1958 Ramber American

[123pugsy]

Spectacular transformation, that looks so cool. Who would have thunk something so ugly could look so good.

[Pehr]

Amazingly good! I’m super impressed.

[rewdco]

Fantastic! Amazing! Wow!

[Cgarside]

This is a work of art - truly spectacular craftsmanship!

[rockable]

Wow! What a transformation!

[pplace]

Many thanks for the positive comments! It’s really appreciated!

I was off this for a bit as I was once again sidetracked with other projects in the shop.

I test mounted a pair of gas struts (first three pictures) and tested the geometry, and how they functioned. Once I knew that all was good, I spent more time fabricating an internal structure that spreads the force out better. This was welded inside the decklid inner structure, with just a small “stub” sticking through for the pivot ball to attach to.

That pretty much ended any modifying that I needed to do, so I cleaned up the skin and the inner structure, sprayed them with epoxy primer and weld thru primer.

Put it all back together on the vehicle for one last fit, then tack welded my way around the edge. After a little fine tuning and tweaking, it was ready to fully edge weld around the perimeter, and then grind flush and panel gap it around the four sides.

[DarkLightning]

You're doing a righteous job on this car!

[dwmh]

That's looking great.

[123pugsy]

Excellent job of it as usual.
Loving this build.

[MSTSFab]

This thing is so cool! I’ve really appreciated following along and getting to look over your shoulder. It’s always inspiring for noobs like me to watch someone that knows what they’re doing. Keep up the good work!