Low and dirty 33 chevy master sedan 4 door

[serrata]

I've been working on this a while now. I'm making huge progress on it now that I have a donor, so I thought I'd start a thread.
I thought I had submitted a thread already on this, but I guess it was another site.

This thread starts from the beginning, but I'm actually at the point where I'm tearing down the donor and starting to work on the frame of the rat. I'm getting excited now that I can see major progress.[dr [


Anyway, I bought it(including wood-reinforced body) from Craigslist and started on the body first, while I saved money and waited for a donor vehicle.

Here's what it looked like when I got it:

I put it on a flatbed and towed it home. It was barely held together with straps.

I scrubbed everything down with a wire brush and hosed it down with rattlecan puke.

I hung the doors with wire and stood it up to see what it looked like.

I stripped all the wood out and started prematurely playing with spray paint...

The ugly thing I learned initially was that early 30's Chevy's rarely since they were supposedly conserving steel for the possible war effort at the time. They used wood as structure for the vehicle bodies. Ford didn't, so those cars survived much more. If anyone has a source for more on this, I'd love to read it... [P

So, I was initially disheartened to find that the steel sheeting was thin as hell and stretched over rotten, splintered wood. Everything was held together with all kinds of nails and staples.

First order of business was to reinforce everything. In comes the pipe bender and thick steel tubing as a roll-cage.

 

[earthman]

I like it. [P What is the donar vehicle?

 

[smallfoot]

Won't be long before you're making vroom vroom noises...[cl

 

[serrata]

You're not supposed to know this at this point in the story, but the donor is a 99 f350 7.3l turbo diesel dually crew cab long bed.[dr
It was my father's pride and joy and he passed away a couple years back unfortunately.

Back to the story...
The body was very floppy and hard to deal with initially. Here are a few more pics...

I put together a quick sketch of the end goal.

The main idea is low, stretched and mean. I always wanted big block for future big adds for power. This isn't going to be a light and playful canyon carver.(although that would be very nice)

 

[serrata]

One of the first things I did was to shed all the crap that I knew I wasn't going to keep. There was lots of exploratory surgery, pulling off parts, unbolting things, taking apart 80 year old mechanical brakes. This thing was buried 8 inches deep in the dirt, so everything was pitted and in bad shape mechanically.

Because I'm not a mechanic, I wanted to be very conservative about safety and so I decided that all mechanical parts would need to come from a donor vehicle and the body would be the main thing I would focus on cleaning up and reinforcing.

Everything would be a learning curve. From reading on this forum, I absorbed terms like channeling and sectioning. The possibilities are endless!!

I decided that I would have the sides of the body touch the ground when lowered. There will be airbags. So, channeling is in order. It didn't take much on this meager body...

In the pics, you see that I unbolted the front axle and just laid it out front to see what it would look like. I also just propped up the rear wheels next to the body to see what it would look like.

Then I piled a couple of bins in front, laid the shell of a grill on, and wired the door on...

 

[serrata]

I picked up the basics of welding with a HF welding machine.
I started cutting away the totally destroyed and pitted metal and reinforcing with square tubing.

More reinforcement for the roof and the A, B, C, and D pillars. There was no back of the car, so I fab'd one myself and added a hatchback door.

A shout out to OldIron for providing some spare hinges from his build for me. Thanks again, buddy!

As you can see, I went a little crazy with the pipe bender. I used it for everything. I learned the hard way that more severe bends needed pie slices and welding instead. Crumpling in square tube is ugly.

 

[serrata]

I jumped back to the frame. I started grinding brackets and such off and planned on boxing it in and reinforcing it. At the end though, it was just too pitted and unsafe. There was more oxidized steel than good steel.

I also found that the frame horns were bent at the front, indicating some mild front end collision.

I ended up scrapping the frame and starting one from scratch with much thicker rectangular tube.
I'll come back to that in a later post.

I needed to fill in sheet metal in the gaps and cover the new body skeleton.
I got some 18ga mild steel and started piecing together the round parts on the back. I don't have a planishing hammer or english wheel, so this would have to be done frankenstein-style.[

Every piece was easily bent by hand over my knee or other various object nearby. Doing it in small sections made small bends.

Afterward, that rounded part of the body is insanely strong. Much stronger than the flat roof sheet metal. Just knocking on it shows a difference.

 

[endicott_jb]

Quite a few of us know the struggle of pre war chevys/ fisher bodies and their use of wood. They're not the most fun car to build but it's very doable. I've got a 33 two door and a 31. Lots of extra time spent on the subframe of these cars.

 

[serrata]

Quite a few of us know the struggle of pre war chevys/ fisher bodies and their use of wood. They're not the most fun car to build but it's very doable. I've got a 33 two door and a 31. Lots of extra time spent on the subframe of these cars.

JB,
Your two Chevy builds are part of the reason I told myself, "I can do this."

 

[serrata]

I got rid of the rear wheel wells on both sides since they won't line up with the eventual axle placements. I'll end up cutting new ones in, so this will be temporary. Part of this is extending the door skin on the rear doors on the bottom rear below the hinges.

I flipped her upside down and started filling in holes. Top of the door jambs first.

 

[serrata]

Focus on the rear hatch skinning and cleanup...

It started out square.

That didn't really flow well with the rounded, 30's look of the doors and windows.
Round looks better... I also put in the rib in the back that will eventually have the rubber hatch seal.

Am I posting too many pictures? I'm very visual and hands-on. My wife gets annoyed with that...

 

[serrata]

I have soooooo much grinding to do.
Nothing like itchy fiberglass in the forearms from the grinding discs on the 9" angle grinder before going to bed...

 

[Old Iron]

Duck tape rolled over backwards on the fingers and patted on your arms will remove most of the fiber glass itchyness.

 

[serrata]

That is a great idea. I'm going to try that today.
Got to keep busy in the garage during the hurricane.

 

[endicott_jb]

JB,
Your two Chevy builds are part of the reason I told myself, "I can do this."

Wow, glad to see that I was able to inspire someone else. I never would have thought that I could influence anyone like that.

 

[smallfoot]

There's a new one....A 33 Hatchback

 

[Torchie]

Very creative build !
Just goes to how what can be done with basic tools and a lot of desire.[cl [cl
I like the rounded back end of the body.
[P [P [P
Torchie

 

[Yankee Transplant]

very nice job on this build , and on the fiberglass ,,, i used to hang insulation and poured vinegar onmy arms and it desolved some of the glass , dont rub back and forth just rub one way helps too. But i do love your car ,, they do make a grinding wheel out of plastic that will not get metal as hot . it works but i dont know how well , I only had one give to me and I used it up on something else ... i do have what is left if the disk but i havnt seen another like it at our welding place

 

[serrata]

Upside down cleanup around the firewall. Some of this will get chopped out when I figure out an engine and donor.

Worked on the door jambs on the bottom. I was hoping I could get away with keeping most things low profile at 4" on the floor.

Bought some cheap bear claw door latches. I needed something thin since the distance between the outer edge of where the window will be and the door edge is small.

I had a couple scraps of 1x1 tubing that I welded some nuts in to hold the striker bolts. Repeat on other side.

Shots of the whole body. No frame yet. Worked on the body for a couple years before I started the frame.[

 

[lowbudget50]

Damn !! Absolutely cool!