John - My hat is off to you, you are and inspiration, I'll never again complain about how bad my car was or how much bondo was in it. I know sometimes like me, you probably say "what for" but I try to keep my mind focused on what the finished product will look like and know the pain in the ass thing I'm doing right now will be over and never have to be done again. When ever I take a negative attitude I look at your work and reliaze I don't have it so bad.
Dick.
John,
With your vast and ongoing experience, can you saywhat would be involved, heck, could it be even feasible to adjust my "flattened" hardtop wheel wells to more reasonably resemble the cvt wheelwells? It has long bothered me that my car's top won't fold down as far as it should.
With all that has been going on here, I finally found time to update this thread-
I scraped away any loose rust or undercoating, she's almost ready for her bath.found this tomato bin during a property cleanup, never knowing I would find a use for it. A motor home chassis worked well to wheel it around on.Forklifting the bin to get it in position on the concrete floor-After setting it in place, the bin was washed out, and sealer was used on any obvious leakage points. Two of the cross braces required removal in order to set the body in.Hey, where'd the body go?About eight inches of water was added, and any additional leaks found were sealed with wet patch. Then the body was lowered into the bin, while the hose ran constantly. One brace was reinstalled, as well as a trucker's strap, as the pressure would be too much for the walls to hold without them.
A bit of humor-Baking soda [lots of it] was mixed in, and power to the anode [junk exhaust pipes] and ground to the cathode [body] was introduced. After an hour the water had changed from clear to a pale green-Rooting through the scrap pile the next day, I used two old store gondola shelves, and tied them together with a copper cable. These I could rotate around the car body when needed. After another full day, results were noticeable in the rusty color of the water in the bin.The water gets murkier and murkier each day. For the final 48 hours, a series of grids were hung just above the floorboards and trunk floor. Here, the electrolyte was allowing 40 amps to pass through it.A copper cable was used to connect the grids in series-Time to drain the bin. I used a piece of garden hose to slowly empty the container, revealing an enormous amount of rust, sludge, and crud that was removed from the body. Remember, the body was blown out with air pressure, and scraped before submerging it. A fin slowly reappears from the muck-
I used a garden hose to spray a lot of the residuals away, but more cleaning will be needed. Some shiny metal is now visible.After wirebrushing the floorboards, I can see exactly what sections will need to be replaced. There are several weak areas that did not look bad before all the rust was lifted away. It will be nice working with clean metal, however.
Interesting also how the paint and undercoating came off in certain areas, poor adhesion?
John, thanks for posting here! I enjoyed this thread on the Forward Look, but always pleased to see '59 content find its way here for '59 owners to enjoy.
A few more progress pics-
Floorboard work- Not my favorite part of the job, but there were just too many pinholes and soft spots to allow the old floors to remain. I drilled out the spotwelds, and cut a clean line beyond the rust damage to reach good metal.
With a bit of chiseling and prying, the old floor was removed, leaving the reinforcements, body mounts, and outriggers. These appeared rusty, and there was quite a bit of loose dirt and silt among them, but this all cleaned up easily. The reverse electrlolysis had done its job even beneath the floor.
Note: The body is setting on a frame that will not be used, only as a jig to prevent distorting the body while doing this. Also note that one of the main body mounts was missing, it fell off when cutting the floor. Upon closer inspection, you can see that the factory had tack welded just a corner of the mount!
Here is the underpinnings all cleaned up, nearly ready for the replacement floor-
I found a '59 Chrysler sedan in the yard that had a fairly good front floor, so I cut that out, rockers and all. First was to scrape the heavy undercoating off, another chore that is not on the fun chart!
Spotwelds were then drilled out to remove the underpinnings, that I could still sell, although several pockets of rust were found that will need repair before installing the floor.
This time of year, I get extremely busy, and it's hard to find time to stay on these projects, hence my absence from this forum.
I cut out the small areas where I had found rust, cut out patches, and butt welded them in. Then it was to grinding the welds flush, and cleaning up the edges to ready for installation. After flipping the floor section over, all undercoating and grease was removed, and the areas where the floor was to meet the underbracing wire wheeled, and treated with Over-Rust [similar to POR 15].
The body support was welded back on, and the seat reinforcements were also rewelded to their supports, as the welds on them had broken.This would cause squeaking, and eventual failure of the seat supports if not corrected. The underpinnings were also metal treated after cleaning, and the floorboard was lifted in place. I used a plasma cutted to trim the existing floor, using a straightedge on both sections to avoid any large gaps. Screwdrivers worked well to align all the mounting holes, and bolts were placed in them to keep the alignment. Clamps were used to hold the firewall seam right to where it needed to be, and a few tack welds were done to hold it in place.
Passenger compartment floors are all completed, except for grinding the high spots from the welds. The rear seam is fully butt-welded. Next will be to repair the weak area in the trunk floor, and to make special Convertible only rocker panels.
John F. Again outstanding work! Having just finished by floors (and not as well as you did..and took me 6 mos. too!) I know what work it is. I used the screw driver locating trick too. But your skill is suberb!
If you ever trip over an extra passenger seat support let me know. I will add it to the trunk floor I need also from you.
