Its always nice to start with a complete car, this one is a prize. The car is straight, complete and very few rust holes. It was sitting on its wheels and out of the mud, and being a Chev almost all of the wood was rotted away which allowed the rain to just fall through the roof and onto the ground. It’s too bad I don’t have the picture of the tree growing up through the roof that had to be cut down to get the car.

A really lucky find, a complete car sure helps. Even if the parts are not usable you at least know what everything is supposed to look like.

No body work needed on the grill shell or the 4 piece hood, how rare is that!

Its important to have at least basic plan whether it be a restoration, a show car, or a daily driver hot rod. This one is going to be a driver, a nice home built car, built as much as possible in my home garage and sent to the pros when I just can’t do what needs to be done. Aftermarket parts will be used where ever possible and their installation will be covered on PartPal-In-Print in detail. If we can’t figure it out or if things don’t go according to plan we will ask the questions seek out the professional advise and get through it.

Sometimes a guy just has to improvise, an eye bolt in the roof and some rope got the body lifted off of the frame and set onto a home made cart. The cart was wide enough to drive over top of the frame allowing my wife to keep her parking stall; that didn’t last long.

The frame went to a friends shop where it was stripped of all parts not hot rod. A cutting torch got this done in a hurry.

Once stripped the frame went out for sandblasting then brought home to start boxing it. The 34 Chevy Master frame already has a stout cross member already in place, the Standards do not. Don’t put a Master frame under a Standard body as it is longer by a few inches. I had to invest in my own mig welder at this point.

The body is in great shape with very little welding required.

This is a Chev and was held together, in its earlier days by a lot of lumber. To lift the body off and to keep it from folding when lifting, gussets had to be welded in to keep the body in shape. 1’’ tubing worked well for this. A grave error was made at this stage, I should have welded the doors to the body. It would have solved the bracing problem and would have alleviated the door fitment problems I now have. More on that in future articles.

I wanted a filled roof. As this roof has a radius both ways and I don’t have an English wheel to form it, I set out to find a roof section from a wrecking yard. I made up cardboard templates and threw them in the back seat of our daily driver. If I saw a vehicle that may work, I would use the templates to see what would work, I guarantee you’ll only do that once while at the mall with your significant other. I found that a 64 Ford station wagon fit perfectly, once cut out it just laid there ready to weld. Looking back this is a job for a body man, unless you understand very well what happens to metal when you weld a big sheet like this in.

In this case the roof supports from the same wagon fit perfectly with the front on being the only one that had to be shortened.

The floor went in next. Patterns were cut and taken to a local sheet metal shop to shear and bend the 16 gauge satin coat material. Satin coat is actually galvanized to aid in rust prevention, I found however that this stuff is toxic to weld so precautions have to be taken as not to breath in the fumes while welding. I should have probably used mild steel plate instead.

So that is where I left off many years ago. The kids have moved out, my wife has conceded to not having a garage to park in and my career now keeps me home a little more, so its time to get this thing finished. So come back often and see how I am doing.