COE 1941 Ford COE build

Hey Rick, any more progress on your '41 COE

 

Slow, slow progress... Built the first floor pan over the w/e and started to fit the radiator under it.

 

Here’s the latest poser pic of Buford… Radiator mounts are in and tilt mechanism *just* clears them… The radiator is almost in the stock position it was in the Corvette right in front of the engine. Air flow will come thru the grill and straight back to it. New floor supports are in, new floor pan mostly ready. Need to finish the bead rolling. My bead rolling DOES NOT look like Dough Boy's! Still a long, long way to go.

Rick

 

Original build thread is here: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=607966

 

Looking good ! Love the tilt cab, nice work keeposting!

 

When you are done taking your "bows", you need to get back to work...HA!

Looks good. What/why is the sub-frame extended behind the cab?

 

Bows!! BWWAHH!! The subframe that's out beyond the cab will hold the Pete sleeper.
Worked on bead rolling the new floor panel. By Trial and Error found that I want some space between the die edges, like this:




Floor Supports:




Panel in Progress..

 

Oh, and one more thing.... Safety tip of the day.... Keep your fingers out of the way of the MIG wire.. Yup, right thru my glove into the end of my index finger...

 

Bead rolling is good, but also you might want to add one more support under the center of the floor pan. You put a lot of weight on it getting in and out of the truck. I forgot about the sleeper...(duh )

 

That's a good idea. Prolly be good to think about seat and seat belt anchors about now also...

 

Too your safety tip of the day: Mother Freaking Oooooouuuchhhh!!!!

I had a high school shop teacher drop a hot welding rod in my hand as a joke. I didn't find it funny.

 

One place I worked we had a welder that ran a piece of fluxcore through his calf. He had thrown the stinger over something and the trigger jammed, as the wire paid out, it touched a ground, turned red, then found his leg. They fired him, as it wasn't the first dumb accident he had.

 

Tack welded in the front corners.... floor ready to weld in... Fenders drilled and bolted on... Removed the doors to get the spot welder to the last few spots. They had to come off eventually for repairs anyway...

At least some visible progress. It feels good.

 

Looing good...

FYI- It appears that you will need a new center bar for your grill, Northern Truck parts sells the replacement steel piece, (as well as the stainless cover). They are just not listed on the website.

 

Nice work on the floor pan. Looks like a difficult part to make in one piece. Are you going to spot weld/plug weld it to the bracing?

 

Thanks guys!

Interesting... The center bar would certainly help but like the rest of the truck there is LOTS of Swiss cheese on it. The whole bottom part is toast and even the top section has some holes. My plan has always been to purchase a 38/39 fibergl*** unit to get me on the road while I pick away at fixing the 41 grill. When is your repro 41 grill gonna be ready???

Other than just learning to use the bead roller, I also learned I should roll it before bending it, that made it very difficult. I plan to spot weld where I can and plug weld the places I can't get to. I was mostly successful plug welding the front inner fender "skirts" and they were vertical. I had much nicer results on my test pieces with horizontal plug welds.

 

No reproduction grill yet, because I have not found one to buy that I can use as a mold...sounds like yours might be available(?)

 

Northern Cl***ic Truck has the grill bars on their site. $300 for the pair (1941-1947)

 

Well, I think I got it too damn hot... I do not think I had any bulge with the little tack welds. But I suspect as I got a bit more adventurous and increased the little "dot" tacks to 3/8-1/2" I created one where the red reflection from the Jeep is in pic 2... argh...

 

glad to see your build thread continues over here

i was very disapointed when it got locked in the main board ...

 

All of your pictures are gone, even on the main forum.

 

Looks like the pics are still in the album. I'm having trouble navigating the new forum. Let's see if I can load a pic of the floor panels... I'm slowly working on it.

 

Pans look real good . You are getting good with your bead roller ! Keep up the good work .

 

HA! She thinks hew "new" 2006 Mustang seats are going into her Mustang.....

 

Those look good.

 

Finally finish welded the floor. Still some good welds and some ugly. Going to declare a moratorium on body work for a while and make it drive.

 

Gotta figure out how to separate the two windshield frame pieces... Any clues??

 

I think I've figured out my battery and ECM placement. They can go outside the truck frame beside the engine. (The ECM was outside in the Corvette). This spot leaves the right length for those portions of the harness and also has me just extending from there to the PDC as has always been the plan. The PDC will go under the hood.

I plan to put some sort of box above the running board and behind the lower valance that will house the battery and ECM perfectly. All of this will stay in place when the cab is tilted so no issues there. 'cept one... I gotta get the battery and ECM wiring into the box..... My first choice would be a hole in the frame with a welded in "sleeve", but that's gonna be a BIG hole for the ECM connectors.... Prolly 3" at least..... Maybe a similar "sleeve" but under the truck frame. There's room, but it seems a little hokey. I can't go over the frame cuz the tilting frame rests on the truck frame. However, I could make a much smaller cutout in the top of the truck's frame with a removeable plate across the top. If I had to pull the ECM connectors just remove the plate. That hole would only need to be the size of the wires, not the connectors.... Hmmmmm.... It still means cutting the Dodge frame, but....... Any other ideas?

 

The pins should be removable from the plugs, them your "p*** through" hole would only need to be larger than the loom itself. Make a good list of what color wire goes to each location in the plug then remove, p*** through and replace. I like to separate each row of pins from the connector and isolate with a zip tie, then you are only working/p***ing a few wires at a time. less confusion.

 

Thanks Steve, that's a pretty good solution, although I must admit that removing the pins from those types of connectors can be a challenge for me.. Must be what my wife calls my "banana hands".

I see by this reply that I don't get emails of watched threads..... Hmmmm....