COE Salvaging a 1938 Ford COE

Amazing. I keep looking at what you were able to do with that fender, not to mention everything else.

 

Some more restoration.

The left lower hinge area.

New inner fender. Upper half is from Norther Cl***ic, the lower half I fabricated.



The access hole in floor panel for the master cylinder.

Welds cleaned up on the lower hinge.




My custom stainless steel oval grill from Ron Holland. The horizontal bars are curved instead of coming to a point.


View of inner fender and rear cab corner repairs.



Making the '49 Ford dash a bolt-in unit. Shaping and tacking the filler pieces in.


Tweaked the column and pedals. Now I have enough room to rest my left foot and use both pedals with one foot.


Shaped a new rear panel where it was Swiss cheese before. Still need to finish welding and metal finish it before I add the lower piece.

 

Great work Tony and love the grill . When you coming to Texas and work on my body , almost to that point .

 

That truck is just going to be too cool. Love it!

The oval grill trucks are my favorites, and I really like the curved bars on yours.

 

Nice work Tony

 

Working on the lower right front cab corner.

The front cab corners and lower valance panel are very nice repop parts.


I needed to tweak the lower valance a little to get a nice tight fit to the cab corner.



Since the lower corners rusted away, this allowed the grill opening to widen more than a 1/2". I needed to pull the sides in and tack a brace in until I get the front corners restored.


Cut out the notch for a bumper bracket, shaped and tacked in a new piece for a smoother look.



I still need to trim it some more to fuse it to the rest of the cab.



The grill surround needs a ton of work to fit properly. I'm still not sure if I'm going to use it or just use it as a buck. I really want a steel shell. A metal shaper with plastic parts just doesn't seem right.

 

You clearly have the talent and know how to make the grill surround yourself. My guess is that even if nobody else knew it was plastic it would still drive you crazy if you don't build it out of metal. Since I don't have your talent I would likely be happy with plastic...

 

I very much lack the skill to create like that, but the plastic would always bug me.
And yes I have alterior motives in saying so.
I WANNA SEE YOU BUILD IT!!!

 

Have you thought about exhaust clearance with those dropped mounts? It looks like the mount will be right in the way.

 

Not sure what dropped mounts you are referring to.

 

After I got the bumper cutout welded up and metal finished, I fitted up the front cab corner and welded it in. I still need to metal finish the weld.





Next I will fabricate the pieces needed to reshape and restore the rest of the wheel arch.

 

More work on the right side wheel arch.

Testing the fender fitment.


I don't like the way Ford fit the fenders with the arch. Looks like a mistake, but all of these COEs are like this.



I will make a new section and reshape the arch to fit the fender.



Cutting out all of the Swiss cheese.


Formed a new piece.



Tacked it in.





Welded up and started to metal finish it.



Cut out the area so I can reshape the arch and rust in one new piece.



Testing the new piece. The arch looks much better now. I still need to add more contour so it fits up perfectly to the old metal.




Stay tuned while I welded it up and metal finish it to complete this corner...

 

Some day I'm going to have to drive down to Coal City and watch you do your magic. It's only about 4 hours.

 

Come over anytime Steve.

I finished restoring the right side cowl.


Got the patch piece trimmed and fitted.



And tacked in.



Welded and metal finished to complete this front corner.









Now on to the left front corner and cowl...

 

I am now very curious to see how it looks without the gap, with the door and fender mounted.

 

I hope I made the right decision in changing up that area.

More work on the left side now.

 

I'm thinking that the reason the factory did the arch like they did was to line up with the gap you will need under the doors to clear the fenders. Been looking at the three cabs I have and that bodyline lines up with the bottom of the doors on all three. This picture shows it pretty good. just saying. Awesome work!

 

I LOVE that Ford grill....

Awesome work.

 

Before...


After...

I think it looks better now....

 

Making a patch for the left side now.

Here is just a flat piece with a few lines drawn where it will be trimmed and where I need to tip the metal to form the arch. You see two different arch lines drawn on the panel. This is needed to form the 3-dimensional curve.



Next I use the tipping dies of my bead roller to start the edge of the curves. I tipped from the back side for the upper arch ( which is the actual arch that follows the fender) and then I tip the front side from my ZERO mark to 3/8 down from the upper line.



I still need to wheel more shape into the piece so it matches the contours of the side cowl.





Next phase is front fender restoration. Not going to easy considering the condition of them.

 

Looks real good Tony .

 

Thanks Blue. I started restoration of the right front fender. The first thing I needed to do was make a new mounting flange for the fender. It was too rusted away to hold the fenders shape and hold the fender on.

Here is the start of the new heavy gauge flange.



After making the whole flange, I tacked it to the fender and bolted it on the truck.
Then I worked out the big lumps and bumps, plugged the step pad screw holes, and got it shaped the best I could with what I have to work with.

Here it is shaped and mounted.



Next, i marked out where I wanted to make new patch sections. I decided to make two new pieces to repair the damaged area. The metal was just too thin from previous repairs to save.

Here is my layout for the two new pieces.



the first step is to make paper templates of the patch panels.

The first paper template. Just fold the paper over to get it to the shape of the panel.



Same thing with the lower patch panel.



Then transfer your paper templates to your metal. Here I am using cold rolled 19ga.





Then cut out your pieces leaving a little extra metal around the edges.



Now get ready to start shaping....

 

I started by beating the panel on my stump to get some shape.



I like using the carved out stump to shape metal because I can stretch and shrink very fast with it.



The first round of shaping involved the stump and Ewheel. Now I test my progress on the fender.

Here is the first panel after the first round of metal shaping.



It's not bad, I still need to raise the middle more to get the panel to fit without clamps.





Next, I will start to shape the second lower panel...

 

The start of the second panel.







And after the first round of metal shaping.






Not bad considering that this piece has a lot of shape in it.
Now for round two....

 

Obviously you so great work, but thanks for showing the actual process. It means a whole lot more than just showing what you were able to do. I certainly eagerly watch this thread.

 

I got the first patch panel fully shaped now and welded in. I still need to planish the weld some more, but I want to get the second patch panel in first.







More to come.

 

Incredible, Tony! BTW: Will you mind if I steal your bed design?

 

Thanks Rick,

 

WOW...

 

I got the second patch panel perfectly shaped and ready to install. I just need to trimmed it, cut out the old, and tack it in.





I will get it tacked and welded in tomorrow, then I'm off to the international metal meet for the next week. I hope to finish restoring both front fenders at the meet. If time allows, I will work on restoring the rear fenders and start forming the grill surround in steel.