Without a doubt, we knew there was going to be a ton of welding, cutting, and grinding before this car even saw the beginnings of primer. The previous owner (or previous, previous owner) decided to weld the rear fenders (or quarter panels, whatever) onto the car. Only problem, is it looks like they did it with a stick welder, turned down low, slobbery, and um...horrible. It was ugly. Very ugly. Not that I'm a perfect judge of welding, but nonetheless, Sara needed to grind the living daylights out of the channel where the fender meets the rear body. I ended up having to weld more spots in the channel between the two and even add some nails into the section to use as filler metal, just to smooth over the transition between both body panels. I could have used lead in this case and most old schoolers will, but I opted to just fill in what we had. When the grinding here is all done, I think skin coat of body filler will go in, and the seam should look pretty good. -TH
There's like 4 photo's of me throughout this whole thing, and 3 of them are of me grinding. That's my job: grinding, grinding, grinding until I'm done. Then grinding some more when Tim finds more stuff for me to grind. -SB
This day was a dud on my end. While Sara was grinding the channels above, I discovered that the rust under the rocker panel and front part of the rear wheel housing was just too much to ignore. What's worse, is that the car was coated with old school undercoating, which according to Jim's dad, was a dealer option back then. The stuff has the viscosity of tar, but after 58 years, it does one of two things - either flake off, or become fossilized, rock-solid tar, to which a chisel won't remove it, and a grinder makes a mushy mess - like grinding asphalt. I managed to get the cancer cut out and fabbed up an inner rocker panel bottom, which I tacked on. Here I am, showering myself with sparks. After this, the lower back-half of the rocker and wheel housing needed to be replace, the front lower half of the fender, and then it would be on to the front of the rocker panel. Oh, and then the other side. Work, work, work... -TH
Yeah, I'm not peeking in at the fender. Turns out, while welding the lower part of the rocker in, a weld got too close to a rubber drain hose located in the area. I happened to notice smoke rolling out of the fender when FIRE, 2.0 erupted! I quickly ran to grab the fire extinguisher we used on FIRE, 1.0 and......it was empty! Evidently, fire extinguishers are one-use only these days. I quickly ran up to the house, and knowing I couldn't get the hose all the way down there, filled up a bucket, and my mouth with as much water as I could. I stuck my head in the fender, where I could barely see the flames and let the water rip like I was doing an asthma test! Luckily, it went out and FIRE, 2.0 was extinguished. With the lower rocker edge welded into place, this day was full of duds...and smoke. -TH
Even though we promised Jim we wouldn't start any fires while he was gone,
I was still curious on the condition of the STR8, and even though I made the decision to rebuild the car and body first, and then the engine, I decided to pop the valve cover off and take a peek. I expected to find a ton of sludge, as older engines normally do not carry much oil pressure (if any) up to the valves. I specifically remember filling a coffee can full of sludge from a Chrysler 318 one time when all I was doing was valve cover gaskets. I was amazed to see that there wasn't any sludge or garbage at all. In fact, it looked really good! Big relief, especially considering the motor turned over as easy as it did. -TH
