"Uncle Ben" - Rambler American Wagon / Lexus SC300 Body Swap

The only swap I'd consider is a JDM turbo motor, but it's still just a bolt in affair.

Actually, I'm pretty sure my donor was a turbo car at some point anyway. 

Clecos came in! 

These gussets are practically falling onto the car. 

I'm drilling all the holes blind from the outside too. Only had one total miss, but the rest are all in the center 1/3 of the flanges, so I'm calling that a win. 

Wednesday will be warm enough to throw some primer on it, so we should see that happen as long as it's not raining or super humid. 

I might have this rolling by the weekend! 

Well that was a pain in the ass. 

I get to do it again tomorrow. Hopefully in time to throw paint on it. 

I decided to add a stub to tie this into the B-pillar after looking at the pictures from Duster's ElCo. 

I guess it won't hurt chassis rigidity either. 

All the safety you can engineer into this is good in my book. I'm halfway seriously debating caging my next street car

I feel you. I'm just not sure if I want to wear a 5pt harness every time I drive it. 

Door intrusion bars have been part of the plan from the beginning, and I'm adding material to the A-pillar/hinge post as well. 

Having this thing apart has me utterly terrified of rolling it. The posts on this car are tissue paper, and all the rules say posts cannot be modified unless the car has an approved cage in it. So it may happen anyway. 

At the very least I'll be putting in floor plates for a cage before I paint the inside. (Not that paint is a high priority right now. Lol) 

I do have the passenger side rocker mocked up. (I wasn't quite ready to quit yet.)

I just need to make another brace for the B-pillar like the driver's side and I should be able to tack everything together.

Still keeping my fingers crossed for paint tomorrow. 

In a turn of events that should surprise no one, paint isn't happening today. 

All the fabrication and prep work actually got finished, but water started pissing out of my air line as I was just about finished with the prep work. 

I guess my dessicant dryer finally gave up on dessicating. Ugh... 

I may just pick up another one tomorrow after work (It's a <$40 HF thing) and pull this one apart to see if I can just replace the dessicant. 

If I can't get this painted by tomorrow everything is going to flash over after it rains Friday and I'm gonna Hulk out if I have to redo all my prep work again. 

Since paint wasn't going to happen, I went ahead and brushed some Ospho on my rocker braces. 

Really, I just poured too much for the inside of the rockers and figured "why not". 

I suppose worst case scenario, I can just paint it tomorrow with a brush, but the idea of it makes my a little uneasy. 

I woulda brushed it.  You can brush epoxy primer and it is ideal for stuff like this.

Pete

Yeah, the more I think about it the more I think I'm just going to brush it. 

Oh, and for the sake of documentation. 

I plan to smooth out a lot of the odd shapes and unnecessary details in the door jambs, because I don't want to ever finish this car. 

Notably, the bosses for the power window wiring is going to go away.

Additionally, deleting this should help keep the post out of my kidneys if I get t-boned. 

Been there, done that, don't need to do it again. 

I just noticed in that picture there's some handwriting scrawled under the door hinge. I'll have to see if I can find out what it's supposed to indicate. 

Oh, you can also see the driver's side brace mocked up. 

Dusterbd13 said:

All the safety you can engineer into this is good in my book. I'm halfway seriously debating caging my next street car

In addition to Crackers point on wearing a 5 point harness, without a helmet in a fully caged car you can do a lot of damage to your noggin in an accident. I occasionally drive my fully caged  hillclimb car on the street (it's registered/insured), but always have this in the back of my mind.

So I got the primer on the rockers/braces with a brush.

And having done that once, I'm going to be taking measures to make sure I never have to do it again! 

I would much prefer masking everything and spraying to the added time and hassle to brush this stuff on. 

Not to mention how much more paint it took compared to spraying. 

So this happened. 

The front end is just clamped on, but it feels good to see it mocked up and on the ground again.

The rear tires juuuust barely rub the inside of the body. 

Next step is to close off the bulkhead,  then reattach the rear frame rails and tie them into rear closing panel. 

After that, my bracing can come out then I'll have to hang the doors so I can get the front end straight before I can mock up the core support and actually hang the fenders. 

In reply to Crackers :

You sir just earned 3 more internet points!  AWESOME. berkeleying awesome!

That is absolutely berkeleying amazing.  Even more so because you are doing it outside!

Crackers, you and Rushcanuk are my heroes.....

Thanks guys! 

At this point I'm mostly just excited that I get to consolidate all the parts back onto the car and make a final decision on what I need to keep so I can haul all this scrap off! LOL

I still have the bedsides off my truck because I thought they might have come in useful. 

My neighbor will be glad to see this stuff gone, I'm sure. 

Wait a minute....bedsides=material for future projects......bring those(bed sides) to me and I'll  'store' them for you. PM if you want.....great progress!!!

Wow...bit slow out of the gate but once you det moving you don’t fool around.

Pete

In reply to 759NRNG :

Thanks, but I just want it gone. I'm about to collect several hundred square feet of much straighter scrap for future projects. (From the aforementioned trailer I'm replacing the roof on.) 

In reply to NOHOME :

Yeah, I've got a lot of fabrication practice. (Having spent the last year fine tuning my plan doesn't hurt either.) Oh, and luck. Lots of luck. LOL

I feel like I'm moving really slow TBH. Between the weather and taking unusual steps/doing things the hard way to avoid laying in the dirt I feel like progress is glacial. 

The shop I worked in used to turn a car around in 2-3 months, and we were only a 3 man shop. 

I realize you're in Texas and the climate is much more forgiving for working outside, but man is it impressive to see something like this being pieced together in the dirt.