The first step was to strip the interior, there wasn’t much left in the back from this view, the other side of the car was in much better shape and provided some good pattern material.

I took the body to a local body shop that specialized in restorations for them to sandblast the interior. Don’t even consider this unless you are sure they have done this before and know what to do. There is a big difference between a body shop doing this and a sandblasting company that will chase the car body around the yard with a fire hose size blasting nozzle. If you chose to do this yourself, TAKE YOUR TIME, and don’t get the nozzle too close to the metal, it will cause it to distort even to the point of ruining a perfectly good car body.

After the floor was replaced to hold the body square, the whole car got a shot of primer. The fabricating of the pillars could then start. If you plan on breezing through the project priming may not be necessary, but as we all know these things do take a turn. Yes you will have to grind away primer where you are going to weld, but you did just pay for sandblasting and you sure don't want to have to do that twice. I left this project for almost 10 years and it’s still a clean as I left it.

Using the wood from the opposing window frame, I used 1" x 2" x .060" rectangular tubing to make the now metal pieces. Where the nail holes were, I spot welded the pieces together. Be very carefull when working the window frame area that the interior glass trim will still fit as it did on the wooden backing it use to have.

The rear window wood was still like new and the rear glass was still in the car, the curve of the roof must have protected the area. I chose to keep it and put it back.

I did however tie the sides of the body together with the same 1 x 2 tubing and used a bolt to tie the wood the metal.

The roof supports now tie in the rest of the body after being cut and fitted top the now metal header

The rear window mechanism will comprise of the original window crank hardware, but in place of the wood, a metal piece was made up. The windows in the doors will be electric, but I chose to use the working original manual cranks for the rear.

Again, using what I could from the wood I had, I came up with a pattern to make up the panel that would hold the hardware

The sheets were cut by a local sheet metal shop and the top edge was formed to provide not only strength but a place to mount the window felt at a later date. The amount of offset was determined by the 1" x 6" piece of lumber it replaced.

A 1/4" lip was added to the bottom to add strength to the 16 gauge material used to make the panel.

Threaded nutserts where added to bolt the hardware to the panel. They were crimped from the inside which will leave a flush surface for the future upholstery. You could use a low profile bolt and nut on the inside as well.

As the hardware was originally mounted to a 1" x 6" board, standoffs had to be added to push everything away from the panel so that the rollers and arms wouldn’t hit the channel above. I may have to adjust this thickness when finally adding the glass and glass channels.

Once all bolted together it turned out really well.

Using some larger nutserts mounted into the B pillar and on the support at the rear of the car, the panels can be screwed in place.

So far so good, the metal work at the back of the car appears to be finished. It sure looks a lot better than when it started. It’s very solid, straight and clean.

On the next project, you will see an enclosure in the back of the car being built to house the cars audio system, battery, and a storage compartment. Why now when the car is not even close to being done? It’s easy to work on now, and may provide clues as to what else will need to be done to the interior to make it all fit.

Till next time.