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Old 08-31-2014, 10:05 AM   #41
frank long island
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Default Re: 1955 Ford Club Sedan Refresh Blog

if you do use gas please do it outside as it is not the safest but does work I find that simple green works well for tough dirt I use a scrub brush then pressure wash
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Old 08-31-2014, 11:25 AM   #42
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Default Re: 1955 Ford Club Sedan Refresh Blog

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Thanks Dave, I had not thought about simple Stainless Steel for those normal nuts and bolts. There are some areas I could use them where things are hidden.
I will check into the black oxide thing. I have heard pro's and cons on that one. I really don't want to have to purchase a whole new kit, but I really have not check into what that will cost.
McMaster-Carr http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-cap-screws/=tir593 has a large selection of bolts in all shapes and sizes along with just about anything else you could need.

I would use caution on using S/S hardware unless you assemble with an anti-sieze. S/S fasteners easily galls, the bolt and nut become one...
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Old 09-01-2014, 08:20 PM   #43
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Not much done today on the '55... I completed a project that the wife and oldest daughter have been begging me to do - an antique headboard for my daughter's bed. The story goes like this... My parents moved out of an old home that was originally built in the 1850's, had been used as one of the hospitals for Stonewall Jackson's army, etc. In the scrap pile when they bought the place years ago and put stuff into storage was a very old door and 6" trim pieces as shown. When they sold the place and moved out they gave me the old door and trim pieces. "What do I want with these?" I said to them. My parents just smiled at me because they had gone behind my back and talked it up to my wife and oldest daughter about the idea of making a headboard out of this old door. Little did I know!

Anyhow since it was labor day I had some extra time to examine this thing and get the ball rolling to crank it out and get it done. You can google this idea for more photos on the internet - I am sure there are better ones than mine, but suffice to say I turned the door on its side, trimmed off both sides (what was the top and bottom), MADE CROWN MOLDING OUT OF THE OLD TRIM (please don't ask how that went lol - I finally worked it all out), and then put a piece of trim on the top for a shelf. My wife and daughter were thrilled to say the least and it all passed inspection. Best thing is the girls decided it did NOT need to be painted since the old patina was exactly what they were after.





Yep - that's me in the Ford tough shirt
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Old 09-01-2014, 08:20 PM   #44
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Default Re: 1955 Ford Club Sedan Refresh Blog

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if you do use gas please do it outside as it is not the safest but does work I find that simple green works well for tough dirt I use a scrub brush then pressure wash
duly noted on the gasoline scenario... not a big fan of doing that if I can help it. I have used Kerosene in the past too.
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Old 09-01-2014, 08:21 PM   #45
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Default Re: 1955 Ford Club Sedan Refresh Blog

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Originally Posted by Y-Blockhead View Post
McMaster-Carr http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-cap-screws/=tir593 has a large selection of bolts in all shapes and sizes along with just about anything else you could need.

I would use caution on using S/S hardware unless you assemble with an anti-sieze. S/S fasteners easily galls, the bolt and nut become one...
Thanks I will check out that link for Mcmaster carr
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Old 09-20-2014, 12:41 PM   #46
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Been a long time since I posted anything, but to be real honest it has been a long time since I did anything in the shop. This past weekend I did some more blasting after I got my issues with the sandblaster sorted out. Once I changed over to a finer grit (I use that Black Diamond black sand from Tractor Supply Company) we got to cooking with gas. No worries and it went well. I am pretty sure the frame and front end will clean up pretty easily. I did make the mistake that weekend of not priming right away so after a few days flash rust had set in. A little bit of Naval Jelly and the rust dissolved right away. I removed the steering gear and column this morning - the three bolts that hold the gear to the frame were in excellent shape. I have seen pretty rough examples because moisture has a tendency to get trapped up inside there. After that I did some more blasting and prepped for "direct to metal" primer/surfacer. I have used the primer before on some stand alone parts but never on a panel... It sprays very well out of the gun and I like the coverage. The company is called "Tamco" and is based in the Richmond, Virginia area. The white paint for the tutone color is a 66-69 Ford Wimbledon White Mustang SS Urethane from Eastwood (made by Kirker). We will see how that shoots out of the gun. I plan to paint the hood hinges first and see how that goes. I might get the 56 steering column out, clean that up, and then paint that with the WW topcoat also.








I also had the chance to blast in the cabinet this past week so I got some of the frame pieces finished and linkage rods finished. I also sprayed the Tamco primer on the hood hinges. After doing so much dismantling it feels good to finally have something ready to go back into the car.





Question: I need to modify the split cover plate that goes around the column and screws to the firewall. My cover plate is obviously for a Fordomatic and not for a manual transmission car. Does anyone have good measurements on where that hole goes and its size? Does anyone have a split cover plate they would "part" with?

EDIT: I got a good set of sheet metal pieces on the way! thanks to another ford barn member for the lead...
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Last edited by Hot Rod Reverend; 09-30-2014 at 09:40 AM.
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Old 09-22-2014, 08:15 PM   #47
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HRR! I believe I have all parts from the manual shift steering column on down to the manual 3-spd transmission, heck even including the course splined yoke for the driveshaft for a '55 with 6-cyl clutch & bellhousing. If I remember right, all the parts have been stripped to bare metal and have metal-prep applied. So yes the split floorplate for the steering column with the clutch pushrod hole is in with all that stuff, but I don't want to part with it unless I can get rid of the whole nine yards in one fell swoop. I will never use this stuff. I am a Ford-O-Matic man forever.
One of these days I've got to start running ads in the parts wanted section.
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Old 09-22-2014, 08:25 PM   #48
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Default Re: 1955 Ford Club Sedan Refresh Blog

HRR!
I always had a fear of sandblasting partial subassemblies with some moving parts attached like that. I was told that sand gets in everywhere unless stuff you need to keep clear of the sand is well wrapped and tightly sealed from the blowing sand. Stuff like ball joints, brake drums, tie rod joints, etc, could incur major damage during normal operation if sand got in them. But don't take my word for it. Ask around and see if other folks of our ilk would have the same concern.
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Old 09-24-2014, 06:00 AM   #49
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Default Re: 1955 Ford Club Sedan Refresh Blog

All of the front end pieces are being removed and replaced I am afraid. Quite a bit of work but the bushings are worn out, I am putting in new coil springs and shocks, etc. The steering gear is even being replaced/not rebuilt as I am opting for a 1956 steering gear and column.

Sand will tear up quite a bit of junk.
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Old 10-04-2014, 09:30 PM   #50
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Spent a few hours today with the trusty sandblaster and the front end. I was surprised at how well my air compressor held up. I didn't blast continuously and would try to let the air compressor "catch up" from time to time, but I was happy with how it did and happy with the results. I also blasted a bellhousing - the pressure pot made QUICK work of that piece and the engine paint turned out nice. I only have about 5 to 6 hours on the pressure pot sandblaster I got from Tractor Supply a while back but I am not impressed with how quickly the "stopper"? is wearing out on the deadman's valve. The sand has worn away the tip on the closer (not just the ceramic tip - that is another story) but the top piece that slides over the tip - that piece is so wore out that the blaster now will leak air when the spring loaded lever is completely closed. I guess it is cheaply made. If there is anyone out there that has any good suggestions on a quality tip/closer I would appreciate it. I am going to look at TP tools. I have one of their Blast Cabinets and have used glass beads for 10 years now. I reckon I have spent countless hours using that gun and have only had to replace the nozzle about 3 times. I know sand is more abrasive, but come on... 6 hours???? :ermm: Maybe I should take some close up shots of the tip just to show the erosion that has happened pretty quickly.




Next up - disassemble the front end so that I can paint the frame and separately blast the pieces in the cabinet. I have new rubber for up front and I have new Aerostar coils as well. I did locate a split sheet metal surround for the steering column and shifter column, and I have started preparing the 56 column and other shifter parts for painting. I also have those hood hinges about ready for topcoat.

If you have been wondering where some of the time goes for projects like these and why it has been a while since my last post, at times my wife gets me side-tracked on things like this.

She found this door today at an Apple Harvest Festival about an hour away from us. "It was only $10," she gloated as I unloaded the thing from the van. "Where do you want me to put this?" I asked, knowing what she would say.... "Oh, just put it in the garage, honey." :kiss: And so the buffet the garage has been on for the past several months continues. I have never seen a garage hold more crap.... let's see - all the camping gear, outdoor gear, snowtubing and snowboarding toys for the kiddos, gardening supplies (yep - I likes me my peppers, padre!), woodworking tools and table saw, several golf bags, bicycles, fireworks, MY grill/smoker, etc. And my wife laughed when I originally told her we needed a 60x40 instead of a 40x24. What was it she said, "How much room do you need for crying out loud?"
Maybe I'll just take the latest project she found and put it in the bedroom! :P I'm sure that would fly!
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Old 10-07-2014, 09:17 PM   #51
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I got quite a bit done on the 55 Fairlane last night. The front end of the frame is about completely bare save a couple brake lines. I did not have a coil spring compressor but I opted to leave the shocks INSTALLED until after I had disconnected the ball joints. This left some tension on the shocks but since I used my jack underneath the lower A arm to offset the pressure and the upper shock bolts were removed first. After that the jack was released and the coil just slid right out. I will disconnect the shocks from the lower A arms once I have them on the bench to remove the bushings.



Speaking of bushings, some of them were so old and worn out they literally fell off in my hands once the bolts were removed. The only difficult item to remove was the large shoulder bolt holding the front of the lower A arm to the crossmember. It was rusted pretty well and once I had it removed I noticed it was pitted badly. I think I have a good used one somewhere. The reason for the rust? As you can see from the photos, years ago a previous owner had made a repair to the crossmember by welding in good metal that seems to be thicker than stock. Unfortunately no weep holes were never drilled in thebottom so all these years the moisture had collected in the crossmember with no place to go. The crossmember is very stout and I beat on it with a hammer all night long, but I think I am going to have a welder friend of mine look at it and shore it up in a couple of places. I made a note to myself to drill a few holes when he is done. I also started disassembly/cleaning of a 1956 Ford steering column and gear I had purchased a few months back. I like the 56 wheel better, and from what I understand the 56 steering gear had a 3 tooth sector over the 55's two.

Does anyone know why Ford had to put these shims in the FRONT of the Lower A Arm pivot point? I am wondering if they have anything to do with alignment (like the shims used on the Upper A Arm) or is this just something that Ford used because the crossmembers were never square? I don't think they have anything to do with alignment but I could be wrong on that.... I plan to put them back in because they were there when I disassembled the arm.


I did get a little hungry last night while working in the garage for a few hours and decided to break out the deep fryer and throw down with some homemade apple pies... yep - I put together the crust and all from scratch. You can see my kids tearing into these things. Nothing like a snack before the youngin's go off to bed! :P


If any of you have any tips on disassembling, cleaning, and inspecting the steering gear I would appreciate it. When I took off both of the covers of the gear housing last night, the gears themselves looked pretty good, I think I saw only 2 or 3 pits as I rotated the gears on the shaft and knuckle.
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Old 10-08-2014, 07:59 PM   #52
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Default Re: 1955 Ford Club Sedan Refresh Blog

The washers/shims are installed on the front bolts so that when you tighten the nuts on the control arms you are not spreading the arms. You fit the a arm to the back bolt first and then fit the fronts. Do not tighten the nuts until you have everything installed back on the car and it is sitting at it's settled ride height. If you tighten them with no weight on the front end, the first time you drive the car you will probably tear the rubbers apart.
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Old 10-08-2014, 08:00 PM   #53
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I think you will find that it is very, very difficult to re-install those washer-shims in front of the lower A-frame arms once the new bushings are installed. I gave up and left those off when I re-installed my suspension arms. Those are probably the only items I had leftover after re-assembly as I am very careful always to try to keep with the original design intent.
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Old 10-12-2014, 07:46 PM   #54
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Thanks for the replies fellas -- I was looking at the crossmember yesterday and decided to go into the depths of crossmember hell. Healthy repairs had been made to the crossmember before (20 years ago) with metal plates about twice as thick as stock. Unfortunately no one had thought at the time to drill weep holes for the water to drain out and I suspected that there was some rot. So, after showing a few photos to my welding buddy (that's his full time job) he said it looked ok and he would bring some plate over to weld to the crossmember so long as there was good metal to weld to. After removing the very front angled "bumper" with my cutting wheel, I snapped a photo or two of what was behind it...



Yep if you look at the photo of the bag of rust on the scale, you will see the readout - 2 lbs and 11 oz of rust and scale !!! :w00t: The irony in all this is that the metal from the repairs 20 years ago is as stout as it can be and I can take a hammer to it all day long. The crossmember itself is still very strong but I am glad I opened this up. I plan to sandblast the inside and get where I can. After that I will treat the rust and then paint. My welding buddy will come over and put good metal plate to cover the front from top to bottom and from the thick reinforcement of the shoulder bolts from side to side. The other side is not quite as bad but I will have him weld there too.
I did try to remove the bushings from the lower A arms, but not having a shop press, I spent 30 minutes with a ball joint press, a hammer, and gorilla type force. I got one of the bushings to move about 1/4" -- that's it. Any tricks to removing these bushings or am I going to have to take them to a shop to have them all pressed out?
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Old 10-12-2014, 09:49 PM   #55
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There are two ways to remove the bushes with out a press, you can either drill a series of holes in the rubber of the bushes and then hit the outer part of the bush as to distort it like squashing it and this is usually enough to distort and dislodge it so you can knock them out, or you can use a torch to heat them up and burn the rubber out and do the same this with the hammer to distort and then knock them out, to push them back in I use two pieces of pipe and a vice, put one piece on the receiving side of the bush so it can slide into place and not hit the jaw of the vice and use the other piece of pipe to push the bush in so the a arm doesn't hit the vice. Hope this makes sense.

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Old 10-14-2014, 05:53 AM   #56
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Fellas thanks for the advice and ideas. I too decided to push out the inner bushing/sleeve by heating up the rubber (some of it was so worn it had just about disintegrated!) and just yanking it with a pair of pliers. After that I cut a deep groove in the ID of the metal bushing to get me started and then just simply tapped them out. One of them I obviously separated. It was not too difficult to say the least and now I can go ahead and blast those arms and then paint them up pretty. I barely nicked the edge of the ID on the arms, but I don't think it is going to be any big deal. Looks like those were the original bushings on the car.

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Old 10-20-2014, 09:12 PM   #57
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My welding buddy talked to me the other day and he said he wants to get on the project so that motivated me to get out the sandblaster again and go to town on the metal in question. You can see the photos below (looking from the firewall) I only need a few plates welded in and we are good to go. Could I get another crossmember from a repro shop? Yes. Would I feel confident in getting the geometry right? No. :hehe: I am sure there is a good way to do that with the measurements and all, but I figure if my buddy is telling me that it won't take much to "shore it up" why bother - he's the metal man, not me. The front is pretty simply - one long piece and we are good to go. The rear will need 4 pieces as the lower metal is very solid and does not need to be replaced but the wall itself needs attention.


I also did some work on those front end parts as you can see... blasted with glass beads and painted with semi-gloss black Rustoleum. The center link was in very good shape and disassembled easily. It should be a breeze to put it back together. The other parts in the box are just the start to the rebuild of the front end of course - gotta get this thing back on rollin' wheels before I put the 292 and 3 speed overdrive in the car. The steering gear is ready for a new sector seal, worm and shaft, shims, etc. I soaked it in solvent in a parts washer for quite some time and then cleaned it thoroughly. I took a wire wheel to the exterior and painted it in semi-gloss Rustoleum as well. All of the parts I need for the rebuild are on their way and hopefully I can have that thing buttoned up by next weekend. Can't wait to feel that steering tighten up. The original was as loose as a goose!

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Old 10-21-2014, 01:40 AM   #58
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About that cross member click on this: http://s200.photobucket.com/user/old...?sort=3&page=1 Here is the plan diagram to weld up your own,stronger than stock unit.
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Old 10-21-2014, 06:18 AM   #59
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One way to remove the suspension bushes without a press is to get a piece of pipe approx. 2 to 3 inches long that is slightly larger in diameter than the bush. Get a large heavy washer to sit on the end of the pipe and place them on one side of the bush.

On the other side of the bush you use a socket slightly smaller than the dia. of the bush, put a length of threaded rod through the lot with a nut each end and start winding one of the nuts.
As you tighten the nuts the socket will push the bush out of the A arm into the pipe on the other side.

To install the new bushes you reverse the process.
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Old 10-21-2014, 09:28 AM   #60
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About that cross member click on this: http://s200.photobucket.com/user/old...?sort=3&page=1 Here is the plan diagram to weld up your own,stronger than stock unit.
I will pass that on to my welder. Once he looks at the crossmember in person he may decide to follow that plan.
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