Green Hell, A retrospective 29 Roadster build: I could never wrap my head around finding the time it takes to create a real time build thread, as well as building the car, so this thread was created in hindsight.. It took nearly 10 years but this project is complete. The back story- Around 10 years ago I got the bug to build an early 60's east coast style 29 roadster, no bells and whistles, a car that was minimal in aesthetics and intentional in it's styling. A channeled body, kandy paint, OHV engine and lots of chrome. At the time(2014) complete bodies weren't so readily available, and the ones that were coming up were just too much money for what they were. With that in mind I decided to build a car from a pile of parts. Between Craigslist, swap meets, junk yards, friends parts piles and friends of friends I ended up with enough parts to get started: Quarter panels, cowl posts, original subrails(to just past B pillar) original doors.. gastank, cowl panels, deck lid, model frame, dash rail, a crusty windshield. Brookville supplied panels above and below the deck lid, complete subrails, cross channels, rear body crossmember and eventually doors (sandblasting the originals revealed how hammered the original doors were), and deck lid, plus all the vertical bracing.. Here are some photos of the pile of parts, and of the parts mocked up on the frame-
DISCLAIMER: I had never put a body together from scratch before, and my sheet metal skills at the time were good enough to get myself in trouble. Granted now that the body is assembled , and all the sheet metal work is complete I'm SUPER happy I took the challenge on.. However, I don't know that I would do it again, as it was a pretty huge undertaking- I built my pick up on saw horses & that was a huge pain in the ass. Not wanting to waste that much time again I made a temporary frame jig that bolts to my garage floor. The jig was made from 2”×1/8” square tubing, with 1 ½” vertical legs. Once the frame was leveled and square to the fixture the vertical legs got welded to the frame . I then made numerous reference marks at various locations and would return to these marks countless times as I was building the chassis and body. Unfortunately the photos i had of this part of the process got lost.. Luckily the frame I scored was a 28/29 frame, once tacked in place I was able to access how tweaked the frame was, this is what I found: I clamped some level line from the front to the back of the frame rails (both sides) .this revealed that both sides of the frame had a pretty heavy sag(⅝”) around the motor mount area(driver side was worse), the driver side of the frame just in front of the motor mount was also pushed in and twisted inboard . First I tack welded a piece of square tubing to the side of the frame and was able to twist the frame rail back to where it should be. Then I used a bottle Jack to push the frame rail out a smidge… using the leveling line as a guide I used the bottle Jack to get the sag out of the frame rails. No heat was used to do any of this.. just small increments of pressure till everything was where I wanted it. The rest of the frame was square enough(within an ⅛”) to get started. Cross bracing was added top and bottom at various places on the frame to keep it all in place once I started working on modifying the frame to my needs- Since the body was getting assembled from a pile of parts, I figured I would assemble the body to stock specs, THEN channel it. Going about it this way just made the most sense to me.. particularly because there isn't a standard way to channel a body, and only one way they were assembled from Ford. This approach also allowed me to utilize all ford specs that are floating in books and around the internet.. as well as reference some stock bodies that were running around- Once sandblasted the parts I had were assembled then bolted to the frame. Instead of grafting in the back half of the subrails I bit the bullet and bought complete subrails from brookville. This was a smart move, as it made locating and assembling the body panels pretty straight forward- Here are some images of the frame tack welded to the frame jig , the factory crossmember out, and boxing welded in along with some frame mods-(i'll get more into these later)
Some bad news: Who ever put the quarter panel and wheel well patch panels in did a horrible job.. the quarter panel patches weren't pre shaped or trimmed at all.. just mig welded in, as a result the quarter panels were warped to holy hell.. and the wheel well patches were also mig welded in, right in the radius between the wheel well, and the return that the fender nests in. Both Totally fixable , and a shit ton of work . Cutting the quarter panel patches released quite a bit of tension from the panel.. since both sides were equally hammered (in different ways) I didn't have much of a reference as to what the contour or the panel should be. On top of that I stretched the holy hell out of a spot on the quarter panel while attempting to remove 2 small creases. To get me in the ballpark I used a friend's quarter panel to make a flexible shape pattern, and some sweeps. Quite a few hours later I got everything where it needed to be- lots of strategic heat shrinking, working the panel with a slapper, and a shot bag, finishing off with a shrinking disc, then spray with dyken, block for high spots and start over. Needless to say, even though I created the problem, and it took me hours to fix, I learned quite a bit… mostly of what not to do! Some hammer and dolly work got everything pretty close to where it needed to be- Another problem I ran into was that all the patch panels that are available were a ¼” too short! I was faced with either making my own(too much work for me), or having some existing patch panels modified for me. I found that Ahooga lower patch panels are far superior to any other brand out there.. the lower bead is crisp and pronounced, and It comes contoured to the rest of the quarter. I had a professional metal shaper weld and metal finish a 2” strip the length of the patch panel(on both) . Doing this allowed me to trim more of the damaged metal away from the panel, and get a nice tight fit on the patch panels.
A side note about welding sheet metal.. personally I like to gas weld sheet metal together.. at some point I was turned on to the Meco Midget torch. It's small, compact and packs quite a punch. A no. 1 tip is perfect for 19 gauge. The downside is the torch body gets hot on long welds. To solve that problem when the torch body starts to get hot(or starts to pop) I dunk the entire torch in a small bucket of water. By the time it takes to planish down a weld the torch is cool again- I've since become more proficient at tig welding thin material, however at the time felt way more comfortable gas welding. I'm a bench jeweler and have many years of experience in using a torch for the fabrication/repair of jewelry. Plus I find that in have much more heat control, and can run a slightly carburizing flame to get a smooth weld on steel that was at one time rusted. The lower cowl posts, and panels both had the usual rot that was cut out and replaced. I lucked out that whoever welded in the replacement wheel wells did so with a cold weld.. this allowed me to carefully cut them out and preserve some of that area that has the radius that I was so concerned about. The quarter panel corners were not in the best shape.. one side I attempted to use a brookville corner patch panel, but it fit terribly and i ended up just fabricating a patch panel myself. Dealing with all of this was a nightmare , so much so that for the other side I just welded up the pin holes.
both cowl panels and cowl posts also needed some loving. the cowl panels had some rot in the usual places, and the tops of the cowl posts were broken off. i was also missing the cast iron bracket that is riveted to the inside of the cowl post. the part that the windshield stanchion bolts thread into. Luckily i had a broken one that i JB welded back together and made a silicon mold , and cast a pair in bronze- Again the patch panels that are available for the cowl panels are garbage.. by the time you get the shape into them you may as well make your own, or better yet find originals that you can cut apart. personally i found that welding in the patch panels for the cowl sides pretty difficult, and it took me a few attempts to get a something i was happy with. Those panels are a tricky shape, and i found that those compound reverse curves towards the bottom of the panel were a nightmare to get right. Patience and not being afraid to fuck shit up went a long way- i lost the images of some of the process, but found some of the finished product.
Awesome thread! Thanks for taking the time to post all these photos and the great explanations of how and why you did what you did!
I'm enjoying this thread. please keep posting updates. (umm.. backdates?) I wanna see the rest of it!
The Jalopy Journal
