I spent part of the 4th of July three day weekend removing the original '37 body from the rotesseri and replacing it with the "new" '37 body. To remove old body I cut it up in 4-5 pieces. I hate cutting up old iron but I couldn't find a new home for it and it needed to go. Once I started cutting into it I ran into some really bad hidden rust that made me relieved my regret about cutting it up and glad I wasn't able to find a new home for it. There were a lot of places I hit with the sawsall that just crumbled.

I kept the roof in one piece to use as patch panels for the rear inner fender wells on the "new" body. The inner fenders on the new body are in fairly rough shape, needing a lot of patch work and I am hoping the compound curves of the roof sheet metal will fit pretty close to the curvature I need for the inner fender patches. If they need some massaging to fit that'll be OK. At least I'll have a good supply of matching gauge sheet metal.

I got the new body mounted on the rotesseri and pressure washed the frame to get all the caked on grease off. The grease was fairly thick and that was good, it preserved the metal underneath but it also hid a slight problem with the frame. After getting the frame pretty much gunk free I found evidence that the car was involved in a severe front end collision some time in it's past. The front frame corner is bent inward and has been crudely welded up. I hope that this area of the old frame is in good enough condition to cut this area out and graft it onto this frame. On good thing that might have resulted from the accident is it looks like the suspension parts; tie rods and other linkage parts look like they are fairly new.

Over the Labor Day weekend I did the one hobby related job I detest the most, sandblasting. I got the frame blasted and painted with a two part epoxy direct to metal paint.

I AM SO SICK OF SANDBLASTIN!

The floor, top and bottom, and firewall are sandblasted and painted with two part epoxy direct to rust primer. The rest of the body will be stripped with stripping discs. The trunk is going to need extensive rust repair.

I decided to clean up the engine and spray few coats of paint on it. It'll look real nice mounted in the repainted frame.

See, the engine does look better in the frame.

I have the engine loosely bolted. There's about 4" gap between the end of the transmission and the torque tube. I think this can be made up by pushing the rear axle forward.

The original master brake cylinder was junk and a new one costs around $200. I decided to upgrade to a modern two reservoir master master cylinder for two reasons;first, a modern master cylinder is cheaper and easier to find at a local auto parts store, second, I wanted the added safety of having two brake fluid reservoirs because if a leak developed in either the front or rear part of the brake system I still would have stopping abilities provided by the other half. With the old single reservoir system if a leak occurred in either the front or back all braking could be lost.

The new master cylinder is one used in a early '70s Buick Skylark. (The master cylinder pictured is a used one for mock up purposes, a new one will be used)The new master cylinder didn't fit in the same area as the original so it was moved back about a foot. A new push rod had to be fabricated. The original rod was 3/8" thick, the new rod was made using a 1/2" rod, threaded on one end and machined to match the one used in the newer master cylinder.