Part 7 by Michael Callander (age 21)
After many more hours of restoration, a discerning eye can tell that progress has been made.
Unfortunately, to the untrained eye, it will not be until all of the parts are painted that the restoration will look visibly different.
The past 6 months have seen a shift in focus from the doors to the box and rear cab panel. I had taken a closer look at the doors to see what lay underneath including stripping all of the bondo off on one side. The reason I did this was that I did not actually know what was underneath the primer and feared it might be heavily covered in bondo from when the truck was first purchased (the seams welded shut indicate this may have been an unsuccessful hot-rod candidate at one point).
I found patch panels that were lap-welded, with much of the original sheet metal missing. It would be very difficult to restore the proper contour of the door with the patches, and even if I had left the bondo on it would have been difficult to make it look convincing. I looked at another pair of doors donated by Paul Chudek. These were in much better condition but needed some patching at the bottom where the water collected over the years. I finally decided to replace the doors with new ones.
A new roadster door costs $600 US brand new. My solution to this was to apply for the last time for the Model A Youth Restoration Award. I could have applied sooner, but I thought I had all the sheet metal I needed, and I still had some certificates left for LeBaron Bonney when I needed the upholstery. As soon as I decided I needed to buy a set of new doors I thought of a bunch of other things I needed including the wood for the cab and a dash panel. I checked the deadline for the grant, and it was in 3 days. Never have I been so determined to get through paperwork so quickly. Thankfully, the award coordinator, Bob Moore, was flexible, and I got it all done in time.
I could not work on the rest of the cab before I got the new doors, so I decided to remove the box and do as much body work on it as I could while I waited. The front panel and tailgate are usually the most warped pieces on a truck because of the cargo shifting around from front to back. My truck was no different.
Years of throwing things in the back had forced the front panel forward and I had to shrink it. I was able to straighten out the top rail and the bottom fold to get my dimensions right without using any heat. I then did a heat-shrink on 13 different spots, fixing one rectangle at a time. Murray Walkemeyer showed me a few years ago how to do a heat-shrink, but I had never tried it by myself on a panel this big. I definitely made some mistakes, such as hammer too hard or heating up too much, but I learned that I could fix my mistakes. The panel actually turned out remarkably well - straight and smooth. I like heat-shrinking because it reminds me of blacksmithing – you get to hit things and play with fire.
There was one small hole that needed to be filled in this front panel. It looked to me like it was from the warped front panel rubbing on the back of the cab, and it actually rubbed a hole right through it. Before creating a patch to weld in I tried filling it with weld using Mike Hill's mig welder. I kept burning through the surrounding metal and it didn't stick, so I went to plan B. I cut a patch from an old filing cabinet door and welded it onto the front of the panel because the front is not easily visible when the vehicle is assembled. It will be easy to put a small amount of bondo on the front and sand it to the contour of the panel.
Working on the sides of the box was really easy. There was a slight bow, but it looked to me like it wouldn't be visible with the naked eye, so I left it. There was only one spot that needed to be heat-shrunk and the rest of it was just hammer and dolly. This took only a few hours. By the end of this year I have finished half of the box: the driver's side and the front.
I did some work heat-shrinking the rear panel of the cab in order to put the box back on for display purposes. This is the vehicle that will be on display at Heritage Park until the end of April for their restoration display. Looking at the gap between the cab and the box, I can now see that I did a very good job straightening the panels, going from the panels rubbing on each other to being equally separated.
The last item that was accomplished during this period was the final stage of the wheel well installation – welding it in. I had a co-worker, Ed Moore weld it in and he did a great job. This means that the spare tire can now go in once that stage comes.
As mentioned above, this vehicle will be featured in Heritage Park's restoration exhibit from January 29th to April 28 . During this time no work will be done on the vehicle. It will be a teaching tool to show the public the type of work that is involved in restoring antique automobiles, as well as knowledge of the Model A and our hobby. This works well because I don't normally find time to work on my Model A during school anyway. This brings to conclusion the end of an exciting 6 months of restoration.
