Projects A late introduction-Junior Conway coupe build

Thats right Martha, the front end ain't ever comin' off. As per instructions.

 

Glad to have been a small part of the project. It's coming along great! Can't wait to see it at the Roundup!

 

Hey guys I need some 8BA help. I'm trying to keep this as correct as possible. I'm trying to locate the generator and I'm running into a problem I need some help with. If you look closely at the original pic you see the generator located on the out side of the L head water inlet. I thought I could fix this with a Speedway offset bracket. All that did was put the generator over the top of the inlet. I was told to solve this I needed a 59A generator bracket that went on the head. The other pics show this bracket installed. You can see my problem with clearance at the draft tube, water inlet and the battery. I don't think that Jr was involved with this on his car as he can't recall that the generator was even over there. There must be a simple fix for this besides cuttin' stuff up. HELP!

 

i dont want to seem like a prick! i have and always will love this car. have tons of pics. ans used some styilying cues on my merc... but is it really that important to make it that accurate??? it was a famous car to a degree, but does it have to be that intense? like i said not being a jerk just wondering ?

 

Well my first reaction to your question would be , why wouldn't that be important? We've heard about the original. If the original car could have been saved would the resto have been changed in some way? What would be the motivation to be careless with this particular car?
I may have answered my own questions. If this were some old obscure custom you might feel what difference does it make? I think we saw that with one (or several) of the last owners. This car would probably fall into a milestone car category as others have said here (in there own words). As incredible as it may seem this was a car that changed lives. I would ask you to go through this thread once more and listen carefully.
If I felt the freedom to do a tribute car you wouldn't see this level of seriousness. So if I tell you that this car was mostly responsible for my life's work that has fed me, clothed me, enabled me to get up each day and love what I do, then consider this. I owe it at least the determination to recreate something that recaptures as much of the original as possible.
Junior has sent me a fuzzy pic of a close up of the trunk. This pic allows me to see the kind of oil and gas containers that Jr showed the car with. I'm also going to be able to duplicate the pin stripping on these containers.
I owe this to each person that loves this car. I hope this helps. If it doesn't, you have probably identified who you are (regarding this car).
After reading your profile I think the only thing I could add would be ,you had to be there as a very young and impressionable kid. That may be our only difference.

 

I love it! Your attention to the detail is fantastic, keep up the great work. By capturing every aspect of the car (even the smallest ones) you are honoring what Jr made famous...THE DETAILS. Being able to communicate with Jr during your build has to be fun too. Jr is responsible for the paint, fit and finish on our 50 and his work is unreal. So needless to say, you've set the bar as high as it can go and after reading this thread I think your doing a great job in getting over it.

 

For those who didn't live vicariously through the pages of the "little books" as teens and pre-teens, details probably don't have much significance.

But for those of us who could only dream about the absolute excellence of "California" customs such as Junior's coupe, the details are everything.

It's too bad that the real car met such an ignoble end, but it is a great thing that Jer and his boys have chosen to recreate Junior's car in a way that brings the smells and sounds as well as the visual memories back to those of us who were there back in the day.

To do any less would not only be a disservice to Junior, but to the precious memories of thousands of others who cherish every moment of the great custom car era which Junior's car represents.

Thanks, Jerry, for spending so much of your time and energy to allow us to relive some of our fondest times.

 

It is difficult to adequately reply to these responses. Thank you for the kind words. I can only add that we need to realize that this car wasn't "perfect" in the way that Jr would build it today. This must also be captured. An example would be that the doors never were removed from this car. Every pass with the spray gun meant that they were opened and the jambs recieved the next coat of paint along with the exterior!! With the exposed trim being masked!!

 

ok thats good enough for me.. i dont fully understand what you meant by "you have probably identified who you are (regarding this car)." but this isnt about me, and didnt want to mess up this thread. was just a question.
i can not wait to see this car done, and honestly wondered why no one has done this before. i guess im just not a stickler for details. when its all done i dont care if the gen bracket is identical. but i now understand why you do. so best of luck with the whole biuld i will eagerly watch for updates.. dave

 

There is an old saying that goes "Great doors are opened on little hinges" or something like that. If there is no generator bracket there are no dual carbs. If there's no dual carbs we put a lock on the hood. If the hood can't be opened (for some reason), then to hell with it. We might as well go fishin'.
You don't have any problems Dave. You're just the second generation.

 

You would be correct if you concluded by earlier pics that were gittin' wired. The bullets have arrived. I'll do a how they are fitted process shortly.

 

Amazing stuff i love the attention to detail.THe conway shoebox is a masterpiece.Well done for building another one we all can enjoy.I am glad you are pay exact attention to what junior built,it is this detail that separates us from the rat rodders. well done.

 

Hey,guys. I have the bullet how-to done but, I don't know how to load all these pics. When son Tom gets home i'll post em'.Sorry.

 

Ok, we're going to fit these 53 Merc bullets to the back bumper. Jr originally welded these onto the bumper. All the pics (that are now showing up) of the car without the bumper is because the chrome would not stay on the area where the welds were. He says the bumper was rechromed three times. Because of this he has advised me that I shouldn't weld them on. Thanks Jr.

The first thing to do is to protect these bullets from being ruined during this process of cutting and fitting. We'll take a solution of flour and water with newspaper, and form some bullet shapes from the originals. I used about nine layers of saturated newspaper strips about eight inches long and three inches wide. I made sure that they would release from the bullets when dry by first putting tin foil over the bullets. After they are dry carefully trim off the excess and force a long thin knife down the length (upper) of the chromed surface of the bullet. They will eventually pop off. When dry they will be bullet like shapes of hard thick paper. First we use a contour gauge to give us a feel as to where we're going . We continue to cut away with scissors until we like how it fits the bumper. We transfer that shape (with a sharpie) to the bullet. Now we know where to cut these bullets.They cut real easy with a saws-all. I cut to about 1/8' of my line and finish with a grinder. We will drill out and remove the stock mounting bracket to locate and tack in place for a fit to the bumper. We need to know exactly where the bolt hole is in relationship to the bumper. Drill the hole in the bumper, determine the correct length bolt and install. As you can see, you wouldn't necessarily have to send anything out to be chromed if you have good chrome to begin with. If you're doing front and back bumpers you only need one set of paper bullets. Do the biggest ones (front) first as you will need to cut down the paper bullets for the smaller ones. In this case the back. Remember there are r-l bullets that you will need to swap sides on as you move to the back.

 

Wish I knew the paper trick when I was doing my '54 Ford with the Merc bullets! Mine are welded on, hope I don't run into the same problem that Jr. did!
Incidentally the whole reason I put the '53 Merc bullets on my car is because I liked them so much on Jr's.

Awesome thread!

 

edit* Sorry went back through and reread your post. I see you are using an early style bracket but its from speedway (so the quality and fitment is suspect).

On the b&w Jr. picture...Maybe that vertical line your seeing in between the "loop' on the road draft tube isnt the generator bracket but the water pump. in that case he might have used an EARLY 24 stud offest generator bracket combined with some SPACERS to get everything up over the waterneck. my guess is around 3/4" spacers.

also nothing says that his road draft tube is connected properly at the bottom of the flatty. it might be hanging or jimmy rigged at the bottom clamp. the point is you can see how much of that loop is showing in that b&w photo. that might mean he just turned the road draft tube for clearance there. combined with spacers under the gennie bracket to get it over the water neck.

how thin is that old 6 volt battery? and is your battery box a newer 12 volt size?

 

All right Paullie. This is the kind of response that I was looking for. At this point in my process I'm contemplating the battery size issue. I just don't see how that battery could have fallen over as has been said earlier. Where I'm at now is how to make the generator line up with the pulleys for the belt, in this configuration. It looks to be way to far back in its mount. The speedway mount could work with an offset water neck and hose. It wouldn't give the correct appearance but would let me keep the dual carbs. That mount has been polished so it would look nice.

 

Juniors shop was one of my favorite shops to visit in my LA days...

So much beautifull work going on there.

How many times has he reminded you that he built the car when he was 17?

 

I'm with Paulie on the battery thing. I copied and blew the photo of young Junior up reeeeeeeeeeealy big and it looks like a very thin battery was used in order to give the generator room to be offset.

You can see what appears to be a cable running the length of the battery, and what appears to be the three battery caps just above the radiator hose. The caps are very close to the inner fender as they would have been on one of the thin 6-volt batteries which were available back then.

If this was the case, and I believe it was, the generator could be right where you've got it and function just fine. All you need to do (famous last words...) is find a thin 6-volt battery. Just one more thing to think about...

The anecdote about the battery "falling over" and trapping the kids inside is amusing, but highly suspect as to its nuts-and-bolts accuracy. No offense meant. I'm 63 and the exact details of some of my youthful adventures are a bit hazy as well.

I'd be more inclined to use the photos as evidence of the way the car was built. It's lucky that Junior kept them all these years.

 

http://www.shoporium.com/shops/AntiqueAutoBattery/view_cat.php3?cat=823

 

Hey guys I appreciate all the effort. Remember I'm keeping the 12v system. That should'nt change the battery size issue. Right now it looks like the final obstacle is getting the generator to line up with the pullys.

 

Ah... the adventure continues. We broke an exhaust manifold bolt off in the block. This will let us clean things up and get a good look at how that l side pipe needs to be.

 

This will give you a sense of where we're headed under the hood. The holes on the r-l of the firewall are for heater ducts and a blower. These are all chromed. I don't want to risk overspray on them.

 

I've been looking for the pipe we talked about and I'm not sure we have any left. If I happen to run across it I will let you know. Sorry bud

 

Thanks for the effort.

 

Closing in on final fit before paint.

Compare what was under the dash to what will be there now.

With the appletons in position the antenna can be located correctly.

Dick ,peep, Jackson was the older friend of Jr's brother that got him the job at Barris Kustom. Jr started out as peep's painters helper. Dick eventually became the Appleton installer at the shop. Dick has made a guide to help drill the ½" hole at the correct angle for the Appleton installation. Dick had a machine shop duplicate that guide and sent it to me. Thank you Dick.

 

Can you perhaps make a photo of this guide. I would love to see how it looks.
Thanks for giving us the updates... this really is one of my favorite Hamb posts lately!

 

Here is your Appleton installation info Rik. You can see that the guide fit's the bracket and provides a pilot hole for the extra long ½" drill bit. By using the correct side bracket it gives you the right angle for the light. Dick also supplied a template that he made off of his 49 that he's doing. You could locate the light on the pillar by holding the head in place to get the right height.
I got what started out to be a nice set of lights only to have things complicated by shipping damage. It turns out that I have two l side brackets. So if anyone has any info on a r side I would appreciate it. As that will be needed to finish off this part of the build

 

i have a couple extra brackets from dummy spots . will that work in a pinch till you find the rite one???

 

Thanks for the input Dave. This car came with dummy lites. I made an angle gauge out of cardboard. The first pic shows the correct l side bracket. The second shows the dummy r side bracket. I think I've whittled down the dummy bracket as much as I can. I just don't know how visible the difference is going to be.