'60 Cab project

[Jim Nelson]

Hi Bill--Thanks for the kind words, we are literally a couple of retired guys whose wives "encouraged" us to get a project, and we wanted to do a soup to nuts kind of job. Learning a lot from Larry about the different iterations of the early cars, it's just amazing how many variations on a theme we run into for the same car.
When we took the chrome bits to Christensen's, there was more than one car getting things done, so it's not immediately obvious what the breakdown is, we are still noodling on whose bits are ours and whose aren't. But I would say that they are not inexpensive, but that they also turn out some really, really nice work. We did all the things that were chrome from the factory, (and all the cad bits, and all the black oxide bits), so I'm guessing it would be, for a truly complete set of chrome bits, somewhere in the $5-7k range. There are some things you don't see, and some where the chrome is pretty nice anyway, so it gets to be a judgement call sometimes. But I can't think of anything we didn't do here. (ah--hubcaps, we'll need to see if we can find some nice originals)


But moving right along, we got another load back from the cad plater today. So the day ends up being a lot of sorting and putting things in spots where we know what they are and where to go get them.

(not the pulley we will use, we have a four-hole, but the right color cad for the generator now)

Lots of bits:

Starting the sorting process:

Linkage, etc:

We also received our turn signal switch back from Joris (it's perfect), though we still need to put the handle on it:

One of the things that Larry has found, over the years, is that the carb linkage, if you don't take it apart first, can get some fluid in the connector, (rust starter) so we make sure to clean them regardless and use a little anti-seize or grease on the threads, then re-assemble.

The left-hand threaded one has a nut like this, but no marking on the connector, so don't lose it.

We are a little fired up about starting the whole subassembly part, like the emergency brake, various switches and locks, etc. Taking the wheels down to the painter on Monday, along with the torsion bar covers and the aluminum door panels where the paint code and the VIN are located.

[Jim Nelson]

While loading the wheels to go to the painter, we noticed that three were missing a single hubcap clip. Don't want to get wheels back and then have to paint one clip...

So the subassembly starts. Bits like the E-brake that get a little roll pin to hold the handle on:

and the transmission bits. Start with the mounts, the trans hoop, and the breather:

Grease up the axle tubes, both to allow us easier movement while installation and to have some lube present while the car's initial miles start. Greasing both sides of this cup:

Karma was kind to us today; we used a black gasket, and a tan one, and both axle tubes fit like gloves.

After prefitting the tubes, we use a sealer on the gaskets, and then refit (and recheck).

After this, we fit new wheel bearings and a new clutch release mechanism, and still have a few things to do, like the bands that go around the axle boots, and the balance of the assembly, like the backing plates and the remaining end pieces. Gotta say, it looks a little different than this poor soul:

[Glen Hamner, Jr]

I'd add the wheel hub cap clips after the wheels are painted. Finish them separately so that you have a finish where you want it, and not laid over the top of the metal parts, only.

[Jim Nelson]

Hi Glen, I guess it comes down to horses for courses. We haven't seen any originals that have clips that aren't painted. So we'll go with painted clips. I know that at least some replacement wheels come with a clip that has a different finish, but we're painting ours.

A lot of what we are doing is busy work that doesn't really show well in pictures. Larry ran down a set of hubcaps:

We put the emergency brake back together, it's very helpful to have one to look at when you're doing this:

And surprisingly, it went back together without too much of a fuss:

Next is the shifter mechanism, with assorted new bits and plated ones.

But today we took a field trip to our local German restaurant for lunch:

and after that, the pace tailed off a little bit.....

[Adam Cultraro]

Did you guys have that transmission case tumbled? It looks awesome.

[Jim Nelson]

Hi Adam--yes, we did have it tumbled. We got a lot of the dirt and grime off of it, but we really needed to tumble it, it just wouldn't have looked all that good.

On to the next parts. Seats, and getting the proper parts blasted and plated. We already have the hinges re-chromed, but the seat bottoms and seat rails need refinishing. One of the two original seats is a train wreck of bad repair, and the PO got a third seat to use to replace that bottom part. Here we go.

First thing to do is get the upholstered part of the seat removed from the bottom. Easy for us, since we don't have to preserve the upholstery; it'll all be replaced, so the care in taking it apart isn't at a high standard until you get a little further on.

Here's where things get interesting. There are little tabs that hold the bulk of the upholstered bottom in place as well. From the bottom:

and a peek from the side:

Those tabs need to be carefully pried back to allow the metal portion of the bracket that holds the springs to come loose.

What we're after is seat rails that have a nice stock appearance, so we're starting with the one on the right, and will end up with the one on the left:

But the only way to get the rails plated is to remove the rivets. After that we remove the rivet that holds the seat adjuster lever, send that to the chrome plater, and then send the seat rails to the fellow that does the chrome plating, but this is a nickel finish. Only way to get the rivets out is the hard way.

And here you can see why we didn't want to use the "bad" seat bottom. It's poor repair, and has new breaks as well.

[M Penta]

Wow, beautiful. I can't help but smile when I look at that transmission.

A Concourse car in the making.

[Jim Nelson]

Thanks for the kind words, Mark, that is the goal. We are a bit undecided on the color, but that's a decision that has to come pretty quickly, as it's at the painter now. In the meantime, we're continuing on with seats. The bottoms clean up nicely:

And we've started on the fuel tank. Didn't want to blast the tank and take the lead solder off, so we're using a chemical stripper. Here's Mike starting out:

These guys put date codes everywhere....

Not quite finished yet, but close:

[Jim Nelson]

OK, a couple of things going on. If you take off the seat rails to have them nickel plated, you also have to drill out the seat adjuster to have it chrome plated. Problem is, no one sells the rivets to reattach the seat adjuster to the seat rail. The rivet is stepped. So....we have made the rivets. You can see the step here:

One came from a hinge pin from a '53 Studebaker:

And one came from an old bolt I had lying around:

Net-net, we've got a couple of new rivets for when we reassemble the seat bottom assembly.

Old one we drilled out on the left, new one on the right:

[Jim Nelson]

And today, we got to the seat hinge reassembly. This is not as straight forward as it looks (which isn't very straight forward in the first place).

First, you have to figure out what's the driver's side and what is the passenger, and left and right side as well.

Then fit the bits that go through the large holes. We found that we had to relieve the large hole a bit since after chroming the large hole was now smaller than what was supposed to go into it.

So first we have to put it together to make sure it fits the way it's supposed to, then lubricate and reassemble. The spring is Larry's favorite thing to do (ha..).

But then you are only halfway done, because getting the back cover on these things--past the coiled spring and the spring for the seat adjuster lever--is a real treat. (yes, it's dated)

At the end of the day we've made some headway toward getting the seats back together.

And we only used a few tools to do it. For me, the key tool is the custom socket that tightens the nuts that hold the seat together. A one-use only application.

[Jim Nelson]

We finished up with the seat bottoms (finish-wise), just awaiting the seat rails and the seat adjuster to go back together:

Mike did a great job on the tank:

We sent the steering wheel off to Koch's for restoration, and decided it would be easier to deal with the machined part of the drum if we removed the studs. Now they are off for relining and splines, if needed:

And, since it was Friday, we treated ourselves to lunch at our favorite German restaurant:

[Jim Nelson]

We finished crating the industrial engine that the PO had been using in the car; it's off to London !

Then we boxed the engine sheet metal pieces the were going to be powder coated for the powder coater, and started the interesting stuff:

We got all the bits that needed to go to the balancer:

(not shown: the flywheel/pressure plate)

Here's the box the real German big bore set of pistons and cylinders came in. Haven't seen a Kolbenschmidt big bore set before, and they are all marked 85.45. Not sure off the top of my head what that works out to be, but we have a lot of calculations to do, as the heads are a set of Harry Bieker's with unshrouded intakes, so making sure we know what the compression ratio is is not like slapping together any old set.

and here they are ready to go to the balancer:

and just for grins, we weighed the rods---they were within 1.3 grams ...

It's going to be a really nice engine, for sure.

[Dan Kalinski]

Wonderful progress! Enjoying the thread greatly.

[Jim Nelson]

We visited the painter, and he's making good progress; here it is with a fairly heavy skim coat on it, the vast majority of that will come off:

We also decided to tumble the engine case, the intake manifolds, the generator stand, and the tach drive to have a consistent finish for all those pieces. Even though the intake manifolds and the generator stand had been cleaned, they just weren't as nice as the case, so we sent the whole bunch off, and it's ready for pickup now. Busy work continues, moving the trans to spot where it will be out of the way until we get the car back:

Making a portion of the wiring loom back by the starter. Old one top, new one bottom:

And the biggest decision we will make---Changing the color from Ivory/black with corduroy to Aetna Blue with Grey. Lots of discussion about this. We were torn between making the car absolutely Kardex-correct ---but having a color combination that was both common ( nearly 20% of 1960 production ) and, according to folks we've talked to, not a great seller. We looked at all the 1960 combinations, and then both earlier and later colors, and decided if we deviated from the Kardex it would be for a color that was available in that year. So our choices narrowed to Ivory, Slate Grey, and Aetna Blue. Both Slate Grey and Aetna Blue were a toss-up, but the samples we got turned the tide in the favor of the blue. The picture, of course, doesn't show the colors well, the grey leather is darker than it shows.

[Jim Nelson]

Can't do the seat rails without taking the springs off the bottom to refinish those, too. Interesting in that the hole for the spring isn't centered. Here a seat assembler got enthusiastic:

Mike picked up some of the engine pieces from the tumbler:

And we tackled one of our time-intensive jobs, the rear grill. The reproduction grills you get these days are like the T-6 grills, with the fins bolted in place, held apart by round spacers, but the earlier ones are different (another way to spot a reproduction grill on an old car, I guess), they have a rectangular bar they sit on. If you undertake to refinish one of the old ones, I suppose you could take it to the tumbler, but we've seen some tumbled ones that could look better. So we did it the hard way, starting with the obvious--see if a little Blue Magic would do anything:

The grill had some corrosion, so the Blue Magic did a great job of highlighting that, but now we knew we had to take it apart. In order to do that without breaking it, we annealed the tabs that hold it together:

So we were successful in getting it apart without breaking anything. From here it was a little guesswork, and we ended up using 220 grit, then 600, then 800, then 4-00 steel wool, then Blue Magic. A couple of hours later, it turned out nicely, I think:

Done vs to-be-done:

Days like today are why we have a cold one in the fridge.