My mean green hornet

Had some other jobs to get done yesterday but back on it for a bit today, full day planned for tomorrow.

I made the all important seat mount pressing to get the right height back and to match the other side.

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A bead rolled curved test panel, part of the strengthening plan for the wider rear arches/wings.
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After a lot of careful measurements I made a start on cutting out some of the rotten bulkhead around the bellcrank mounts.
I plan to fully double skin this instead of just replicating the small individual mounting hole plates.

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Nothing big to show for the last day or so I’m afraid, hopefully tomorrow will be more productive.

I did get some little annoying bits done though like cleaning up the inside of that boxed in section behind bellcrank mount location, and painting with epoxy. The yellow factory coating had done very well for nearly 50 years, protecting those inner surfaces, just a few areas starting to suffer nearer the spot welded flange

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I also did a quick mockup of pulling the rear wings out. They’ll ultimately sit at least 100mm further out than stock, with the new arches blended in, and fill panels fabricated to stretch between factory wing and boot lid.
I may even add a rear duct in the front of the arch if I can find a acceptable way to route air to the rear brakes.

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Couldn’t resist making some preliminary cuts in my good spare wing. Just had to see the new arch mocked up properly, with the added width.

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That's going to be wild! I wish I could see what it is going to look like in your mind. Have you got any sketches?
 
That's going to be wild! I wish I could see what it is going to look like in your mind. Have you got any sketches?
I made some sketches years ago but it’s evolved so much since then.
It’s definitely got a pro touring fastback mustang flavour to the rear quarters now, especially coupled with the rounded sloping roofline. Almost Porsche like too in that respect with the wide rear and air duct..
 
I got a wave of anxiety about the growing surface rust and had to blast a loose panel to check everything wasn’t getting too bad.
Thankfully, even with the many time recycled worn out media I had left, it cleaned up with ease.
Painted in epoxy and put back on the shelf a relaxed manner :p

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More removal of poor quality historic work, the rear wheel wells were done by a pro bodyshop at some stage according to paperwork. I’m guessing there wasn’t enough money in the job at the time..

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Fairly close yeah, outer sills going on imminently, these rear areas both sides, got to make some front inner wing hockey sticks and fit the new headlamp splash panels. A lot of which shouldn’t take long at all once I’m in the flow.
After that it’s the fun stuff like rear tub and wing extensions, flush mounted screen metalwork and any other strengthening mods I choose to make
 
This afternoon I drilled out the D post spot welds and released the outer and middle strengthening panels, along with opening up the rest of the offending area for new steel.

These are really the last of the unknown boxed in parts of the car so it’s nice to get them open and spray some epoxy in there. Again the factory yellow still looking pretty good for the most part, but some localised areas of rust and bits of rusty old steel left covered by previous repairs which I would never have known about.


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Spent the morning repairing an awkward chassis rail area

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I’ve removed the complete panel that houses the battery as I’m relocating it, and will make a new bead rolled panel up soon to replace.

Speaking of bead rolling I’ve been reacquainting myself with the machine today.
Some tester panels:

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Ah bead rolling yes, I’ve just upgraded to a 24” Baileigh powered version so lots to come from that soon.

Another big push on the metalwork has begun. Got one side outer sill on now, despite more issues with Wadhams panels.
I bought them a couple of years back and they arrived deformed from the circular pressings, extremely wavy.
At the time I thought I’d be able to shrink them back to life, but that proved impossible.

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So since they didn’t reply to my email, and the length of time since purchasing, I had to think of a workaround.
This ended up being another return getting pressed into that top edge, which has straightened them out 99%, very happy with the results.

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That of course required a slight redesign of how the structure is formed. I had the same sheetmetal company make up some profile to join inner and outer sill panels so as not to reuse any original steel.
Everything is now 16 gauge.

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They got spot welded together and then everything came together nicely.

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I’ve also upgraded the jacking points. These will end up with stainless locator plates screwed in from the bottom

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Epoxied inside all the boxed in sections as always.

Onto the other side tomorrow!

Jim
 
Ok, so not onto the other side today, but a big job ticked off nonetheless.
Something has always bugged me about the rear end on the racecars and other customs.
The giant, hanging down boot.

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I've had plans to do this for a long time, but it's quite a drastic move and had been on the fence about actually doing it for a few reasons.
The pros outweighed the cons so here we are.

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I did say you'd see some action from the new bead roller :)
There's some tidying up work with the dolly to do but that's the general look.

Uprated double shear top link mounts will be added on to the chassis rails soon.

Finished the sill top and sanded nice and flush too

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Jim
 
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