Second Wind - a Packard Gasser

[zzrodder]

Looking like jungle gym with all the tubing
Making progress on the floor structure and body mounts, also adding mounting points for a roll cage. I want to be able to still take the body off the frame once the cage is in, so each mounting plate bolts to a corresponding plate welded to pedestals off the frame. Like Frankie said - "I did it my way"

 

[soltz]

Good thinking [cl
##[P##

 

[zzrodder]

Working my way to the rear with the floor structure and body mounting. First I made some bracing/supports for the rear of the body, squared it up and shwacked out the remaining bit of the trunk floor. I had planned to use the tailpan I have from the 36 Packard that I still have, but it's pretty crispy too, so I'll just have to make a whole new tailpan and trunk lip like I did for the last Packard coupe. The trunk opening was originally all framed with wood so I'll also have to redo that with 1" square tubing. [[

 

[zzrodder]

Went to Pick n Pull today with my trusty battery powered axe and scalped a 96 Grand Marquis
The shape of it works pretty good, the curve from the front of it matches the bubble at the rear of of the Packard roof nicely.

 

[smallfoot]

Nice fit!

 

[bob w]

That's the way to do it.[cl

 

[DozerII]

Almost perfect.[cl[cl[P[P

 

[Old Iron]

The Marquee's and Crown Vics are the roof donors that you use on a lot of your projects isn't it?

 

[zzrodder]

The Marquee's and Crown Vics are the roof donors that you use on a lot of your projects isn't it?

I see you've been paying attention to my habits
Yeah, they have the right shape for these 30's cars, hard to find newer cars with a large enough piece to work with, and I'd hate to cut the roof from some 40's car to do it.

 

[bob w]

A Taurus roof worked well on my Anglia. It didn't bother me to ruin a Taurus.

 

[soltz]

Goo info thanks [cl

 

[zzrodder]

Diving right in on the skin graft
As usual, if you think something is going to be easy - it aint. After melting off the rotten old lead from the roof seams, it was clear that I couldn't leave the bashed in lap joint as is, so I cut it out on both sides and welded some new metal in. They weren't bashful about slapping on the lead at the factory, I guess it was quicker than trying to make nice butt welded seams.
Got the roof skin tacked in place, lots of fiddling and hammering to get the seams flush and smooth, watching out for warpage and working it out right away. One thing I've learned doing this stuff is - don't kid yourself into thinking you can just bash it out later - you've gotta fix any warps as you go or you're gonna be slinging a lot of Bondo.

 

[05snopro440]

Looks great!

 

[Old Iron]

Most have no clue how long and tedious a roof filler panel is to install until they do one for themselves.
You make it look like a piece of cake.

 

[Rockable]

Making it look like a piece of cake took years to master.

 

[zzrodder]

Starting work on the rusty and beat up rear of the body, replacing rotten bits first.

Added a strut from the body to the floor structure to keep the outer body panel in position. It will also give a mounting surface for the wheel tub.

Making the first corner piece, beat on the sandbag then smoothed with a planishing hammer.

Made a new bottom lip for the trunk opening that the weather stripping sits in and so I could get a better handle on the shape and size of the new metal to go in, I roughly beat the old tailpan into a shape sorta resembling what it once was....

 

[lowbudget50]

Very nice work as always!

 

[Old Iron]

[cl[cl[cl
[P[P[P

 

[05snopro440]

You sure don't collect dust.

 

[zzrodder]

You sure don't collect dust.

Not right now but I will soon - knee surgery on Friday will put me out of commission for 6 weeks or so :

In the meantime, I finished welding up the top insert, more hammer and dolly fine tuning to do but its mostly lookin' good. Got both rear corners formed and tacked in, hoping to finish the tailpan tomorrow before the gong goes off....

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