1st time in a long time

Bob! Holy mackerel! I haven't seen that Herbert Kornfeld picture in a long time. 😁

I'm happy you found time stop by... and hope you'll do it a bit more often. Have a peek around... mostly the same faces, some new. New projects for a lot of us... I have three on various burners at the moment: '69 Valiant, '74 Challenger (V8440's old car) and an '82 Imperial (OK, that one's not even on a burner at the moment). I think the last time you were around, I was still fighting bumper bolts on the hopeless, long-gone LeBaron. 😖
 
Hey Jass, I saw several familiar names while I remembered and visited. I was really surprised when my account was still valid.

I lost interest in cars for a while, rode the heck out of my MTBs, now have come back to the cars. One of these days I'll learn to focus on more than one thing at a time (probably not)

Currently have a cut to heck A12 that might never see the street or strip again, but it has taught me to weld.

Also have a 71 Duster that we plan to have on the street in the spring, maybe painted next winter. 400, auto, 3.91s, so it should be fun. Waiting on a rear end now - it came with a ford 9" out of a Lincoln Versailles but I couldn't work out a brake solution so I gotta sell that.
 
b-body-bob said:
Currently have a cut to heck A12 that might never see the street or strip again, but it has taught me to weld.

Also have a 71 Duster that we plan to have on the street in the spring, maybe painted next winter. 400, auto, 3.91s, so it should be fun. Waiting on a rear end now - it came with a ford 9" out of a Lincoln Versailles but I couldn't work out a brake solution so I gotta sell that.
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I changed the roof on my Challenger, completely by myself in my garage, with much coaching from restoman and at least a baker's dozen test fits. Stretch and I also changed both the entire front left frame rail and both floorpans on Agnes (my '69 Valiant). We also converted it to a 4-speed, moved the leaf springs inboard, rebuilt a rocker, etc. It was a good patient for such surgery, because let's be honest: a '69 Valiant Signet column-shift Slant is a throwaway car (zero collector value). Take your time, use a Blair Rotabroach at looooow speed on the spot welds, and test-fit until it "feels" right. I've found it's really not that hard. I overcame my initial terror by committing myself... "Well, now the roof's gone... only one way to fix that." If I'd have known how easy it was to change a front frame rail, my '73 Charger Rallye 340 might still be around. 😖

Hint: it's much easier to change the whole panel than to try & patch something--even a quarter panel. Cut everything you can at the original spot welds.

Also, if you haven't already, get yourself an Astro Pneumatic hole punch/panel flanger. They're fairly cheap ($70ish) and you'll wonder how you lived without one. Another good investment is cheap offshore C-clamp style locking pliers ("Vise Grips"). I have 16 pair of "shorties" and 4 pair of long ones. I used every one on that roof.

Most of what I/we did is detailed in my two project threads. The Valiant thread is called "Signet-ficant Other" and the Challenger's is under "Wailing and gnashing of teeth..." in the Progress Posts subforum.
 
Dr.Jass said:
Hint: it's much easier to change the whole panel than to try & patch something--even a quarter panel. Cut everything you can at the original spot welds.
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See that's what I thought, and the next thing I knew I had both inner and outer wheelwells, the trunk extensions and the quarter off that A12. Sure wish I hadn't gotten so carried away LOL. The cowl was "smoothed" on it too, so there are no wiper holes, but there's no way in hell I'm going to take that apart. (I already did that to the parts car)

I buy every tool and gadget I find that helps with the welding and drawers full of clamps of all shapes and sizes. Still can never find enough of exactly what I need sometimes.

A wise man at the A12 forum told me that if you do it right, plug welding isn't much different than just bolting the parts together. The stamping contours in the parts are there to line things up and off you go.
 
We plug-welded everything we could, including the lap seam on the floor tunnel (which we later backfilled). This on the advice of restoman, with the reasoning that it's very close to the spot-welding used originally in both appearance and strength, with far less chance of panel warpage... hence my advice to get the Astro punch/flanger.
 
Stretch said:
Holy crap! Welcome back! You have been missed!
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I doubt that :)

I was definitely surprised to see XL was gone.

I gave up on Facebook a long time ago, but still enjoy interacting on some forums. I straight up forgot about this place.
 
I actually mentioned to Stretch that I'd wondered about you a few times over the years. I still do, now with burning questions like "Now that he's got an A12, will he be able to fill a Six Barrel intake with coolant?" keeping me up nights.
 
Ha - you remember that. I posted about it the other day on the HAMB in a discussion about vac leaks or something.

I still don't know how that happened. The head must have been cracked.
 
Remember it? Hell, I still have the picture on my hard drive with its original name: IntakeFullaCoolant.jpg. 😂

IntakeFullaCoolant.jpg


And I'm as perplexed by it now as I was then. It's a friggin' dry intake!
 
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