1955 Ranch Wagon Cruiser

I know a guy that cut a 2" hole in the wall, just above the floor,opposite his shop door and set a pipe in concrete outside. He ran a chain thru the wall and had a small electric winch that he used to pull his ride into the shop.

It worked for him.

YOur wagon has a killer look to it. Keep beating on it!

I-R-POPS said:

I know a guy that cut a 2" hole in the wall, just above the floor,opposite his shop door and set a pipe in concrete outside. He ran a chain thru the wall and had a small electric winch that he used to pull his ride into the shop.

It worked for him.

YOur wagon has a killer look to it. Keep beating on it!

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Thanks Pops. I would like something a little more sophisticated than a hole in the wall.

Don't know about sophisticated but, one of these and you can remove the I bolt when not in use.

DJ3100 said:

Thanks Pops. I would like something a little more sophisticated than a hole in the wall.

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Picky, Picky, Picky!!!!!!!!!!!!1
I use a skid steer to push mine in and have had some problems with that deal too. One little slip of the push bar means more body work.
I still need to fix that.

Old Iron said:

Don't know about sophisticated but, one of these and you can remove the I bolt when not in use.

Click to expand...

That would work.

That is going to be a spectacular color on that car! You're really doing a great job of bringing it back to life.

Old Iron said:

Don't know about sophisticated but, one of these and you can remove the I bolt when not in use.

Click to expand...

I actually have some of those inserts and a hammer drill and a forged eye bolt. Now all I need is the hole.

Pops, I have that option with the forklift - but I've had results that were similar to yours on previous projects. I was thinking I could make a padded push bar- but it would be easier to drill a hole in the floor.

DJ3100 said:

I actually have some of those inserts and a hammer drill and a forged eye bolt. Now all I need is the hole.

Pops, I have that option with the forklift - but I've had results that were similar to yours on previous projects. I was thinking I could make a padded push bar- but it would be easier to drill a hole in the floor.

Click to expand...

Now everybody is going to have a hole in their floor.

I bought one of the $79 harbor freight ATV winches. It has 40' of cable, I run it off of a spare battery hoked to the battery charger (set on "start" really speeds it up!) and just hook the other end to my lift. If it is a shop only unit then step up to the pricey sum of $129 and get the 110v unit...[cl

DJ3100 said:

Pops, I have that option with the forklift - but I've had results that were similar to yours on previous projects. I was thinking I could make a padded push bar- but it would be easier to drill a hole in the floor.

Click to expand...

Been there done that even with the padded push bar, crap will happen
X2 ^^^^ on the 110v winch.

jfg455 said:

I bought one of the $79 harbor freight ATV winches. It has 40' of cable, I run it off of a spare battery hoked to the battery charger (set on "start" really speeds it up!) and just hook the other end to my lift. If it is a shop only unit then step up to the pricey sum of $129 and get the 110v unit...[cl

Click to expand...

Now your talking. I have one of those under my workbench that I picked up to pull cars up on the car trailer. It didn't like the job, so it just sits. It works well on flat pulls, though.

So how do I hook it to that hole in my floor?

I found a busted come along at the dump and robbed it of the pulley and hook (was a double line unit) I threw that on the line so if it doesn't want to pull what ever I'm dragging then I can use the pulley as a snatch block doubling the pulling power but cutting the speed in 1/2...Yeah I'm that cheap![cl

That's not cheap that's using your noggin!!

I-R-POPS said:

That's not cheap that's using your noggin!!

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What he said. ^^^
I'm cheap like that too.

You could mount a winch on a plate and weld a piece of 1" rod to the bottom of the plate about 6 inches long. Then bore a 1" hole in your concrete so you can just drop the winch in when needed. Similar to some of the old in-floor frame racks body shops used to use.

Dash

Gotta start somewhere and the dash/ firewall seemed like that place. I needed places to mount the wiper and headlight switches. There was a hole in the dash that I thought would serve to mount the headlight switch -way too big, had to weld it up and re-drill. Left is light and wiper. Right is ignition.

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Removing the dash was remarkably easy and made coating the firewall much easier. Decided to finish up the ac vents while it was accessible. They're not finished - can't believe how complex I made simple ac vents. Here's how they will look ( they are less fuzzy in real life).

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I would like to get the inner fenders prepped and painted - but first I need to make a home for the ecm and fuse panel and whatever else needs to live in that area. So I bolted them up.

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Right away I could see the ecm wasn't going to be comfortable on the driver's side. Too many other things going on and there isn't room for both the ecm and the fuse panel. The passenger side seems like a natural location. Here's the start of the ecm mount.

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Modified the ecm mount.

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Used PC7 to glue the piece back in as a stiffener and build up a pad to put a flat head bolt through.

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Ready for paint

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Speaker grille

Since the beginning I have been thinking about making the speaker grill hinge. The plan started as a home for the stereo. But that didn't seem very practical, so stereo will get housed in the console. It could be a home for my shades.

I studied the hinge possibilities and finally came to the realization that a simple hinge was not going to work.

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I found these compound hinges at Lowes for $4. That bullet shaped thing is the spring.

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Here's the start. The lid needs to fit exactly; there is plenty of adjustment in the mount.

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This doesn't look like 2 days and change does it?
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There is some of that originality i love to see. Nifty job Dan.