Ok, so I tried to clean up around the wagon, but I found a found a piece of fancy air hardening tool steel I bought and forgot about and got distracted making myself a new center punch.
Ok, so I tried to clean up around the wagon, but I found a found a piece of fancy air hardening tool steel I bought and forgot about and got distracted making myself a new center punch.
I guess I got really distracted and started making tool racks for the trailer I haven't started building yet.
I guess this technically means I've officially started building a new trailer....
Nice looking anvil and smithing tools! Is that a Hay-Budden? You should post that Centerpunch in the "Show Us Something You Made" thread.
Stop beating on your tool and get the Rambler out of jail.
Maybe a recap of where you are at and what is stopping you technically would be a good idea; I have old man memory!
Pete
In reply to rdcyclist :
Thank you! I have been gone a while, didn't know there was a "show me" thread.
The anvil in the last couple pictures is a "new" anvil I've had for about 6 years. It's a 100# Scott which is kind of the current "gold standard" for mobile shop use.
I also have a 100-ish year old Peter Wright steel faced wrought iron anvil which I shared a page (or 5) back. I haven't put it on a scale, but it's marked 1 2 5 in hundredweight which is a pre-metric standard that translates to 173# It sits on a concrete stand that's somewhere around 350#. It is not easy to move. LOL
I've used several Hay Buddens and absolutely prefer the Peter Wright if for no other reason than the fact Peter Wright's typically have wider faces. Although I typically end up using my Scott because it's kept in the trailer with my only forge. Amusingly, the only thing my Peter Wright gets used for right now is sheet metal work and the very occasional heavy forging work.
In reply to NOHOME :
I know, I know, beating on my tool is just my day job. I have a lot of women that pay me very well to do it too. For some reason men are generally reluctant to pay the kind of money I charge for my services.
So Uncle Ben...
He still has his ass swinging in the breeze with the body only attached at the lower pinch weld along the rockers, and the passenger side door post.
Rear chassis rails, cargo floor, and wheel wells are still missing. The fuel tank position still needs to be determined. (Which is why the rear floor etc is still absent.)
My primary focus (and only daunting hurdle) is still on finishing the front door posts, closing off the cabin from the engine bay and fabricating the inner cowl so I can mount the wipers. (Mounting the wipers being the most daunting task.) After that everything is relatively simple cut/paste work.
Then probably some rust repair on the "D" pillar(?) So I can strip the roof and paint around the windsheid and quarter windows and get them reinstalled.
I'm still debating on what to do about bumpers. Both are bent, and while I know I can get them straight again, it would ruin the chrome and I don't want to pay to have them replated, and I don't think they would look very good painted.
I'm leaning heavily towards a full bumper delete, and just burying a section of 2"x3"x1/8" tubing under the tinwork for crash safety.
My other idea is making new bumpers from scratch that follow the body lines like the 65 Mustang "The Roaster Shop" built for SEMA a few years back and painting them to match the car.
Until my accountant tells me what happens when you meet a stranger in the Alps I'm stuck doing sheet metal work with what I have on hand. Fortunately, I have enough on hand to practically finish the sheet metal work.
65's fit pretty nicely factory, but RS tweaked it even more.
Yes JA, I remember hearing about the SHperson queering your deal but I can't remember whether it was gmail or text ...regardless when
I return to Texas from Alabama we definitely need to speak.....so glad this is going back on page one for all to see!!!
Spent a bunch of time the last few days sorting through my junk and clearing enough space to work. I'll be hauling a lot of stuff across the scales in the next couple weeks, more to the dump.
Of course this means I still have multiple piles of stuff that needs to find a more permanent home.
To that end, I'm going to work on getting the rear bodywork attached to chassis so I can hang the fuel tank and then I can consolidate a lot of this crap by installing it. (Like the giant rats nest that is all the brake/fuel/power steering lines.)
Before you shed all your carbon steel thingamabobs ..text me .....I'm looking for some running
board bracket steel that needs some 'tweaking'...late
So after sitting for an embarrassing amount of time, I'm finally making progress again.
Working on nailing down a spot for the fuel tank so I can figure out where my real chassis rails will be going.
I'm not sure how much detail I've given you guys on my plans for a fuel system, so I'll recap.
The original SC300 fuel tank sat on top of the rear subframe with banjo fittings accessed through those two holes above. For obvious reasons, that's not going to work.
The original Rambler tank was never going to work. It was rusted out and NLA plus being a pancake tank for a carbureted car fitting a pump and avoiding starvation issues would have been a challenge. (Not to mention whay would have been a major cospacial issue with the Lexus subframe.)
After a ton of research I found the fuel tank from a 2 door second gen Chevy Blazer would probably fit, and have an in tank pump with baffles etc. After sitting on the new tank/sender/pump for over a year I finally took the time to actually test fit it and see if it will actually work.
More later. Right now I need to clean up and see a man about a horse.
Spent some time removing the remaining ends of the Rambler chassis legs.
The back half of the chassis was so remarkably rust free I did my best to non destructively dissassemble it. Hopefully I can find someone in need of those pristine NLA pieces as I've been the guy trying to find this kind of stuff before.
After hacking my diagonal brace out I mocked up the tank.
The tank is technically backwards as it's intended for a driver's side filler neck, but the wagon is a passenger side fill. Unfortunately, I don't like how little space that gives me to gusset the rear chassis legs into the Lexus bits. Also, the filler neck on the tank is pretty far forward this way, something like 2 feet in front of the cap/neck location on the quarter panel
The tank is baffled in a way I can't easily rotate the pump/sender like I wanted, which would force the fittings to exit on the opposite side of the chassis to the factory Lexus fuel line routing. This also means the pick up is on the wrong side of the baffle increasing the odds of starvation issues on launches.
As much as I wanted to keep the filler in the factory location, moving the filler is by far the easiest option.
So looking down from the top, I think I can clean up these lines and make enough room to scoot the tank forward a couple more inches.
Like an octagonal peg in an elliptical hole. Kind of E36 M3 that keeps me up at night. So I drill out some spot welds and do some trimming to end up here.
Then, in lieu of a bendy stick I used a chisel as a body dolly and turned up a flange with a hammer.
That was a hard picture to take by myself. LOL
Then mock up the tank again. (Poorly and off center. LOL)
Looking better-ish. The leading edge is much better, but the corners are going to need revisiting when I close that box section back up.
I had tried flattening the flaps and bending them back down in the corners, but it still looks like dog squeeze IMO.
The Blazer tank is considerably deeper than the Rambler tank and now occupies the space of the tank and the spare tire well. Last week I was measuring and became quite concerned the tank was going to become low hanging fruit.
While I'm going to want a skid plate on it if I want to get stupid on a rally-x course, it's not nearly as low as I thought it would be.
This picture is more or less in line with the front chassis rails, so I have a genuine 2+" between the bottom of the tank the bottom of the subframe.
It's barely visible behind the rear valance which I plan to extend slightly as part of the bumper delete which will make it entirely unseen without laying on the ground. (Oh yeah, BTW I've decided to do a bumper delete.)
And the most exciting part of it all is the whole assembly still fits under the spare tire cover.
Of course the lid is supposed to be offset to the left, (the handle is usually centered in the tailgate opening) but that interferes with the strut tower.
I'm not sure if I want to center the lid which means I'll be forced to recenter the handle and make new filler panels to either side. My other option is to cantilever the suspension alongside the chassis rails and delete the strut towers, but that's going to require spending real money.
Deleting the shock towers and cantilevered suspension is my ultimate goal, but I don't want to spend anymore than necessary until I'm sure I can get it titled, which I won't know until I can get it inspected, which means it needs to be a running/driving car. Although, if I can't get it titled, it will go full race car and I won't care about the shock towers in the cargo area.
Sheetmetal is cheap, and I already have a bunch of it, so I'll probably just relocate the lid.
I already have all the steel to do this stuff, just need time and cooperative weather.
Oh, and the battery is going to get mounted next to the tank outside the chassis rails on the passenger side.
I found quite a bit of rust I wasn't expecting in the rear corners. With the car blown this far apart it's not a whole lot more work to fix, especially once I cut out the rusty lower quarters, but it's still more work.
Like I said, sheet metal is cheap.
In reply to Crackers :
Excellent work finding an OE tank.
Two questions:
1. If you put that tank in a box, what would be the dimensions of that box? I’d like to use something similar in the Corvair.
2. Does the Blazer pump assembly have a return line?
In reply to Crackers :
What are the dimensions of the Blazer tank?
I noticed this on the HAMB board last night...for anyone who is inspired by Crackers' project, it seems like a good candidate for a similar build. 
The price is Challenge friendly, the car is in the Des Moines, IA area.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/59-rambler-american-2-door-super-6.1142535/
1959 RAMBLER AMERICAN 2 DOOR SUPER 6
The Rambler is a project with a super solid body.
This would be a inexpensive first time awesome Father/ Son or Grandpa / Grandson etc. to work on together.
It has the original Flat 6 with auto transmission.
It does not run / no brakes and would need to be trailered.
The chrome bumpers are solid/ decent and grill is solid too.
The body has no holes/ only light surface rust.
The drivers floor would need some patches.
The passenger side rear glass is broken as well as both tail lights which I'm sure some bone yards would have.
The original gas tank has been removed and is sitting in the trunk.
The truck lock has been banged up and I have not been able to open the trunk.
The hood has a slight hinge area corner tweek but fixable.
The hood latch does not hold so would be strapped to transport.
This is a super solid body to work with .
Good current up to date Iowa title is in my name.
I made of a copy for history sake of the California Title from 25 years ago in 1994.
I believe it has been a California car most, if not all of its life.
The first $1,200 gets it.
A inexpensive solid project.
Why is it that as much as I love watching others do these mental gymnastics, it seems painful when I have to do them?
Pete
In reply to AngryCorvair and Racingsnake :
The Blazer tank is approximately 33"w x 22"l x 12"h.
There's a pressure line, return line, vent, and filler breather built into the sender.
The 95 model is a steel sender unit with the GM proprietary fittings vs the newer plastic contraptions with the quick connections on the 96+ models.
My plan is to cut and flare the tubes for standard IF fittings and make a section of hardline that goes to the factory Lexus filter location just in front of the drivers wheel. Although thinking about it, I may find a home for it between the tank and subframe in that weird notch.
In reply to stuart in mn :
I love that body style. Be forewarned... Almost everything for those is NLA now. Even worse than this car I decided to do a full Rambler mechanical delete on because of parts availability.
There was a wagon version of this style at SEMA a few years ago with a V12 Ferrari (maybe Lamborghini?) in mid-engine configuration. I'll have to try to find a link/picture.
NOHOME said:Why is it that as much as I love watching others do these mental gymnastics, it seems painful when I have to do them?
Pete
I got about a million times luckier than you did with how close parts fit. LOL
Crackers said:There was a wagon version of this style at SEMA a few years ago with a V12 Ferrari (maybe Lamborghini?) in mid-engine configuration. I'll have to try to find a link/picture.
I remember that one.
stuart in mn said:Crackers said:There was a wagon version of this style at SEMA a few years ago with a V12 Ferrari (maybe Lamborghini?) in mid-engine configuration. I'll have to try to find a link/picture.
I remember that one.
mega$$$$$$$=scoreboard every time!!!! Crackers so good to see this being moved 'forward'.....
Yes. I have to make sure I'm wearing the right pants before looking at that one. LOL
I found a YouTube "video" of the building of this one.
Did some aggressive observation over coffee today. Already distracted by what's next on the list so spent more time thinking about rust repair and bumper deletes than actually making progress on the fuel tank mounts.
Anyway, the inner valance seems to have some old sling type tow truck damage.
I used to see this a lot when I was flipping street rods. Lazy tow truck drivers not paying attention, and people think today's operators do a lot of damage, but I digress.
Thankfully this is not going to be a visible panel and my body shop instructor will never see what I'm about to do next...
Using pliers to bend flanges was sure to get you stuck behind a broom for the rest of the day. (And generally something I advise against.) This flat section is where the chassis rails tie into the valance, and the flange was in the way bent as it was.
The rear section is mostly flat, but the front half gets some artistic layout.
Chop chop...
Visit with the hitting stick...
Somehow managed to get it spot on the first try.
Cornholio the tank back in the hole.
Filler neck has lots of room over the rail.
Now I get to spend some quality time with my die grinders getting this all ready for welding. Then I can work on mounting the tank.
In reply to Crackers :
Tanks for de info!
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