Projects A late introduction-Junior Conway coupe build

Installed, the spots have the correct "droop". It looks like they will clear the hood. Looking closely at the "open hood" pic it looks like the spot is still in the down position. The chromed interior mldgs had to be "notched".

 

Well, I'm satisfied that the Appletons are good. I painted the repaired areas today. I just looked at the brass sheets that have been outside under the canopy. Not good. There's a little corrosion showing. This is after a month. I contacted NOFIN and it looks like there was a trace of corrosion left after the cleaning. I need to restrip them (this will be the third time) clean them and bake em in the oven at 175 degrees for one or two hours.

 

jivin jer, looking good !

 

Jer...
didn't know if you had this picture....if so OK ...if not..here 'tis....

 

Thanks Randy.

 

NOFIN has offered to try to locate a "healthier" brass sheet. He has requested a pic and the only way I can do this is on this thread. Thanks for your help Adrian.

 

The spotlight brackets are waaaay over and up against the drip rails. In talking with Jr about them he said that Herb (his brother) had installed these before he owned the car. Therefore he had no first hand knowledge on them. He was under the impression that you had to move these out of the way before opening the hood.

 

Fascinating levels of detail Jer. I look forward to reading about its first show apearance.

 

There, now thats better.

 

Well, like getting it painted wer'e nearing another milestone, the upholstery.The seats have been at the upholstrey shop for some time. I went to see the trimmer today to tell him that I need this part done by the end of the month of September. He said "it'll be tight". I took with me all the pics I have of the interior/trunk. I explained to him once again how important authenticity is. Wev'e talked several times about this car and what it is. I was happy to see him pumped up and ready to go. We'll be following this closley and referance the appropriate pics.

 

Ok, I'm showing the seats that are at the upholstery shop. The trimmer is showing a device that he uses to tie the weak original springs together (for strength). After all the old stinky material is removed. This allows him to give back to his customer a product that will perform under normal service requirments to feel and look right. The first pic shows the upper back seat. The second shows the lower back seat with the original stinky burlap in place prior to removal. The third and fourth show the front seat.

 

When I went out to L.A. in Nov. to see Jr one of the things we talked about was the uph.. Jr said that the closest to what he had was what he had seen in Lee Pratt's latest shoebox. He gave me an idea where to find him. When we (my wife and I) finally tracked the address down we were told that Lee had moved to Texas a year earlier. Jr mentioned that what was in the car was smooth and shiny leatherette.

Ryan (our Ryan) gave me Lee's email address and that resulted in Lee graciously sending some good sized samples. They were the correct colors but not shiny and with a grain to them. I immediately sent them to Jr.. Jr's reply was, these are not smooth and shiny but it's the best your going to do these days.

When I went to see the trimmer yesterday after talking with him over the phone we went up to his office from the work area. We've talked about this problem a few times before. He opened up a book of vintage samples that he had found and said look at this. There together side by side were the shiny samples that were the correct colors. They have a slight random grain to them. If we haven't found the exact material used (like the brass sheet) this has got to be very close. He had already assembled a piece of the two samples sown together like they would be in the car.

I have mailed this assembled piece to Jr. I've told the trimmer to get goin'. The kustom car GOD has shown up again.

 

I asked my trimmer if it would be helpful if I cut the top off my parts car so that he could use it to help do the reverse bow headliner. His reply was "yes".

 

OK. I can only find perforated brass with a diagonal hole pattern, not a straight pattern like your sample BUT all is not lost because I have located a manufacturer in MI for you.

Check out www.clarkperforating.com

Click on round perforations then put 1001 into the search box. Looks like the same stuff you have.

Over to you Jer.

 

Fabulous!

 

It's a little hard to grasp that wer'e at this stage in all this.

 

This is the front seat bottom. If you look closely you can see the faint grain in the material.

 

The crew.

 

Do all upholstery shops have welders?

 

You would be supprised at what tools an upholstry shop has. I've welded more seat frames and springs than I can count...

Looking good.

 

This is one of the pics from Jr's stash. It shows the trunk upholstery and the configuration for shows. I want to duplicate this down to the pin striping on the fluid cans. I have'nt started my search yet for the correct cans to duplicate whats in the pic. They look familier. I thought I would post this pic for you to look at and give me your thoughts on this matter.

 

I'd like to chime in about the front suspension as I lowered the suspension under my 49 ford using the old-style methods of reversing the spindle uprights, cutting the coils and bending down the steering arms. Had to heat the bottom of [was the top before turning upside down and side to side] the upright and pry the bottom of the upright out to get the camber back straight up and down, using a carpenter square against the front brake drum and a flat driveway/shop floor...Make sure your ecentrics are set in the middle so you'll have some adjustment in both directions and have the car supported under the lower control arm to keep your finished ride height. Sounds complicated..it isn't.
I kept my original steering arms..didn't lengthen them. I heated the long part of the arm and bent it down about 2-3 inches and heated the eyelet and bent it back level with the ground as it was stock. This effectively shortened the length of the arm making the steering faster and a little harder but with that big Merc steering wheel you wont' have any problems. In fact, I loved the faster steering and had no bumpsteer in my car. I also built brackets to accept a trans-am 1and 1/8th" stabilizer bar. Made my car corner flat and quick....was a joy to drive.
I used a pair of big Olds coils and cut 2 full loops off each one..rode a little stiff but was like driving a trans-am with quick steering.
I initially used a set of rather big tires..8.00-15 Goodyear I bought for cheap at a swapmeet..they were to tall and hit the tops of the inner fenders..It's been a long time but I think I had to remove the heater ducting to clear the tires..I later went to a shorter tire because the bias-plies were really old and hard..followed every crack in the pavement and was actually dangerous to drive...I switched to radials in 14" size but I believe a smaller sized 15" new bias ply would have been ok.
I sat the engine [small block chev] high enough to clear the stock tie rod by 3/4"...didn't need to drop it.
This also kept my oil pan off the ground but raised hell with my floor/tranny hump and driveshaft hump..I used 3" rear blocks which necessitated clearancing the rear floor for rear axle clearance.
I could put my foot on the front bumper and bounce the front crossmember on the ground with some application of my 200 lbs with some effort. The car scraped the crossmember on hard dips in the road but it was a small price to pay IMHO and drove nicely. Hope it helps.
Oh,,btw....when I I took the car to the alignment shop it wouldn't align. I was told to oblong the rear, upper control arm mount bolt hole and bring the back of the conrol arm out about 1/4 inch which I did..my alignment guy was happy and got a nice alignment on it after that.

 

This is good stuff here. Short, sweet...and correct. Much of this was common knowledge back in the day (I'm coming to hate that phrase!) but has been lost over the years.

I've got a couple of published spec drawings / instructions which deal with this subject (heating and re-shaping Ford/Merc uprights) somewhere. I'll dig 'em out, scan 'em and post 'em when I get a chance.

Most guys just heated and bent the steering arms down, as Rocky discussed above. But as he aluded, some guys obtained a second set of arms which they used to lengthen the arms by welding them together and then bending them down.

This was sometimes accompanied (on some models) by heating and bending the steering arm (on the steering box) and the idler arm along with dropping the center link (tie rod) to improve steering geometry and/or gain pan clearance.

Thanks, Rocky, for the neat look-back on this nearly forgotten subject.



PS: I love this -----> "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."--Albert Einstein

 

Hey, I appreciate the input on the lowering issue you guys. Wer'e not quite there yet as you can see. Trying to get ready to go to the upholstery (there , I spelled it right) shop. I took a casual tour around the local Walmart/Home Depot trying to get a feel for the tin containers needed. Looks like it's going to be a swap meet,garage sale, antique store type of thing.

 

DAMN! (thanks)

 

The seats are done. The door panels/headliner next. I was told that they would have the top on the bench and two guys goin after the headliner but, not today.

 

OK, wer'e going to go forward and not try to use great big words (three syllables at the most). And, I'm a little sensitive regarding the word "dip" at the moment. This will pass.

Looking at how things are in the real world it looks like we need 5". I think I see 4" of suspension travel if we butcher the suspension stop.

What do you guys see?

 

jer ! looking sweet !

 

Looks like you've already got dropped uprights, Jer, so you gotta get the rest of it by modifying the springs...unless you plan to step the control arms. To get it all the way down - and still have a little travel - you may have to do both.

If you don't want to step the control arms, you can shorten the snubbers to almost nothing and cut a relief into the spring pocket to allow the lower control arm more upward movement/travel. You will also have to relocate the upper control arms to regain enough camber adjustment to get it to align properly. This is pretty crude by today's standards, but was pretty common back in the day.

Ask Junior how he did it and I'll bet he tells you he reversed the uprights, lengthened and reshaped the steering arms, cut the coils, cut down the snubbers and C-notched the frame for control arm clearance. That's a pretty universal recipe for the way it was done back then.

 

If you look at this picture, it looks like he was only tucking (sorry for the mini-truck term) about have of the white wall. That may suggest that you only need about 3 1/2". I'd say you're still going to need to step the a-arm, and (just a thought) relieve the material surrounding the coil spring on the frame for additional travel.