Finished With the Fenders, and Very Heavy Doors

An arctic front moved in which dropped temperatures into the teens.  It has been extremely cold in the barn but I have really wanted to get through with this as soon as possible.  I have wrapped up in multiple layers but my hands have been exposed.  As long as I am moving and sanding they stay warm but if I stop they start getting numb.  Today the high was back into the 40s, which was good because April forgot to leave me the keys to The Caprice so I had to ride a bicycle over to my parents house, which is about a mile and a half.  It was still in the high 20s or low 30s at this point.  I called her after she got off work to get her to pick me up on her way home and asked her to look in her purse.  I then asked her if she saw any keys.  She looked, then hesitated a minute.  I could actually feel it sinking it.  It was pretty funny. 
After many, many days I finally finished block sanding all the removed body parts.  I do still have the small pieces that mount to each of the four corners, but those are very small.  The header panel, which houses the headlight buckets, actually took a lot longer than I anticipated.  With all the curves and small lips it was very difficult to get all the sanding lines out without sanding through the primer. 
It took quite a few attempts to get the trailer backed in because I didn't have the extended mirrors on the truck and it was impossible to see exactly where I was going.  First I had to move all the parts outside, pull the car in the barn and then put the parts in the trailer.

It was a close fit.  The car was in the trailer at an angle and was only about an inch or two from the support cable from the door on the trailer.

I had to cut a couple holes in the paper so I could see.  I definitely didn't want to run over the hood.

I know these doors don't look that big, but they are extremely difficult to move.  I had to pick them up from the door panel side to make sure I didn't scratch the primer and this made it impossible to lift with anything but the back.  After moving all of them I felt like I had been hit with a truck.

I recovered the holes I cut and now I just need to finish blocking the roof and quarters on the body and it will be ready to take to the paint shop.

Always Keep a Backup

It rains and it won't stop, but finally today we had a break and I was able to get the remainder of the parts I need to block sand over to the barn.  The last few days have been sanding upon sanding upon sanding.  The hood itself actually took an entire day.  I don't have pictures because it would basically just be a bunch of pictures of all the pieces I've already shown but in black, then another picture of them now light gray.

When I got over to my parents' house I couldn't get the Camaro in reverse.  The last few days it has been hard to get into reverse, with the gear shifter pushing further left each time.  This has happened before.  There is an L-shaped plate that mounts under the transmission and holds the shifter linkage.  It previously had a crack in it.  I took it off and, because this was before I had a welder, had a friend weld it up.  It seemed to have broken again.  Fortunately, I was barely able to pull out of where I was parked, but I did have to drive behind the house and through the yard.  I was hoping to get a fender or two finished today so I was a little let down at the though of having to fix this issue, but it is January and today was the first day it hadn't rained in days and it was also a record breaking 70 degrees outside, so if this piece was going to break it certainly picked a very convenient day to do so.  At least I was able to get all the pieces I need moved over to the barn so now no matter what the weather decides to do I can continue to make progress, which is good because the entire next week is forcast to have rain.

Here's the plate.  As you can see it is bent to the left.  The linkage bolts to the left side of this plate and when you move the shifter left into reverse, which takes quite a bit of force, it puts pressure against the bracket which eventually causes it to break.  This this is an absolute pain to remove simply because there is very little room to get a wrench positioned to take the bolts out of the bottom mount.  It requires getting the wrench on the bolt and moving it about 2 or 3 millimeters and then switching the wrench around each time to progress further. 

When I took it off the crack was evident.  It is painted gold because the last time I had it off gold paint was all I had and since it can barely be seen even when under the car it didn't really matter.  April was driving the car daily at the time so it was a joke between us.

I was hoping to not have to cut the pieces in half to keep all the holes in alignment, but after viewing the damage I realized it had to be done.  I put an X on the two sides that go together to keep them oriented where they should be.  The worst thing I could do, and it wouldn't be the first time, is to finally get it finished and realized I welded it together backwards.

I made sure everything was square and tacked it together

At first I couldn't get a good weld at all.  I couldn't get it to stop popping and burning up the wire.  It was a pretty windy day so I upped the pressure on the gas but it didn't help.  I was really beginning to question my welding abilities and began to consider that I may need to go back and check the quality of the welds I'd done on the '37, but then I remembered that this welder likes to have more volts than the chart on the lid suggests.  Once I turned it up everything was fine.

I cut out everything that was cracked.  There is no wonder that the plate cracked the first time because it was originally shaped as you can see it below but without the metal piece I have added here.  When my friend fixed it the first time he added the piece shown below.  It had all cracked back out so I cut it out and decided to add some back where he had put it.

I went back under the car and slide the piece back in place to get some measurements.  Seeing I had just enough room I decided to add some more support.  I dug this triangle piece out of my scrap metal pile and cut it to fit.

And after some grinding, primer and a fresh coat of beautifully tacky gold paint, it was finished.  Not very pretty but at least I'll have reverse.  Considering the stress this piece is under and the fatigue the metal has already endured I'm not 100 percent positive this piece won't break again.  I'll see how long it lasts and next time I may have to redesign an entire new piece from scratch.

I'll Have a Flu Christmas Without You

It feels like it has been weeks since I have been able to work on The Clam.  I was pretty exited about getting to the point that I thought I could make some headway and then Christmas came and progress ground to an immediate halt.  Between Christmas and New Years I caught the flu that has been going around.  It has been very widespread this year.  My doctor couldn't fit me in for two days and some clinics had two hour waiting periods.  Because April is pregnant and it can be hazardous to the baby for a pregnant woman to catch the flu April moved over to my parent's house for a week.  I ended up staying on the couch through new years.  After I spent two entire days washing all clothing and linens I had come in contact with and disinfecting the entire house she moved back in.

The night before April's family came down for Christmas the television went out.  Actually, it separated into the three primary colors.  This is called convergence.  Fortunately we still have a large television in the other room that my grandmother left here so during my sickly days on the couch I stayed there.  When I was finally well enough to move around but not yet well enough to do any work I used the time to fix the television.  Just having a repairman come out to look at the television can cost $150-200, which is probably more than this set is worth.  That seemed pretty ridiculous to me so I thought I might as well have a go at it myself.

We bought this television used from a friend.  It's an RCA and according to the research I found on the internet this particular model had problems that the factory never issued a recall for.  In the rear there is a high voltage capacitor called the flyback.  The flyback has around 12 solder points.  RCA used non-lead based solder which over time becomes porous and cracks, causing bad contacts and a particular fuse or set of fuses to blow.

I took everything apart, went and borrowed dad's solder gun and found a few different explanations on how to fix the problem.  I'm not sure why I haven't bought my own solder gun as much as I use this one.  They don't seem to make new ones as good as this old one, though.  The large plastic backing piece has twenty torque head screws holding it on.  I'm not sure what the reason for the excessive mounting points was.  If you look in the background to the left of this picture you can also see the pram I found on Craigslist.org.  We went and picked it up the day I started to get sick because the owners were moving to Louisville and were actually on their way as we me them.  We got a really great deal on it and it also came with a stroller assembly which is interchangeable with the baby carriage portion.  It was our Christmas present to us.  We paid $40 for the entire setup.  I have yet to find another used setup for under $150, and that does not include any other attachments.  New, these go for as much as $1,200.00.

The large black piece at the bottom left with the two red wires going to it is the flyback.  I didn't realize until after I started this project that the high voltage capacitors in a television can be lethal, even if the television is unplugged, even if it has been unplugged for more than 24 hours.  Because of this I did not disconnect or otherwise fool with the flyback.  It made working with the circuit board much more difficult, but less difficult than coming back to life if I were to electrocute myself.  There is a way to discharge the flyback, but with as little as I know about electricity I wasn't confident to test my abilities to figure this one out on my own.  I already felt bad and going to the hospital sounded like a horrible ordeal.

According to the information I found any or all of the three fuses I'm pointing to here are where the problem lies.  The flyback causes them to blow.  Using a multimeter I found that only the middle fuse had blown.  I ordered a new one from the internet for $5.00 including shipping.  I found that simply replacing the fuse will only solve the problem temporarily.  Since the aged solder is what caused the problem it wouldn't be long until the fuse blew again.  The only fix is removing the old solder and replacing it with lead solder.

The large "C" shaped section of solders is the flyback.  It is necessary to remove the solder from each one and resolder them with lead based solder.  I had to do some research to understand how to do this.  There are two processes.  One is a small, cheap gun.  The idea is you pull a handle on the back which loads the gun with a pressure.  Once you liquify the solder you hold the gun up and push a button and it sucks all the liquid solder up.  The other way is to use what is called Solder Wick.  This is a small ribbon of copper wire mesh that is held against liquid solder.  Because of the capillary design of the copper wire it draws the solder into it.  This is a slower, messier process, but it does work.  I went all over town trying to find some solder wick.  No one had any idea what I was talking about.  I finally stopped at a small shop that I had been told possibly worked on radio equipment.  I found they also work on antique cars.  The guy there didn't have any to sell but he did give me a part of a small roll he had.  I was very thankful for this.  It didn't require much to fix what I needed so I plan to return the remainder to him.  Once I got home I was pretty worn out but I was anxious to see if the fix was going to work so I went ahead and started removing the old solder.

Here I am pointing to the back view of the fuse I showed earlier.  This had to be unsoldered, removed and the new fuse soldered back in place.

It only took about an hour or so to resolder the necessary pins.  The worst part was getting easy access to the panel with the flyback still connected.  Getting the large soldering iron tip to the board without disturbing any other pieces while holding the solder wick and the solder needle was a bit of a challenge.  I got a couple of nice souvenir burns.  I had taken sveral pictures before dissassembly of where all the wires plugged in so I replaced them all and plugged the television in.  To my dismay the television power light would come on and I could hear the television try to power up, but it would instantly cut off.  It would do this three times and then would no longer respond to any inputs until it was unplugged and left for a while.  I got online and found this was systematic of a television not getting appropriate power.  I traced some ribbon wires and found two loose connections.  After tightening them everything worked perfectly.  I was very, very glad because a new flatscreen television, though nice, is also very expensive.  With the internet's help this was a very simple job.  Other people had already done all the homework and had documented what steps needed to be done so all I had to do was fix the places they said.

Hopefully by next week I can get back to work on The Clam, so I can then get back to work on The '37.