My car has a nose at last!

Phew. Friday was a marathon welding day. I got to Don's at about 11:00, and I worked on getting the nose clip on the car for the whole day, until about 5:30. Net result: the replacement nose is installed, but not "finished" yet. Let me say though that I am feeling a major sense of both accomplishment and progress for the project by completing this step. It is the first time ever since I have owned the car that the nose hasn't been either majorly bashed in or simply cut off. It changes the whole character of the car.

As usual, a pretty complete photo gallery is available, with highlights here to go with the text.

I suppose a description of what I did and what remains might be useful. After I got the nose back from Dee doing some additional metal work on it, I clamped the nose onto the car and proceeded to take detailed measurements from many points to insure both symmetry and height both horizontally and vertically. I also checked the alignment/fit of the bumper brackets and bumper through the nose, where the brackets attach to the battery box. Diagnosis: not perfect. It will be easier to slightly modify the angle/fit of the bracket mounts on the battery box sides rather than change the nose itself, because of where the cutouts are already positioned, and I will do this when I finish the nose. At this point I also left off the fog light brackets, and plan to install those next week. The replacement brackets, while good, will need some trimming and small modifications to fit well. Satisfied with the fit, I began using the "peel and weld" technique to tack weld the nose onto the car. Beginning near the center, I used a thin cutting wheel to slice off the very edge of the replacement nose, through to the original car metal that lay underneath. I would then use clamps and additional assistance from my hand or a screwdriver to bring the car/nose panels flush, and place a tack weld every inch or so. I proceeded out to the edge and down the fender, and then proceeded the process on the opposite side. Getting the nose all tacked in like this insured that there would be minimal warping when the real welding began, as the nose would already be securely attached to the car. After finishing the tack welds and making sure all the old metal was removed from the rear/inside, I removed all the remaining clamps and proceeded to begin the longest butt weld of my life. OK, not like I was running a continuous butt weld, but the whole seam of this weld must be like 6 feet long. To avoid heat input, I began at the center of the nose and simply welded 1 inch long lengths, alternating left to right out towards the fenders. I also pulsed the MIG gun, and cooled the welds with air occasionally. When doing this type of weld, it is important to begin your next weld just overlapping with the previous one so as to avoid pushing the wire through the gap between the panels and getting "whiskers" of welding wire protruding through the rear of your seam. Also, angling the MIG gun away from the weld pool and using a "pull" motion rather than a push motion minimizes heat input. The net result of using these techniques was minimal heating of the panels, and a very small heat-affected-zone (HAZ).

After completing all of the weld, I had time to begin grinding the weld down, but not much. Quite a bit of finishing work remains ahead; I am sure that there was enough heat from the weld so that the joint contracted/warped a bit and a small amount of filler will be required to make everything perfectly smooth. In any case, I think the result is quite good, utilized original rather than reproduction parts, and best of all, I did it myself. I wouldn't have believed I had the skill (or will!) to do that a couple of years ago.

Maybe the bodywork will get finished up relatively soon after all.

Nose worked on; pistons installed on "C" motor

Dee spent about 6 hours filing and picking on my nose clip in an effort to make it have less dents and waves than it had before, and in general be a nicer piece of replacement metal that will need less filler. It looks a whole lot nicer than it did a week ago. I'll take some pictures tomorrow and post them. Thanks, Dee!

Late last week I had a few hours of time, and I went out to work on the motor. I got the new big bore pistons and cylinders unpacked, and I proceeded to install the pistons. It went very easy -- the wrist-pin fit was very good, all the rings were already installed, and everything is looking nice. I also replaced the original .090mm end play shim with a .095mm end play shim, which has given me an endplay of .006-.007" instead of the .007-.008" that I had before. A little bit better I think. Tomorrow morning I'm going back out and I plan on getting the cylinders installed and maybe the cylinder heads. Later in the afternoon I may go to Dons to do more bodywork and drop off the nose. He is busy in the morning so we can't work. Only about 12 days left in April, as usual my estimates are overly optimistic. At this rate we *may* get the nose tacked on this month, but it probably won't be until mid-May or so that the basic metalwork for the car is finished.

New Big Bore Pistons & Cylinders received; Bodywork progress

Friday I made the trip out to Don Mill's shop in Liberty for about 5 hours to continue working on the remaining bodywork. When I got there Don wanted to discuss the situation with the replacement portion of the right side lockpost. He had welded in a section of the reproduction post after cutting off the original directly beneath the striker plate area. The reproduction piece didn't look like it was fitting very well -- it tapered down more rapidly than it should. By holding up the rocker panel (still not installed) where it should go, we could see that the lockpost wasn't coming nearly close enough to the rocker to make a good fit. There was a very large gap, almost an inch. Something was wrong.

I opined that we needed to make sure we modeled everything after the original, good left side lockpost, and not rely on the reproduction part for dimensions. We cut off the replacement piece that had been painstakingly added, and proceeded to fit the passenger side rocker first. After removing the long flange along the sill area, and cutting off the overlap seam areas front and back, we clamped it into place to make a good fit with the door. Then, I took measurements on the passenger side for the location of critical areas of the lockpost: The bottom reinforcing stamped circle, the width of the lockpost at various heights, etc. We then determined where the replacement portion on the right side should fit. Some additional fabricating is required on the inside edge, where the rubber door seal will fit, because the reproduction part didn't have a big enough flange in this area. Also, we needed to add about a 1" section of fabricated metal between the original, top portion of the lockpost and the replacement section to make it all fit correctly. However, that done, it was looking pretty good. The fender side isn't that pretty, there are some ugly welds in there because of all the patches, but it will get smoothed over after some grinding, seam sealer, and undercoat. I'll take pictures of the whole thing next week, I forgot my camera.

After that little adventure, I proceeded towards finishing the left/driver's side rocker, filling in pinholes in the front and rear seams, and grinding a little on the plug welds I made in the sill area. Satisfied that with a skim coat of all-metal everything will be looking good, I moved my attention to the nose. The foglight brackets were extremely rusty on my replacement clip; one had perforation. I ordered a set of replacement brackets from Stoddard's last week. As luck would have it, because this is a relatively small simple piece, the replacement brackets are a perfect stamping. Grinding / removing the old brackets wasn't much fun though. I had to be careful to only remove the bracket material and not dig into the nose metal itself. About an hour later both old brackets were removed and I had wire brushed the area behind them, which was rusty...this area is a notorious mud trap. When I put the replacements back on, I'll fit the air space between the nose and the bracket with seam sealer to prevent grit and moisture from lodging in there and causing any more troubles in the future.

I brought the nose back to my house, and I plan on dropping it off with Dee for him to work on doing a bit more metal finishing for a couple of hours. As it is, the nose is in decent but not perfect shape. I would like it to be a bit better if possible, as that will mean less filler and a better overall appearance. If he has time to get to it this week, that means I would hope to be welding the nose onto the car about a week from now.

That's it for bodywork for last week, since we only worked a single day. On another note, the pistons and cylinders I ordered for the C engine came. I have seen these big bore pistons, from "AA Performance / AA Automotive Products" in San Francisco, CA go for anywhere between $400 and $600. I would estimate that the wholesale cost is between $325 and $350, so they are pretty cheap. From what I can tell, they are probably made in China. They come in a light blue box with a white and black checkerboard racing stripe on one half of the top. The cylinders are well made looking, with precision machining marks, and the exteriors painted semigloss black. The pistons don't look as nice, the domes are bumpy from the sand cast, and they have had little if any additional machining done to them. However, everything I've heard has said that this set of big bore pistons is relatively well balanced and has proved to have a good deal of longevity, so I think they are a good deal.

I now have all the parts required to finish assembling the "C" motor. Depending of course on how events unfold, I think I can have the basic bodywork (less finish filler work, etc) and the motor both finished by the end of April or the very beginning of May. That would be fortuitous, because by then my house renovation will be nearing completion and school will be winding down. I can't wait to be back in my own house! My new garage space is going to be a real treat after what I've been dealing with for the past year.

Left Rocker almost complete; Full Flow Oil Filter Adapter

Last Thursday I basically finished off the left side rocker panel. The gap between the door and the rocker closed up quite nicely in both horizontal and vertical planes with a bit more work. I think I need a couple more hours to get everything done before I can move on to helping Don complete the right side, which includes not only the rocker, but also the lower portion of the lockpost and the adjoining section of rear fender. Both of those saw poor repairs in the past at some time with pop riveted patches and lots of filler.

The accompanying picture is just to make me feel good though. The nose is not attached in any way, it is just sitting there on the front of the car to check fit, but it almost looks right! Still needs a bit more metalwork and we need to attach new foglight brackets before we can contemplate taking the ultimate step, but I think this is the first time I've ever looked at my C car when it didn't either have its nose smashed in or removed entirely. I won't be going out to do any additional bodywork until Thursday or Friday. Tomorrow I'm going to do some engine work. I got my full flow oil filter adapter from Precision Matters today. This adapter replaces the oil pump cover on the 3rd piece of the 356 engine case, and allows you to have full flow filtration of your oil. This is something that 356s normally lack, and they are much worse off without it. The regular 356 oil filter is a bypass system which barely filters any oil at all. A recent 356 Registry Magazine article described the scientific testing Ron LaDow has done on 356 oil filtration, making the benefits of full flow filtration abundantly apparent.

I'll have a complete review of the installation procedure when I get to it. Let me say though that right off, this piece of machinery looks top notch and of excellent quality.