morfing a 58 custom into a 57 custom 300

[lalessi1]

That front end work is awesome! I think it is funny that i am trying to "undo" some seam smoothing done by the previous owner of my in search of original appearance... go figure!!! 

[gasman826]

long time ago...I don't have any close ups of the eyebrow work.

[RICH MUISE]

'bout time we saw some pics from you, Doug! Congrats on getting them to work....guess you're liking your new Mac.
Keep in mind, guys, this is a '58 he's posting pics of, not a '57!!
Your body man is doing an outstanding job on that project. eyebrows look great. I never would have thought of the approach you guys are taking on the tailight housing...I was thinking one piece. Very clever...that's gonna greatly reduce the amount of work to get to the final result.
Hey Guys...Doug enlightened me as to the differences between a '58 and our '57's when I met up with hin in Phoenix. For those unaware as I was, one would think once the tailight issue is resolved, it would be a simple matter of finding a '57 trunk lid and you'd be good to go. That's not the case. The '58 tailpan goes straight across rather than in a few inches as the '57 does. That means the tailpan on a '58 is not in the correct position to just match up with a '57 trunk. Doug had to replace the tailpan with a '57 all the way around to the seamline directly under the middle of the tailights. Domino effect...I think that also created an issue with the trunk floor and for sure alot of other things I'm forgetting or wasn't aware of.

[Jeff Norwell]

That is an awesome amazing job.

[57 imposter]

Thanks for the kind words guys, I knew when I started this project that that it was either going to succeed of fail on how the rear end turned out. So first thing I did was to kick the tail light problem down the road for about two years. It finally just wouldn't be kicked any further and had to be addressed. I found ,through pure luck some 50 Merc headlight frenching rings that were not very expensive so   bought a pair to try. with some modification to the O.D. and mounting rings made they would fit the car and the complete 57 tail light bucket and lens  could be mounted in from the trunk. This gave the tail lights a frenched look and tunneled them about one inch, both of which I was looking for. Than leaves me where I am Today. I have to come up with a tail fin extension that at least look like it belong on the car. and everyone is right, it will probably be a major issue. I am , however way past the point of no return so nothing to do now but keep hammering away. literally.   

[57 imposter]

Well, not surprisingly, my sheet metal guy didn't work out. about four weeks of sitting on the housings and hadn't touched them. went over and picked them up. I talked to a another metal worker who has built some very high end magazine cars and while he couldn't work on mine he was very generous with information on how to do them. He said to form round stock to the profile of the fin and when I got that where I wanted it to, tack it to the body and build to it with pieces of sheet metal. Sounds simple enough, right?  I've got a handful of 1/8 welding rod so i,m on my way out to see if I can come up with a decent profile. If I can, i'll build a buck so I can make two identical pieces in 3/16 round stock. Where I go from there, I have no idea. One step at a time.

[57 imposter]

Pulled the complete front end of the car yesterday, it now looks like it did two years ago. I have some several loose ends to take care of in the engine bay plus I need to get a half a coil off the springs. I also have a nasty repair to the rocker panel right at the very front end. Having the front fender gone will make that much easier. So with just 9 bolts holding the front end on, it just made sense to pull the whole thing off and put it away until everything up front is completed. Today is also the day I am going to try and make bucks out of the stock tail light housings to form the tail fin extensions. I plan to make two halves for each side then cut them down to fit the car. Tig them up and do some body work. Sounds simple enough, right? I mean what could possibly go wrong?

[Limey57]

The old iceberg theory, the work you can see needs doing is only about a quarter o what lies beneath!  At least you know you're getting right into what needs doing rather than covering it up or ignoring it.  So many people ignore the front end of the rockers when restoring a car because they leave the fenders on, then wonder why the doors start to drop because the front of the rockers rot away and take the bottom of the door pillar with them!

[hotroddonnie]

I did my car three times. I learned a lot of forward and backwards steps. HRD

[RICH MUISE]

Doug...I was thinking about this little project a few days ago. I was moving some stuff around in my work area and picked up a couple of small anvils....the type you would maybe put in a vise, with the tapered horns. The backside of those horns is not to disimilar from the shape you need. The ones I have are too small, but a bigger one might be close enough that some time with a disc grinder might get you the buck you need.

[djfordmanjack]

yes back and forth, feels like standing still. I was building a tailgate handle from 3 different ones and now having it held up to the gate I see the handle is totally warped from chroming....
I think you should take care while using the taillight housings as a buck. I was working on one of them yesterday and they are very thin potmetal, maybe only 1/16 in some areas. I think you might dent them. you might want to fill it with Bondo inside to make it rigid enough.

[RICH MUISE]

What DJ said....they will move. Even though they are potmetal, they are somewhat maleable. When I did the seamless thing on my car, before I bonded them on, I mounted them as close as posible to following the fender shape, then went around with a nylon hammer and reshaped them to follow the fender alot closer.

[Ford Blue blood]

A heat gun works well too....

[57 imposter]

  We thought about that and I filled them with fiber tech and set two 5/16 carriage bolts in them.  then cut out 1/4 " plates to mount the bolts torough which will be trimmed to the shape of the fin. I will also run some screws through the fin and into the fiber tech and sand the heads smooth , hopefully to avoid the fin from popping free and leaving me with two gobs of plastic mounted to steel plates. I am also going with 22 gauge steel which should be fairly easy to work. I am shooting from the hip on all of this and really have no idea how it will work out. I feel it is worth s try and worse case scenario is I have to come up with a plan B.

[Ecode70D]

Plan B might have to be...
   Make a pretty wooden buck that fits both sides if possible or two wooden bucks   Then start gently  hammering some sheet metal around it.   Then you can weld the metal piece to the tail fin.