MAJOR ADVICE: If you want to do a restoration take someone experienced with you to help evaluate your potential purchase. I later heard from a neighbor down the street that his supposedly excellent restored dream car had to have the drive train completely rebuilt at a cost of thousands.
There were enough early TV shows like GEARZ and TRUCKS to at least give us a heads up for how to start the disassembly, evaluating, labeling and years later reassembly of the 1956 DeSoto Fireflight 2 Door Hardtop Seville model. From this point on, referred to as the "good car." Along the way I will reveal so many problems its amazing that I /we got to a running, deriveable car.
One of the early things we did right was to find and purchase a 1956 DeSoto Passenger Car Service Manual. While it provided limited information, it was and is extremely valuable, with enough information and pictures to get into trouble and work out of it.
With the manual as guidance the deconstruction started in mid July 2001. The "plan" as it evolved was to remove the "easy" stuff first. That included: the front fenders, trunk lid, trim, radiator core support, inner wheel wells, all engine bay "stuff", interior, carpet, seats, door and floor upholstery panels, gas tanks and lines.
Both cars remained "sealed," hood, doors and glass to minimize weathering. Both also served as storage whenever practical. The plan was for the parts car to sit outside covered by tarps. Removing salvageable sections and parts as necessary and slowly transporting the remainder to metal recyclers for a few cents a pound return on investment The good car stayed in the garage until late fall each year, then was rolled outside and heavily tarped. When necessary it was tarped and rolled out to make way for the "paint booth," repair of the family "fleet" etc.
Both cars remained "sealed," hood, doors and glass to minimize weathering. Both also served as storage whenever practical. The plan was for the parts car to sit outside covered by tarps. Removing salvageable sections and parts as necessary and slowly transporting the remainder to metal recyclers for a few cents a pound return on investment The good car stayed in the garage until late fall each year, then was rolled outside and heavily tarped. When necessary it was tarped and rolled out to make way for the "paint booth," repair of the family "fleet" etc.
We knew we had to mark and label everything. Masking tape, permanent markers, zip lock and bread bags were the norm. Almost as soon as the disassembly started we hit our first problem. Where to put all the stuff! Our garage is the partially finished with no ceiling and open rafters so... off we went in the evenings to home construction sites. Our community, was and still is, rapidly growing. We'd go to the sites, and their roll-off-box and debris piles, diving for throw away sheets of flooring then home, to cut, fit and lay pieces into the rafters for storage. The final layout was a 4 foot perimeter around the length and width of the garage. It proved to be inadequate, but a good start. As soon as parts were removed, bagged and labeled they went up to our newly created storage. We'd pay a price for this years later.
After work and on weekends I would tell and show my son Keith what needed to come apart/off and show him the tools, mostly 7/16", 1/2" and 9/16" sockets, extensions and ratchet driver, and how to go about the task. We worked together and apart. More often than not everything was rusted solid. We used enough Liquid Wrench and similar sprays to float the Titanic and still struggled.While I did not expect the neighborhood kids to do anything, they rapidly vaporized in the summer heat. Scouting, baseball, boating and fishing were in play as well.
As disassembly progressed it became obvious the good car was less than described. The front nose piece, inner wheels, fenders and hood were far more rusted underneath than my inspection revealed. Even worse, the interior floor had large holes artfully hidden by loose metal patches and roofing tar then carpeted over. From the underside the tar "undercoating" as earlier mentioned hid the holes. In essence, I was TAKEN!!
In a light moment, both cars had the proverbially seen on TV dead rat under one of the seats! More interesting, the parts car title showed it's origination as West Virginia. It was full of acorns and an oily heavy brown dust coating under and throughout the car. I feel the car spent a long time on unpaved roads. That dust seemed to seal and prevent rust in a lot if different parts and locations which proved fortuitous for our restoration. The good car by contrast was rusted in those same crevices and parts. It had spend most it's life in Cincinnati where roads are HEAVILY salted in winter.
I came to understand, as work progressed, how cars are built and at least in part why they rust. As was common construction, many of the large panels, floors and rocker panels had open ended and blind channels welded to their undersides for reinforcement. Blind spaces eventually got damp and became chambers for rust. In all probability they were never painted. In the sixty's car makers advertised they dipped the entire car into tanks of paint for corrosion control. Any place where panels overlapped and were joined by spot welds were problematic as well. Newer cars often have "caulk" to help seal overlapping seams and rolled or folded edges. I found the floor channels trapped dust, debris, water and salt. We actually found damp areas when it had not rained for weeks and it had been in the high 80's. To open the floor and channels up required a lot of cutting, painting and sealing and welding patches or salvaged sections.
My teacher training way back had included a gas and electric welding class. We used the common old red buzz box, hand held stinger and beginners "drag" welding rod. I had done a few little welding repairs over the years using the maintenance department equipment at my employers. MIG welding was totally foreign to me and I was learning the technique and machine on the fly and trying to teach my son along the way. The amp and wire speed rate set up panel on the welder lid are life savers! For the first year or two I made as many holes as I filled! I actually held welded parts up to the sun or laid lights underneath the work area looking for light, marking, grinding, then rewelding as necessary. My son did not do nearly as much welding but he was soon as good or better than me! Patching and replacement started on the floors so as not to be seen, and to build confidence in my welding skills. A LOT of grinding occurred initially to help hide the ugly welds!
The picture to the left shows the quarter sized and larger holes found under the passenger side front seat. Note the floor is elevated and sloped an inch. The picture below shows the floor cut and drilled out. The bottom photo shows the floor section with braces and channel salvaged from the parts car.
I came to understand, as work progressed, how cars are built and at least in part why they rust. As was common construction, many of the large panels, floors and rocker panels had open ended and blind channels welded to their undersides for reinforcement. Blind spaces eventually got damp and became chambers for rust. In all probability they were never painted. In the sixty's car makers advertised they dipped the entire car into tanks of paint for corrosion control. Any place where panels overlapped and were joined by spot welds were problematic as well. Newer cars often have "caulk" to help seal overlapping seams and rolled or folded edges. I found the floor channels trapped dust, debris, water and salt. We actually found damp areas when it had not rained for weeks and it had been in the high 80's. To open the floor and channels up required a lot of cutting, painting and sealing and welding patches or salvaged sections.
My teacher training way back had included a gas and electric welding class. We used the common old red buzz box, hand held stinger and beginners "drag" welding rod. I had done a few little welding repairs over the years using the maintenance department equipment at my employers. MIG welding was totally foreign to me and I was learning the technique and machine on the fly and trying to teach my son along the way. The amp and wire speed rate set up panel on the welder lid are life savers! For the first year or two I made as many holes as I filled! I actually held welded parts up to the sun or laid lights underneath the work area looking for light, marking, grinding, then rewelding as necessary. My son did not do nearly as much welding but he was soon as good or better than me! Patching and replacement started on the floors so as not to be seen, and to build confidence in my welding skills. A LOT of grinding occurred initially to help hide the ugly welds!
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