Projects 1940 Ford 4-door restoration project in Europe

After more than a 1 year break I'm back at the Ford.

I have had to bend the frame into shape a little bit after the welding.
This was inevitable. It took me some time to figure out how to do this.

In the end I glued two poles of hardwood together and then used a band saw to
cut them in pieces that fit inside the frame rails.

View attachment 5909379




I stuffed the frame rails with the wood so as to lock the C-shape of the frame rails.



With the wood in place and a 10-ton jack bending a frame rail is a walk in the park.



With this done I could finally weld back the front parts of the X-member.

 

I finished welding in the front parts of the X-member.

 

Now to re***emble the frame I had to put back the rivets (49 in total).
Some holes has to be drilled oversize. I used mostly 5/16" and 3/8" rivets.



I had no idea which equipment I needed. Fortunately fellow member Neil helped
me out with really good advice.

I bought a compressor and an Ingersol Rand Q 121 air hammer and I was fortunate I could borrow an acetylene setup of a friend Gerard.

The 3/8" rivets had to be heated at least 3 times. The most frustrating part
was that my bucking setup fell apart often in the first second I started using
my air hammer. You need something really heavy and almost no amount of
clamping is enough to keep it locked into place.




Almost all bolts had to be replaced with rivets (49 in total).



Not all rivets ended up aesthetic but I am happy with the result.

 

To expedite the project given the delays I treated myself to a pair of running boards and a grille.

 

Did you do the riveting by yourself?

 

Yes. I got some help of a friend while riveting the first dozen. The remaining rivets I did myself.

 

Looks good!

 

Riveting takes practice and a firm hand to prevent those double strikes where it pinches the rivet head and mis-forms it a bit. When I built my truck bed I ended up going back around and drilling out the ones that I didn't like and replacing them.

 

It is good to see you back on your project! Some times you just have to take some time out and give a difficult problem some extra thought. Your wood block solution to frame straightening looks like a good one.

 

Love builds like this. Keep the updates coming.

 

Those are junk

 

This is very impressive.

 

Very cool thread. I know it takes a long time to do a project like this - especially with life getting in the way! I'm hoping this one is still going. Subscribed!