The Flying Valiant: 1964 Valiant V100

-
Thanks for the thoughts, gents.

Started welding with gas today. It's tricky. Had to stop and help my aunt get her car started, but grinding will resume tomorrow. Used some welding magnets and a sheet metal screw on the side to pull the side back into place.

1043874_10201434288721278_856767219_n.jpg
 
Ground down and pinhole patched. Much better handle on the gas this time. Ran out of time for another grind down. I'll hit it later.

999841_10201442974458416_916278694_n.jpg
 
Very cool car, and story! 64s are my favorite!
 
Out standing work going on here on this cool early Valiant :colors: and looking forward to updates :coffee2:
It won't be long now :colors: Thank you for bringing this build up for us to enjoy and learn from armyofchuckness :cheers: this thread sure went good with my :coffee2:
 
Great to see your making progress Chuck.
Looking forward to more updates and pics.

Mark in Miami
 
Looking good. I haven't had a chance to replace any metal on my 69. Not looking forward to it, lol. Looks like you're doing a great job though, and I'm sure it will pay off big time knowing the car is solid.
 
Thanks, gents. I appreciate the kind words. I'm trying to be better about updating. Having other people watch the build is good motivation to keep going.:blob:

This has been a fascinating journey for me. Before starting on this project, I'd never really done any significant mechanical work on a car, let alone picked up a welder (which still shows in my welding beads, but oh well). It's been exciting and terrifying trying all this for the first time on a car I've had for more than half my life, but that's also encouraged me to take it slow and do things the right way. Luckily, I've had a lot of help from some local friends that have been where I've been before. One of them recently finished restoring his dad's 1964 CSS D100. His dad bought it new with a factory 426 SW. His dad brought him home from the hospital in it, and it's been in his life ever since.

I have to hit Chicago next week for work, but hopefully I'll be back on it again as soon as I get back. We're starting on sanding down all the filler we applied, and hopefully we'll be putting epoxy based truck bed liner on the underside of the car before September! :burnout:
 
I love coming home to new car parts and vintage tools, and today is no exception. Behold! The entire rear suspension upgrade (minus shocks), and my sweet new/used vice. It is a thing of beauty.

Poly bushings, shackles, bolts, and six (6!!) leaf springs shipped from the nice people at Espo Springs n' Things. I chose to go with the six leafs over the 5 after reading lots of suspension forum posts made by the good chaps here at FABO. I was really leaning towards the five leafs, but there were enough solid posts about the six leafs to sway me the other way. (Thanks, guys!)

Incidentally, leaf springs are very heavy, so lift with your legs and don't drop them on your bare feet.

994552_10201521007089183_1410906948_n.jpg
 
Got the floor topside sanded last with Carolyn's help. Also got the cowl area filled and ground down again. I'm calling that done now. We'll see how much more we can get done this week.

blogger-image--1899317434.jpg


blogger-image-665222413.jpg
 
Too quote Chico....." Looooking Good!
watch it here:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXPQKAL-pP4"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXPQKAL-pP4[/ame]
 
Watched that,when I was a kid. NBC's Friday night line up.Sanford and son, Chico ,and the Nan,and Rockford Files.Gas welding,a different world. Good luck,Army of Chuckness. Got your Mojo rising,right now.
 
Ha! Thanks for the flashback. Yeah, welding with gas is amazing, although I miss being able to weld with my giant fan blowing on me. Kind of a Florida necessity to keep the mugginess at bay. After I get the inner fender reconnected, I'm probably done welding for a little bit until we get the underside of the car shot. Since I'm building this car for durability, we're going with trunk bed liner underneath, so I don't have to worry to much about regular paint stuff yet.

I really want to do frame reinforcements, but I'm afraid with my creative reflooring, the nice cap ones aren't gonna cut it, and I'm concerned about clearance for tubing and stuff that won't be until much later. Since it's a Slant car, regular rectangular ones should be more than enough anyway.

What do you think? Should I get stiffeners? If I do, should I put them in now or wait until we're done with all the plumbing under the car?
 
If you get subframe connectors they get in the way of the e-brake cable where it goes through the crossmember.

Also Id wait till the doors and suspension are all back on the car before welding the frame connectors. You want everything lined up in its natural resting position before theyre permanent.
 
Thanks for the advice on the subframe.

So, yeah. Couple hours of sanding and I'm still less than halfway done on the bottom of the car, but some progress is better than no progress.

1013019_10201725209474115_1516937096_n.jpg

1187295_10201725209434114_794799683_n.jpg
 
So, this looks like it should be a suspension post, but it isn't, because almost none of this assembly is going into the final suspension. Yup, it's the old 7.25 and 4 leafs bolted to a couple of air holders so we can move the shell out to the driveway for undercoating. The only "new" piece is a rear spring perch I got from FABO to replace the rotted out one I had.

We'll be using SEM truck bed liner for some epic protection. I already have the spray gun, and I'll be borrowing an oil moisture separator from a friend in town.

In the meantime, I have to go back to my references and see what holes I need to weld up on the firewall before I get much farther. Then it's time to mask, mask, mask.

Exciting stuff! It almost looks like a car again, which is more inspiring than I thought it would be, knowing it's only temporary.

jpeg-1.jpeg


jpeg.jpeg
 
Lots of cleaning the garage this past weekend and the week following. The valiant took its first trip outdoors in over a year...and a large branch immediately fell on it. Bad sign. Nothing damaged though.

Screen+Shot+2013-09-15+at+9.05.41+PM.png


Screen+Shot+2013-09-15+at+9.05.15+PM.png


BTmkV2DIgAADVCi.jpeg


Anyway, the garage looks way better and I'm taking a little time to recharge and tumble some extra fasteners and build up my spares. I also got all the car parts out of the Man Room so I can use it as an office. I had no idea there was a floor in there.

Screen+Shot+2013-09-15+at+9.04.15+PM.png


Also, I picked up a sweet NOS Barracuda speedometer from 65_Dartman. Biscuit was impressed.

Screen+Shot+2013-09-15+at+9.04.26+PM.png
 
Whatever you do,don't hug the wife. Seriously,nice to see it sealed up A.O.C....
 
Got some more patching done last night. Not super pretty, but everything's recessed at least, so it will be easy to fill. Definitely not thrilled with how the cowl turned out, but it was really thin up there, and kept disintegrating on me.
1375711_10202165234434464_476850326_n.jpg

1376448_10202165235154482_911792236_n.jpg

1381847_10202165234874475_1123023274_n.jpg

1383355_10202165234674470_1279540664_n.jpg
 
-
Back
Top