Projects 1939 Ford Convertible Sedan Resurrection

You must be getting more shop time. You're moving right along and doing a great job. I like that clear plastic trick.

 

Well I wouldn't say we are moving along too fast, more like a crawl. That clear plastic trip comes in handy quite often. I highly recommend it.


A couple of months ago we got back on the wheel tub project. I don't think I covered this yet so here goes.

friend donated this quarter panel from a 39 Ford sedan he found upside down many
years ago. It was just what we needed.

You may remember this is what we found after blasting so the new/old piece is a big
improvement!

It wasn't a perfect match to the panel we removed but it will do the job. The holes along
the inside edge are for plug welds. We had to make a flange that nails into the wood C pillar
support (not shown). The 39 sedans didn't have a wood support system. So we had to
get creative to finish this part off.

It lined up pretty good.



The donor piece is a little lumpy but much better than the previous piece.

So it's wheel tub install time.



After a bunch of fussing around I decided to cut this bead out so I could align it with
the new tub. I used copper again to back up the weld.

had to make another cut to taper out the bead.

You can see the misalignment here.

I had a hard time figuring out how to hold the piece while tacked it in place. Gorilla tape
did the job.



Last piece of the puzzle. Don shaped a patch for this spot.







I left the inside welds unfinished . I think it is better to leave the beads for more strength
in the weld joint when possible. This will be covered up with Dynamat some day.



Metal finished

Done with that! Looks like a patched quilt....

 

I found a few more pictures of the quarter panel patch panel so I thought I would add them to the thread.



I used a steel plate with several screws insure correct alignment on the wide section
of the quarter patch.

Lots of tack welds.





100 or so spot welds later.....

This picture shows the tabs that the 4 door sedan patch piece did not have as mentioned
in the previous post.

 

Looking good Sam!

 

Thank you Scott!
I didn't take very many shots of the fabrication of these C pillar supports. The original
supports had to be cut off and new bottoms made to fit the wheel tubs. I used 1/4"x3
Steel plate to build them. Fortunately Ford made the originals from cast steel making it
easy to weld the new to the old.


This picture shows the original brace.

I cut a slot for the new flat vertical piece to pass through the floor pan.

I am hoping that this heavily gusseted section does not cause too much interference with
the future arm rest.

The arrow points to the gussets. There was a lot of pattern making and trial fit time that
went into building this section. You may notice the the heated area near the bottom of
the brace. We had to make a slight adjustment to get the body out to the width dimension
that my C pillar truss called for.

I am glad we are past this job.

 

Here is another one of those seemingly small projects. I had noticed that this female
door dovetail was damaged a long time ago, but I always thought I could buy a new one.
Well last week I got out my catalogs and discovered that they make all sorts of these
dovetail assemblies but not for a 39 Ford open car.

From my experience it is very common for these units to be damaged as people just
keep slamming the sagging doors shut. You can see in this picture that the tab that is
supposed to hold the dovetail wedge in place is broken off. Welding that back on
proved to be interesting.

You can see the retaining tab for the other side in this picture.

You can see the damaged steel housing here.

I backed up the little tab with some copper for welding. Took two tries but got it welded.

So here is the tab welded in.If you have ever wondered what the wedge looks like in place,
here is your cut away. I needed to weld the new sheet metal cover on in a place that the
weld penetration would not need to be ground off to allow the wedge to move freely.
This configuration left me with just a small area of weld to grind down at the peak of the
arch.

You may have noticed that the sheet metal cover has a base (4th picture above). I
discovered This after cutting the top cover loose. The two pieces then could be move
independently. So I had to square these pieces up and spot weld them to each other
before proceeding with the patch. I made the patch bigger to work as a heat sink during
welding. It took a few tries to get all three bends to the correct dimension for this patch.

I use the clear plastic tick to transfer the needed shape for the dove tail from a good
dove tail.

Not perfect but very usable.



Fits now ,and it's ready to go to work.

 

Good job. One of a thousand fiddly things to make good. Sometimes it seems never ending. On the bright side, it's probably better than a repro.

I don't think there's a single thing on my project that hasn't had to be straightened, fixed, remade or whatever. Not counting the custom stuff! Of course, we're not dealing with 4 year old cars.

 

Okay the car has been rebuilt up to the B pillars. It's time to move on the the A pillars.
So there is no floor forward of the B pillar and the front doors are hanging off of the cowl
( A pillars) and the doors sag big time. Lot's of opportunities here for major alignment mistakes.

We decided we needed to install the top irons so that we could be certain that when we
get the doors to fit that the top would still fit onto it's mounts at the top of the cowl.

Like most parts of this car they had been sandblasted , labeled and set aside 15 years ago.
Since back then you had to use a film camera to take pictures it was just not something I
would do too often. I also thought I would be working on this car until it was done in a
couple of years. Well you know how that turns out sometimes. So we had to do some internet
searching and ask some CS owners like sshep for some help. After way too long we got them
figured out. I am not looking forward to raising and lowering this top. It will be an all manual
operation and I have read the it is a two person job. I have a repop copy of the manual Ford
made for owners on how to fold the top.


I hope some of these pictures will help someone trying to solve this puzzle in the future.

The top irons require several shoulder bolts. Some were missing with standard bolts in
their place. I was able to source some from Mc Master Carr but this one is really special.


It is made from a 9/16x12 bolt. I managed to order a couple of 2 inch long bolts. I don't
know why they wouldn't stock such a popular size bolt . They have finally arrived and
I will give a go at machining them on the old lathe.




This rear header looks pretty ragged. I think it can be rebuilt with some epoxy but will
definitely will need to be covered. Do any of you know of someone making these? I have
done a lot of searching but have not come up with a dealer yet.





So the irons are on but how about the front header? That the subject of the next post.

 

I vaguely remember that Ford made two top iron configuration in 1939 so I had the
company send me both styles of header. I thought I had chosen the correct one and sent
back theother one. Well I guessed wrong. One of the holes on each side was just slightly off.

I chose not to modify the top irons themselves but to reconfigure the holes in the header.
I drilled a hole from the bottom side through the T nut that was buried in the header under
a wood plug. Then I drilled down to the T nut with a flat wood bit. Missed getting a picture
of that.

I also missed getting a picture of removing the T nut but I just screwed the bolt on to
the T nut and tapped it out with a hammer. This picture is out of sequence but shows
the nut and bolt idea. This one shows installing the T nut.


So now we have to fill the original hole before making the new hole.

I went out to my round stock cupboard and found a piece of broom stick. cut and epoxied
it into the hole. I used Gorilla 5 minute epoxy.

So then a piece of dowel was epoxied into the bottom hole.

Finished. It was pretty easy to get these back to contour.

So now we have to install the new T nut in the header. It is pretty much the same process
as the removal of the original set up.

You can see holes were not that fat off but enough to require this modification.

I thought it might be a good idea to bore a relief into the the bottom side of the wood
plug just in case the header bolt was a little to long. Well one of them came out right.


I drilled the hole a little deep on this one so I had to install another plug.



Looks okay





The header fits good

Now we are ready to move onto fitting the cowl and front doors. My posting is finally
current time !

 

And people wonder why these projects take so long. I really like your approach to the challenges in your project. Please keep posting.

 

True, X38 and Weedburner , projects like this require thousands of man hours often spent on little items that will never be noticed on the finished car. Good thing that I like the challenge they present. Working on this stuff is much better for me than doing jigsaw and cross word puzzles! Thank you both for your comments and for following the build. I will try to keep it interesting.
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Moving on to the cowl project:

The passenger side cowl was actually removed about 15 years ago and the new drake cowl
has been clamped in place until this week.

When side by side you can see that the cowl Drake made is for a closed car. It does not
have the A pillar support built in like the convertible cars had.

I was told that the reason for the extra support is to stiffen the A pillar to reduce cowl shake.

So changes will have to be made.



The original support had to be removed. It had very few welds connecting it to the cowl.

Out and ready for some blasting.


So some of this stuff had to go....

I have to take a deep breath and a few breaks to consider other alternatives before cutting
up something like this. This section had to go.


I also hat to cut the entire rolled edge flange off.

The removed parts and the old support clamped in place.




A little gap here but we will make the connection eventually.



Fits pretty good, but the we will have to figure out how to tac it together while testing it's
fittment.

Another reason for using this A pillar is that it has the threaded bosses for the lower hinge.
Notice I also had to cut that notch out for the door catch. darn pillar just would not go in
without making the cut...


Just getting started.... I am thinking I will have to install the front floor before moving
forward with the cowl though. This section of the car should be very interesting.

 

Sam, you're the kind of builder I like buying a car from! No corners are cut. Great to watch along.

 

Never fear, it is very interesting.
Yes, cowl support/strength is very important in open cars.

 

Thanks for all the detailed pics, & the reason for them.
Yup, I'm following.
.
Marcus...

 

Wonderful update Sam. A work of art. Can’t wait to see it on the road.

 

Sam, I'm glad I sold my old rusty convertible. I think you're correct about the floor first and you are doing a great job. I'm always fascinated by your attention to detail and perseverance. My only suggestion is; do as few tacks as you can until you get it in place . Happy New Year!

 

It's always good to hear from you guys! Your encouragement is very helpful when faced with the high degree of difficulty this car presents. It has been slow going on the A pillar project and it is always good to hear a compliment when a project is moving slowly forward. I agree with your suggestion Joel about making as few tack welds as possible while trying to get the major parts aligned. You may notice that the floor is just held together with screws for now. I will be posting soon about the slow progress. Lots of little steps are required and of course I will try to cover most of them. Thanks again for following the build! Happy New Year!

 

Wow time flies! 2 feet of snow kept us busy for a about a week around here. It has been below freezing ever since it fell so it is just starting to melt away. We have been working steadily on the project though so I have a few updates.

The Drake cowl does not have this bracing that the 39 cowl had so I decided to duplicate it.


The foot of firewall brace is cleaned and ready for the new parts.

This is the as delivered cowl from Drake.

18 gauge was used.

Simple piece.

Goes here.


Duplicating this.

Needed another piece on the back side

drilled holes for plug welds.



Welded

We started preparing the A pillar.

Fortunately the the a pillar lined up with the cowl well where I had cut it off years ago.

Welding



I think the welds are strong and should hold up well.

Metal finished.

I have enough photos prepossessed to do a couple more posts so I will try to get them
posted this week. Thanks for watching.

 

Always good to see your updates, it is going to be quite a day when four people can get out and close all four doors. What is the history on that clamp in the center?

Bob

 

Just checking in the progress and it looks awesome. Keep the updates coming.

 

Continued great work Sam. Should be ready for Good Guys.

 

Hi Bob, the clamp is one of 4 that came with my shop. I am not sure what the PO used
them for but I think that they would allow you to thread the clamps together to jig something
up for welding. I use them often. Sometimes I use the T to clamp them in the vise.
As to your comment about 4 people being able to get out and close 4 doors. So far the trick
seems to be getting them all to open then close and stay there. We will get there some day.

Thank you Hot Rod Ron!

Maybe GG's 2024 or 25 John.

 

Test fitting the right side cowl indicated I needed to add some metal to the firewall
for a proper fit.

Penetration was good.


Careful grinding and sanding followed.

39 Style above

1940 style above

Since I am using the 40 Ford style Hood spring assembly which requires 2 bolts here
I had to add some metal where it bolts onto the cowl here.



There it is all finished.



As you can see on the right Ford used a lot of spot welds on the cowl to firewall connection.
I tried to lay out my plug weld pattern the same as the original.

All drilled out. I like to use a multi bit for drilling these holes.

 

More cowl stuff!

So it's time to remove the left side cowl. I like to use this type of spot weld cutter. The
bits don't last as long as I would like but they work pretty good while sharp.

I usually center punch the weld first. You want to drill just far enough to cut through to the
inner metal but not through it. Light pressure seems to work best. Too much pressure and
the bit will walk right out of the hole. I usually see some rust when I am through the outer
skin#2.

I count 21 spot welds on this one flange.

There were also some rivets. Don't understand why but I am sure some engineer thought it
needed to be there. I usually center punch the rivet head and then drill partially into the rivet
with an 1/8" bit.

I then follow up with a bit about he size of the rivet head. I drill it until the rivet head
spins off.


Then I use a drift punch to punch out the rivet.

The firewall base connection is next.

Lots of welds and rivets here. Henry's boys really didn't want this to come apart!

Rivets out but lots of welds to drill and grind out.


It was time to take the cowl section off the frame so that the cowl pieces would be
easier to access.

Folded the top back a little for this. we are going to have to make the joints work a little
easier....

Ugliness

Yellow arrow points out how far into the rocker the original floor goes. We will be talking
about this later so log that in your memory bank. The red arrow shows the floor metal
that was fused to the A pillar foot.

Another shot of the end of the rocker.

Getting to the bottom of the cowl now.

Finally found the bottom of the A pillar.



More welds at the bottom hinge. Arrow points out where a hinge bolt had been drilled
out. This is supposed to be a threaded boss. I show my fix later.

Welded a 5/16 fine nut to the back of the bottom hinge boss.There is no access to the
back side of this A pillar when the sheet metal is on. that's why this repair was required.

Probably not the correct tool but it works for peeling the cowl skin from the firewall.

This piece of sheet metal was pretty stubborn.

Some sort of rubber sealant red arrow was used between the sheet metal cowl and
the A pillar. I assume it was an anti rattle attempt.


So to get get to the sandwiched sheet metal in this area I had to get this under-coater stuff
out of the way.

I used a heat gun, screw drivers, putty knife, and some scrap sheet metal tools to get most of
it out of the way. Then I used mineral spirits to do the final cleaning. The edges were
pinch welded (see pencil) plus some other spot welds on the flat. Not a fun place to work.
I was glad the i was doing this work on the work bench.

Hammer and chisel separated the sheet metal from the cowl top.

This section of the cowl was pretty rusty so I cut it out to make access to the rest of the
flange easier.


Bent some 18 gauge to replace it.

Welded it in. I also had to do a weld repair to the hood support just below the replaced
top piece to repair an errant cut off wheel scar.

Well that's it for tonight. I am posting all of this detail to show folks that are considering
this cowl side replacement project that it is not an easy or quick project. At least it wasn't
for me anyway. If you can repair your original cowl side it may be easier than this route,
and maybe less expensive. More on this project soon.

 

Man, you're getting in for some serious surgery! How will you get it to or make sure it all lines up in the end?

 

An incredible amount of fussy stuff to make this car right, very impressive metalwork.

 

It looks so much nicer seeing you work with a blasted body, makes for a better finished product IMO. Bob

 

Restoring this car is a huge undertaking and you are doing an amazing job. Thank you for sharing ALL of the details of how you go about it. We are all following along with great anticipation.

 

This has to be one of the most inspirational builds here. The amount of work you are doing well makes me realize what a slacker I am.

 

I'll say it again...you're rocking it Sam!! No short cuts...and excellent documentation showing your process and bringing us along. I feel like I just dropped into your shop to see how you're progressing.