1950 Chevy Coupe

This car was pulled from another shop and brought to us to complete.

(Click on the photos to enlarge)

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

This is what the car looked like when it was unloaded off the trailer.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The car was dismantled and prepped for media blasting. This is Jack taking the passenger side door apart.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Here's the car after soda blasting. The soda is a non-abrasive media used mainly for paint removal. Although it does remove light rust...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Justin had to use an abrasive media to remove the heavier rust.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Both front floor pans needed replaced. This is the pan on the passenger side.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The rocker panels needed replaced as well. This is Jack repairing the passenger side rocker.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

This picture shows the completed installation on the passenger side.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The lower rear quarters needed to be replaced on both sides due to rust (collision damage on passenger side only). Again, we're showing the passenger side here.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Jack cut out the area that the aftermarket panel will cover...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

cleaned and treated the inner panel, and welded in the new outer piece.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

We removed the front cross member...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

media blasted it along with other front end parts...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

painted and rebuilt the front end.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The lower area of the rear quarter panel was cut out and prepped...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

so a new aftermarket piece could be installed. This was done of both sides of the body.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The rear tail pan was removed...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

and a new piece was installed.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

This shot shows the passenger side of the body with the new lower quarters installed as well as the new rear tail pan.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Once the damaged areas of the body were repaired, Fred removed the body from the frame...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

the frame was then media blasted...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

primed and painted.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

We then put the body on a rotisserie and Fred media blasted it inside and out.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

After media blasting, Evette shot a rust encapsulator on the inside of the roof, up under the dash and other areas that were not blasted completely...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

then she shot primer on the entire body.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The rear end was rebuilt, cleaned and painted before...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

being installed under the frame along with the front suspension.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The body was then placed back on the frame assembly.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

This is the inside of the driver side door when the car first arrived at our shop. We already knew at this point that the inside and outside door bottoms on both the left and right side doors needed to be repaired.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

After media blasting the doors, we could see just how much we needed to remove. The new aftermarket patch panels were trimmed down to fit the areas that were cut out, and then screwed into place...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

so that when we cut the outer door bottoms off we'd have the bottom edges to mate to when we repaired them. We applied a rust encapsulator inside the door bottoms to help with future issues.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Once the doors were fitted to make sure the panels were in the correct location, all pieces were fully welded and ground.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The doors were then taken off of the car and final media blasted before being wiped down for primer.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The trunk lid had minor rust repair done to it before final media blasting as well. We then shot primer on all three pieces before installing on the car.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The engine for this car was delivered to us in a crate. It's a 278 cubic inch inline 6-cylinder from Wayne Manufacturing.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Fred is prepping the engine for the Tremac 5-speed transmission.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Here's Fred and Jack carefully installing the engine/transmission.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Once the engine/transmission was installed, we noticed a couple of areas where there was a clearance issue...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

the first being with the rear carburetor and the firewall.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

We notched out the firewall...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

welded in the new piece...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

ground the welds and shot primer on it.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The other area that had a clearance issue was with the transmission and transmission tunnel. The factory cover wasn't domed enough to clear the aftermarket Tremac 5-speed...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

so we simply cut the center out of the original cover, made a new raised center, welded it in, ground the welds, applied seam sealer (like from the factory) and shot primer on it.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The customer wanted us to french the headlights using these aftermarket buckets.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Here's Jack final grinding the welds...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

on the left side front fender.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Although the hood for this car was straight, it had quite a bit of surface rust that had to be removed.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

First we media blasted it with a non-abrasive media to remove the paint without warping it...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

then we used rags soaked in an acid-based rust remover to remove the majority of the rust...

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

as well as using a mild abrasive wheel.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

The hood cleaned up pretty good. This is how clean metal must be on both sides before punching louvers in it.

Fred's Fabrication - 1950 Chevy Coupe

Here's the hood after being stripped, louvered and primed.

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