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Perfect, thanks!

150"?????

Thanks for the heads up TX Goat, it should read 50.5", sorry about that!
Bob J.

150 was a tight fit! But it's in.

Quote:

I'm going to spray it will epoxy to at lease seal it a bit. Especially the plywood.

The framing structure is all kiln dried hardwood Ash, like original. A local place near me harvests it all from local trees. This was all cut out of 5/4 boards that I milled down.

It was a very dense piece. At over 2" thick it tripped the breaker on my table saw trying to rip it down from an of 8" wide board.

These were the easy pieces. The curved pieces that run from top of the rumble seat to the trunk pan down the side are going to be a bear. Originally, the entire wood frame was assembled, then the body shell lowed over the top and welded to the floor pan. So getting those pieces in and out is not going to be fun.

The pieces above that run front to back under the package tray were assembled with a bolt through the top piece of wood that runs side to side over area at the back of the convertible top well.

The carriage bolt goes down through top piece, through the front to back pieces and then through a z shaped metal bracket that is spot welded to the top of the wheel well. So that back edge is trapped as there is no way to remove that bolt, as the body shell has it sandwiched in.

So I broke the spot weld, removed the bracket and then I was able to remove the rotten wood and install the new wood. Then I put the bracket back in place and welded it back to the wheel well.

I imagine, I will have to do very similar gymnastics with the wood in the rear.

Here is a picture before I welded the bracket back in. The bracket is/was only welded along the extreme rear edge. Perhaps it was done that way to allow it to flex. Who knows?

I started to replace the wood pieces that run down the sides of the rumbleseat opening and trunk opening.

Here is another example of the rot. This is the corner above the rumble seat gutter drain.




This is the trunk side piece that is split and bolted to the remains of the rumble seat piece.




Getting all these pieces out was a pain since all the fasteners were beyond rusted, also obscured or completely inaccessible.

Also, the pieces are nailed in through the drain gutters. The rumbleseat gutter had lots of lead obscuring all the nails. So I had to melt/pry out the lead to access them.




The rumble seat piece is fairly long curved, and would be impossible to get back in the car in a single piece.

Since the top half was in good shape, I cut the piece where it is supported by the body brace, so I can splice in the lower replacement piece.




Here is a plywood piece I to use as a template for cutting the real out of ash.




Here is the plywood template, the remains the original, and the rough ash blank. I still need to curve and contour the blank to match the outside profile of the sheetmetal.

I'm loving watching your progress Kev. This gives me a whole new appreciation for restored pre-war cars. The amount of work it takes to do the woodwork is daunting.