Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion End of the school year progress on ERIE 71

I was wondering about that pump recently.
Have you got the panels done yet????
post some pics of what you have done in the last yr.
Thanks
Joe

That's going to be 1 nice pump......

I know this isn't the pump, but Joe asked what my class has been doing lately. We are just getting back to the pump so not much has been done since the last time I submitted pictures of it.

We did however finish the 1959 cadillac couch we were working on. All original parts, no reproductions, custom leather upholstery, and all the lights work. On top of that an original 1959 Wyoming licence plate!

THAT IS AWESOME!!!
Mike

THAT IS SWEEEEEEET!

real nice!!!

Congratulations to your class!They have done an outstanding job.They should be very proud of there work.

I would have loved to be in a class like that when I was in
High School.

great work on the couch pal, did you keep for yourself or is it stay in the class ?

I love 1959 cadillacs, so I have been on the lookout for junked ones to make couches out of for about 10 years. I supplied all the materials, paid for the parts, re-chroming, etc. and then let my class do the work on it. We painted it as a class in a guys garage down the street from the school and then I had all the kids over to my house for a BBQ to move it in and assemble it in my basement.

The good news is -- I have another one to start on as soon as our ERIE 71 pump is done. I'd like to sell the next one so I can buy some more tools for the school shop and hopefully cover the cost of the materials, parts, and re-chroming.

If anyone is interested in maybe purchasing a couch like this for yourself, please contact me. My class can paint it and upholster it in whatever color scheme you would like. It is bare metal at this point.

Thanks again for all the responses -- The kids love getting positive comments on their work. I'll bet they check this board 50 times a day!

Chris

First off I want to thank everyone that has donated to this project and I wanted to give you an update on how we're coming. We got all the skins blasted, body worked, and primed with PPG K36. We are now in the process of wet sanding them.

The two main doors took a lot of work. We had to shrink and slap file some pretty bad dents out of them. I think the pump must have been run into while it was still in use -- there was a pretty bad crease all the way across the bottom of one door.

The boy you see wet sanding is going to be a senior and he's been working on this pump since he was a freshman. He's a pretty good hand. We are about out of time for this school year, but finishing the pump is the first project on the dockett for next year.

Chris

Chris, my hat's off to you! You are showing them history WHILE they are understanding the mechanics behind it! What a motivator to keep these kids moving in the right direction. If they only knew that this "fun" project is actually more learning than anything else. You have an opportunity to use this as a motivator for future classes - man, you really have something good there and there should be more teachers like you! You could have a mini museum right there in your class!!! Very cool!

BTW, I had to LOL when I read about these kids having a tough time calling the computer a computer... it COMPUTES the price for you - they've just got thier brains wrapped around the word, but it's still pretty funny.

Hello Everyone!

It has been nearly two years since we've had the Erie 71 together, but we finally got it at last!

I think all the body work is done so we wanted to put it together before we start priming to make sure everything we've beat on and filled actually fit.

Eveything went back together easily and all the panels are razor straight.

The kids want to stay in class all day and keep going on it now that they can see some real progress! I'm hoping to have everything in primer by the end of the week.

Thanks again to everyone that has provided knowledge and support. We're getting close now!!!!

Chris

Looks great, You and the kids should be proud. Richard

We are almost there! The Erie 71 my class and I have been working on is now all fit together and most of the wet sanding is done! It took an unbelievable amount of time to straighten out the panels and doors and to get everything to fit right. We actually had to recruit the help of an expert to get it totally right.

We have had a terrible bunch of snowstorms here for the last 2 weeks, but the weather is supposed to be nice enough this week that we can warm up the paint booth and should be able to get some color on it by the weekend.

This pump has pretty much fought us the whole way, but it is starting to look like all the work was worth it. It was terribly "rickety", so my students took the plasma cutter and made two reinforcement plates to resemble the cast piece that the computer bolts to. We thought about just using strap or angle iron, but the guys didn't like the look of it so they made the pieces out of 1/4" plate (see picture).

Now for the bad news -- we are still missing 2 pieces that I just found out about on Friday. There are supposed to be 2 "pans" that hold the glass between the computer and the porcelain faces. I don't know what they look like and I didn't know they existed until Jim at T-Way's told me about them. IF ANYONE HAS A PAIR OF THESE PANS FOR SALE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. Also, maybe Jim can post a picture of them so we can all see what they look like.

I can't believe that we are this close to finishing that thing, and still needing parts. If anyone can help out, I'd really appreciate it. Pictures of the completed pump are coming SOON!

Chris