Projects 1940 Ford Coupe Resurrection, Tuesday Night Special, 303 Olds Taildragger

OK, Friday Afternoon is the new Tuesday Night. It just has not been working out. That little guy on the left in my avatar is now twelve and middle school is killing all of us, especially my wife. Like all kids his age he has some issues but the biggest one is that he is a near genius that has been skating through the pathetic Georgia public school system on will power alone. He is now at a school for the gifted that specializes in science and is mostly kicking ass. It is the other two subjects, English and Spanish that are kicking his ass. It is a ton of work and the wife has been taking the brunt of it and Tuesday nights just had to be sacrificed to quiet and paying attention to our younger daughter who was getting into mischief being left alone while I was in the garage. Since now both of us are "self employed" we now have more free time during the day and since things have been Ok income wise and work load wise we decided to move both our Mommy and Daddy Nights off to days off. 4 day work weeks and I get Friday, all day till diner time. Now of course I have not worked on the car every Friday as I have had some projects that just had to get done to pay the bills but I have got a bit done lately. Here are a few over due pics.

Got the good solid door I picked up a few years ago installed. Santa did not bring me a door bottom for the drivers side yet. Holding out a while to see what I can get.


So I decided I would continue to work on it with what parts I own already and that was all the flooring components. I really did what to start front to back but decided to go back to front and spun it around and leveled it on jack stands. It had been hit pretty hard in the left rear which had put a crease in the quarter at the fender mounting line at the top. I decided to fit a fender and see how bad it was.



You could stick a finger in how far it was kinked in. Here is another shot:



The fender was "mostly straight" especially along the mounting flange which was in pretty good shape. But it did have a huge gonk at the front edge which left a gap there:



So a few hours and some sore hands later I have it knocked back pretty close. There is a brace in the trunk that is keeping me from getting the quarter dent free but it is close enough for this old car. I will need to do rust repair later in the fender bottom edge. Some after shots:

 

Had a good Friday in the garage. A little under the weather so not too much got done but a good start. So I pulled out all my replacement sheet metal and took stock of what I have.

I pulled out my Bob Drake catalog and starting measuring things up.

I test fit a few pieces and very quickly realized that the spare tire/vertical brace unit was in the way of the riser piece. I know they only make one floor in repop and I must have the other seating arrangement. My original floor dipped down in this area, must have been a jump seat car I guess.

So I cut that out and will shorten and reinstall when the floors are complete. Next I moved onto the tail pan/ tool tray. To say both are roached is an understatement.

So nothing to do but get rid of them

And this is what I was left with, still some trimming up left to do and I need to clean up where the tail pan spot welds to the quarter. Both lower quarters need some repair as well. I did some test fitting and imagine I will have much more to do before welding begins. But I feel good about what got done.

 

On off, on off, grind, grind, bend, twist, and repeat over and over........


New tool tray drilled for spot welds.


Knowing my welding skills are somewhat so-so I did a practice run of spot welds. I read some threads, drilled holes of different sizes, and tried various welder settings. Best was 15/64" welder heat on #3 speed turned up a bit to #5 and backed with copper to prevent blow through.


Cleaned and marked the inside of the quarter the best I could using wire wheels and scotch bright type paint stripping wheels to get in the rust pits. I really learned on this step that I need to get the metal cleaner. The best welds cam on the cleanest metal.



And in it went. Pocket covers installed as well. They fit like crap! Mixed matched parts is probably the reason. EMS tool tray and Drake pocket covers do not play well together.


Rear pan installed for test and looks good, drilling and welding to come next.

 

Nice progress. Looking better all the time!

 

Looking good ..... nice work!

 

Nice work! Don't forget to test fit the trunk lid before you weld all of that stuff together.....

 

Nice work!

 

Thanks for all the compliments guys (and gals if any of you are lurking out there), thanks for following along on the slow boat.

I had that darn lid up and down so many times I think my right deltoid is starting to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger's, that thing is heavy.

OK so here it is in, spot welded at top and sides, still need to do bottom and all the braces, but need to move some metal a bit making miss matched parts line up. Is it perfect? No. Am I happy, hell yeah.



The fit is pretty good. I had to weld the outside where the fender flange is first. Then pull out the quarter and clamped the overlapped part in a bowed out fashion to make it fit the curve of the trunk lid.



If I had done a few of these before I probably would have done a few things differently. I am least happy with how the corner pocket covers are, they just do not take up the gap well at all. I wonder if I had put them in at the end I could have done a better fit up, not sure if I could get the welder in the space. I have looked at may threads and they all have the tool tray in before the tail pan, so that was how I did it. In the end I'll body calk the joints and with some splatter paint it'll look fine, but ill know.

Next I need to fabricate a new mid-trunk floor brace. You can see it in the first photo. It is held together with angle iron and C-clamps to keep the car at the right dimensions on the frame. It is absolutely rusted through and they do not make one to buy. The ends are OK but the middle is shot. I plan to cut off the ends and pound out a new middle part using sheet metal supported by angle iron using my vice, some clamps and a hammer and/or possibly some sort of wooden hammer form as I do not own a brake. It is a top-hat design but built at an angle to keep the floor horizontal on a sloping frame. Should not be too hard to make, and again no one will ever see it, it just needs to support the trunk floor.

I met a new guy at last month's V8 club meeting that might have some parts, and possibly a door. His dad was a hoarder of mostly 39-40 mercury but he believes there is some ford stuff to be had. Gotta call him this week.

 

Tail pan looks great! I remember I had a heck of a time getting my new tail pan to line up on my 38 coupe. I did make my own tool tray (that had its own set of problems), and I still need to finish the welding where the two join... but I digress.
I love following your progress and look forward to your next post. Keep at it!

 

Looking great, keep up the good work, my friend. Amazing how your skills have risen to the task

 

Tail pan looks great! It's a lot of work and most of it will never be seen but you will remember the problem solving and inovative thinking it takes to make all of those small and large parts that it takes to make your dream come true.
Thanks for taking us a long on your journey.

 

Nice work .

 

Looks good from Kansas City!

 

lookin good crusty! your inspriring me to get my ass in gear!

 

Good to see you back on this, it can be hard to find the time to work on cars with a 'regular' job and family, running your own company can swallow even more time. Great progress on the chassis, welds look good. Pro builders often weld plates over the joint in the ails to spread the stress, like the ones in this pic.
I hope to get out in my garage tonight, keep doing the small things, and the big things will follow..

 

Again, thanks for all the comments. I have really enjoyed the HAMB all these years, it is a great place to share.

Another productive Friday. I started by attaching the tail pan reinforcements (what ever they are called). Drilled and spot welded. These were tough to do as clamping was limited to one long clamp and I could not get it tight and has some lifting/melting back of the thin metal around the weld due to not being in intimate contact. One also came out a bit crooked, oh well. This is one of those things if I had done them before I might have welded them to the tool tray first before installing the tail pan to have clamping access from both sides.



Next I made up the horizontal floor brace. I was going to do this from sheet stock to make it look factory but went with a piece of 1" square 1/16" stock that was originally welded in the trunk to keep it in alignment by the PO. I slit one side and took out a 1/4" x 3"section from each end and then put in the vice to close it up and make the 3/4" to 1" wedge shape where it meets the frame rails. Lastly I added a pad made from some left over 1/8 x 2" strap I had that keeps the rubber mounts in place on top of the frame rails. I boogered up the welds pretty good and had to spend time filling in my blow though areas. Not pretty, but gave me time to play with the welder and fix and fill holes. It is an under car/floor item and will never be seen. I really need to get a gas setup for the mig before starting on the exterior metal. On the list....
Original:


Replacement:

Where it lives:

The Bradley floors I have are all oversized and do not have any mounting holes, just beads and the gas sending unit access hole. I measured the side to side inside the trunk at the inside of the wheel wells and came up with 44 1/2" give or take a bit. So I bent the sides of the rear most floor section with a body hammer using angle iron and clamps.

I made that little cut at the rear edge to fit over the tool tray and ran into a problem. The tool tray top flange is approximately 4" wide.

While the beads on the floor end at around 1 1/2"
Distance of edge to sender access hole about 4 1/8"


Here is where I need some HAMB help. I had the scraps of the floor that were removed by the PO but when I had to move all the parts home it got left behind because it was lace and I was low on space. Can someone please get me a few measurements? I need to know the distance from the lip where the wood sits on the tool tray to the beginning of the bead and/or the flat side of the sender access hole which seems to be a more accurate place to measure to. I am pretty sure I need to cut back the 4" tool tray upper flange as the beads will hit it if I do not but am not sure how much or where to start adding the floor. Also to help confirm it is going in the correct location front to back where do the body mount holes measure in relation to the beads/round drain thingies (technical term). The floor look to take a upswing from horizontal transitioning to the kick-up in the frame about an inch after the brace; are the round drain thingies before or after the upswing? Thanks in advance.

 

Good to see you are saving that frame. And don't knock your body work. It may not be perfect, but consider what it was when you started.
I can't help but add that every time I see a coupe body like yours, while stripped and gutted, it reminds me of stock cars when I was younger. To think now of how many of them got smashed and twisted makes me wonder how any survived this long.
Good Luck!

 

Alright here we go again. Three damn days to get the first section of the floor in. Still needs a bit of welding finessing ie. scrubbing my shitty welds with the grinder. So, I trimmed the extra long tool tray down to a 1 1/4" flange and welded the new floor even up to the forward edge. This placed the sending unit hole centered on the cutout for the filler neck in the left side wheel well. The filler neck and sending unit are in line on the tank. I have to say the car is getting more solid feeling. I can grab the quarter at the trunk opening and it will not wiggle any more. On to so pics:

I drilled everything for plug welds, less chance to burn through and mess anything up. Note the 4x4 that is my Improved Trunk Lid is Heavy As Hell Based Clamp System (patent pending)

Showing the full effect of the ITLHAHBCS (patent pending, note handy add on lamp feature where the cord provides friction necessary to keep the lumber from slipping and the lid from braining you) for areas that a "traditional" clamp cannot reach when installing a overlap plug weld joint in a trunk;

Doing a little grinding. I mostly want to take off the splatter and rough edges as this will probably get some sort of bed liner like texture paint instead of upholstery.


I drilled the quarters to plug weld the floor flanges in. The factory floor was in this way and putting the welds here will help to hide them from view, again some sort of heavy texture paint to be used in here.

I didn't take any after pics as my welds were wildly inconsistent (some beautiful and some look like a kindergartner did em) and I just grabbed the grinder and took em down. I actual have been using a trick I picked up on the hamb to grind them. I am using a air cut off tool with three discs stacked to knock down the welds (you can see it next to my welding hood in the open trunk shot). The 90* orientation and using the cutting edge of the wheels stacked to make a 3/16" edge makes hitting the weld and missing the parent metal much easier than a traditional horizontal grinding wheel that you use the flat of the disc. You can more easily see what you are doing because the wheel is not covering an area larger that what you actually removing making aiming easier.

This section probably needs another day to make me happy enough to move on. I next need to remove the remnants of the rest of the trunk floor, then place the more forward seat riser panel that has bolt holes that go to the body mounts and fill in the middle with the last floor section. BTW Bradley provides two versions of this section one flat and one bent. The bent one could have been used to fix the floor I had originally if it were in better shape (the edges were gone that you would need to save and trim it to fit in). That floor dips down between the frame rails to make room for the jump seats. I am going to use the flat section and flow over the frame kick-ups.

 

I am impressed. If I get that way I would like to see what you have done.

 

Larry, your car restoration work is as meticulous as your fine art restoration, IMO.
You're doing a great job.

 

Any updates on this? I've enjoyed watching it come together!

 

Slow to nothing, been building a business and raising kids. I've also gotten distracted with vintage Feather Craft aluminum boats. I still have it, still buying parts for it and still dreaming of running it around. On the back burner but not forgotten.

 

Nice build thread. I enjoy seeing the 1940 coupes being saved.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...ild.1135712/&usg=AOvVaw1BxnV2XJjD44Enlua8HkM7

 

Took 5 years but I finally found a mint driver's door. It was a great haul this weekend at the NE Georgia Swap Meet. Got a good repro tank for $50 (my original paint tank came back from the dipper with so many holes they did not charge me they felt so bad), tons of Drake weather strip, and a set of NORS fender skirts. Great day. I had looked at two doors earlier in the swap that were only marginally better than what I had and passed on them. In the bathroom trailer I saw a guy I'd bought 40 parts from a few times before and asked if he had any there for me. He said no but that he bought a door yesterday. He has a coupe as well and has a collection of spares. We get to talking and he said follow me. This door is so perfect, has all window stuff, no bottom rot, most of the weather strip still attached. I can't believe he let me have it so cheap, $200 what he paid for it, I guess us 40 guys gotta stick together.

It's been about 3 years since I've done much but buy a few small parts when I could. Business has grown and thankfully we weathered COVID well. Finally feel comfortable financially again to spend bigger chunks of change on it.

I'm excited to move forward now. With a good door I can get rockers in and finish the floor. Going to get back on the chassis first a bit and hope to make it a roller by end of summer.

Sent from my SM-A102U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Good for you - it’s always a real boost for a project when you finally find what you’re looking for no matter how long it took! How sweet it is!

 

Good news all around there Larry, both on finding a nice door at a good price, the business continuing to grow, and you and your family are healthy.
Hopefully when this pandemic lets up and we all benefit from herd immunity, our group around ATL can start getting together again.

 

great story, keep the ball rolling. Dont obsess too much about some of those fitment issues, they often werent that great from the factory, and you are working with repop and survivor pieces. It will be a better world when another 40 ford coupe gets on the road. And I love those hydromatics, btw. Good luck.

 

Looking forward to seeing more of your posts. Hard to get info on re-building 40's and this helps.

 

Another great parts find. Through the local Early Ford V8 Club grape vine I heard about a widow parting with a collection of '40 sheet metal from her late husbands stash. He had at one time owned a Texas junkyard and everything was rust free but a few pieces were a bit bent up. They were hard to assess just hanging there over a bunch of boxes, but I could tell there was no rot.





I wanted just the four fenders and trunk lid and made her a fair, if generous offer, she accepted but said I had to take them all! Got two rust free but dented front fenders (really only needed a good right, the new one is dented twice and has an edge crack but is better than the weld scarred one I have) A really nice and straight left rear and a NOS Standard right rear fenders. The trunk lid is my holy grail, dent and rust free with just the lip at the top edge bent down in the middle. For extras I got a nice passenger door, one decent running board, a standard hood (bent back edge but very nice), two window divider bars with glass channels, an odd horn, and the tray beneath the radiator (a bit cracked and rusty but less so than the one I have). I have already passed on the hood to the guy, Doug, that I have been buying/trading parts from at the swap meet who sold me my drivers door recently . I got my $200 bucks for the door back ( I know too cheap but he has been giving stuff to me for way under value for years). And then I gave him $100 back for a very nice column/wheel/box/drop with working key and switch.



My buddy Brett helped get the stuff home in his BIG 10, that's me looking over the new goodies. I got to clean out the under-house storage area to make some more room put these for now.

 

It's all coming together now! Good to see.