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Episode 11: Project COVID-1953 – Working on the Interior & Dash

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Episode 11 Moving on to the interior, Rick gets started on the roof that was burnt in the fire. With the undercoating slightly melted and the dash rusted and warped, he had his work cut out for him. Starting with removing the old dash to make room for working on the roof, he spends a few days grinding, scraping, sanding and spot welding on the roof.

Episode 11 – Video Transcript

Rick Drewry: All right, it is time for an update on our 1953 Chevy. I moved on to the interior and focused on a lot of things there. So, we have the roof that got burnt. It burnt the paint off on the inside as well as, some undercoating and stuff like that. It kind of melted. I also had the dash to deal with, which was all rusted and warped from the fire. The first thing I did I took a reciprocating saw and a whiz wheel and made a rough cut to cut the old dash out. It was not going to be worth messing with otherwise. This way, it is kind of out of the way and gives me a little more room for doing stuff on the roof.

At the same time, I go back and drill out the spot welds to make a nice clean surface to weld in a new dash. The rest of the time, I spent several days grinding, scraping and getting everything off of the inside of the roof. That is a dirty job. You basically get covered with whatever you are knocking off of the roof. It is going to come down on top of you. You should be wearing eyeglasses, gloves, and whatever you need to protect yourself. A hat or something to keep the stuff out of your hair. I did that a little late. It is kind of gross when you get this tar or undercoating that you are heating up to come off, and it gets in your hair. It does not come right out. You’ve got a couple of days before you can get it all the way out.

I spent days on this, cleaning it. Some spots I would heat up and scrape off with a putty knife, other ones I would wire-wheel on a 5-inch grinder, and then some of it I was using just a regular grinder. Once I got to the good metal I basically was sanding it. DA some, and even used some fast etch on there, to get some of the pitting and everything off. But that is done. And I had to address it. You are never going to see this because I am going to put in a new headliner. If you don’t address it properly, it is going to come back to bite you, so it was worth the time I spent on it. Now I will be moving on to something a little cooler so, stay tuned.

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