Not another 36 ford coupe!! Not another build!!

Now i am not saying things were that bad, and the car was fairly cheap. i see it like this, the car was restored 25 years ago a time before the internet before you could just jump on order and a few days later it arrives. We are just so obsessed now a days with parts being original, i was very common in days ago by for people to make they own parts, i mean the parts were made pretty good. When you buy old Harleys over here a lot of stuff is that way because years ago you simple just could not buy it. i guess it is the same slap bang in the middle of Mexico.

So back to the build. so i started to clean up the steering box that was very sloppy and strip the gearbox down.







My god those gearboxes come to bits in two seconds, i am sure it takes five times that to put it back together. It looked a bit dull so decided to add some color.

 

Next was to strip the rear end, now you have to understand that i am a Harley guy, i have a company building old bobbers over here. So i know nothing about old Fords this is my first complete build. The idea of pulling something like a banjo rear end apart was a little scary but i just started undoing nuts and bolts....





Now i am not an expert, but am pretty sure the Pinion is not meant to look like that. It looks like a old british woman's teeth. Again amazed how simply things came to pieces, i know i will be regretting those words in a while.

My plan is to chrome the Banjo if its not too expensive with red trumpets.

 

wow its looking good already!

 

Wow this will be nice!

 

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you story is all too common. There are an awful lot of scabbed together cars out there that just look sweet as hell.

There is a lot to be said for building your own car, it appears as though you are doing just that. I hope you were not too deep in before you started setti8ng it right.

It does look good body wise you should end up with one helluva smooth car.

 

I am looking at a '40 Ford and the things you found are the reason I am having trouble pulling the trigger on it. If the car is still around after my vacation I will drive to see it to make sure. It's tough to find a Ford powered sedan so I hope it's nice

 

And this is why they call it a labor of LOVE....awesome looking car.
Fix it and drive it. Have fun...

 

i love it! it's like a friend of mines dad said "ya just can't leave it alone can ya".

 

Subscribed and I'll be watching to see how this works out for you. Keep at it my man, looks like you are off to a good start.

 

Glad your digging into it, I would have too. Just can't help it!

 

I traded my model a coupe for what I thought was a nice 39 coupe and low and behold, found the same things. My 29 coupe is now back in my garage and the 39 went down the road to somebody looking to rip it apart and start over. Looking good so far.

 

Wow! You must have all day every day to get it torn down so fast. I'm doing good if I can spend a couple hours a weekend on mine. I'm impressed. The body looks great in the photos. That's the expensive part, and the interior is nice to have too. Are you having fun yet?

 

Nice!

 

^^^^^funny!

 

Now thats a firecracker. As Tim The Toolman would say, "more power".

 

I actually started a few months ago, so at this point i am not posting as i go.
the story has a fortunate twist which sends me back a little ways.

I have a few more posts and then it will be to present day.

 

Subscribed.

 

Nice thread! I look forward to follow this one! I really like the way the car looked in the first photos! Great color, wheels, etc.. the 36 3W's are so beautiful cars from the beginning!

 

THE SHINY BITS!!!

I needed a break form all the dirty stuff, so decided to start ordering some of the shiny parts. First i should describe how i want the car to turn out, for inspiration i am looking at cars from the late 50's early 60's. I want the front low and the ass high. The wheels you see in the first photos are original 1940 16x4 which i added to the car, it came with wire rims. A friend of mine is going to swap a complete good running 283 for my old broken flathead. You have to understand that over here in Denmark i think it is harder to find a vintage 283 than it is a flathead. I am going to dress the 283 in lots of vintage parts for example aluminum finned valve covers, Offy intake, three 97 Strombergs, Hurst motor mount, etc etc.. So i started to spend.



Now the photos you are about to see, in my eyes is one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen, i should be in a f#€king museum, i mean what you prefer to look at? this or the Mona Lisa. This piece was ordered from Dick of Dick's Hotrod Place which is built using original intake and carbs, and i just can't stop looking at it!!





The next piece was supplied by Jeffery James and if you reading this i am sure you have seen his thread on building his 1935 coupe.



One piece at a time!!

 

It's on it way James! Oh that intake is incredible, I am saving up the scratch to get my intake done by Dickster as well. Just need to stop my chrome fetish first!

 

why do you need to stop your chrome fetish??

 

Because it's draining my budget and I end up selling things I might need to get it! The saying "Chrome don't get you home" is so very true. I'm really not going over board on it but even a few things can add up. Steering column, road draft tube, fender braces....ya know the essentials.

 

So James, I take it that the car WILL be ready for Eindhoven next week and I WILL be looking forward to seeing it there.

All the best buddy. Miles

 

Great thread, just subscribing to keep up!

 

what is the 'road draft tube'? and are you seriously chroming your fender braces? now thats taking care of the details.

 

I do not know if the photo is really big enough but this is a beautiful 36 chassis for a 3W coupe. i would love to have mine look similar... it's not going to happen but its something to shoot for.

 

Isn't the road draft tube just another name for the crank case ventalation tube?

 

Road Draft tube is on the back of early Chevy blocks. The PCV valve replaced this feature on late engines but it's basically a tube that comes out of the block and runs back under the car to dispense oil vapor. It's one of those things that distinguishes the old from new.

My car really isn't getting to much chrome. The fender braces that I'm chroming are the ones that shoot out of the front fenders and run down near the radiator mounting position. Just something that I thought would look cool in the engine bay. But that's basically it for the engine bay. A bunch of polishing but I like a lot of contrast so I don't buy into the whole Chrome everything idea.

My whole under carriage is painted black and those only things that stick out under there are hard ware like brake lines and fuel lines and e-brake cables. It's all very utilitarian.

 

CHEVY 283-----36 FORD TRANS

Now this has been done a thousand times, but i still found it a little tricky working out everything i needed. With the help of some drawings i found on Wilcap's and Speedway's websites i could see i needed an adapter, either a 10" or 10.5" Borg & Beck clutch (pressure plate), 10" ford clutch plate and pilot adapter.

So i printed out the diagrams and took them down to the workshop, because i have no idea what i was looking at or for. i did not know the difference between a ford clutch and a Mercury so all i saw on the back was an old dirty clutch. Then!! low and behold staring back me was a 1950 mercury B&B pressure plate. i could not believe my luck, after all the other problems.



Then behind the clutch was a very nice 10" clutch plate, ok now i was 2-2.



Ok so all i needed now of big stuff (you have to think about big stuff and little stuff when it comes to shipping it half way around the world) was the adapter and a flywheel which would fit the 10" PP. The adapter was easy, a good friend of mine new of a guy in the UK who had an original Offy adapter hanging in his garage and after one call it was mine for a good price.



The flywheel was a whole other story!! so all i heard was 'just use a 168 tooth flywheel', but i could not find one for a 10" only 10.5" and 11". when i called venders up they were not sure if it was the right one. so they would ask me to measure from the center of one hole to the center of the other hole acroos the plate.

I have to give you some background for you all to understand this story, i moved to Denmark from Seattle 5 years ago to be with my Danish wife. So i am a user of the inches and feet measuring system and as you know over here they use the metric system. They also use strange tape measures.



Well one day while walking in the park i found a tommerstok (danish for tape measure), one side was centimeters and the other side was inches. this was perfect for me as i still think in inches and i could use this to convert.



Anyway this is the tape measure i use to measure the diameter of the pressure plate and i got the measurement 11 1/4", called up the vender and he said he would get back to me. Days turned into weeks and no call so i decided to call him. he said he had called everyone and could not find any flywheel with that measurement, the closest was 11 3/4". He asked me to double check the width, i said 'i did not make a mistake'. but checked anyway with an American tape measure and i could not believe it, it was 11 3/4"!!!.

And this is how i discovered that the Danes, a hundred years ago had they own inch system which is NOT the same as the American system, and i just happen to find the last surviving tape measure with Danish inches on it!!!