Well we've been getting lots of little things done, Terry's door jamb idea has worked out great and both door openings are done and look great. We built a driveshaft for it and have it installed. We got a rear driveshaft out of a 1999 Ford Explorer (That's what the rear end is out of) and shortened it and installed a weld yoke and slip joint for the GM transmission on the front from Denny's driveshaft parts. Just getting lots of brackets and tabs mounted and just started getting the rear ****** mount lined up. Also working on the interior floor now that we have the driveshaft in. Since the frame is Z'd, we had to cut the floor and are making a transmission tunnel.
johnsont963 Your truck is gorgeous. Did you use sheetmetal-thickness angle to recess the doors or 1/8" thick angle?
No I broke my own angle and I think it was from 18 gauge sheet stock. Thank you for your compliment . Terry
Well, we got started on the front end this week,still just mocking things up before we get the finish welding done. we're going with a 4" drop Super Bell with hairpins. Spending lots of time with a tape measure getting it square.
Thank you Terry, we're still working at getting the correct pitman arm length and angle to clear the hairpin, as well as a few other small details before locking down the front end. We picked up the front tires from Coker tire at the Goodguys show last month. We went with 450/475 X 16 blackwalls for the front mounted on 1935 Ford 32 spoke wheels. Little by little it's starting to come around.
We've been picking at it some more, got the front end all set up and got the front tires on it. We went with the Pete & Jakes front shock/headlight mount. I've seen that on a few cars and thought they looked really cool. We're going with original 1930 headlights, but we're putting the halogen reflector inserts, so the headlight should be plenty bright. We also got a Lokar automatic shifter from a fellow Hammer and a set of Sanderson headers. We need to get the transmission mount complete, then it will become a roller.
I scored a really cool gas tank last weekend, it is in near perfect condition, not really sure of the history of it. It has flanges 35" apart, perfect to bolt into the rear frame rails, like it was made for it.
We've been getting more details done and we just started getting the bed together. We're building the new gas tank and a battery box into the frame that will locate the bed at the correct height. The bed was a 1935 Studebaker wide bed and we shortened it and narrowed it using a Model A front panel and a Model A rear U channel and tailgate.
We got the transmission mount complete so now the truck is a roller. We rolled it out to let it see the sunshine and get a good look at it.
We got the bed mounts all done and rolled it out. Battery mount and fuel tank mounts done also. Things are coming together. It will look way better after we do the chop to the top. [
Looking good! I like that model A grill on there better than a belly ****on deuce grill. The 32's look great but there's just too many. Stance, bed size & height, rear end width & tires all coming together to look just right for you.
Thank you, it has come a long way, and still has a ways to go. We haven't chopped the top yet, hopefully over the next few months we will get to it. We're still thinking about 4 inches. The next thing we are going to do is to stretch the hood by 2 inches. We want to keep the look of the stock firewall, so we need some more room for the Hemi. We just got the subrails for the bed and need to notch them for the rear axle. I've seen some people just cut a section out of them to accommodate the rear axle, but we want to cut a radius over the axle for a more finished look so we'll have to find a plasma cutter.
We got the rear tires we've been looking for, a pair of Coker L78-15, mounted up and on the truck and a nice set of wheels we got from Lionheart (a fellow Hamber). One of the fun things with building this old truck is the cool people we meet along the way. Thanks for the wheels Lanny. Now we can work on getting the bed subrails mocked up.
We're still making progress and little at a time. we got the bed sub rails and the rear inner fender mounts and a tail gate and starting to get them mounted. We got the notch in the subrail just the way we wanted them, with a filet in the corners.
We've been working on getting the front of the engine wrapped up so we can lock down the location of the motor. everything is tack welded to this point so we want to lock some thing down. We got a three row radiator that was built for a channeled 30 to 31 model A so it fit our Z'd frame perfect. The radiator locates on the front cross member, so everything else locates to that. Bob at Hot Heads helped us out with a cool timing chain cover and a small block Chevy water pump adapter which will be a lot shorter than the original hemi water pump. We also put a 318 balancer on it which gave us a bunch more clearance to the bottom of the radiator. It looks like we will have to lengthen the hood by about 2 1/2" because we want to stay with the stock Model A firewall. We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, once everything it tacked in place, we'll take the whole truck apart, finish weld everything, and start painting before final ***embly.
The Jalopy Journal
