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super amazing work. How will you seal the panels's gaps? Are they removable for a reason?
Doug
I will get some thin stick on weatherstripping after everything is painted. They fit really good already so not too worried about leaks. This will all be covered with carpet/interior panels so none of this nonsense will be seen. The panels in front of the doghouse are removable to be able to service/remove the radiator (also small removable panel to simply fill the radiator). The doghouse top will come off for oil changes/etc. and the entire doghouse will come off for larger engine service.
Got the ignition switch mounted and a few minor floor finish items done. Started working on the passenger seat mounts. It’s comical how much of a pain it is to mock up a seat in midair while trying to match it to the other seat height and keep it square, level, and plumb with the car. String lines and a plumb bob help since I don’t have a lot of good spots to measure off of.
Finished mounting the passenger seat and also made the seat belt mounts for the drivers side. This is a 3-point belt out of the rear of an F150 crew cab and has the adjustable shoulder height.
Seats and seat belts are finished. Finally tackling the rear end. Installed new leaf springs and reinstalled the rear end. I had to set the rear pinion angle and weld the new leaf spring saddles from when I flipped the rear axle. I am also laying out the upper and lower rear shock mounts. Once I line those up and tack weld them, I will remove the rear end to finish the welding and clean/paint everything.
I also hit the local LKQ and found a factory shift cable from an early 2000’s Silverado. It is almost 12 feet long. It worked perfect and snaps right on to the shifter and trans. I cut the under dash bracket out of the Silverado and welded it to my dash.
Disassembled everything up front so I could get some primer on all the bare metal. I figure I may as well shoot some paint on it so I don’t have to take it apart again. I will seam seal tomorrow then paint on Saturday.
Still have some work to do with the rear end, but in the meantime I started working on the bodywork on the drivers side. I had this thing sand blasted 9 years ago and I put down some epoxy primer at the time. Although it’s only spent one day outside of the garage in 9 years, it did rain that night and numerous surface rust areas popped up. I decided to strip it back down to bare metal and start over. I need to clean up the welds on the body seams and then I can start the bodywork and re-prime. I also have one last rust patch to do down low behind the front wheel.
Still hitting it hard on the van. Been doing some wiring; bodywork on the drivers side; fabbed up a little pocket for the drivers door contacts and welded that in.
Working on the drivers door. Finishing off the bottom of the door since I shortened it about 4”. Redoing the shaved door handle since I warped the heck out of the door the first time. Also working on the door gaps, added a bit of welding to most of the door edge to tighten the gaps. I picked out VW bus mirrors and a sweet 1965 Corvette ‘Fuel Injection’ emblem.
03-05-2020, 07:00 PM
