Resto: Windscreen Comes Off Again

G'day,

With the thought of one day driving this old banger on the road looming closer and closer it was mentioned that the old windscreen glass come out of the frame and off to the auto glass man we head asap with the 2 x old pieces in hand to get some modern safety auto glass cut to the exact size which will then be reassembled back together and installed onto the car so with that plan in mind I quickly set about and completely pulled apart the old windscreen frame...
There was little rust in the glass channels of the frame, the old glass come out easily and is still intact but all in all and after a good clean up the frame is in very good condition, apart from a couple of small caps that were rusted through, which I will try and track down some others to replace them..

Monty now windscreenless and looking like a dirt track racer

The windscreen frame is on the bench here somewhere dismantelled along with some rear tub brackets, rear spare tyre holder and front headlights which are all getting some TLC

The rear tub is now sitting on the car nice and solid as I installed to 2 x heavy interior "Y" brackets to the side timbers and floor just behind the rear door opening, also now the 2 x rear doors can now be closed securely due to the "Y" brackets being install which is good to see and do.
I only have a couple of smaller jobs on the rear tub to finish and then the complete timber frame of the car will be lifted up off the chassis to install some webbing which will sit between the chassis and the timber frame which will stop any squeaks from the contact.

As I mentioned today I have removed the spare tyre holder from the rear of the car so that when we lift the frame up from the chassis it will be easier and give us more room to then nail the lower underside of the rear tub to the new timber frame also it will give me a chance to try and straighten the holder up a little, yes that was wonky also just like the rest of Monty......

Won't be long now and I will have to get the seat framework which has been hanging down from the shed roof along with the guards/fenders and give the 4 x sections the once over before the auto interior man to so his thing and make it all a little more comfy........

Many thanks for checking in on me from time to time, some weeks feel very productive and others seem like nothing has happen at all, I wouldn't say unproductive just slow and then there are the small fiddley hidden jobs that take quite sometime to complete but are unnoticeable to the eye when you stand back and look so I understand that sometimes you can look in on the blog and see that nothing has changed, "old Monty looks the bloody same" I hear you say but I can assure you that it is constantly being tweaked and slowly being moulded into the lovely old vintage car that dad would be so proud of to see driving about the streets of his home town, Trafalgar....  We are getting closer :)

Resto: 1928 Chevrolet timbers nearly completed

G'day,

Well I have had a couple of really productive seasions out in the resto shed on ole Monty, the rear tub timbers with everything expect the corners are now cut to shape, sanded and sitting in place nicely just waiting to the screwed together and then nailed to the tub.....

So basically all the bigger timber items that I had to make up myself are now finished, yes there are alot of little things to now go back over and re-check but when I stand back and have a good look at all that has been acheived I am extremely happy with the outcome..... So I will let the photos below to some more talking for me.

This little machine below is just the best unit, its's a Ryobi thicknesser.... I love it......

Thank you all for talking an interest and looking in on my progress from time to time and in saying that the next thing to do over the coming weeks is:

• Raise the body off the chassis again to install some webbing between the chassis and mail timber rails.
• Install the 2 x valances and side steps.
• Install the front and rear guards.
• Install the front headlights and mounting beam
• Complete the wiring to the lights.

That will do it for now as the list is just to long, but it is getting shorter by the day  :)

Resto - What A Day That Was...

G'day.

Tonight I am tired? and stuff you daylight savings!!.... well I woke at 4.30am because of the daylight savings switching back which I normally start to stir around 5.30am, but yes 4.30am is a little early, so by 6.30 I was out and up and about the kitchen making a cuppa coffee and throwing some breaky together while the others had a sleep in and anyways Ray was coming out from Melbourne at half 8 to help me again with the rear tub install on ole Monty, and I had a few another things to do before he arrived like, check ebay, facebook, etc :)

To be honest I thought today was going to be a straight forward one in the shed..... lift tub on, tub off, tub on, tub off.... you get the picture, do this a few times and we will be all done by midday.. HOW BLOODY WRONG WAS I :(
It all started well, anticipation was running on overdrive and we were both fired up to get this done, and make Monty look like a vintage car again and then over the course of the next hour things started to turn a little pear shaped and one wrong thing lead to another, I would of thrown in the towel quickly to tell you the truth as I could see that alot of my work over the past few months was not "up to it" as I had thought it was but with Ray there leading the way and having all the ideas to sort everything out, we eventually got it done around 4pm..... but there were some trying hours in between of WTF are we doing here.

Basically today we removed all the 4 x doors and the centre post on the drivers side and half the front seat and we had to adjust and re-align everything, brackets, hinges, re-screw and re-drill holes... Why you ask?? because without the tub installed on the car when I hung the doors and centre posts months ago I was not able to follow the correct "line" where the rear tub would be going, and along the hood, cowl, doors, panels and tub there is a raised moulded 3/4" trim line that goes right around the car and this has to line up exactly to look correct......I was a little out, but all is fixed now,  thanks Ray great job done.

You can see in this photo the moulded line just above the door handles, well now it runs very true, they all line up spot on and it follows the body lines lovely... but earlier this morning it quickly came to our attention that it was not the case and needed a full days work of tweaking this and that...

And to my surprise when we had finished, cleaned up and packed away a few things, I realised that I didn't take one photo of the works while they were in progress, my mind was in another place all day and buzzing with how to fix it up...... Anyway to ease the stress of today and just before Ray was to head back to Melbourne, we opened the house gates, jumped in the front seat and pointed Monty towards to wide open road for a good drive around the block at a reliable 35mph, we completed 4 laps, 3.5miles in total and it ran just as expected, lovely and that soon put everything back into perspective as to why we are doing this..

So what's next I hear you asking??? well hopefully over this long weekend with it being Easter I will make a start on the new timber work that now has to be fitted around the inside of the tub but first I must carefully unpick all the old rusted nails and original timbers which I can then partially use as templates when measuring up the new pieces, slow but rewarding work.

Ray has more photos and also a detailed write-up of the bodywork on his blog
http://my28chev.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/monty-chev-gets-back-his-near-and-dear.html

We are getting closer to the day when I can drive it down the Princes Hwy towards the vehicle registration office..... Thanks and talk to you soon....