1956 Studebaker sedan

Here is an update on our restoration project. The past week or so we have been working on the inside and outside of the body and are very pleased with the results. Everything cleaned up real nice. What you see is bare clean metal. Now for some metal finishing on a few spots and cleaning up my mig welds here and there and then the new sills. Then we will soon be ready for the epoxy primer and repaint the bottom and inside of the rear fenders with the same Chassis Saver we used on the frame only this time finishing with a light grey for the second coat.
We used crushed glass 20 to 30 grit which really worked great. I was able to recycle each bag about 6 times. We set a 3 ft. high window screen against the wall at about 60 degrees and ran the used sand down it from the top to sift out the fine dust so it would flow in my blaster pot and then resifted it as I poured it into the pot to eliminate any chunks of junk in it. Sure extended the life on it. Once the body is finished and primed we will do the same for the doors, hoods and front fenders.
Nick

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Wow, does this bring back memories. My first car was a '55 Studebaker 4 door. It had a 6 and a 3 speed overdrive transmission. The poor thing was ugly, but I really had fun with that car. It was PINK with a black top. My aunt was a school teacher (yep, only driven by a school teacher) and it was her car. She gave it to me when my uncle died.
I learned how to repair rust (over the side vents, behind the front wheel wells) and did a valve job on it. That was the first flat head I had apart and I learned a LOT from that old car. Wish I still had it.
 
NevadaBlue
Yes this car is also a six with overdrive. They averaged around 27 MPG on fuel. Most of us thought the 55 was one of the nicest Studebaker built. Back around when mine was built I spent a summer working for my uncle in his Studebaker dealership. I did a lot of sanding I remember that. He was a master mechanic and body man himself so I learned a lot from him. In high school I took auto mechanics too and also became a licensed mechanic at age 21. I spent some time working for various dealers including 2 Chrysler where I served my apprenticeship at the first one, A Pontiac and VW dealerships as well as several service stations and eventually set out on my own in a Sunoco service station. After more than 30 years we sold the shop and semi retired to a new 40 x 48 ft. shop next to the house where I can play with my Studebakers and my machine tools.
This past week I installed the new sills on the 56 Studi. That presented a bit of a challenge. Most door sills sit over the edge of the floor. On Studebakers like mine the floor has the edge bent down and the sill has a channel that gets spot welded in the channel to the floor flange. I drilled a bunch of holes in the channel for plug welding. The channel holds the bottom door rubber.
We had to do a bit of engineering to clamp the sill on to the floor flange. About 25 years ago I built an acoustic guitar from a kit from Martin. I had made some deep throat clamps to use for gluing parts inside the body and the bridge. With a bit of modification I was able to make these work. I cut a bit off the bottom frame and welded new jaws on at a slight angle to reach up into the top of the floor flange as seen in the photographs.
While I was at it I also ran a bead around the bottom of the new floor panels with the mig welder. Sure goes a lot easier with the body on edge than trying to weld with your head stuck under the dash and steering column.

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Clamping the sill top side.

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Clamping bottom side

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Plug welds

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Floor weld

The following pictures are of my Uncle and his shop.

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The new Studebaker dealership going up. That is my dad and I standing in the far doorway.
We had been working on grading inside ready for the floor. Around 1953

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Uncle John trying to decide where to begin on this one. He would make a car like that look like new.

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The dealership after Studebaker shut down. That is my younger brother with our aunt standing there.

Nick

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Here is an update on our project. We have now got the bottom coated with 2 layers of Chassis Saver in black and a final coat in grey as it came from the factory. We are very happy with the final results.

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Today we started shooting primer on the ceiling, firewall and cowl. Boy what a difference that made. Finally can see some progress.

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We also put some primer on he ends of the rear fenders where we had to do extensive body work. It appears that a trailer must have been jack knifed with this car as both fenders had been pushed in from the back. I found a 1/2" layer of bondo and fiberglass on the right rear fender. which I had to burn off with the torch. They hadn't even stripped the paint off before applying the bondo, what a mess. After a lot of effort with a sledge hammer, a chunk of 1/2" by 4" x 10" steel and a jack I managed to get it stretched out to the proper length and with a shrinking slapper and dolly got 99% of the wrinkle out. It also had a deep wrinkle in the top as well as a tear under the bondo. The following pictures show the before and current results. Very pleased indeed. The bondo is now paper thin just enough to level the low spots.
Nick

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Here is an update on the Studi project. As noted above we had to do some extensive work on the right rear fender and also, but not as much, on the left rear fender. The first picture will show what we had to start from when we got the car. The next one shows our repair work to finish it off. In a previous photo after sand blasting you can't see much left of the wrinkles but once you start adding a bit of filler and sanding it you can tell where they were. We now have just a skin of filler in there. After blocking it we had to add a bit of spot putty yet to lose all traces of the damage. I would say all told the thickest might be around 1/16". The body now has 3 coats of epoxy primer on it and is all block sanded and re-sanded to 180 grit. The final sanding of 400 grit will follow when it is all assembled. We also put 3 coats of grey Chassis Saver on the interior of the trunk, back seat area and floor of the car today.
Very pleased with what it is looking like now.
Nick

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This is where we had to start from

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This is the final repair before primer and blocking

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Blocked and 3 coats of epoxy primer down to 180 grit

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3 coats of epoxy primer and all sanded to 180 grit

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Interior floor and rear seat area finished with Chassis Saver paint

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Trunk finished with 3 coats of grey Chassis Saver.

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Looks beautiful! Many hours of love in the car as the pictures show.

My Dad's 55 Chev had issues in the frt fenders. He had bought the car new in Cornwall. $2650 in 55, how much today?
As there were no inners all the crap would end up in the headlights and he had to rebuild behind the headlight pots. He used Alum filler with more unique fillers to reduce the amount of the alum stuff used. As a kid I did not realize that the frts had been repaired. He traded off the car in 1967 for a 64 Pont Parisenne sedan.
Pierre
 
Finally got our paint. So we got back at the car after not working on it since May.
The shell is now finished and ready to drop onto the chassis.
We rolled the chassis outside while we picked the shell off the rotisserie with the hoist and then rolled the chassis back through under the shell to the spray booth.
Next week we will start installing the engine and the rest of the drive train into the chassis then we can roll the chassis back under the body and mate them together. After that we can go at the front fenders, doors and hoods. Hopefully by spring we will able to drive it.
Nick

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Here is the next stage of this project. The engine is ready to run and ready for the body drop.
Nick

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Very nice. I'm starting my 1954 Pontiac this winter. Thank you for giving me inspiration.
 
Hi folks
Yesterday I did some more detailing on the engine. Set the distributer timing as close as I could by eye. Made the lines for the oil filter, gas lines and plug wires which all had to have the distributer ends taken of to pass through the conduit tube. Torqued the head down, connected a battery with a disconnect switch on it and a jumper to the coil. Poured a bit of gas into the top of the carb, hit the switch and within about two turns of the crank she fired right up. A bit loud because I have only the exhaust pipe on it so far but what a thrill to hear it come to life. Next is to add the fan , radiator and the rest of the exhaust. Ordered a stainless muffler and tail pipe for it which should last a lifetime. We will now finnish putting the drive shaft in and roll it under the body and drop it onto the chassis.
Nick

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