I'm looking for help/advice on what do to with the gap between my door and roof. See picture below. The car is a 30-31 Fordor Model A Sedan. Does anybody know what filled this gap on Henry's original? A pic showing how this gap is filled would be very helpful.
Hey, Based on the fact that you've/someone has chopped yours, I'd say the door frame is about .375 to short for the opening. Rechop the door frame and add the additional metal to close up that gap. S****ey Devils C.C.
Pimp- The gap was there before chopping. I'd like to see a stock car that's all together to see how they took care of it originally.
Actually your roof section is fine, it is just bowed up in the middle from the original wood being gone. The fordors, as you know by now, had a subframe of all wood. It was kind of done as a skeleton that the sheetmetal nailed to, more like the early chevy. I attached a couple of great pictures of what the original wood subframe for your car looked like. This is off of Brent's(a Hamb'er) website, found here: http://www.model-a-ford.com Your roof panels nailed down to a wood support that ran above the doors, from the windshield posts to the rear of the car. Then a drip rail went over the top of the tabs where the roof meets the top of the doors. You will probably have to form a lightweight metal frame to tack the roof panels to so they hold their shape, kind of like the original wood did. Take a look at these pics, they might help a little. And more importantly, keep it up! There is light at the end of the tunnel dan
Is this the drip rail you speak of Dodgerodder? Is the stuff reproduced by anybody? I didn't get any with my original pile of rust
Yeah that looks like it. I have to put them on my sedan but I think I'll just make it out of some thin C-chanel steel or aluminum. Mikes-A-Fordable sells it in a tube about 90" long, not sure if that's enough for a fourdoor. It's relatively cheap but the shipping is a bit pricey due to the length of the packaging and you have to bend it yourself.
WOW! THAT is a VERY impressive job of woodwork. The first picture shows an excellent example of just how MUCH WOOD there is in an "A" (it is an "A" isn't it?? The second picture shows a few differences from the "A's" I have worked on. Like the solid wood seat riser, and the "sill" pieces. Then the metal braces from the top bow support to the door headers. Were these modifications? Or am I looking at an entirely different make of body wood structure?? My compliments!!
There is a metal panel that goes above door. go to: http://rides.webshots.com/album/560811385agUFoZ You can see the panel, I've also touched said panel.
Yep, that's it. Like Lucky77 said, you can get repop aluminum drip rail cheap from the Model A restoration suppliers(Mike's A-Ford-able, Snyders, etc). They are plenty long to do the fordor too, since the fordor & tudor bodies are the exact same length. They come as straight pieces that are (I think) 72" long. You will just have to make a simple wood buck to bend them on to match up with the rear quarter window area. Yeah, it's beautiful work they did on that. That is a 29' A Briggs bodied fordor. I don't know about what was 100% original on the different Briggs & Murray bodies either, though I am sure there were differences. I have never seen one that was "all there" still though, the few I have seen have been piles of sheetmetal Ahh, two, four, six, it's all the same
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