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Needing direction...

cattleman1977 said:
Sand can overheat panels and warp them. However, I've done a lot of business with this family over the last nine years and everything they do turns out great and I trust them. The dad has a fully restored '37 Chevy that he did himself even fabricating much of the sheet metal from scratch. If they run into problems they will stop and we will regroup. That said, if it doesn't work I might want the name of the outfit in Topeka. Not many options around here.
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Good to hear, sounds like you're on top of it. :)


 
Sand is fine for sheet metal IF the guy doing the work has the right experience/equipment. I had my red Scrambler's tub, and all the other body parts, sand blasted, no problem. BUT, the guy has to know what he is doing :twocents:

Watch out with soda blasting, some painters WILL NOT touch a body that has been blasted. Even if the "proper" after blasting procedures are taken, there can still be problems :twocents: The guy that painted my red Scrambler will not touch soda blasted vehicles, they have had problems with adhesion in the past. A few other shops down here won;t touch it, either :twocents:
 
spankrjs said:
Sand is fine for sheet metal IF the guy doing the work has the right experience/equipment. I had my red Scrambler's tub, and all the other body parts, sand blasted, no problem. BUT, the guy has to know what he is doing :twocents:
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Good to hear sand worked for you especially since your red scrambler build is largely what I'm modeling my build on!

These guys say there shouldn't be any problem with the tub with all the contours and structure. The only thing they questioned was the hood simply due to the large expanse of flat metal. We agreed that it could just be sanded before paint if necessary.
 
It really sounds like you've got it in the right hands now. Patience is your friend in this endeavor.
 
I sand blasted Stump Jumper and I will never do that again. My sand blaster took every precaution he possibly could and we were absolutely sure we had no warping UNTIL I started doing the body work. Most of the large flat areas had some degree of warping with the doors being the worst. Do what is called dustless blasting. Basically blasting with water. The water keeps the metal cool thus no warping. You add a inhibitor to the water that prevents rust for up to 6 months.
 
Shot the Eastwood's this afternoon and I'm really pleased with the results.

Frame taped off:
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For the most part I think I got really good coverage judging by the tape:
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I'm very happy with the outcome. I also got the second coat of POR15 on. One more coat and I think I'll call it good.

Now I'm waiting on a phone call from the body guy who, at best, did very marginal work. He called me today to get paid and his figure was $1000 more than where we had agreed to talk before going over. Admittedly, I decided to replace the bed floor after we agreed on that figure, however, he still should have kept me in the loop. I told him this afternoon we would hash it out face to face as opposed to over the phone so that's what I get to spend my Friday evening doing. [emoji35]
 
I also got to studying my frame a bit closer. I should have noticed this before but apparently someone could not get the skid plate bolted back in the stock location? Seems like I've read that this can be a problem with CJ frames. Should I cut these off and spread the frame rails apart?
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cattleman1977 said:
I also got to studying my frame a bit closer. I should have noticed this before but apparently someone could not get the skid plate bolted back in the stock location? Seems like I've read that this can be a problem with CJ frames. Should I cut these off and spread the frame rails apart?
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When I did my frame this past winter, I was having trouble lining up the skid plate. But mine was only off by about an inch. I was able to spread the rails apart enough to get the middle bolts in and then the others were easy. If you can spread the frame rails enough, I say to do that. Make sure that the bolts work in the original frame holes first.
 
It appears the original bolt holes are missing the captured nuts. In my experience, quite a few people have added these to bolt cross member up. there are several sets of holes for different transmisions so you are able to use the outside skid plate bolt holes further on the chassis. Be sure to check the frame for "Square" by "X" ing it befor you start forcing it to move. :wave:
 
MrBeep said:
It appears the original bolt holes are missing the captured nuts. In my experience, quite a few people have added these to bolt cross member up. there are several sets of holes for different transmisions so you are able to use the outside skid plate bolt holes further on the chassis. Be sure to check the frame for "Square" by "X" ing it befor you start forcing it to move. :wave:
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I don't think it's hurting anything other than not being perfectly "original." I may just leave it the way it is and not worry about it. Is there any reason not to?
 
cattleman1977 said:
Now I'm waiting on a phone call from the body guy who, at best, did very marginal work. He called me today to get paid and his figure was $1000 more than where we had agreed to talk before going over. Admittedly, I decided to replace the bed floor after we agreed on that figure, however, he still should have kept me in the loop. I told him this afternoon we would hash it out face face.
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My meeting with the body man went fairly well. We agreed on a price we both felt was fair. He said he did not communicate well with me: he planned to do much more after blasting. I'm still going to have the machine shop that is blasting it clean up a bunch of the steel work and welds. However, they don't paint so I might let the original guy paint it as he did a perfect job on my dodge pickup last month. [emoji848]
 
Not sure if anyone here has heard of blasting with dry ice? The beauty of it is there is no sand or any other product left after the job is finished except the paint. We have a large system where I work, dry ice is used for no contamination. I have heard you can rent smaller equipment but I don't know the cost


Sent from my iPad
 
Sounds neat. I have heard of using water. But not dry ice.
 
I just stopped by the machine shop doing my blasting to drop off another project. They just finished blasting earlier today and it looks awesome!
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Good they could not get the decals off without getting the metal too hot so they will need to be sanded. They also discovered a hole on either side just under the doors that will need to be patched but other than that everything looks great. Maybe I should just clearcoat it and be done!

They are going to do some more bodywork and then I will take it to the painter. I need to finish stripping the doors and they can be blasted.

I learned my lesson and won't be going back to the first shop I took things to.
 
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Be sure to reseal the rain gutter on the front of the cowl or it will leak like a basket to the interior and use a good body seam sealer on everything else. Just look at the old putty and you can see how it's all dried up and cracked. Most people don't give this much thought. I even made gaskets to fit between my hood hinge and the cowl mount so water couldn't leak through the mounting bolts on the hood hinge.. You just can't be careful enough when it comes to preventing water leaks.
 
I immediately sprayed my freshly sandblasted body with a phosphoric acid based etching primer to kill and prevent rusting. In Louisiana if you sand blast something today when you wake up tomorrow it will already be rusting.
 
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