1956 Nomad gasser build

[Too Many Projects]

I drilled out the last 4 "visible" spot welds and my intuition that the floor wasn't going to just fall out came true. The floor is spot welded to the rear crossmember BEFORE installation under the rear gate pillars and there was 1 spot weld on each side hidden that I couldn't drill out. Not a biggie, I rolled the car up on it's side and proceeded to "convince" the spot weld to let go with the Steck knife.






I made another big hole.





This one will take a little longer to fill, as there is an other step to this. Imagineering a method of fitting wide wheel tubs in here...





I started that process by making a line 3" from the weld flange and cutting it out.





Clamped the wheel house in position and the cut out against it.





THIS is going to work out WAY better than trying to bend a weld flange on the pan later.





There is one teensy weensy problem. The tubs claimed they are 2 5/8" wider than stock, but I only gained 1.5" ??? Measuring the frame width and the floor, that will leave 1" of space per side for a tire on the table. Owner says' "not enough", so Monday I will cut a strip 2" wide to extend the tub further into the floor pan. Not a problem, we knew this was going to be a learning process as the guy at Real Deal Steel said this can't be done on a wagon/Nomad. I LOVE it when someone tells me that. My response is..... watch me...

[Too Many Projects]

I cut a strip and went to clamp it in the flange and The wheel house isn't straight. Lots of shrinking and stretching and even a little grinding to get it to follow the curvature.








I attached it with drill screws and clamped it back on the body.



I cut out the curvature in the remaining interior panel for clearance and this fits quite well.








This gained another inch of tire room.



I got started on the same process for the left side.

[NorCam]

Originally Posted by Too Many Projects

Not a problem, we knew this was going to be a learning process as the guy at Real Deal Steel said this can't be done on a wagon/Nomad. I LOVE it when someone tells me that. My response is..... watch me...

What's not to love about that?

[Too Many Projects]

Short version of events. I got the left side wheel house wall repair patch I made a while back screwed on and the house drilled screwed to it for a test fit.



I had made the wall patch house flange the same width as the flange on the house and once I moved the patch to the inside of the wall, it was too short to move the house inboard enough. I took it all out to see what I had to add for that and just absently set the patch on top of the extension plate. These 2 pieces were made a week apart and never compared to match a fit. I had intended them to overlap as necessary to get the position I need for the house. This fit just blew me away. If I had TRIED to make them fit together, they wouldn't have turned out this well. I just tacked them together and got the width I needed...



Both of these pieces were shrunk/stretched and ground to fit the wheel house independently.

[Too Many Projects]

With both of the tubs clamped in place, it was time to set the body on the frame to see how close I had guessed as to their locations.



And YES, it is really nice to have this kind of power equipment to do this.












Left side is about 1/2" too far in.



Right side only needs to move out about 1/4".



After the adjustments, there should be room for a 14" tire..



That will have to wait for a few weeks. It's too damn cold here and Florida is calling...

[Too Many Projects]

Well dang, I had to come back to the frozen North. May as well work on a hot rod and get paid for it.

Next up was modifying the cargo floor to fit the wide tubs. I cut out the floor in approximately the shape of the tub and used the cut out as a filler/weld flange piece.






This is a VERY abbreviated version, as it took me 3 days to get this all to fit and look this good.







I then finished the day by cutting out a tag board template of the filler panel I will make to blend the original inner to the tub.