Gray Goats Rod and Custom

  Currently Gray Goats Rod and Custom works out of a modest 30 x 40 two car shop located on a piece of country property.  But this was not always the case.  The early years of the C buckets development took place in a VERY cramped single car garage.  The driveway was available on rain free days, but the southern sun can be brutal and I had to find an inexpensive solution.  Thus the Taj Ma Tarp was born.  A trip to Harbor Freight for a 12 x 12 tarp (I think it was 12x12 its been a while as I type this) with a stop at Home Depot for s couple lengths of electric conduit, a little rope and I was in business. Inside the garage door some screw in hooks I had laying around were screwed into the beam over the door to catch the grommets in the tarps edge.    Three equal length sections of conduit were cut and the ends compressed in a vice around a 16d nail with the head exposed.  This point is to go through the grommets on the corners of the tarp. Two...

 With temperatures in the shop too low for fiberglass work (no heat :) ) I thought I'd spend a few minutes on the 1963 Buick Specials relatively minor rust issues.  The first photo is what I found when  removing the rear window and trim to expose window ledge area I can reach this area from the inside and the metal around it felt good so I thought this would be the only spot on this section that might need replaced but that turned out not to be the case.  The metal here rusted from the outside in and a few minutes with the wire brush and .... it becomes apparent that a larger area will need to be addressed After looking the now clean area over the decision was fairly straight forward. The area outlined in blue tape will be cut out and replaced as one piece.  It is straight from top to bottom and has two simple 90 degree bends which should make the replacement piece simple  to fabricate and the welds are either in concealed areas or near a bend so they will ...

 In section one the top of the cowl was molded, and in section two progress continued with the upper cowl face.  Today we continue with the upper body edge from the cowl running around to the center of the back.  You will note that the cowl top is being re-done and included in the side mold.  The cowl top, when removed had wrinkles in the gelcoat which would have transferred to every body made in the future. Another detail visible in the following is the foam dam on the inner edge of the buck As with the initial section chair sliders were added to the inner surface of each dam and clay was added around them to keep resin from running under them and a thin bead of clay was also placed at the edges where dam walls meet. Again orange gelcoat followed several layers of was and part-all and glass were ready on the passenger side!  

  Below is the next section of the mold.  Having started with the upper cowl I moved on to the face of the cowl/fire-wall.  Like the cowl top dams were made by adhering wood to tape surfaces and then topping them with foam dams.  One step I forgot to mention was that the edge of each dam is sealed to the body with a very thin roll of clay smashed between the dam and the surface to prevent resin from leaking past the dam. As with the previous section a special mold grade gelcoat was applied Followed by the application of multiple layers of glass as before Next time we go down the sides!

So begins section one on making the mold.  For the mold I used isophalic resin due to it's strength and resilience.  The process begins with the buck having been sanded to a straight and flaw free condition before receiving 4 to 5 coats of wax.  At that point once the location of the dams (the areas where the mold will part) the area outside of the area to be covered is covered in tape to protect it for the next step. Hot glue was then used to secure wood blocks to which foam strips are in turn glued to support the upcoming fiberglass layup. If you look closely you will see small white buttons.  These are chair sliders and when the mold is made will produce "keys"  that will align the mold sections when they are assembled to form a complete mold The area inside of the dams was then coated with "Part-all" before orange tooling gel-coat was applied followed by two layers of 3/4 oz fiberglass matt, two layers of 1 1/2 oz matt and finally two layers of 2 oz matt....

  When I bought the ends I used to make the fuel tank I bought three with the intent of using one as an air cleaner cover.  I had no idea how HEAVY they would be!  I still wanted the shape but knew there was no way I wanted to put that much weight on top of the carb.  So improvise it is.  I used the remaining tank section to make a mold Following the wax and application of part-all I laid in two layers of 3/4 oz matt and ended up with an almost exact replica of the shape I wanted but in a part weighing only a tiny fraction of the original steel unit :).  It did require a small amount of filler and sanding  After a little primer was on it was ready to go on the shelf until the day I'm ready to put it to use

  Here is a look at the interior before disassembly and another after the interior was removed As you can see there is rust on both passenger and drivers side floors.  Fortunately the damage is limited to the floor boards and not the present in the support channels beneath.  There is other rust but it is relatively minor Here is what was found beneath the passenger side trunk edge.  Several small holes but fortunately the rust is from the inside out.  Apparently the water gathered beneath the rubber strip and rusted it's way through.  Fortunately the area should be easy to repair and is one of only a couple of areas needing repair. Here is the final area that will need repaired.  On the pillar next to the rear pillar there are several holes of various sizes spread down along the straight section and continuing onto the rear panel below the window.  None of these is connected to the other and again I am fortunate that the holes are small and in a m...

 One element true of all hot rod owners and in particular bucket roadster owners is their desire to be unique.  While the C-bucket will be unique by virtue of its body style I wanted something else to set it apart from the crowd.  Some buckets have concealed tanks, some have round dune buggy style or beer keg tanks and still others stand out for their exposed custom square or tractor sourced tanks.  I'm taking the C-bucket in a slightly different direction with a widened motorcycle style tank.  I started with some tank half stampings which arrived with their flanges still in place This left me with a challenge.  How to cut the flanges off with common tools while maintaining edges which were both straight and square.  The result was the redneck metal router.  A piece of wood was clamped to my welding table, an old skilsaw with a metal cutting blade was clamped to the edge of the table suspending the blade just off the table and the results were ple...

  Well here is the first new part for the 63 Buick, I was fortunate enough to find a set of N.O.S. Metal Foxcraft fender skirts from the mid-west. It will be a long while before I get tp install them as there is there is much to do.  Things like pulling the teenie tiny V6 engine It's a neat little engine, but locked up and even rebuilt would be low on power, particularly when paired to it's equally tiny two speed transmission.  No idea what will replace it but stay tuned.  Next we'll examine the rust issues.  

It seems I skipped a step showing you the red version before showing you the interim stage where the body spent a week or so at a friends paint shop getting a coat of epoxy paint.  Also included below are a couple of shots showing the body lines I added.