57 Ranchero

[RICH MUISE]

Great to hear from you Limey. You're just getting a ton of work done on that 'chero and it's all looking great. Your metalworking ability to make alternative stuff work is remarkable. Looks like it's getting close to finish time ... so now you've got me curious what your plans are for paint, interior, etc.

[Limey57]

Thanks Rich.  We've had a real bad winter here, work's been hectic etc, etc, so time for keeping up to speed on forums (I only use two!!!) has been short, but the sun's shining, work's easing back a bit so I'm back!

Paint is going to be the same as "57Chero" on here (pale blue & white), the wheels are 15x7 steels, painted blue with trim rings & caps.  I wanted 17" Torque Thrust 2's but trying to source the correct back spacing for the rears over here wasn't easy, so I went with steels.  Besides, at the minute it seems that every American car from 1957 to 1960 over here has Torque Thrust 2's so I wanted to be different!!!!

Getting the body aligned took ages, I'd get most of the holes lined up to find one at the rear was 1/16" out, aligning that then threw another one 1/2" out.  Got there in the end though, as I was working alone I used an engine crane to take the weight while I pushed & shoved the body around.

Next stage is to seperate the door frames from the skins.  There's some rust in the bottoms that needs replacing with fresh metal, but there's also a lot of rust starting all round the skin where it's folded over the frame, I suspect caused by the acid dipping.  I'm going to remove the skins completely & sand blast the mating faces before re=assembling.  Then its spending a few months priming & block flatting.  The body is VERY straight but you ust know that when the guide coat process starts I'll fin loads of minor dents & dings.......

I've now sourced all the engine rebuild parts, I'm just waiting for the machine shop to have some space in the queue to bore the block & grind the crank, then the transmission is off for a refresh.  I seriously thought about fitting a five speed manual but decided I've got enough work to do without the hassle of trying to source a clutch pedal.

[Frankenstein57]

Gary, if you decide to go stickshift, I've an extra pedal assembley. Shipping was pretty stiff last time, Mark

[Limey57]

Mark, I'm going to stay with the auto (AOD) I've got, it will leave it as a three-seater which suits us better than restricting it to a two seater with a stick.  My daily driver is a stick shift so it will be nice to relax in an auto once in a while when the Ranchero is done!

[LAUDY57]

Gary, I've been following your posts with interest and admiration not only for your obvious metal skills but your ability to improvise and get it done in what some would say less than ideal conditions. I'm sure there are many others on here who do the same but it's your posts I'm talking about here and I think that the best compliment I can think of for you is that in these days of 250K shop rods it's refreshing to see a guy doing it on his own and doing a good job of it and, that to me, you are the definition of a real "Hot Rodder"!

[Limey57]

Thanks, I've got a few more updates to post when I find time!  More rust, more welding etc, etc.............

[Limey57]

Where does time go?  A few more pictures of rust & welding wire:

Doors, as per usual the rust was confined to the folded seams. Outwardly the doors seemed sound, but I had to remove the skin to see how bad they were. After drilling out a few spot welds, I carefully folded back the skin from the frame:







Plenty of thick scale/rust. Removing the skin showed that although everything seemed quite good for a 56 year old car, both skin and frame were very thin. The frame had rotted through in one area and one corner, the skin was thin along the bottom edge and also about 10 inches up at either end.







That is a solid piece of rust that was trapped between two layers of the frame:





I shot blasted the inside edge of the door skin which (as suspected) found a lot of pin holes, rather than fart about trying to weld up each one I decided to chop out the bottom edge first. I cut this out with a good pair of aviation snips to minimise distortion, I also left 1/2" extra to joggle the edge of the skin to sit behind the new piece. To minimise the amount of heat build up through grinding I punched holes every inch in the joggled edge so I could weld the old & new skin together from the reverse side, I then tack welded in between these welds from the front side to give a good strong join requiring minimal grinding down and minimal risk of heat distortion.










You can also see the parts I had to replace on the edges. I used a similar technique on these, combining plug-welding from the back & then tack welding between the plugs from the front:



To help aligning the skin on re-assembly I had only removed the bottom half, I left the upper part of the skin on the door frame in place. With the lower part of the skin done & re-fitted, I had to remove the upper part as this was also bulging with rust in places:





Once all welded back together and the lower skin repairs blended in the door was trial fitted and although it is only mocked into position (and still needs some welds grinding down) it is now much better and rust free! Just got to do the other side now......

[Limey57]

Fenders, rusted out along the trailing edge.  They looked sound but were thin, the rear edge was straight forward to replace, but the drivers side had suffered accident damage in the past & looked like it had been repaired by a gorilla with a sledge hammer and a house brick. Fortunately i had some repair panels. Unfortunately the didn't cover all the damage.







First job was to brace the fender using a piece of steel bolted in place to stop the panel losing shape when all the battered tin was chopped out.



The headlamp mounting panel was well made only needing slight adjustment on the lower edge. The wing upper panel didn't have the sharp folds of the original wing but I only needed part of it.







This was also a good fit and was butt welded in, unfortunately it didn't extend down far enough so I had to make the lower piece. I started by taking a tracing of the same area from the opposite (undamaged) fender using masking tape.



This was then transferred to a piece of steel sheet and cut out, remembering it was the opposite side.



With the aid of a vice, a planishing hammer, a curved dolly, a shrinker/stretcher and a lot of luck I knocked up a repair panel.



With a bit more work it fitted well and was butt welded in.





Tomorrow I'll get it all ground down & finished off.

[hiball3985]

This is an amazing amount of work you have done to save that Ranchero..

[RICH MUISE]

An amazing amount of EXCELLENT work to save that Ranchero. Way to go, as per your usual. Great job on the door skin salvage also!

[hiball3985]

You are right Rich, I should have included EXCELLENT. This type of work amazes me, something I would never tackle, it takes a real artist to do it.

[Frankenstein57]

Nice work Gary, I hope I can display that kind of patience when I tackle the 57 Quarter panel, Mark

[Limey57]

Been a long time since I updated this, keep forgetting to take pictures!  Well the last few days have seen some paint being thrown around:

[hiball3985]

You have made great progress, totally awesome!! Your body work talent has surely paid off..

[Ford Blue blood]

Very nice!!!!!!!!