"Junk in the Trunk"
What started as a project to stop hot air from blowing up the backs of back seat passengers turn in to a "Hole Lotta Fun". If you feel like reading there is more after the pictures.

Living in Texas there is only a short window of when I like to work on my car because of the heat. I usually start projects in October and hopefully get done before March.

The project I chose this year was the trunk because. No major parts would be needed just sand, sheet metal, paint, and some elbow grease. I had sand blasted the under carriage of that area after my gas tank bands broke and my gas tank fell out. Fun, Fun, Fun.

As usual there is more than what you thought that needed to be done. I don’t know what Chevrolet was thinking when they designed the shock top mounts as part of the sheet metal floor pan. I am guessing that on my car the mounts rusted out some time in the past and broke through the floor because that area had been severely damaged. A previous owner had made a new shock mount, screwed a plate of aluminum sheet over a big hole, and then covered the rest in silicone.

I started by sand blasting the trunk floor. After cleaning off the rust, paint and silicone I found out there had been sever damage to the back part of the trunk. It has several cracks and the parts cut out. I had to cut out the whole axel hump.

I proceeded to cut the shock mount out of the car. It was made out of a huge “U” channel. It had “T” brackets welded to the wheel wells. What made it hard was that I couldn’t get my cut off wheel into several areas welded. I had to drive my car with no shocks to a friend to use a torch to cut the shock support out.

Once the support was gone using a cut off tool and a saws all I cut out all the destroyed metal.

Cutting out the shock support made some big holes that I had to make inserts and welded them back in place of the hole. I also fabricated a new floor pan insert where a foot square hole had been. The whole had been fixed with diamond plated aluminum that was just put on with rivets. It looked bad and did not give support to the floor which holds and supports the gas tank. Another problem that helped made my gas tank fall out before.

I had some sheet metal from a car from work and used that to remake the hump. The center part of the hump was still usable, although it had bunch of holes drilled in it for some reason. If it didn’t have strengthening groves in it I would have scraped that also but I can’t reproduce the groves and make them look right.

Once the hump was finished I welded it back in the floor.

I am in a stand still right now trying to decide if I will use the shock support made by a former owner, buy a commercial made one from Danchuk, or make a new one.

Well not really, I have 3 more holes to fix and grind the welds to keep me busy.

Another day and a decision made. I went on line to cardomiain.com. I posed my dilemma and got several very helpful photos and directions.

Now with my new found information I have decided to make my own shock mount. I wish I had looked into this before I welded the hump in the truck. I’m going to have to make do because I’m not going to cut it off again.

Update December 31, 2004

I have a couple of weeks off for the holidays and planned to work on my car but! It was too cold. Really only in the low 30's but that's cold for a Texan. I talked to friends up North and one even told me it was like 19 degrees. Hey, I'm a wuss what can I say. So, there was 3 days wasted. It finally warmed up and I started practicing welding the shock brace. I had a friend whom is a welding teacher give me a quick lesson. I had a couple of pieces of the brace and practiced welded the pieces. Slow start but got it looking good. I took a hammer to the part and the weld held good.

My home made shock brace

I did a dry set up on the brace. It fit perfect. I lucked out and didn't have to devise a way to hold it in place. I had gone to Chevy talk to get dimensions for placement of the brace. I found some great posts and drawings and was even PM great suggestions and photos. That was a big help. Only one problem, I guess a 150 is shorter than the 210 and the Belair. I went to Pat's Auto Sales and looked at a couple of 57 and the panel between the back windshield and the trunk door is 6" more or less longer than my 150. To fix the problem I guessed from where the hump is as to where the shock mount should go. I then put the shocks on to see if they would fit. So, I think I have it pretty close. It has to be better that the last shock brace that was installed. The builder was several inches off on east and west placement and they had to make the holes a 1/2 inch in diameter to make the shocks go on. I did at least 10 mock-ups before I welded and found several mistakes before I did a final weld.

Now, I'm all set up and ready to weld. As I told you I have even practiced the vertical up and overhead welding. I even practiced lying on my back and welding. With all of that I was not happy with my welds when I welded in the shock brace. I feel they are functional but not good looking. Sorry not photo’s I’m too embarrassed.

Shock brace in place
But looking on the bright side I didn't catch my car or myself on fire this latest welding adventure. Which is kind of fun in a way. Nothing like welding and when you are done see flames in your car through a hole in the floorboards. I crawled out faster than I thought possible. I have some jugs of water in the garage for this purpose and doused the flames. No damage to the car just a rag I has been using to keep sand out the inside of the car while I was sand blasting. I had placed several rags to keep from having different parts damaged from sand blasting and never took them off because I didn't really finish sand blasting. These rags seemed to want to keep catching on fire every chance they could. I finally took them all out. A while later, I was welding underneath the car and I smelled something on fire. I looked for more rags but could not find any, I guessed I just smelled the ashes still on the floor until I realized it was my shirt. I wish I had a home video of my pounding on my chest to get the fire out.

A couple of days later I fixed 3 holes in the trunk, 2 of which had been fixed before but not up to my standards. The last was a rust hole by the trunk latch. As hard as I tried I didn't get the piece large enough and have a 3/16 gap. I would like to weld the gap up but it just melts the metal. Next time I will have to engineer a solution.

January 16, 2005

I have worked on the 57 around 10 hours since my last up date. I have been grinding on the welds that I have completed. I also have been trying to straighten the sheet metal. I’m not really happy with the results. I have only grinded the top of the welds. Next time I will grind the bottom of the trunk and finish up the top parts. I am out of flux wire. I have used three pounds of wire so far.

I still have to fix the hole by the latch but I found some metal that is the correct size to do that. I have a friend that has an electric dent puller that I feel I will have to borrow. I hope it is 110 volt because I don’t have 220. The majority of the sheet metal work is done fixing the trunk but now for the finish work. I really want it to look at least half decent but even that goal will take a long time. One thing for sure is that it will look better and no more holes to leak air and what not into the car.

The pan by the trunk latch is really bad. It needs to be replaced but to do so I would have to remove the out side part under the trunk to do so and I don’t want to destroy any exterior paint yet. 30-year-old candy apple but still looks good from a distance.

January 17, 2005

I had another go of it today. I sand blasted for about 4 hours. I completed the trunk floor and about 90 percent of right side of the trunk.

When I say I sand blasted for 4 hours that is an over statement. It is really hard to say how long I am really in the act of blasting. Here is how it goes: Get out the sand blaster; sift the sand; pour the sand into the sand blaster vessel; plug in the air hose; forget to turn off 1 of the 3 valves; spray yourself with sand; put on hood and gloves; start blasting; try numerous times by trial and error to get the sand to come out correctly. I have a good size air compressor but it quickly runs out of air. I bought a 5 gallon vessel

sand blaster and luckily it runs out of sand about the same time it runs out of air if adjusted correctly. The hood that came with the blaster is a Godsend. I use-to-use goggles and a mask while sand blasting. But, they didn’t work very good and my eyes and lungs took a bad beating. I would be sick for days after blasting. The hood is much better except it fogs up real bad. When sand blasting there is a great deal of dust so you can’t see very well. That is only half of the problem. The other is fogging of any type of glasses I wear. I put soap on the glass, which helps but is still blurry. Also, over time any eye protection becomes pitted. Sand blasting would be much easier if you can see. I have started to circle missed spots with a red chalk to better identify through the haze.

Now that I have run out of compressed air and sand I have to sweep up the blasted sand. Put it in a bucket; sift it; then start all over again. So really out of 4 hours I hope I am really blasting for an hour.

Even though this sounds bad, which it is, it beats watching TV. It is still better and faster than wire brushing or sanding for a clean surface which to paint. I hope I will finish blasting with 4 to 8 hours of work.

During weeknights I don’t like to sand blast because of the mess, the darkness and the time involved. So, this week I plan to grind welds, fix the hole in the left wheel well, fix the hole by the latch, weld and grind holes, clean up the underneath and work on straightening the sheet metal. Maybe next weekend I will be able to finish sand blasting.

January 29, 2005

I have worked 13 hours on my car sand blasting and sanding. I'm about 98% done now. Slow going stuff.

February 16, 2005

Well the last 2 percent took 9 hours to finish. My sand blaster air compressor are junk. I was watching the TV show Rides and they were doing a show about Unique Motor Cars in Farmers Branch, Texas about the making of the new Carroll Shelby, Eleanor Mustang and they soda blasted a whole car in 7 hours. Anyway, I have clean metal to work with. To cover the welds I plan to use plastic. I have not done that type of body work since I worked on my 69 Chevelle in high school. I will get to Bondo and the rule of thumb is, apply plastic, sand and repeat until your skill level is good enough to make it flat.

February 19, 2005

I finally got the plastic as good as I can or am willing. So begins the clean up process. I used a lot of compressed air and a shop vacuum. To get read of all the sand and plastic dust takes a great deal of patience but as you know it messes up the paint if you don’t take the time.

After I removed all the dust I wiped down the trunk with a tack towel.

I removed the old tape and paper and replaced it.

Finally I sprayed 3 coats of primer. The tempt. is only in the 50’s so I will wait until tomorrow to apply my final coat of paint. You only have to wait an hour if you have a paint booth with a heater.

Tomorrow I will lightly sand and paint the trunk black.

In 57 Chevy painted the trunk area with the same color as the body. If I were a 2 tone paint job the trunk would have been painted the same as the lower half of the car.

I’m almost done.

Primed

February 20, 2005

Finish Coat

After sanding the fill primer I retaped and shot on 2 coats of black paint today.

February 26

Today I worked 5 hours.

During that time I connected the gas line. Cleaned paint off the traction bars and reinstalled the right one I had taken off. The gas tank straps didn’t look tight enough so I tighten them up.

I had cut the wires out for the rear tail lights because they were in the way. Really, I caught the wires with my grinder, winding the wires around it and ripped the wires out half way. I made new wires for the tail lights. I only had red so I ghettoed them up by making all three wires red. I would have like to use the original colors but Auto Zone only had red.

Only the left tail light worked. After taking the right lens I could see the socket was badly corroded as was the plate light. I took my drimel tool and cleaned off the corrosion. Now I have all the tail lights working. I had to break the plate bulb to get it out. I have one at work. I only made one mistake. I didn’t run the wires under the trunk latch. I’ll have to fix that later.

Finally after cleaning up and taking the car cover off I put the wheels on. With the wheels on I finally, after 4 months, got her off the jack stands, Yea! I only had a gallon of fuel in my gas can but that was enough to get Candy started. The only bad thing now is its raining. With bare metal still in the wheel wells I’ll have to wait for another day to give her a test drive.