Featured Projects 1929 Ford Roadster

I make and sell folding windshield posts for 28 29 roadsters, they're here on the HAMB in "Parts for sale"

 

Good on ya Mikko. Great acquisition and tremendous progress straight away. I like the frequent updates, plus the Model A guys around here are an invaluable resource. Also appreciate European affection for old American tin. Makes the world a smaller place; to me, a great thing.
Since it's a TX car, I'm assuming the DeMontrond badge is a dealer tag. I don't see that style of tag here in Californistan.
Cool in every aspect.
Following along!

 

sub'd
like where this is going

 

Thanks, your car looks great.

I will check up on that, thank you.

Thanks for the kind words.
I did a google search for DeMontrond the other day and think you are right about it being a dealer tag.

Thank you.

 

DeMontrond was a dealer out of Texas City starting in 1953 and is still in business, so must have been sold used there. Interesting to think this car was likely in the area when the disaster occurred in 1947. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster

 

Its funny how we have different tastes. For me splash aprons look good when left on heavily chopped coupes but not roadsters. For others its none at all, for others its on all cars. I guess my point is build it how you like Mikko, we are just happy you are sharing it with us.

 

More grinding and drilling rivets today.
Seat riser, floor pan and some other stuff is out.
Good news is that the front cross channel between sub rails is solid, the rear one not so much.
Need to figure out the best way to repair or replace it, then I'm just gonna make a new steel floor pan and weld or bolt that in between the cross channels.

 

Coming along! Not sure what shipping to Sweden would look like, but most suppliers sell a replacement floor pan that has a deep dish in it for better storage.

 

I don't know either but I'll probably make my own.

 

Not much progress lately, been looking for either a new sub frame cross channel or good used one.
Got a lead on a good used one so I'm gonna follow up on that in the next couple of weeks I hope.

Meanwhile I made a cardboard template for the new floor pan, and then I spot welded a piece of thick wall tubing between the sub rails as bracing for the future cross channel repair.

 

Sold my fenders, splash aprons and running boards today.
I needed them gone due to storage space issues so I dropped the price on them real low.

The buyer shows up, and both he and I agrees that I'm selling them too cheap so on top of my asking price he offers me a Stromberg carburetor that seems just fine and he is also gonna rebuild a Scintilla magneto from his collection (and adjust the advance curve for banger use) and give them to me.

Life is good sometimes.

 

Now that’s a stand up dude right there.

 

He is great, I'm really happy that I dropped the price on the fenders.
Guess this is what hot rodding is about; helping each other out.

 

How awesome is that.

 

Very awesome.
I know some people say magnetos are hard on the drive gear but I think they look cool and I'm getting it for "free" so why not.

On the other hand I know a guy that is running a mag in his summer daily driver fordor and it seems just fine doing 400-500 miles a year.

 

Went on a trip today to pick up that sub rail cross channel I mentioned earlier, also collected some water connections since the ones on my engine have some funky extra connections welded to them.
Lots of old car parts, a very nice 68C, BB truck and other various things.

And a lot of pictures taken.

 

"New" cross channel is in, just some minor cleaning up left.
I decided to splice it rather than replacing the whole thing, less work involved and I figure it's gonna be plenty strong once the new floor pan is welded in.

And the new floor pan I made got a quick coat of high zinc primer on the underside before installment.
Since I can't make original style pressings I just made it flat but with thicker metal than the stock one.

 

That BB has a very interesting cab. Were they imported as a chassis and finished locally or has someone made that cab more recently?

 

@trevorsworth I never thought of asking but my best guess is that it came to Sweden as a rolling chassis when new and got the cab made at one of the many body shops/coach builders we had here back in the day.

 

New floor pan is in.
Not exactly concourse quality but it will have to do for this jalopy.

 

A good starting place! Looks great!

 

@32partsguy Thank you.

 

Made a plan for how I'm gonna repair the panel that ties the rear floor to the front floor/cross channel.
Don't know if it's gonna work or not yet but I'm giving my idea a try the coming week.

With that idea in my head I sprayed some zinc primer on the new floor pan and brushed on some rust converter (black stuff that can be seen on the rear floor pan) here and there on areas that will be hard to get to after I'm done with my amateur body work.

When all body repairs are done I will most likely paint the whole inside of the body with something like Eastwood rust encapsulator.

 

What a neat little roadster, I’m going to be following this one. I must say, that’s the first time I’ve seen someone extend the windshield posts. Keep the good work coming…..

 

@richard noble Thank you.

Regarding the windshield posts they are most likely stock height.
I'm thinking it's either missing some sort of rubber piece along the bottom edge or the windshield frame itself is from a 30-31 deluxe which I believe is lower from the factory.

 

I think you likely have the correct 28-29 windshield frame. 1930-31 frames are all about 2" wider.

There is indeed a rubber seal that slides into a groove in the bottom of the windshield frame and it's about 1" wide to close off the gap. Also used were fairly narrow seals that slide into a groove in the posts/stancheons to seal off the sides.

I'll look for some pictures I took and some others that were posted on another forum quite a while ago.

 

The posts look extended to me which is a strange modification,


here's a pic of my standard height posts for reference

 

I think that is just some residue from tape or something on my windshield post.

But thanks for the reference picture, I'm gonna measure my posts and compare.

 

Measured my windshield posts today and they are the same height as in the reference photo by @Dedsoto .

 

Todays progress consisted of getting the panel between the front and rear floor pans bolted and spot welded in.
Bolts are not permanently tightened, gonna add some washers beforing doing so.

Then I mocked up the seat riser just for fun.
I think I will be using the riser as is and then build my own plywood based seat frame to get some more space than I get with the original seat springs.

Looks a bit terrible at the moment with colors all over the place but I think it will look OK once everything is painted black.