Projects '29 Model A Roadster - First Hot Rod

Thank you, I appreciate it!

 

I've wanted to put better shocks on my car for a while now, I just couldn't figure out how I wanted to do it. I was looking over cars on here and digging through old photos when I remembered this article from Rod & Custom.



These were, and one still is, a couple Memphis cars from the July '54 issue. The front shock/headlight mounts on the coupe made me start digging around on ebay. I ended up buying some shock brackets that I thought I could make work. These were advertised as '46-'48 Ford aftermarket shock brackets. It's hard to tell from this photo that I stole from the ebay ad, because I forgot to take my own pictures, but they were previously cut and rewelded.



After more digging, I found that shocks from a '46-'48 Plymouth should fit pretty well and give me 4-1/8" of total travel. I ordered a pair of Monroe reproduction shocks and grabbed a couple universal shock studs. I jumped right into it and completely forgot to take pictures until we were welding them in last night. It's blurry in this photo but the stud is mounted to the rear crossmember.



This is the end result. I'm pretty happy with how it looks but I'll be able to road test it this weekend and see how they work.

 

Sunday I came home from the Eville Shindig. This was the second year I went with my friends and just like last year, it was a good time. The rear shocks worked great and made cruising around a bit more enjoyable.
I get too wrapped up in just enjoying what is happening to think about getting pictures but I grabbed a few.


Roadsters on 40 degree nights made it interesting but we were too focused on fun instead of comfort.

The event allows clubs to create a trophy and give out a club pick at the show. We decided to put one together and give it to a guy who drove his flathead powered merc from St. Louis, MO to the show in Evansville, IN. All in all, it was a fun weekend.

 

Nice trophy, going to the longest distance driver.

 

Hey I’m the guy with the Merc! Thanks again for your club choosing my car, it was an honor. The old flathead ran great, sure wish the Illinois highways were smoother!!

 

It was great to meet you there and it's good to hear you made it back!

 

Great tale! I was stationed in NE Arkansas in the '70's and used to shop at the PX at Blytheville AFB where you now drag race. It was once an important and busy SAC base with B-52's and KC-135 tankers. Kind of sad to see it gone. Your A body is an early '29 with the rear left side tail light mounting bolts. You are building a nice little hot rod; keep it up. Ned.

 

Thank you! If you ever make your way back to the Blytheville area, there is a small museum on Idaho street just before getting onto the tarmac. It's dedicated to the history of the base and they've done a good job of trying to preserve it.

 

This last Thursday was our annual Rodders Reunion. The few pictures that I did get, I couldn't be happier with. My buddy Matt with the '30 coupe made the banner we put our cars under.



It was cool to catch up with everyone while we were setting up but the night only got better from there.
In July of '54, Rod and Custom did an article on these two '32s in Memphis. Funny enough, I referenced this same article only a few post back. The coupe was owned by Jack Friend at the time of this article and the roadster was owned by Budgie Haley. Both of them were also in the Memphis Rodders. Time moved on and these cars wound up with their current owners. Thankfully for us, @3dnsouth has some great threads on the history of his roadster before and after this article and @jefscoupe did the same covering the history of his coupe as well.



Both Jeff and Tim reached out saying they were coming with their cars. Tim's roadster hasn't been in Memphis for some years now and Jeff was jamming to finish up his coupe to make it there. After we got them parked in next to each other, I couldn't explain the moment. It has been easily 50 years since these cars have been in the same vicinity. The fact that it happened in Memphis, at the Rodders Reunion made it that much sweeter to us.



It's not every day that these opportunities happen so we made sure to get a photo of all of us at the end of the night. These moments are why this hobby is so addicting to me. The south isn't like the east coast and it's far from anything like the west coast, so we really treasure the local hot rod history that we have.

Also, this was the first time Jeff had EVER driven his coupe since he rebuilt it. He was well deserving of the credit he was given, especially being that he kept it flathead powered.


Even at 45 degrees in a roadster, it was a perfect night.

 

It is long overdue but I started correcting a lot of issues with the body. I have never been able to get the doors to fit how I would like, so I started looking for body dimensions. Everything seemed to be where it should be except for the top of the quarter panels, right behind the doors.



If it is supposed to be 48", mine sits at 48-5/8". That extra 5/8" really makes the door gap open up towards the bottom of the body. I believe the brace at the bottom that connects the quarters to the subrails is bowed out. They are both pretty pitted and one has a rust hole so I'll be replacing those to bring it back to 48".





After removing all of the wood, I was able to use a ratchet strap to pull the quarter panels in. I thought I had a long enough piece of tubing but I had to piece two together. This seemed to work pretty well because I was able to slide the angle piece into the box tubing, tack them on both ends and fine tune the distance between the quarter panels. Once I was happy with where it sat, I tacked the two pieces together.



I got it as close to 48" as I could and the door gap is so much better than before. I had to call it a night at this point because I was out of tubing, but I'll be adding some horizontal bracing at the bottom of the quarters, as well as a diagonal piece.

 

It's been a few months since I've shared anything but this is where we're at.
After the holidays calmed down, I got back on the car to "address a few things" which ended up snowballing into this.



Just like any project half put together 2 years ago, the more I dug the more I found that needed to be fixed. So here is the start of doing it right.
I started with the driver side quarter panel. This was the worst and had already been cut on, cracks welded and somehow creased.



I knew the bottom of it was rotted out but I got it media blasted just to get a full picture of the condition. If you ignore all of the flaws, it was in fantastic shape. After comparing the price of a new quarter panel to a set of body hammers, I decided to try to metal work and straighten this out mostly myself.

My friend does metal shaping and custom metal work for a living so after some guidance from him, I took my best swing at it.
We tried heating and soaking this high spot below to get it to shrink.


More heating, shrinking and hammering to get it to this point below. I still have a lot to learn and it still has a ways to go but progress is still progress.


I've also been trying to not get too distracted by this. I found my way into a '48 Hudson Super Six so I can still enjoy some time on the road this summer.