Projects Crazy Legs My 54 Ford Build Thread - Old Custom

Chaz, Thanks! the fenders were 9"x32" I got them from Thiesens (Local Farmstore chain here) - they have a nice curve edge on one side and a sharp 90 on the other, we had to use 5 fenders total cuz 9" wasn't wide enough to do what we wanted and also had to lengthen them to get around the tire (that make sense?) - Then I used 18ga to make a back or the vertical part, they were a ton of work but I think they will work.

I thought about buying a set of "race steel wheel tubs" from like Jegs/Summit but they are 20ga and I wanted something that I could use as a structural way to tie the rear back together.

 

Man I really like what you are doing.
I have a 53 club coupe. Sleeper. 390 tri power C6. 355 gears. It will do every thing but go straight!!!!!

 

More updates,

I’ve been hard it to say the least, finally got all the rear sheet metal done, seam sealed, undercoated, painted etc. I painted the interior side black, then used the old “cobweb technique” light blue, then cleared over it to burn it in. Turned out better than pictures show





Here is the first time with all the air crap mocked up, look like it’ll all fit



Here’s some “important stuff” mounted



When I was working on the side of the car I discovered a little rust under the long trim piece so I removed it all and filled the holes, I haven’t decided if I like it or not.



Here is a sketch my dad did (No Plan) of the interior we decided on, subtle black and white and similar to what was originally in the car. I don’t have any pics but I’ve cut/welded on the rear seat back and bottom to make it fit over the tunnel and fit around the wheel tubs, it turned out well since you can’t tell it is even there. The interior is being worked on right now by a local young upholster trying to make his mark. TBD how it’ll turn out



The “drag racer” in me jumped out and bought got some go fast goodies for it, (not pictured is the new torque converter) Let’s just say I’ve used this LS combo before it should be around 450rwhp N/A and 600rwhp with nitrous on…..……….. FACT!



Next on the list is getting the rear-end stuff back in, then exhaust ran out farther than its current right under the floor, then finish up air ride, wiring in back, then I’ll start on the dash, stay tuned!

 

I stopped by his garage this morning & hooked up the 2 link for him & put the back tires on it....I think it coming along good.

 

Update:

I’ve been hard at it as much as I can been be with dealing with some major family issues (funeral stuff) so I’ve been busy doing other things but here’s the latest…….

I’ve got the rear-end assembly back under the car with the new wheels on it for the first time and all the wiring is done in back (taillights, battery, air-ride) I’ve also got my “air ride board” all done, wired, plumbed, you can barely see any wires, and it works with no leaks or fires lol



I pressure tested my new tank after we welded on a sump to the bottom and long story short there were no bubbles so I installed the tank put gas in it etc. but must have been a few cold lap welds cuz gas barely seeped through in a couple of spots so we cleaned the inside out, “leaded” all the seams w/ Eastwoods 30/70 body solder kit, I used a tank sealer on the inside and I’m hoping that will be the end to the leaks. Heres a pic of it once I leaded it & finish painted it as well



I wanted the tank to stand out so I figure red would do it, don’t worry you can’t see it unless you’re under the car





My new Circle D 3200 stall converter and SFI flexplate showed up and its all now installed with engine all put back together with the new cam/springs inside and ready to fire up



While I was wiring inside the car my 3 yr old daughter wanted to help and I looked over and had to take this pic, I can see she’s going to be a car girl



And last is just a pic of the tank and air stuff finally installed, it turned out pretty cool I think



The interior is coming along very very slow, but the stuff the guy has done looks really good. I was going through the list of “Stuff left to do” vs the time I have left before the Vintage Torque Fest on May 2 in Dubuque Iowa and its depressing to think that its only 5 weeks away and it’d take a miracle to be able to drive it there but I’m not giving up…….

Stay tuned

 

...thought it sounded good on the start up with the new cam....love that helper girl pic....what could be more traditional than a blonde with blue eyes?!

 

Get errrrrr done!!! I hope to see it in Iowa! I'll be there in my 1953 Ford!

 

Adorable! My kids have always loved helping me in the garage, and I'm closer to them because of it. Never tell her something is too hard for her, instead use her ideas to accomplish tasks and help her do them, she'll have a sense of pride and ownership in the car too, and you'll form a bond you may never have another opportunity to build.

My now 20 year old daughter used to help me when I was building an A Tudor. She was about 6. I was stripping yellow paint off of a TH350 WITH a soft blade and sand paper. She grabs the air hose and nozzle and says, "Dad, why don't we use this?" Thinking my wise years of removing paint from old parts somehow superseded her inquisitive, fresh, unwarped mind I proceeded to explain that air alone wouldn't remove the paint. She looked at me like I was an idiot, so I showed her. Actually, I showed her what an idiot her dad was.

I put the nozzle close to the area I had been working on and pulled the trigger. A huge chunk of paint blew clean off. In fact, it worked SO well that we took 90% of the paint off that way in 10 minutes while we had previously worked on a 6" area for about 30 minutes.

Take the time to explore her ideas and praise her for them. Of course, the paint hadn't adhered properly but she was my hero.

 

Here’s a small update,
Some will hate this, some may love it, truth is this its the only way I can get the exhaust out from under the car cuz there is no room to go above or below the rear suspension and gas tank. Basically there is a 3.5” pipe that’s welded into the body and the 2.5” exhaust pipe will go through that tube and be flush with the body (I’ll get some finished pics of it soon)



And last is some progress on the dash, someone in the past decided it’d be a good idea to hack big holes in it to install a cheezy gauge or whatever, anyway I’m trying to fill in those areas and while I’m at it I’m filling the radio area and probably the speaker grill are too.



It had 2 “truck tach” pods hacked into the dash, 1 had a mechanical tach and the other was a clock, either way they didn’t work anymore so I decided to mold them into the dash and put in the correct tach and a new clock, unfortunately they don’t make a 3” clock so I had to make so the 2-1/16” clock fit, its not what I wanted to do but it looks pretty good in person.

The metal is done so I put some primer on it, polished and fit all the chrome and here are some pics of how it turned out, I like it







Here it is installed with all the vintage air done and wired up and the best part it all seems to work and be hidden away





Now working on the steering wheel & drop column mount then its test drive time!!!!
Stay tuned

 

Really enjoying your progress with your build. I know you are hesitant to post a video to the engine running but I'd really like to see and hear it. PM me a link if you are still hesitant. BTW - The picture of your daughter is a framer for sure. Keep her interested in helping you and maybe one day she will be driving this car!

 

Dos,
I'll post of video of it once it gets dyno tune and when I go to test drive it so you guys can hear/see it - It sounds pretty crazy with that nasty cam in it

Lol yeah my daughter is pretty funny, she likes helping me which is awesome for sure!!

 

Damn dude, that dash looks great. Can't wait to hear about how she drives. Also, I love the exhaust idea. I think it fits the car perfectly.

 

Thanks paddy cake, I'll take some more pics of the exhaust this weekend, it turned pretty cool!

Btw, are you proud of me, I hid all the wiring under the dash and no wiring is in the engine bay either, talk about hard to hide all the PCM crap lol

 

Haha yeah I'm proud, that's no easy job. I'm also very impressed with the A/C. What underdash unit did you use? I always figured that our dashes are so shallow that the A/C would always poke out.

 

Yeah it sucks lol

Actually I stuff a vintage air gen III with defrost/heater and all, but I had to lose all my wiper stuff and no room for radio either in stock location

 

My dad has been helping a lot lately to be able to make the April 29th dyno tune date in Chicago and so far it looks possible!!! l got it on the ground on all 4 new tires for the first time and all the air ride works, so we took it for for a quick spin, sorry for the blurry pics I was moving.





We took it back out the next night at highway speeds to set the programmable speedo, and see if any of this crap works and we are very happy to say it went very well, no major issues at all, I’ve got pretty weak brakes and also a serpentine belt issue but trying to figure that out.

Anyway after hearing how loud the dual 444c Viair compressors are inside the car I decided to “wall off” the trunk from the main cabin area, so here is a pic of the wood I made fit before I used the sound/heat over it all.





We are trying to get the majority of the body mods done before the Torque Fest so people will have an idea of what looks are in store for the car. Here is the start of the metal work of molding in the continental kit into the trunk to match the same angle of the bumper and help the car flow



I got the first part of the interior back and it looks pretty good, I’ll post a pic of it soon.

And last is how its currently sitting (sorry for all the crap sitting around it) - I’ve still got a ton of work to do before the dyno day and if all goes well 3 days later we’ll make the Torque Fest after all!!!

 

...Looks good to see it out on the street...

 

Update - I was under the car bleeding the brakes again and I had to take a few pics of it all together and finished painted, the 2nd pic is to show how we made the exhaust work, the 2-1/2” pipe is mounted in rubber like normal farther up but we have the outlets bolted to the body so we needed it to be flexible so we came up with this idea of using front wheel drive exhaust flex pipes and it seems to work great, and even a video of the crazy driveshaft turning lol





Click on pic for video


A lot has happened since the last update, the dyno date 4-29 was interesting to say the least…… Long story short as possible it didn’t get dyno tuned due to the driveshaft being too long for the “driveshaft critical speed” it was made to. 3rd gear in my car it 1 to 1 and they turn the engine to 7000 and the max DCS is 6300 so they didn’t want to break the shaft on the dyno. So they tuned it on the street and it acts much much better, it seems to have a lot more power and much more driveable so it was still worth the trip. The tuner guessed it at 375-400rwhp with no nitrous. BTW, the fix for the shaft is going to make it a 2 piece with a carrier bearing in the middle, TBD if we do it or when etc.

We’ve been thrashing around to get the car ready for the Torque Fest and we made it!!!! Here’s a pic of it sitting in the hotel parking lot layed out with it all put back together and a few more at the show. We still need to extend the bottom of the front fenders down to the gravel guard and obviously lot of other stuff but it was nice to drive the damn thing rather than just work on it 100% of the time. I’ve got a bunch more pics coming soon of stuff we’ve been getting done and its going pretty well.







Another thing, I ordered new 54 Lincoln taillights from Mark II enterprises and they showed with some flaws so they are being shipped back to get a set of better ones.

Now that we’ve got some miles on it I’ve got it jacked up and going over every nut and bolt and inspecting everything etc. While it was up in the air I had a set of IMCA tires mounted up on a set of 15x10 rims and they fit, so of course I had to take it to the local 1/8th mile dragstrip to debug it for the KKOA drags in Salina and it was fun to say the least. It ran 8.80’s on motor and 7.70’s on a 150hp of nitrous that was pig rich and hitting it from a car length of the line, I think it’ll run 7.50’s off the line and tuned a bit better.

Here’s a short video of it (click on pic)


I’ve got seat belts in it now, all the windows are out so I can install the Nu-relics power windows and I’m also getting new green tinted glass cut for it as well. I also come to realize the cheap XLERATOR mufflers I put on it are super restrictive so I ordered a nice set of Flowmaster Super 44’s, so we’ll see how that works out.

Next on the list is to get the windows back in, new mufflers on and continue to make progress on the continental on the trunk and front fender extensions before we drive it to the Rust Revival.

The next pics should show a lot more sheet metal fab so stay tuned

 

Way cool!

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Looking great!

 

Good to meet you at Rust Revival, Eric. The car looks even better in person!



Walt

 

Same here Walt! Its cool to meet people that are on the HAMB

 

how works the technique to get this webbing effect in the paint ?

 

Update:
To get ya caught up from the last update, the new green tinted glass is back & Nu-relic power windows are installed and they work! I also got the new mufflers on and it made a huge difference in sound and performance. The best news is the A/C now is charged and works as well!!! It’s very strange to be in an old car that rides, drives, and feels just like a newer car, I’m happy so far

I’ve been beating the car at our local 1/8th mile dragstrip some, and I’ve got the nitrous tune pretty good so its ready for Salina, check a few pics the track photographer took a while back.





But lately it’s been at the upholstery shop getting the interior finished up finally….. (long story) but it looks pretty good. The headliner won’t be done cuz I have to have access to the rear trim nuts so I can remove the chrome trim on roof to paint the top, but the main issue is I can’t find anyone who makes an actual “WHITE” headliner for my car. Here’s a few teasers



















Since I haven’t had the car I’ve been doing as many little things as I can like I found on Ebay this old plate and here’s a before/after shot, since these pics I’ve found the “54” tag that goes in the top right part of the plate to make it legit.





I also stole the trunk lid off it so I can make some progress with it lead’ing more on the continental kit. Here’s a pic



The only other thing that’s going on is the rearend has a major gear whine at 70mph, its loud enough that my wife and I have to yell back and forth to talk to each other and our 3yr old rides in it with her hands covering her ears….. and I’ve spent a lot of time/money to make this thing quiet so I decided to change to a new set of 3.50 gears instead of the used 3.70 gears that I’ve been running. It currently runs about 2300 at 70mph & since most of the time this will be a highway cruiser I went with 3.50 ratio to get it about 2000 @ 70. Anyway, I’m trying to get them changed before Back to the Fifties in St Paul. I was planning on getting the car a bit more “finished” looking before BTTF’s show but it’s hard to work on it when I don’t have it lol. Anyway stay tuned and hopefully I’ll meet/see some of you up there in St Paul!!

 

I PM'd you

 

The interior looks incredible. The sketches you posted gave a good idea how it would look but it's killer!
It resembles an old 50's diner, the stainless trim really gives it a great finish. Are you bringing it to the GoodGuys show here in Des Moines?

 

Thanks rockodc, I think it turned out pretty good as well. I wanted something that was pretty much original/traditional looking.
Yes we'll be at Goodguys in Des Moines for sure. See ya there!!

 

Hey it was nice to talk to you in Pella....to bad the weather sucked towards the end, wife and I decided we had sat in the car long enough. LOL We will have to catch up at some more shows sometime. Car looks killer by the way!

 

Same here, it's always cool to meet people in person that's on the HAMB. Love your Chevy as well!

 

Nice project!