Heyy Guys! I’ve built some cars but none that were really HAMB worthy. This car isn’t any thing really special as it’s been done a million times before but I figured I’d post up my coupe. I bought it it October as pretty much a stocker . Pretty excited about it. The goal right now is to get it together possibly for TROG wildwood, but may keep it real simple just to get it on the road and decide on other stuff next winter. I’ll just post pics from when I got it. And where I’m at and I’ll ad to it as I go.. I’m in Woodbridge Virginia by the way. New in the area so also hoping to meet some Hambers.
I gathered up juice brakes right away. you can see the car was in great shape. It was supposedly restored In The 70s. Not the greatest job as there’s some hokey ass patchwork in the trunk but nothing too bad. The roof had plywood and Bondo in it but, surprisingly was pretty clean unerneath. The paint is old cracked up, crazed lacquer which looks pretty cool and I’m not planning to repaint the car anytime real soon. So for now any metal work I do I’ll mix up a concoction of rustoleum to blend it in ... fake it to make it..
I got a dropped axle from Okie Joe and a model T spring for the rear still playing with that stuff a little
For a little while I thought I’d keep the banger and hop it up. But I’m just not into it. I love the banger cars that are done right. But I decided to sell the banger and pick up a 59aB ...I WILL NEVER ship another motor! Haha too much hassle .
I Swapped rear spring, wasn’t lower.. so I took a couple leaf springs out. Might be too soft now. ... I am tempted to just Z the frame and me done with it but I’m tryin to live with it and get the car on the road this summer.
Modified backing plates and stuff.. this is where I figured if I’m gonna swap the motor might as well do it now cause I gotta decide how to plumb the brakes and all that crap.
F Grabbed up a 59Ab and a 39ish trans... I’m already thinking I wanna do a t5.... but that’s later on.. prob with 32 rails... I dunno
Kinda got bored while waiting on some parts so I dug into some of the rear fender well and it wasn’t too bad .. faux finish on the paint aka the quick n shitty
Now for the v8... picked up tan F1 crossmember... and made up the typical motor mounts... nothing too fancy here guys sorry.... I dunno why I wasted my time... next time I’ll just make the thing and save some money... but anyway..
Using a stock banjo rear... fits fine but tight on the firewall. So I smoothed it out some. Also playing around with an f100 steering box.. waiting for some headers before I am set on the location..
Welded stuff up and set on the motor and stuff got a clutch in and just getting the pedals and clutch linkage lined up...got to get back to steering stuff to lock it all down... using f1 pedals and master cyl. ..
Yeah man! Very good start unlike other cars I’ve had! Already a fresh set of big an littles on it! Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Pretty much got my clutch linkage thing set up and stuck my Chinese radiator on to see what’s up. I’ve got about 4.5” from the gen pulley to the radiator.. anyone know what the distance needed for a gen mount fan is? ... hoping I can get away with it.. we’ll see. I Gotta get ahold of a generator pulley and a fan I guess... tomorrow I should have some headers so I can. Give my steering box a final look and see what I gotta do to make the headers fit. Was gonna get some headers from Havlirs..(not sure I spelled that right) but don’t have that in my budget right now. I’m really hoping to get this thing fired up soon. Just down to all the nickel and dime bs.... name of the game. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
I know there are a few different fan depths, I would need to check the parts book for the sizes. I just had one with a short fan on it but I checked and don’t have a dimension, don’t think it was more than 3” front the center of the pulley groove to the front of the fan. Cliff Ramsdell
Just fitted my F-100 box, it's a tight fit with my headers , needet to replace the top screw on the box, towards the firewall, with a flat imbus for more space and made a ding in the header to clear the steeringbox. Box flange needs to be angled to fit the '32 rails, shaft on my box was a little shorter than i would have liked, but worked, no stiffening plate possible though. Schaft of the f-100 has larger diameter, otherwise more or less a easy swap , hornbutton with cable down the column works. Needet to shorten the mantlejackettube. Have not tryed it on road yet. Will follow your build.
Oldbanger71, thanks for the pics! From the teaser pics there looks like you have something rad going on! . I just got my headers today... been sitting in the garage starting at this from every angle. I think I’m going to move the steering box back about 4” and it puts it in a spot I think... I also need to make a wedge spacer cause if I clamp it to the frame right it kicked the Column off.. i really wishe I did something a little different. I hate this set up haha . I’ve decided right away that to get my steering wheel low enough I need to shorten the column up. No be deal there I guess. Only thing I don’t like with moving the box back is that I pulls the column up in the pedals. (Kinda more between your feet... I wanna make sure there’s no bullshit with foot space . Since I’m shortening it I might just u joint it and I can do whatever really ... at this point I’m just rambling haha . But here’s some pics of where I’m at. Might just change the header up some .... Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Which Box are you using ? For my self , i decided that it would be less trouble to leave the pitmanshaft at the original location for not changing the steeringbox geometrie. I shorted the pitmanarm to the lenght of a Stock 32. I Took the route of cutting the Box flange off and reweld it at the right angle to the rails, since i knew i needed to get as close to the frame as possible. I droped the column a little, so there is now a spacer of about a finger at at the stock 32 column drop and dash. The column goes throu between the pedalarms by just a fiew mm. But pedals clear them ok.
I think the center dump headers are more trouble than they are worth considering you really don't gain anything horsepower wise when using them. I used an F100 box and some stock flathead exhaust manifolds and got everything to clear properly by pushing the motor over to the right as far as possible and taking a little off the corner of the steering box. I also had to put a small dent in the steering mast tube where the last header manifold bolt is. One issue I had was that there is so much stuff on the left side of the engine it would have been ugly trying to get the exhaust through there. I ran the exhaust across under the front of the motor and down the passenger side with the pipe from that side and then back over to the driver side so I could have duals out the back. Hope this helps.
I really appreciate how you are going about this project. This is a great example of building a simple hot rod without blowing it completely apart which is how so many projects get derailed. Not every hot rod needs to be a top notch build. Nice work!
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