I bought the car in 1995, and run it like a driver for the 95 summer. In the winter with mostly no money I remove the engine and fix a valve problem, clean and paint the engine, and engine bay. Put the engine back and run it like that until 2005. I rebuilt the engine with my wife in 2005 quickly for the my friend's wedding. In 2006 in august, a valve failure occur, on the #6 cylinder, I have to fix that problem and an other one. In the spring 2006 I found (the other problem) a big hole in the frame. The hole was invisible before, because the previous owner patch with sheet metal, rivet and a good layer of tar. The road dust help after to make look good the frame.
Since I knowing the frame so bad (I have check the entire frame, and found other weird tar fix), I decide to change the frame.
I source a good frame in Kelowna in BC, pick up this frame on vacation trip with my family and my old Lumina in 2007. The car was completly dissasemble beginning on sept 2006.
When I put the new frame in the garage beside the rusty one I found a huge difference betwee the two frame, for me 49-54 frame where identical but I discover it was not. 49-52 are the same, and 53-54 are both unique.
I invite a friend who make some job for me (steel and machining) and I ask him what he 's thinking about the problem. After a while I take the frame and ship it to his shop for "reform" it like the 53-54 one.
At my home while the frame is out of my garage, I rebuilt the steer axle, the diff, the master cylinder, emptied the body.
I ship the body shell to a bodyman, and begin to work on last year, and after a while, he blow a fuse and hit the body with a steel bar, and make it worst than when it came in is shop...The paint was not applied, but it was over for him, in a rush last may, I take the body shell and put in my friend's shop waiting for a new bodyman. I found a new one, but for now I have to wait to sold my house in Drummonville. I bought a new one in St-Hyacinthe and I have to wait for money for make the project go forward again.
The frame is almost completed, some hour of work (I work on and my friend help me) and the job will be complete for the frame correction.
Sorry for error in the text I'm not too familiar with english writing.
Your are mostly up to date.
-- Edited by Fitz at 18:21, 2009-02-04
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www.FitzbackGarage.com Look for Easy Steering in your vintage Poncho, Look for the EasyDrive Power Steering System in the web site
Andre.. Nice work and great to see the history of you car. I am going to keep mine as driver for a few summers yet I think. Then I'm going to pull it apart and redo from the frame up. So I'm very curious as to what you run into as problems along the way.
looking great. i wish i could do the same,just dont have the room. I think i will drive it for the next 4-5 yrs and then do a resto like you are doing. At that time i should be in mexico and wont have to worry about weather or room to do the resto. Have any tips? Are you just useing varsol to clean that part with the brush?
not really varsol, some kind of part cleaner. Don't smell very good, but look like varsol anyway. Now I'm moving, and I'll refill my cleaner tank with varsol for the next time.
For tips, just ask, if I could help...
Fitz.
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www.FitzbackGarage.com Look for Easy Steering in your vintage Poncho, Look for the EasyDrive Power Steering System in the web site
How bad is the body? I can find the innner and outter rockers but to find as they call them the frame braces or body brackets is a hard one to get..So far I have not found any..I will most likely get them fab'd up to fit and look close to the originals. I think 57 poncho has the chassis book on our cars and he gave me some part numbers to follow up on. He might be of some help in looking up numbers if you dont have that book. Rod
The body is mostly bad, all the outer brace are shot. They are not reproduce for now, but EMS plan to make them, they have 49-52, but not 53-54. there is some picture of the underbody.
I will have to get a few shots of mine from under. Maybe this weekend. I can post them once I have something. For mine it seems odd some of them are perfect and some are totally gone?
Yah I can find the braces for a tri five and later but its the 53/54 thing..I have even thought of buying some for a 55 and modify. It just seems these cars were just not that popular to restore or customize..So these are one of the few that have a bit harder time to find nice OEM looking stuff. But they are now just starting to make more and more parts for these years. Thats a good thing for me.