Sunday night, June 2, 2024
Its the top of June already, and I don’t have anything started on my 1956 Plymouth. Haven’t hit it with the first piece of sandpaper — but I’m close.
My son and I have put together the QuickJackk 5000 vehicle lifting system, and I’m hoping to put it to use very soon. Now I have added the familiar Quickjack hack of adding rollers to the QJ frames so they are easy to move side-to-side. Actually, my garage floor is not smooth but has the damnable broomed texture, so it still doesn’t roll easily. I decided today to go ahead and shell out the $200 plus to buy some well made brackets for real wheeled casters. They’ll work better than the rollers, for certain.
Using the QuickJack will give it enough room so I can work on the lower quarters a little easier. The body really isn’t so bad, beyound the needed rust repairs.
I’m a big fan of Bondo Billy on YouTube, and I like his take on the quality of paint jobs. Not all paint jobs have to be restorations; there’s nothing wrong with making rust repairs and giving your vehicle a nice quality paint job. I have decided I really don’t want to tear the car completely apart, though I will do things like remove the trim, door handles, etc. I’m going to have to remove the interior panels in order to remove the screws securing the trim on the sides.
I’m probably going to need to strip the paint off the hood and the deck lid, as well as the rear part of the body surrounding the decklid, particularly the inside parts of the fins. The paint film there is very thick and the paint has cracked.
I don’t plan to strip the entire car. Of course, that may depend on how much body work I need to accomplish and grinding down to metal. Its kind of a wait-and-see thing.
QUICKJACK PLANS. One of the first things I want to address is the fuel leak. The rubber hoses that connect the filler tub and the vent tube with the metal fuel tank are leaking when you fill the gas tank. Its not a big deal to me, but it makes my fellow cruisers a little antsy to have me park the Plymouth next to their car with a growing puddle of gasoline beneath it. Hmmm …..
My wife really wants me to mount seat belts in the front, and I refuse to blindly drill mounting holes in the floorboard without first surveying what it looks like.