rod/shop truck and a good home for a big block Olds. Here's what I did for the last year.

[Adam H P15 D30]

That thing is WAYYYYY COOL, I want one but the wife would kick me out

[falconvan]

Thanks! It'll be for sale this spring; you'd look pretty sharp cruzin in this baby!

[Adam H P15 D30]

I'd have to live in it, She says I have to build her a "Scooby Doo" dune buggy before I can have any more cars.

[falconvan]

Got the patch trimmed and tacked in tonight.

[falconvan]

It's funny how when Mike told me he was giving this to me and I looked at it in the garage I thought,"How in the world can a guy have a 40's 2 door coupe apart and not want to finish it?" Man, doing a car like this is nothing like taking some old beater and throwing in a big engine and a cheapie paint job. Even with starting with what I thought was a decent body; the commitment to get 65 year old sheet metal back in good shape to paint is huge. You definitely learn a whole new set of skills along the way. Looking at it as a whole is overwhelming so I decided to divide the body into quarters and concentrate on 1/4 at a time. I know this is going to take a few months to get all the way around the car and get it right so I'm mentally prepared for slow steady progress.

When we brought this home from the blaster we ran into rain and it started to rust before we got home so I decided to spray the whole thing down with this green rust inhibitor I got from Advance. It did it's job of stopping the rust but the whole car looks like a giant glazed donut so part of the task is sanding all that crap off. I spent about 4 hours tonight sanding 1/4 of the car, finish welded my patch, and ground down several welds from previous patches. A couple questions: I have some All-metal body filler I was thinking of using to smooth out the joints where I did some patching. Can I just use this right on the bare metal or should I wait for the first primer coat and the use filler on top of that? Also, here's a shot of a factory lead joint by the rear window. It looks fine; can I just leave it or does something need to be done with it before top coating?

[falconvan]

Spent the day on the trunk; I had several patches that I still has to grind down the welds plus a lot of general cleanup. I also had patches of old undercoating to scape out and I removed the spare tire well and mounting bracket and patched that in.

[falconvan]

Now onto the other quarter panel after I get the patch fully welded in.

[Young Ed]

Looks good. Hope you'll pass that spare tire well onto someone with a rusted out one. Where will you put your spare now?

[falconvan]

Thanks, Ed. The spare will go up near the front of the trunk with a nice cover over it; I'm going for a bigger fuel tank for longer trips so I needed the length underneath. The old spare tire well is pretty nice, if anyone want it and wants to drive to Festus, Missouri to get it it's all yours. Just let me know and I'll put it off to the side for you.

[littlemo]

Thanks for your rebuild thread. I am from Cape Girardeau MO area and am starting a rebuild of a 48 P-15 Sedan. Your pics give me encouragement to "carry-on". Thanks again, Cass...

Edited November 27, 2010 by littlemo

[falconvan]

I'm glad you like it, Cass. These are beautiful cars so it's great to see another one being saved. You should start a thread on yours so we can all watch your progress. We're practically neighbors; let me know if your in the area sometime.

[littlemo]

I've been taking pics of the "tear-down" as I go. Not sure I'm up to the "thread" stage as yet. Would love to stop by and see your work up close. I'm a retired "old" school teacher who hasn't "turned-a-wrench" in over 40 years so there's a lot of relearning taking place here !!!

[falconvan]

Sure, let me know when you're coming up this way on a weekend. Other than church on Sundays I'm usually around.

[thrashingcows]

Looking good!! I like the delete of the spare tire well.....I was considering something like that for the Desoto.

[falconvan]

Yeah, I never liked those things. I did a 52 Chevy years ago and got rid of that one, too. Just seems like a big dirt and water catcher, plus they take up useable fuel tank space. Glad you like it, thanks!

[falconvan]

I got the patch on the other side fully welded in today, along with most of the trunk patch and several hours of grinding.

[falconvan]

I decided I'm at a point where I'm going to need some help on this; my body skills are fair but I want this to be nice. I've got a friend who's a pretty good body man so I had him come look today. He gave me a pretty good price so we'll start working together on getting the main body work finished starting the last week of December. I'm excited; it's going to come out great plus I get to learn along the way.

[40plyrod]

It's always good to have a friend that is a bodyman. Mine happens also to be my brother in law (good price and a warranty) The sheet metal work you've done looks great, should make the filler work easier.

[falconvan]

You know, I like doing it myself but most of mine are 10 footers so far and this car is just too pretty to not be happy with it when it's done. That's cool your brother in law is a body man; my brother in law owns a nice big trailer and a truck to pull it with so I make sure we keep a good relationship! He's hauled a lot of cars for me and never complained so i guess I'm doing something right.

I kind of jumped around today; I finished up welding in the trunk panel and a couple of little patches where the spare tire bracket was. I'm going to eliminate the cowl vent so I cut all the brackets off of it and turned it into a patch. This is going to be tough getting this straight so i just tacked it and I'll let my body man finish this up. I've got the whole week of Christmas off so i'm going to try and get a couple of long days to work on the underside and get the welds cleaned up and hopefully POR-15 the whole underside of the body along with a lot of the inner body structure. I know a lot of guys like to paint all that body color but I figure if you're not going to see it once the interior is together, it's getting the POR-15 treatment.

[Greenbomb]

Looks like you are coming along real well. Nice looking work you're turning out. It would be nice to be that skilled and motivated!

[falconvan]

Thanks, I appreciate that! Going this far with a rebuild is really tedious and you have to learn to be satisfied with slow progress sometimes so it's cool when people appreciate what you're doing. As far as skill; I'm learing along the way like all of us. More than once I've had to go back and scrap an idea after spending a lot of hours on it, but that's the price for having a finished product you're happy with.

[BobT-47P15]

I'm glad to see someone working on a Plymouth and liking it.

So many build Fords and Chevys and totally ignore the old Mopars.

Looking good so far......keep us posted.

If you get to Joplin sometime, let me know.