55 Wagon Progress

[Russell]

That makes sense, more than likely not worth the trouble, but you could put the inside on the floor, a little riser on the lower side then spacers between the seat and the track.

But it's hard to go wrong with sag!

[MP&C]

14 gauge, I hope it doesn't sag. That would be a healthy load to move these!


Seat riser bracket number two fabrication, got more detail pictures this time..

Used the Tipping die in the Lennox to thin out the crease line, makes for a more crisp bend, especially given the 14 gauge steel we're using...











After bending in the Diacro manual press brake using the gooseneck die...





Fitting and trimming the end transitions while matched to the floor...





Ready for the TIG

[MP&C]

OK, so sometimes you take another look and think yeah, we can do better than that. Today the passenger bucket seat was test fit onto our riser. It could be brought a bit tighter to the floor.





Next, looking at the cross member, the rear flange (red arrows) didn't match up to the rear flange of our riser.





The blue tape shows the rear flange of the cross member below...





Here's our updated riser, half as tall, and once trimmed the flange will match to above the cross member..

[DanStokes]

When perfection is not good enough! (Sorta like Hallmark)

Dan

[MP&C]

Thanks Dan, we'll just call it practice...


More details on the seat risers, here the 5/8-11 hex nut is welded inside. The tacks at the top are merely to hold it centered within the hole to maintain our correct C-C hole spacing. It gets welded inside as well to keep things anchored in place.











The 5/8 hardware was chosen as the factory seat bracket on these 2002 Monte Carlo seats had a hole that large existing already. The front of the seat bracket actually had another bracket underneath that was held in place with a solid rivet. We drilled out the rivet to remove the obstacle (so the rail was flat across the bottom), and opened the hole up for 3/8 hardware.


Test fit....














Still need to fill in the flange corners on the front and this one will be ready for SPI epoxy primer to coat all the surfaces before it gets welded in place..

[MP&C]

Moving on to the outer risers, these ones will be a bit taller due to the recess where the original seat frames bolted. We started out with using the tipping die in the Lennox to thin the 14 gauge cold rolled steel at the bend line for a more crisp bend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKFZqnHb9eY

Next, after making the inside bends, the Fasti-werks bead roller is used with a skate board wheel to add a radius to the outer "leg" of the riser.

















Next time in the shop we'll get the ends closed up.....

[MP&C]

Moving on to closing up the ends of the outer seat riser... Quite a bit of stretch to get this corner to match up to the seat riser...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzorB_hwLZM

Then the corner was Tig welded in place and another test fit with the bucket seat..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf-X5eHc5bE

.

[MP&C]

Cody Walls took the Dave Thomas 35 Chevy to Pomona this weekend for the GNRS, the car took 2nd place in it's class and also received a paint award for the 57 Cadillac Biarritz colored finish. Well done Cody!

[DanStokes]

Nice louvers! And good going, indeed!

Dan

[SuperBuickGuy]

wow

[hauen]

Impressive work.

[pintoboy77]

Beautiful car I love the craftmanship .

[MP&C]

Thanks for the kind words guys! Cody is a true talent with an eye for detail. I appreciate the opportunity to work with him (however small our effort was) on the 35 project. Here's his web site, he's also on FB and IG if you'd care to occasionally check out what he's working on next....

https://www.traditionalmetalcraft.com/

Well, let's back up and punt one more time. The owner of the 55 stopped by about a week ago and sat in the mocked up bucket seat. She said it sat too high, so our version 2 seat brackets were out. Cutting the floor pan was over-ruled (for recessing the brackets) so we opted for a 14 gauge flat seat pan directly on top of the floor, which also gave us a shape we could eliminate the "step" in the floor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYklSvTtTTQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfWqQyOeXJo

Next is to add the wedges to the rear ramp for attaching the rear of the track slides...

[DanStokes]

She must be short like we are. I had to cut the seat riser by 1" on the van so we could reach the floor! Even with the power seat all the way down it wasn't enough.

Dan

[RideTech_Ryan]

Absolutely amazing work!