Since joining this board, I've been slightly amused that everyone's cars seem to have names. With the 40 some cars I've owned I've cursed at a few but never felt compelled to give one a name. Well, my Champ under restore has been cursed more than a few times, heard the Trinity referred to more than once and is earning a name.
I've bought some ugly looking pigs, welded the doors back on and made them look respectable if not new again and flipped them to happy new owners with out any guilt about durability and value of the unit I sold them. I thought I'd developed a pretty good eye to size up whether the ugly was easily solved or had best be left to the next sucker.
Now comes the Champ. You may recall my son posted a picture of it first with the extra set of coil springs and a debate followed about how many leaves were in the rear springs. It ran when I bought it... it just wasn't too good at stopping. Those shag carpet seats were a mere cosmetic distraction. And that floor board represented as solid offered a novel view of the white lines on the road kind of like a glass bottomed boat. The title showed that the owner, a retired school teacher had owned this '60 model since 1962. The glass was basically good and I intended to replace that CDOT orange with the original red... perhaps with the 2 tone feature added.
The first clue that went right by me was those two piece of conveyor belt in the bed.. neat idea for a bed protector. The second clue was I stupidly assumed those extra coil springs were probably to support a pickup camper.
The goal to have it refurbished and back on the road by Winter, meant I had to get busy. We did the front fender patches and floor boards without surprise. The shag rug turned out to be the best part of the seat. Under it was decomposed foam and a set of springs that had seen an exceptional amount of flexing for the 59,000 on the working odometer... that's what "contingency" in the restore budget is for. The cylinder rebuilds, a new master cylinder and new hoses were solved with a trip to NAPA. We were cruising and now that the important stuff was out of the way it was time for the body.
Sure, I new there were a couple spots where the paint was gone but that was just surface rust. Except for a few of those spots it was a good 20 footer...... until I started to sand. OMG ! This gem was the Bondo Queen. The rear fenders had 3/8 to 1/2 inch of Bondo over their entirety. Back of the cab ditto, doors ditto, parts of the roof ditto. And the closer I looked the more telltale faint brown rust lines I saw showing through that faded CDOT orange... I quickly concluded that there wasn't enough sand paper in Denver or time to get down with an orbital. The racket from sand blasting would surely bring down the wrath of the HOA. So, I started with a paint wheel from HF on my angle grinder. Worked good but used two on the driver bed fender. Ended up using wire brushes on the angle grinder and they've held up much better.
I'm finally down to metal and fortunately its almost all surface rust under the Bondo. I think I've deducted what the missing 2 years of this truck were about. Rear fenders look like an Iowa hail storm on tin foil. Part of the roof and back of the cab have been pulled out... make shift overload springs and the rotten 3/4 inch conveyor belt.... My bet is that this "Bondo Queen" spent it's first two years in a gravel pit chasing parts and delivering occasional small loads of rock. I'm sure when traded in a two year old pickup was well worth running through the dealer's body shop.
I give kudos to the body man for the sculpting that he did.... but, there was obviously limited metal treatment to prevent rust. Guidelines in 1962 may have endorsed 1/2" Bondo or perhaps he just enjoyed the smell! There are only a couple of places that I've needed to pull a bit more to stay under an eighth of an inch and most places need just a skim. Despite the thickness the difference between the plastic that I'm removing and what I'm putting down reveals how far autobody technology has come. It's like comparing balsa to teak.
Like all the other vehicles I've flipped, this one is solid and I won't be ashamed to pass it on to the next guy.... I just didn't expect as much anti-metal in the skin as found on a Corvette. Perhaps the real reason for the coil spring helpers was to carry the weight of all that extra Bondo!
On schedule and on budget... just a lot of unbudgeted man hours.
I've bought some ugly looking pigs, welded the doors back on and made them look respectable if not new again and flipped them to happy new owners with out any guilt about durability and value of the unit I sold them. I thought I'd developed a pretty good eye to size up whether the ugly was easily solved or had best be left to the next sucker.
Now comes the Champ. You may recall my son posted a picture of it first with the extra set of coil springs and a debate followed about how many leaves were in the rear springs. It ran when I bought it... it just wasn't too good at stopping. Those shag carpet seats were a mere cosmetic distraction. And that floor board represented as solid offered a novel view of the white lines on the road kind of like a glass bottomed boat. The title showed that the owner, a retired school teacher had owned this '60 model since 1962. The glass was basically good and I intended to replace that CDOT orange with the original red... perhaps with the 2 tone feature added.
The first clue that went right by me was those two piece of conveyor belt in the bed.. neat idea for a bed protector. The second clue was I stupidly assumed those extra coil springs were probably to support a pickup camper.
The goal to have it refurbished and back on the road by Winter, meant I had to get busy. We did the front fender patches and floor boards without surprise. The shag rug turned out to be the best part of the seat. Under it was decomposed foam and a set of springs that had seen an exceptional amount of flexing for the 59,000 on the working odometer... that's what "contingency" in the restore budget is for. The cylinder rebuilds, a new master cylinder and new hoses were solved with a trip to NAPA. We were cruising and now that the important stuff was out of the way it was time for the body.
Sure, I new there were a couple spots where the paint was gone but that was just surface rust. Except for a few of those spots it was a good 20 footer...... until I started to sand. OMG ! This gem was the Bondo Queen. The rear fenders had 3/8 to 1/2 inch of Bondo over their entirety. Back of the cab ditto, doors ditto, parts of the roof ditto. And the closer I looked the more telltale faint brown rust lines I saw showing through that faded CDOT orange... I quickly concluded that there wasn't enough sand paper in Denver or time to get down with an orbital. The racket from sand blasting would surely bring down the wrath of the HOA. So, I started with a paint wheel from HF on my angle grinder. Worked good but used two on the driver bed fender. Ended up using wire brushes on the angle grinder and they've held up much better.
I'm finally down to metal and fortunately its almost all surface rust under the Bondo. I think I've deducted what the missing 2 years of this truck were about. Rear fenders look like an Iowa hail storm on tin foil. Part of the roof and back of the cab have been pulled out... make shift overload springs and the rotten 3/4 inch conveyor belt.... My bet is that this "Bondo Queen" spent it's first two years in a gravel pit chasing parts and delivering occasional small loads of rock. I'm sure when traded in a two year old pickup was well worth running through the dealer's body shop.
I give kudos to the body man for the sculpting that he did.... but, there was obviously limited metal treatment to prevent rust. Guidelines in 1962 may have endorsed 1/2" Bondo or perhaps he just enjoyed the smell! There are only a couple of places that I've needed to pull a bit more to stay under an eighth of an inch and most places need just a skim. Despite the thickness the difference between the plastic that I'm removing and what I'm putting down reveals how far autobody technology has come. It's like comparing balsa to teak.
Like all the other vehicles I've flipped, this one is solid and I won't be ashamed to pass it on to the next guy.... I just didn't expect as much anti-metal in the skin as found on a Corvette. Perhaps the real reason for the coil spring helpers was to carry the weight of all that extra Bondo!
On schedule and on budget... just a lot of unbudgeted man hours.
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