Project Ruth.

[Howard Prout]

Ah ha! The light finally went on. Now I understand the issue Anders is raising. I checked the skirts on "Old Betsy" last night and found that the handles on the two sides are in different positions, just as scumdog described as on his '66. One is as shown in Anders photo with the whole hook inside the lip of the skirt and the other has just the tip of the hook inside the lip of the skirt. I don't know what the original design intention was but my guess is that just the tip of the handle was supposed to go over the lip of the skirt. I doesn't really matter as someone would have to strand on their head to know what position the handle was in.

[Anders]

Thanks guys. I will just use the hook then and paint the whole handle/hook black so it doesīt show so much
Edit: I finally managed to upload the other photo as well. See post # 69

[Howard Prout]

I personally think the new photo shows the way it is supposed to be.

[bird 60]

I just checked mine & they both face up, like the picture on the left. I've had my '60 Bird now for over 7 years with no dramas.

Chris....From OZ.

[Anders]

Headlight bezel

Hi, while blasting my head lamp bezels I realise they look quite tweaked. They booth look the same though, so hopefully this is the way they suppose to look, but I though better ask then don't.

[simplyconnected]

Blasting thin metal can distort the shape. Put them back on the car for fitment. If they need to be adjusted by bending, nobody will know. If the part doesn't fit well it will be obvious. Go slow and in small steps. - Dave

[Anders]

I took itverycarefully, and they had this shape before the blaster. They just looked tucked in, but perhaps this is original. And booth are the same. Or is the original dead flat?

[Restifier52]

I always assumed they were flat but as Dave says whatever shape you need to fit the car is what's correct. I've had mine off and on a few times with no problems except that sometimes I don't get them aligned on the first try. If I meet what feels like too much resistance when trying to snap them into place I back it out and try again.

Rick

[partsetal]

The only straight ones that I have seen were the NOS ones that were never installed. Yours look quite good. When installed with the rubber seal, they are a tight fit and might need another bit of tweaking to get a perfect all around fit.
Carl

[Anders]

Thanks Carl. Good news

[Dan Leavens]

Rick I agree as the couple of times I had to take off and put back on my 60,I found resistance before they engaged. Patience usually is best practice

[Restifier52]

Oh and I forgot about the rubber. No rubber on mine right now though I have new pieces if I decide to give that a try.

[Anders]

I have looked for a quite a long time for some cool Dagmars to put on my bumper. The bigger the better as the original grille is one hughe beast. The biggest I understand are the ī55 Cadillac. Yes, I know, it kind of sux to use GM stuff here, but what the heck, they are BIG. Over a year ago, after first being promised one set for a "reasonable price" by a Swede who lives in LA, and his brother here in Gothenburg, he suddenly rased the price by a good 50% and stopped answering my mail, I kind of gave up on him. Then later, I found a picture on H&H Flatheads ( Burbank, Ca ) Facebook page saying they had a Caddy ī55 for sale, and with that an extra hood, bumper window frames etc.

Asking if I could just buy the bumper, he didnīt wanted that as he wanted the buyer of the car to clean upp the whole bunch of parts. Later he SMSīed me from various swap meets where he had found ī56 bumpers. But as Iīm not really was in a hurry, I rather waited for the bigger ī55. So one day, pretty much spot on a year ago, he came back saying that I could buy it as the buyer of the car didnīt wanted the extra parts.
In order to save shipping cost ( Heavy stuff! ) and customs I asked him to cut it down to the Torpedos only and send only them to our office in Camarillo, Ca and waiting for someone traveling over and bring them when they came over. But nobody wanted it as they was so heavy. after over half a year, one guy finally felt sorry for me and brought them over.

Now, In order to have them on my car, I first needed to fill the part that was connected to the rest of the bumper. Not an easy task with 3mm metal, no tools and no skill... Fast forward: Last weekend I vent to a course about metal shaping up north some 300 miles, and yes, it was snowing. 9 hours drive, and then two days of hard banging to understand the basics behind shrinking and stretching by hand. Funny thing is that our main thing to make, was a similar thing, a big cone. But in 1 mm sheet metal. THAT was still **** to bang in the correct way, but man, it was fun and the best spended weekend for me in decades! Worth to mention is that itīs impossible to make on in one piece, still pretty impossible in two pieces, but in 3 or 4, and when they are fine or looks like ready, weld them together with a super fit. Itīs when you have reached this stage, you still have like 90% to go in order to make them perfect. Yes. Itīs takes time. Think of that when you ask someone who knows this craft to " do a quick little piece as you have the tools".... I did two halves. One by hand and one with shrink/strech and the english wheel. in 1 mm.... Took two days and was not very nice anyway

Now; I brought my ī55 Caddy Dagmars to get some tips about how to attack this "problem", but he didnīt like them at all as it was such a thick metal. And rule # 1 he told me, is that the part you weld should be as close as possible in thickness to the part you welding it into. But I was a very positive student, and day 2 I asked him quietly if he thought he could fix them for me. He took some hours to think about it, but was friendly enough to take the challenge. Not for free, but hey, they had already cost me an arm.


Now a few days later, they came, and Iīm STUNNED about how great they look!!!!! They are nothing but totally fantastic looking. So, What do I try to say here? Well, if you have some tough parts you like to get fixed, pay the extra to go to a real craftsman and master ( like Kieth or this guy ) The reward is HUGHE! So, for all you Nordic readers here, and others as well, I like to recommend "MetalManSweden". http://www.metalmansweden.com ( He also had classes in US as a matter of fact ). Itīs so worth it!! Just one more thing: By some strange reason, they do look fab on the pics. But they do look 10 times better in real

[Joe Johnston]

Awesome!! As you learned, metalworking is an art!

[keith]

Anders, Per is one heck of a nice guy. I was able to attend one of his classes a couple years ago and bought some tools he makes. He is one heck of a craftsman.