2021-09-15 The garage feels a little empty [after selling the truck].
2021-09-24 It’s like there is some cosmic force that cares about old stuff and guides me to it. I was driving down a random country road after work tonight and out by the road were a couple of unwanted bicycles. A sign with FREE written on it was next to them and as I passed I caught a glimpse of this bike. I could not get the truck turned around fast enough to grab this 1975 20in fastback Schwinn. It’s incomplete and missing some hard to find parts but it darn well deserves a loving home (me). One of the more random unusual things that has happened to me lately.
2021-11-07 Pushed it out today to move it to the other side of the garage. Selling the 47 Dodge truck took a lot of time. Then it was selling all the extra parts to the truck I had laying around took time. Then it was rearranging the garage since I had all kinds of new space to utilize. Then traveling this past week to Vegas. Now its home improvements the next couple weeks. Hopefully, Christmas time I will get back on it. Patch the quarters and start prepping for paint is the plan.
2021-12-27 Welcome to Indiana. Almost January and it’s 63 degrees with steaks cooking on the grill. I should be working on the house but needed the fresh air. I drilled out the spot welds and removed the understucture from the future patch panels for the 59.
2022-01-16 Finally cut the nasty patches off. It was a good day to push it out and blow all the dirt and rodent nests out of the rockers while they are opened up.
2022-01-24 In process- Pullmax Dies that I am making to form the wheel lip on the patch panels for the 1959 Plymouth. I used a bondo mold on the inside of my used 59 quarters to get an accurate profile. I then transferred that to a 1/2in. piece of metal. They most likely will get cut down some and will require alot of fine tuning once running in the Pullmax Machine. But, pretty happy with the progress so far this weekend.
2022-02-05 Made a little more progress this morning on the Pullmax dies for the 59. Really happy with the wheel lip profile match (first and second pic). A lot of trial and error ahead with sorting out the best process and pattern but glad the dies work and make the desired profile accurately at this point.
2022-04-10 Finally had some time yesterday to make one of the quarter panel patches on the Pullmax at work. The Pullmax dies worked well considering this is the first actual panel they have made. The dies left some minor imperfections, most of which was correctable. Looking forward to making the front patch panel for the quarter. It should come out even better after I make some minor adjustments to the Pullmax dies.
2022-04-12 Maybe the forwardlook emblem rather then the original Savoy emblem.
They used them on the mid 50’s Dodge trucks and supposedly some forwardlook Desoto’s from what I was told.
2022-04-27 My recent forwardlook emblem purchase came in today. Super nice, no broken mounting studs. Going to use this smaller style one on the 59 plymouth quarter fin as opposed to the larger 1956ish Dodge truck style forwardlook emblem in the last photo.
2022-05-15 Still working on perfecting the patch panels for the 59. Today I made a new one that is longer then the first one. It came out well. I still need to do some tuning on it. The first panel I made (last photo) went so well that I really didn’t learn as much as I could have on it. This panel today was a lot more of a challenge because of its extra length and shape. I am also working on a patch panel for the forward lip area of the quarter panel. The initial panel has presented some challenges I have not had time to sort out yet, but it’s next on the hit list.
2022-06-12 I tore the front end apart so I can take the core support, inner fenderwells and some misc. to powder coat. The front fenders look super clean inside.
