My 1954 Ford Customline

[red baron]

I have been a long time Lurker, and seldom poster, but have attended a few mini meets.

I am going to be redoing a lot of work that has been done to my 54 Ford Customline (Lowla). Over the next few months I will update this as I make progress on this and look forward to constructive criticism and comments as I go.

Most of my posts will be made via my phone so there may be some image issues as I work out the kinks in using this dumb thing.... I mean smart phone LOL.

Thanks to Tony Sanchez's hospitality I have attended several of his Menifee metal meets where he has been mentoring me in making a fender project (probably will make another post about that), but because of this I am much more confident in tackling the repairs and custom projects that I want to complete on my baby.

In the interests of completing everything I have decided to start at the rear of the car and start to work towards the front. With this in mind I am tackling the driver's taillight. A few months ago while out cruising with my friend Rex, we came to a stop and he accidentally rolled onto the back of my car hitting the taillight and crumpling the bullet that the taillight mounts to like an accordian. The inside edge was folded over and pushed in approximately 3/4". I should have taken a before pic to show the extent of the damage but I didn't expect such good results.

My original plan was cut the end off and fabricate a new housing, but decided to try some hammer and dolly work to see if I could stretch the housing back to its original shape. You will see that I still have some more touch up work, and there was a slight tear in the metal from the way it folded over, but tomorrow I should be able to tack it up and will update as I go.

[jlrussell4]

Nice job Mike. Tony is a good teacher - stick close to him :).

[red baron]

Thank you, and yes Tony is a great teacher, he is very patient with me LOL and when Mark is there sometimes its all I can do to not be laughing constantly haha! But I really enjoy going up there as often as I can.

Today I should have the tail light housing dialed in, the next project is going to be mounting the rear bumper about an inch or so closer to the body, as you can see in that one pic it sits kinda far away. When it gets sucked in the wrap around part will get awefully close to the bodywork on the sides of the car, so I will have to make some sort of relief to kind of French it in, similar to the sides of the gas tank on last months shape of the month.

Then it will be raising the trunk pan an inch, so that the gas tank will be protect by the frame rails better as the car is on air bags and I currently have the tank out to repair a pin hole from it smacking on the groung somewhere along the way.

[red baron]

Well got the tear welded up it still needs a bit more finishing which I will come back to.

Started taking it down to metal where there is some rust and a large dent below the tail tail light. Looks like some more hammer and dolly work will be in my future. I ground out 90% of the bondo, but there is a large amount of lead on the factory seam which is right where the worst of the dent is. In some places a 1/4" or more :-( I will have to get some sort of heat source to get the lead out of the way to find out how much work there really is right there.

[red baron]

Some updated pics to show how much lead is in this corner, and to get more advice on what to do, the first couple are of the lead in the corner of the car, below the taillight. My hand is in there to show how wide and how deep the lead is.

The last couple are of some rust I discovered on the inner structure of the trunk lid. My plan at this point is to take the skin off the trunk so I can repair the structure, treat the inside, and tune up the gaps on the trunk by trimming the inner structure before reattaching the skin.

I probably wont get started again till Saturday, so I am open to suggestions, comments, tips and tricks LOL.

[Pete's Metalshaping]

Mike,

Just a suggestion, fit the tail light, bumper and anything else that bolts on before going much farther. That way you can make sure that they will fit later.

[red baron]

Well I only got an hour or two on it today, and I didn't take any pics yet, but I will and will post them as soon as I can.

I decided to leave the lead in for now, as I can always remove it later. Because of the dent that lower section was actually pushed towards the center of the car, and in straightening the damage out, that whole area moved into its correct original position.

A little more work and it should be just fine. Thanks everyone for your tips, I appreciate all of them, and keep them coming.

[red baron]

Here are some more pics I got most of it to a point that either a light skim coat of filler or a heavy coat of high build primer will fill most of it. There are still a couple of low spots in the lead and at the lower edge the lead cracked, but I am happy with how its turning out.

I am also gonna post some pics of the trunck too.

[jlrussell4]

That came out really nice mike http://www.metalmeet.com/forum/images/icons/icon14.gif.

[red baron]

Well here's a couple more updated pics for you. I found a couple of trouble spots in the area below the trunk from some botched previous repairs and a couple of pin holes from some rust. They should be easy repaired though.

Did a quick test fit of the bumper, to make sure that my hammer and dolly work was OK, and I think with some minor tweaks it will be just fine. My original intention was to suck the bumper up to the body, but after the test fit I believe the better solution is to add some filler to the top of the bumper instead. The amount of work to suck it in coupled primarily with the fit, it just wouldn't line up right with the car if I did.

[fmcsteve]

seems a shame to change the bumper, what about extending the lower body flange?

[MetalMangler]

It looks like your really doing well. Just be careful on the pinholes of rust, often the rust eats through in the whole area and will thin the metal out alot to where its just paper.

Your pics are great too, you must have on of those fancy phones :)

About 8 months ago i did the floor in a 54 just like yours, except it was a convertable. Cool cars for sure.

Your doing very well keep up the good work.

Matt

[red baron]

seems a shame to change the bumper, what about extending the lower body flange?

There is a lot of curve from side to side on the car, and the bumper is relatively straight. I feel that to extend the car it would look kinda funky with all the curves that would make, but a slight extension to the top of the bumper to match the existing curves would make things flow better.

And yes the phone is pretty fancy LOL, its got 3, 5 megapixel cameras on it, this thing will even take pics and video in 3D lmao. Its the LG thrill phone.

[MetalMangler]

And yes the phone is pretty fancy LOL, its got 3, 5 megapixel cameras on it, this thing will even take pics and video in 3D lmao. Its the LG thrill phone.

Showoff ;). Are you going to extend just the top of the bumper or the top and bottom? Maybe you could pull the bumper in and then work the inside lips of the top and bottom to match the curve of the back of the car?
It does look kind of goofy and lonely sitting way out there.

Matt

[MetalMangler]

Looking at the pics i got another idea as well, you could section the bumper and bring it in and then the lines on the outer edges would line up.
Then you could heat and bend it to give it the right contour, im not talking a ton of bending but a little tweak here and there. It wouldnt take much i dont think.
What im seeing is that the bumper has the same lines but is just wider than the rea of the car so it looks like it doenst line up, i think if you just sectioned it in a inch or two each side it would make a huge difference.

Matt