Projects Barn Find '39 Deluxe 4-door Sedan Build

Your rust spraying concoction looks like it worked great. It'll be awesome having all parts new and old looking like they've been there the whole time. Keep it up

 

Nice to see another more door getting some love. keep it up !
I pulled this one out of a barn a couple years ago. Fixed the brakes, put some gas in it and it’s driving. Been running it as is ever since.

 

Thanks, I was amazed how well it worked. I didn't pay enough attention in science class to understand the process but really liked the appearance.

Beautiful car, I love the color!

 

I bet you could sell that flathead to any number of restorers and put that "LARGE" amount of $$ into
fixing-up one of those 428's or 9's ....and never look back.
IF.......you plan to drive it a lot (I would!)
Plenty of power & reliability ...I know-I know flatties can be made reliable....
Plenty of great options for a real find.
6sally6

 

Wow, it’s a good thing I’m not a flat rate mechanic doing these brakes, I’d starve. Drum brakes have always been a weak spot to me but these are exceptionally bad. I bought a brake kit that came with the shoes, wheel cylinders, hoses, seals and springs. The kit looks nice but I had issues right from the start. I had to ream 2 of 3 wheel cylinder holes to get the bolts to thread in and then had to run a drill bit thru the 2 holes for the spreader bar pins. Finally, after struggling way longer than I care to admit to get the spring on I realized the new one is at least 1/4” shorter. I went back to the original spring and got it attached. I’ll reserve dumping on the company until I do the other 3. I’m certainly hoping I don’t have the same problems but I expect to. I couldn’t figure why the bottom of the rear shoe wasn’t tight against the backing plate. It ends up I didn’t have the e-brake arm in its clip. Tear it all back apart and redo it. That was a good place to quit for the evening.

 

I've also got one.[Blue] These are really around a lot-survived the '50's. Popular with families I guess. I even grafted a bad coupe body to a 4dr chassis/pan and cowl. See it as my avatar. Fit perfectly. Weld is around the rear wheel well, B pillar base and windshield posts. Newc

 

Very nice and it doesn't surprise me it fit. It wasn't that long before these cars that the Model A was so universal. I always had preferred the coupes but I think I'll enjoy this one because I have more people than a coupe would hold that won't mind going to cruises.

 

This is a long winded rant or whining, however you want to view it. I also totally get that this car is 84 years old and I should be grateful that some of these parts are even available but this brake kit could possibly be the most disappointing box of car parts I've ever purchased. Friday night was the start of the issues but yesterday was worse. I solved all of the Friday problems, wasn’t happy about it, but they got corrected.
I previously had mentioned the brake shoes problem was the pin needing drilled and finding out the springs were too short. I found out having to slot a couple holes wasn’t the only wheel cylinder issue.

As evidenced by the photos, the piston are maybe 1/3 the depth and the “good side” is twice as wide. I noticed this when I went to put the 2nd one together. I walk around to the other side and shook the top of the shoes. I made a short video of the clunking but I’m sure you get the idea. This really messes up what I wanted to accomplish this weekend, things were going so good while this box of stuff was sitting in the trunk. I decide to get the drum ready to go for whenever I get the wheel cylinder issue solved.

I clean up everything real nice, reassembling as it was when I pulled it out. Go to my white box of garbage and in the bag of short springs were the 4 seals. They are solid front and back, originals were open in the back, so you had to be paying attention which way it went in. I found a perfect diameter wooden hole saw slug laying right beside my vice, no clue how it got there. I tap in the seal, just a couple more taps to fit the snap ring. Last hit sounded solid, remove my wooden puck and I couldn’t fit a paper c-clip in there. Upon closer inspection, I now have the bearing where it won’t rotate because that seal is pressing against the L shaped ring! Maybe these work if you left it out, I dunno. All I do know is this would only work with a max of 2 out of 3 of those pieces in my pic. Meatloaf song doesn’t apply here. Even if it was designed to have that retainer left out, woulda been ridiculous, there should’ve been a scrap of paper in the unmarked Ziploc giving a person that horrible advice. Every part I’ve lifted out of the box has been inferior. I’m feeling like the hoses will either be too short or have a bad flare or threads, maybe both. Sorry, I’ll be back with a positive post next time.

 

Unfortunately this sort of experience isn't uncommon this day and age where most of these parts are manufactured off-shore with sub-standard quality control. I recently did a rear spring kit on my '51 F1 and pretty much everything had to be modified to fit. If a person could find NOS or domestic NORS replacement parts you might pay more but it'd be worth it.
Best of luck with the build.

 

Thanks, I feel like I’m going to need it. I’m just fortunate having to not buy as many parts as most for this project. The fact I sell automotive paint and supplies doubles down on my experience with inferior parts. I’m around shops all day, every day that fight with garbage parts the insurance companies mandate, or try to anyways, and restoration shops that run into what I just did. I call on 2 places that work on old, sometimes odd, high end foreign stuff that don’t even have parts available. I had planned on refurbishing as many original pieces as possible anyways

 

I decided to bend the last brake line because I didn’t think that could go wrong. I also was able to get 2 of the new tires mounted and balanced last night. I had planned to use whatever tire held air the longest as a spare. It didn’t take long to realize I really had only one that wasn’t cracked so bad you could see the tube.

 

Your shoes are on wrong, lockheed brakes the long shoes go in the front with the big wheel cylinder piston and the short shoes to the rear with the small piston.

 

Thanks for pointing that out! I’ve got to admit I looked for differences but notice the bottom was shorter on the one. Thanks again for pointing that out now! I’ll correct that when my new wheel cylinders arrive. I would never have swapped those pads

 

I'm starting to get more parts trickling in. The wiring harnesses are installed except for the dash harness, still waiting to order it. I hope to be able to pick up my converted generator this week. I went with the Tanks Inc gas tank, part # 40G, and I'm real glad I did. The finish is really nice and it would be impossible for it to fit any better. It goes in and out way easier than the original and the 2 extra gallons of fuel will come in handy. Even though there's notes everywhere saying this tank doesn't work with a stock style sending unit, like the 99A-9275, I see no reason why that one won't work. It doesn't appear that new sending unit has the bulge on the bottom side, like the original, so it should sit down in there with no problem after an adapter ring is made.

 

Nice car. Sold this one last October to a Hamber, and I miss it!

 

The fuel line could be removed out thru the front. I laid it out and bent the new one just like it. I left some extra line sticking up because I don't have the fuel pump yet and don't know if it will be the same as the original, I'm hoping to get the new one installed without much issue. The Tanks' unit has a nice pick up coming out the top so I needed to extend the line straight out from where it used to go into the original tank. I have it lined up to be able to tighten the hose clamp thru the access window for the sending unit.

 

Sweet build! I need to get back to work on my '39 Mercury 4 door.

 

Thanks Dan, that's a really nice car!

Thanks Dylan! I'll be glad to give some motivation. I'm sure I'll be needing some from time to time.

 

Got some good stuff happening today! I got my generator back after it was converted to 12V negative ground. He hooked me up with a quality USA made voltage regulator and I swapped the lid from a NOS 6V unit I snagged on Ebay just because I thought the lid was really cool.




When I got home, I had some wheel cylinders from Speedway waiting for me. They were just what I wanted to see and look just like the originals. The difference of the first ones I bought is night and day. Of course I got the "we've sold hundreds of those brake kits with zero issues" story. More to follow on that

 

I like your style on this build. Just fix what needs fixin so you can enjoy the car. No need to overthink the build at this point!

 

That’s for sure. Besides procrastination, I have a major flaw of going way to far on a project, any project. I could see myself doing the body and paint work on this at some point but I’m going to enjoy it as is and only do that once the next project is completed. I’ve been without a ride to take to cruises for more years than I care to admit.

 

Well, my day was made early! I was getting parts dug out to take to the machine shop and decided to look if I need an offset generator bracket. I had fingers crossed I didn’t and it appears I’m good! Only by the thinnest of margins but it’ll go. I did find the generator bolt thread is stripped but no biggie there. A dual carb setup seems like it could be a tuning nightmare, especially since I know nothing about these carbs. My plan is to rebuild a carb and put the single intake on. After I make sure it runs ok I will put the other carb on and after it runs ok, swap the intake last. Possibly not necessary but I think it’ll save me time in the end.

 

I did exactly that the Tanks brand tank in my 39 , but my original sending unit was toast, I ended up making an adatper and using the sending unit module for a 56 ford and modifying the arm to match the length of the original 39 float arm. Works flawlessly, and is very accurate.

 

Nice car! I hope you are going to give that shiny new tank a patina job, it is going to look out of place under there.

 

Unless the car is very low, then only the die hards will see it!

 

You have a Hexagon Tool intake! Those are rather rare. Note the carbs mount backwards compared to every other intake made for old Fords. You will need to get creative with your throttle linkage.

 

Good to hear! I had planned to make an adapter but then it occurred to me that I can probably just drill the 5 hole pattern in the 99A-9275 sender. I will know soon because it just arrived today!

Thanks! Yeah, I gotta try something. That'll be my first attempt at spraying my rust color paint process on something that large so I'm not sure how it will turn out. Fingers crossed

That's more of a "I'll know it's not right" kind of thing

Backwards, seriously?!?! I never even noticed that! Thanks and boy is that embarrassing

 

I get it, loving the way you are attacking the sedan, It's a Cool thing, was trying to piece one together a while back.

 

Thanks! I kind of regret not working on the car earlier in life but nowadays is the best time for people cruising a car that shows its age.

Hopefully, I’ll get to post some progress over the weekend. I got another box of parts yesterday that should keep me really busy for a bit

 

Holley 94's are great carbs and easy to work on. You may want to go with smaller jets once you have both on that intake and change out the power valves for smaller ones as well. I use 3 1/2 power valves and 46 jets in my dual carb setup. There is also a three position setting for the accelerator pump linkage. Play around with that till you figure out which hole for the link works best for you. Talk to Charlie Price at Vintage Speed. He makes the PROPER power valves for those carbs and will have everything fuel related you need. Go with the double thickness gasket for the tops of those carbys. They seal so much better. It really isn't hard to run the two carbs. Screw the idle adjustment screws in gently until they seat, then back them of 1 1/2 turns. Done. A cheap home use ultrasonic cleaner unit and rebuild kits and Bob's your uncle.
Andy