Once again, a half-car pseudo-teardrop

[groys02]

Some more work done in last few days:

I assembled the parts of front-facing spare tire well, and it's no problem getting the spare in & out of it with tongue jack in vertical position [a relief].
Sliced front door & removed 12" of same, like I did with body shell. Pop-riveted & tack-welded together to check fit.
Reassembled doors to check alignment... need to tweak front one a bit before welding seam, as there's little-to-no gap at top between it & rear door, but not too bad [another big relief].
Front half-door will be welded shut, with a simple smoked plexiglass window in place, maybe sliding up & down with screen on outside?... access via stock rear doors, from either side.
Assuming I put a 3" memory foam mattress on the floor, it looks to have approx 3'6" of height from top of mattress to underside of roof... 7'6" of interior length and a bit over 4' of width---3' or so width in foot well under galley.

[groys02]

Tweaked the passenger-side half-door for better fit... still just tacked together, though.

Today, welded in a 12" piece of an overhead garage door brace [salvaged after door got run into], with the carriage bolt from a 64-65 Mustang spare tie-down kit I bought online.
Installed spare. Formed Mustang washer from kit fits the center opening of the spare tire fine... wing-nut spins on... tire seems secure.
Unfortunately, the tongue weight's coming up. Batteries & galley construction etc, along with a rear bumper, will offset that a little, but it's probably a good 100# of tongue weight at present. We'll see. Not a problem if I'm hauling the teardrop around with my Ranger, but 100# on the rear end of the Anglia would mess with its balance some. [Stock weight of the Anglia was only 1670#, and I probably haven't raised it by much.] Time will tell.

[groys02]

Today, the first half of filling in between front of half-door and the new front panel. Cut a whole series of slits in the front edge of filler piece [made from skin of 12" section removed from front door], and curled it around a large socket to make the corner between it & front panel a little 'softer'. Had to create a new piece to fill between that and the top of cowl.
Tack-welded all down the front corner, and more thoroughly around new cowl filler.
Now, to do the other side.........

[groys02]

Today, got the driver's side filler panel welded in place. Went a lot quicker, after wrestling a lot with the other side.

And, a front shot, now that both sides of front panel are trimmed up:

[aggie79]

Nice work! I wish I had your skills. That is going to be a fantastic build!

[groys02]

Well, thanks for the encouraging feedback! It's been fun.
I'm closing in on 70, so progress is a little slower nowadays, but still feels good to have a project or two going.

p.s. That's a nice looking teardrop of yours, too!

[groys02]

Between Wednesday and today, I got the new panels made to fill between the new frame and the old floor-line. All welded in now... lots of grinding to do, and seam-sealing later after the new metal gets primed & painted, but at least all the large holes in the floor area are closed up now, so I don't have to worry about a stray cat or groundhog [they're prevalent here] getting inside... as it's going to need to sit outside [tarped] for a few days while I work with my son on a used pickup he recently bought.

The pics below show the patch panels fitted on one side... then the rear-most panel of plywood floor slid into place... and then a pic through the trunk opening, looking forward. [the EMT tubing brace I added to stiffen the inner fender wells up... then I removed the original X-braces that were behind the rear seat of the car]

[groys02]

Another several days, some more quirky progress.

The stock Prefect tank was all rotted out in the bottom... before throwing it out, I cut off the top several inches of the filler neck. 'Made vertical cuts every 1/2" in the bottom of that... bent them out horizontal... inserted through quarter-panel from below, and SS-pop-riveted them to the body skin... then filled between body skin & side of neck with 2-part gas-tank-leak epoxy putty. Cut a small disk/donut of fiberglass with inside diam to accept a 110V plug, and outer diam small enough to slide it into the filler neck, resting on the ledge where its diameter tapers... cemented in place with more of same putty. 'Same with the plug itself... which was further smoothed on topside with 5-min clear epoxy. Added weep/drain hole on low side of filler neck, should it rain when camping, with no cover over plug-in.
['with pics, hopefully all that makes sense]
Also got the stock trunk latch freed-up... a bonus!
All for now..........

[groys02]

Almost another week's gone by. Initial work on lower front corners done now...

I hooked the tongue of the trailer to my old chain hoist and lifted it way up, so I could work on it without stooping over nearly so much. Worked pretty well, too. These patched-in bits are a little rough, but it'll be down really low, and it's hardly a show vehicle, so with a little filler & smoothing, it should serve well.
I used an old exhaust pipe elbow, cut in half, to make the rounded corner of this work... then just a small patch on the front on each side, and somewhat bigger patches to mimic the outer rocker's shape, going rearward. Those latter bits are welded at front & bottom edges, but only a little at the top... I need to fit the modified half-doors a little better, and bring them in at the bottom edge, before setting the junction between what's pieced together just in front of them.

When I got the back side pieces in recently, I figured that would keep stray cats from getting in... this latest round should keep out the ground-squirrels! Progress..........

[groys02]

Well... a week-plus spent finishing up welding of seams. Then, trying to get all that raw and/or new steel ready to be primed, as I'm going to need to move the teardrop out of that main workspace for a bit, to help work on my son's car, and don't want the raw steel to get rusty.......

So, a whole bunch of time spent grinding down the excess welds on those seams...

Followed by an application of waterproof filler [Duraglass, in this case], so that atmospheric humidity can't get through the occasional pin-hole in the welded seams. Regular filler would hold that moisture--if bad enough, it could cause the metal surface to rust, and the filler to lift...

And, tonight, ground down the roof seams, and put that initial filler up there as well.

[aggie79]

[groys02]

Well, aggie79.........

[groys02]

Son's car back together... so back on the teardrop project.

Between yesterday & today, got the right-hand half-door's seams welded up, inside & out.
Only real problem was at the lower front corner of the window opening, where there was about a 1/4" mismatch either side of the seam. Ahead of the vertical seam, I made a pie-cut from mid-radius down & forward... another cut in the body line a few inches below the window... and then rotated the steel between them downwards... and welded things back together. Not perfect solution, but workable.



That bodyline on the outside will now "kick up" somewhat at the front of the doors, but that line ends where it meets the drip rail anyway, so I don't think it'll look too awkward.

Now to do the other half-door & fit them back into the shell... and weld them in their closed position........

[groys02]

Back on its feet, after hoisting front end of trailer up high, to work on bottom edges of half-doors, and weld in one more filler panel in rocker-panel area.
Ground down welds... stainless rivets between half-door & panel ahead of it... waterproof filler on most of these seams.
Half-doors are now permanently installed--welded to door frame at 3 places along rocker panel, and 4 places around window opening.
[see album, if you'd like a more detailed, step-by-step view of this]

[groys02]

And nowadays, the more conventional body-work or finish-work can begin.
Grinding & sanding the old paint off the topsides, esp wherever it was crackly & looked rust-stained, assuming that I needed bare metal in those areas before priming & painting can begin.
Focused on the roof first. Most of old paint off now, and some 'normal' body filler on that big seam across the top........