The preservation of "Hoover" - my '51 CJ3A

[JeepFever]

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Got some work done on the driver's side
The rear section, finished cutting out the fuel exit, and made a piece to replace the rot on the bottom.




Cut out the rot from front




Positioning the repair panel.� My plan was to show the cutting process, but I forgot to take photos of the progression.





Repair after� �



The side at end-of-day on Friday.� . .� I realized after welding in the patch that I forgot the drain hole. � �� I will have to cut and form that in place.




An attempt at a "artsy" photo.� �I left the flood light on passenger side turned on,� hoping to keep the garage a little warm.� � (calling for low 20 degree temps at night) . .� �I looked in the door as I closed it,� �and thought "that would be a cool photo".� �It did not turn quite as nice as I envisioned,� but still kinda ok.



It is going to be cold in garage Saturday,� but hope I can got out there some.

[athawk11]

Your repairs are looking great.� I'll be interested to see how the drain hole turns out.� I wasn't sure how to pull that off.� I cut the old one out and reused it.

[JeepFever]

Thanks . . 

I remembered seeing you did that.  . .  on mine, the drivers-side was gone  . . .   did some work on passenger side today,  fortunately that one is still intact,  don't have to fool with it,  plus it gives me dimensions to follow.

[1955CJ-5]

I found that it was really difficult to get that curved lip.....but I'm sure there is a way to do it with the right tools.....mine are just straight cut....

[JeepFever]

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I was thinking of trying some kind of "hammer form" method - > making a "die" to put behind the sheetmetal, and hammer the shape.� . . . never did anything like that,� so don't have a clue whether it would work or not . .� it would have been easier if the panel was not already attached.

[F Bill]

I envision some sort of hydraulic C clamp squeezing the sheetmetal between dies, but it would take a bunch of work to do it that way. If you've seen Jpet's thread on installing frame rivets you'll see the sort of tool he made to do that task. Doing it by hand you might be able to use a simple die set with 2-3 strong fine thread bolts to pull it together. It might take two stages of dies.  Definitely practice on some scrap pieces before you attempt the tub...You'll have to experiment with what size hole you will need at each end of the slot, and how wide to make the slot before you form it. Lowenuf on the 2A page was selling a premade repair patch for the drains at one time...

[athawk11]

I've been thinking about that darn drain hole.  It's not keeping me up at night, but close.

With the tools I have, I thought about how I might pull this off.

-Cut the diameters with an appropriate  hole saw.
-Slice out the middle with a grinding wheel.
-Cut a long 3/16" wide piece of steel for the flange.  Weld it on, then grind smooth.

Just throwing ideas. :-/ 

Tim

[JeepFever]

Starting on passenger side
Before:



Rough cut patch . . the rolled lip at bottom is formed in (I used a vise, and hammer) . .� this bottom lip is lined up using laser,� then clamped.� . .� the intended cut is marked in chalk.




After making the cut




The patch panel unclamped.� The cut went thru both layers.� . .� the ends were done with thin wheel on grinder.




A little wiggling, and the rotted piece drops off.




Repair panel tacked in place



What should this corner look like?� (behind the drain hole).� �I need to look for a photo of good condition original.� I am not sure how to fold or cut the front panel.

 


Another question� . . . what color is the stock primer?� I have found these layers in several places,� but not sure if original .� . .� outside to steel - > test tan, white, green, original tan?, original primer?,� looks like dark red-oxide

[JeepFever]

I envision some sort of hydraulic C clamp squeezing the sheetmetal between dies, but it would take a bunch of work to do it that way. If you've seen Jpet's thread on installing frame rivets you'll see the sort of tool he made to do that task. Doing it by hand you might be able to use a simple die set with 2-3 strong fine thread bolts to pull it together. It might take two stages of dies.� Definitely practice on some scrap pieces before you attempt the tub...You'll have to experiment with what size hole you will need at each end of the slot, and how wide to make the slot before you form it. Lowenuf on the 2A page was selling a premade repair patch for the drains at one time...

It would be fun to try to do it right,� I need to move faster than that though,� � �:'(

I remembered seeing that someone was selling them,� but could not remember where. . . if I botch this up,  I might be contacting Lowe.   

With the tools I have, I thought about how I might pull this off.

My first thought was to cut out the smaller oval (shown in a photo above),� then make about 4-5 cuts in the radius ends,� bend the tabs in,� weld the gaps,� and grind to shape,� as you mention.

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[1955CJ-5]

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I was thinking of trying some kind of "hammer form" method - > making a "die" to put behind the sheetmetal, and hammer the shape.� . . . never did anything like that,� so don't have a clue whether it would work or not . .� it would have been easier if the panel was not already attached.

I tried something like that...but my form was too soft and I just used a ball-peen hammer to form the metal. It looked the part from a distance but it was a little too rough to use...

If you could use a steel form to indent the metal and then shave the raised part off the back...but you would need a pretty good press for that....

Adding a strip as Tim mentioned and then grinding to size might be the best bet now that the panel is installed...

[JeepFever]

I was not planning to fool with this drain hole right now,� but thought it might be a good idea while we were talking about it.
�
I gave myself 1 hour to make an attempt,� to avoid using a bunch of time when I should be working on the floors.� haha

My first thought was to use a piece of hard maple as a "hammer form",� and maybe fasten it to the inside,� with screws from the outside.� �I figured wood would be easy to shape.

Then I came across a piece of 1/2 steel with some holes in it.� �I have been wondering how the plasma cutter would do with 1/2" steel (its advertised max),� so decided to try to cut out a form.� �Photo below is the starting point.� �(well not the starting point, but photo is after a V-notch was cut for clearance from the vertical brace)
� �



The cutter did fine on the V-notch,� so decided to proceed with cutting the oval.� �Below is photo with the form after cutting,� �plus the other tools used.




The center was cut out� . .� starting with 2 holes.




The form was clamped to inside.� �I was not sure this would be secure enough,� but it seemed� to work fine.� �� Started by tapping with 1/2" ball-peen,� �the switched to smaller body hammer.� �The lips were still not formed enough,� so the wedge was used to force the opening wider.




The inside does not look perfect,� �but for this build is fine.� �If I decide to later,� but might try to make the inside radius a little smaller to look more stock.




From the outside,� I am very happy with the results.



It ended up taking over 1.5 hours,� but I wasted a lot of time,� at least 20 minutes of that was grinding and fitting that V-notch.� �I am glad I did it.� �One more task done.


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[JeepFever]

I tried something like that...but my form was too soft

I am glad I ended up using steel,  instead of my original plan to use hard maple or oak. 

[1955CJ-5]

I'm getting a plasma cutter for sure next time!

Steel is the way to go....

Nice work....

[JeepFever]

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A few steps forward,  then one step backwards

As I was working on measuring for hat-channels and floor,  things just did not seem right on one side. . . finally found that the passenger side-panel was setting low . . by over 1/2" !!!!   (the rear floor, and inside of wheelhouse was fine,  but the outside was too low)

  I had to cut out the entire patch at front of wheelhouse,  and various spot welds in other patches. . .  basically lost a day of work.

Oh well,  live and learn - > measure everything,  and then measure again before welding too much. 
.

[Quebec Jeep]

This is the M2C1 rules!

You should measure 2 times and cut 1 time. 

There is also other variant of that rules