Now that we’re thawing out here in Eastwood country I’ve decided to get this old gal back on the road and I decided to tackle the mechanics. The problem with any “barn find” like this is that they normally have mechanically deteriorated just from sitting for so long. Normally people don’t plan to park a vehicle for a long time, just until they get time to fix it up. This means all of the fluids are left in the vehicle and those fluids over time tend to break down and cause issues. The worst thing to do if you park a vehicle for a long period of time (more than 6-8 months in my opinion) is to leave fuel in the tank. Over time the fuel breaks down and turns back into it’s original fossilized state. The temperature changes and the gas in the tank also promotes corrosion over time and the tank eventually rots out.
Tag: MIG 175
Smoothing the Back End- Frenched Taillights on Pile House.
I will admit that I tend to over think things when I am building a custom car and sometimes I mock something up and I don’t like it or decide I need to tweak the original idea. A while back I decided on a set of ’62 Oldsmobile 88 taillights for the back of the truck. I liked the lens shape and chrome trim on them, but the bezel had peaked ends that made it tough to sink them into a relatively flat panel. For the sake of getting “something” in the rollpan I temporarily made brackets to slide them into the panel. At first I was “ok” with how they looked, but the further I got with building the tailgate on the backend I knew in the back of my head I needed to revisit how they were sitting.
Hands On Cars Ep. 4 – Replacing a Rusty Roof
In this episode Kevin is all about undoing the errors of some previous owner of the Zed Sled Camaro Z28. He finishes up with the rust replacement on the bottom of the car, and tackles the cause of all the rot in the first place: A leaking aftermarket sunroof installation.
MIG Welding Duty Cycles
When you are using an arc welding machine, you will need to understand what its duty cycle is as it will help you preserve the life and quality of your tool. On this page, you will learn about what a duty cycle is and how it is relevant to MIG […]
How to Repair Rust With a TIG Welder- Rusty Door Skin Repair
There’s a handful of ways you can tackle repairing rust in your vehicle and all of them have their place. The most common would probably be cutting out the metal and MIG welding a patch panel in place. While this method is the easiest to accomplish, it can be difficult to blend the weld seam into the surrounding metal. I’ve done repairs this way for many years and they’ve turned out ok, but I’ve always wanted to master TIG welding patch panels and metal finishing the area for a seamless repair. I’ve recently begun switching a lot of my welding projects ….
Learn from a legend- Gene Winfield Custom Metal Working Class
I decided to make a trip to Harmony, PA (about 35 minutes outside Pittsburgh, PA) to Hahn-Vorbach & Associates Collector Car Restoration to visit Gene and become a student of “Windy Winfield”. The metal shaping classes are always small in size and very intimate. This isn’t a class where you’ll be sitting in a chair listening to a lecture and just taking notes, Gene gets EVERYONE involved and is happy to take on any and all questions. The classes are commonly two day events starting promptly at 9AM and lasting until whenever everyone is exhausted. If you want to attend these classes, be sure to get plenty of sleep ahead of time because it’s high paced with little to no breaks.
Custom Hood Modifications- Converting a Multi-Piece Hood to One Piece
One thing that I’ve planned to customize on Project Pile House from day one was the hood. The hood on the truck is a “butterfly” (as I call it) style hood and was a design that Dodge rolled over from 30’s and 40’s trucks. I have taken a 50’s custom type approach to this truck and that style hood wasn’t going to flow. I decided to disassemble the hood and convert it to a one-piece hood.
Early Summer Project Pile House Update.
With the floor pans made up I decided to move outwards and tackle the rust in the door openings. The truck door sill on the drivers side was rotted away and the front of the door opening/jamb was rotted pretty bad. In fact the lower portion was almost non existent.
Building Door Frames to Match the Chop
It’s been a while since we talked about the roof chop on Pilehouse, but I’ve been doing a lot of boring work on the smashed up old roof getting it satisfactory. Since then I decided to finally finish building the doors to match the roof. I took some pictures as […]