Projects Tim's (aka anothercarguy) 1938 Ford Club Cabriolet Build Thread

MY DAD LIVED IN LOS ANGELES MOST OF HIS LIFE, SO IT IS DOUBTFUL, BUT ALWAYS NICE TO DREAM ABOUT STUFF LIKE THAT......HIS FAVORITE PART OF THE CAR WAS THE SHIFT HANDLE, BEING CURVED, IT SAID IS ALLOWED HIM TO SCOOT HIS DATE A LITTLE CLOSER TO HIM...HAHAHAHAHA.......GREAT CAR, ANYONE WOULD BE PROUD TO OWN AND DRIVE IT...

 

That's a well earned landmark! Congratulations and happy cleaning! I am looking forward to seeing your chosen color on the car. After months of fighting with black panels, that green you have chosen looks like it would have been a better choice for my project.

 

I have no idea why I have not read your build thread before but boy am I glad I have now. All I can say is man you are good. You and The 39 Guy, along with many others on the HAMB make me face up to what a hack I really am. I have truly enjoyed the posts and can’t wait to see what comes next.

 

Thanks Sam...having done my roadster in black, I know what you're going through. Part of the reason I was so easily swayed away from the original plan to paint it black as well.

Thanks @okiedokie being put into the same camp as The 39 Guy (Sam) and many of the other talented HAMB builders is indeed a high honor (I am humbled).

After the parts were squirreled away in the games room, I spent the better part of a week sweeping, blowing off, wiping down and vacuuming up the shop. OMG bodywork is dirty dusty work! It once again feels good to walk into the shop in the morning!

After the shop clean-up I wrapped up a few minor items including making a new set of bolt in across door opening braces. I then began carefully removing and labelling all the body bolts and shims one by one. I hope this will be helpful so I at least have a starting point come time to re-***emble. And once the last body bolt was removed, the body and ch***is were once again separated.



I couldn't help but compare...you've come a long way baby!


I am now doing a bit of clean up on the bottom side to address a bit of flash surface rust that developed on the bottom of the floor pans as well as the spot welds before the body will get mounted on to a body cart.

 

Look at that clean shop!! The ch***is and the body sure look better too! If you have been getting as much rain as we have down here I suppose that new cistern is filling up. Do you pump the water out of the cisterns or use gravity flow? I have decided to use those disc brake parts you brought down last year. I had one of the rotors turned down a little because of some surface rust. The other one had some cosmoline or grease on it and was in better shape.

 

I still have the caliper brackets as well set aside for you for the next time we head your way. I'm not sure why only one of the rotors had cosmoline and the other didn't (I noticed that too). It took 2 weeks for the cisterns to fill...and yes, the water gets pumped out.

 

I can only agree, after having read everything.
Thank you for sharing it.
Regards Harald

 

Thanks for the kind words Harald...and you're doing a great job on your model A coupe project too!

As a small update...with the body on the lift, I spent a few days under the car with the 3m purple stripper wheels and various wire wheels cleaning up the slight surface flash rust that had developed on the bottom side of the floorboards over the past couple years.


I was then planning to mount the body on a rolling cart, and build a paint booth in my shop as I had done when building my roadster. I was thinking I could support the tail of the body with my engine hoist and have the firewall on the ground for painting. Here's a couple photos to show how I did my roadster.


Well, long story short...the '38 body is quite a bit longer than the roadster...and while working on the underside with the body on the lift made me think, why not just shoot it on the lift? Sooo...with a large roll of masking poly and numerous rolls of masking tape in hand...the shop/body/pretty much everything got covered and masked off.
And the firewall and underside got a sealer coat of epoxy.

Next up will be a lap of the underside with brushable/paintable seam sealer (plan for today) followed by finish paint (hopefully tomorrow).

The firewall/underside of my roadster was painted Wimbledon white. I really liked how clean it looked when done, how easy it was to keep clean and notice any leaks but mostly, how bright it was under the car when working on it (as my eyes aren't getting any younger...this is a good thing!). Here's a couple photos of the underside of the roadster to show what I mean.

I have some left over Wimbledon white paint from the roadster project so it makes sense to me to use some of it up (especially at the price of paint these days!).

 

I think that's a great plan. Base /clear I ***ume; the base should flash off pretty quickly and not leave much dust. The clear has to flash and set.

 

The Wimbledon White is single stage. Once the underside/firewall are done I'll go back to my plan of building a "spray booth" in the shop for the rest of the painting (which will be base/clear).

 

Go get em, Tim! Nice work! I painted under the dash white and under the car light grey and it makes it much nicer to work on and see leaks, which is a double edged sword because I still can't get the T5 rear seal to stop. Lol.

 

Thanks Ed...yeah, finding the sign of a leak is only 25% of the battle, locating the specific source another 25%, adding fluid on the required replenishment schedule until it's fixed is about 5% and actually fixing it can be where the real time and effort are consumed.

It doesn't happen often, but the schedule went as forecast...yesterday was spent masking followed by applying the seam sealer to the underside.

And today the underside and firewall got sprayed Wimbledon white. I could have laid it on a little heavier to get a little better flow out, but being rusty with the paint gun and applying finish coat, and being aware of just how many nooks and crannies there are, I didn't want to deal with any runs. For the firewall and bottom side, I'm checking the "good enough and done" box.

I'll give the paint a couple days to set-up before I make mounts for the rolling cart to attach the body. Then, it's time to build a paint booth.

 

Wow, that came out nice Tim! Looking forward to seeing your new paint booth. We just finished adjusting my booth to a smaller size. I am calling paint booth 3.0. I'll post it in my thread soon.

 

It might be time for an update...not so much about progress on the car/paint...but more about the effort to get ready to paint. After the paint on the underside of the car was thoroughly dry, my plan was to build a body cart out of 2x4's and 4x4's with casters to hold the body. I was discussing my plan with a buddy who offered an old train luggage cart that he used for his roadster project (a car, that competed for the AMBR last year). I gladly accepted his offer...and with a little work adapted the cart to hold the '38. So, it now rolls around on an AMBR trophy winning car cart!

To consolidate shop space (nothing takes up space like a car in pieces!) the ch***is was placed on the lift and the body rolled underneath. The object is to free up the other bay in the shop to make room for a homemade paint booth.
When I painted my roadster I made a paint booth out of old 2x4's and poly. I used my filter box fan to exhaust the fumes from the booth and installed furnace filters for the make-up air entering the booth. It worked very well.
When I dis***embled the booth, I carefully labelled each piece of lumber so I could set it up again in the same configuration and layout in the future. Long story short, because the lumber was stored outside, in the Pacific northwest...when I pulled the lumber from the pile, it was too rotten to use...so, I was going to re-purchase the necessary lumber and start again. Then, I started wondering if a portable garage shelter could be used. After checking them out, it was apparent the off the shelf sizing wasn't ideal for my space ...and more importantly trying to get enough light in them would require some form of internal lighting.

I then saw a post from @Bandit Billy where he had used one of the inflatable paint booths set up outside his shop...I thought this might be a great solution! Size no longer would be an issue, and they are made to allow external light (in this case sunlight) into the booth. After discussion with Billy...he advised that controlling the internal temperature is a challenge! Especially if it goes from cloudy to sunny and back...which it routinely does here...so as I continued thinking about my options...I really liked the idea of re-using the booth at a future date (I have at least 2 more projects in waiting) rather than the one and done that lumber/poly offers.

So, an experiment was hatched...I purchased a bunch of lengths of chain link fencing top rail (Home Depot, somewhat reasonably priced, designed for slip fitting with one end swedged down and galvanized for longevity).

And an Amazon purchase of "couplers" designed to slip fit the outside diameter...and a few bags of the bungee balls...
A few hours with the welder yielded...a collection of joint pieces.

Now...I'm showing this because not all experiments go well...and this was such an example. These brackets were simply not a tight enough slip fit, and were not of sufficient thickness to have the strength needed...so trying to ***emble the structure with these pieces kind of reminded me of a combination of the old plate spinner acts that were on TV when I was a kid...and a baby giraffe trying to stand up on extremely wobbly legs after drinking too much! Bottom line, version 1 using the Amazon couplers was abandoned.

The joint pieces had to be more stout! I then purchased some lengths of 1.660" OD schedule 40 black pipe. And spent some time with the band saw and tubing notcher.

I made a welding jig to hold the pieces perpendicular for welding.

After a couple days I had this collection.
Which allowed me to again start to ***emble my "Tinker Toy" collection of tubing and pieces.

I had ordered some custom "tarps" in the dimensions I wanted complete with as much clear vinyl plastic (eisengl*** in the boating world) as possible.

I then started hanging the tarps on my "Tinker Toy" framework...adding an intake filter bank on one end, and will deploy the squirrel cage fan on the other to draw air/overspray etc. out.

I ordered some 6' long marine zippers from Amazon and sewed them into the end panel to use as the main entrance.
And finally a couple photos of the paint booth fully set up.
I'm waiting for an order of "no residue" duct tape to arrive so that I can seal the corners and joints. Then, I'm ready to start painting!

 

That is awesome! Don't forget to cover your floor.

 

In the past, I've wet it down with water.

 

I've had the pleasure (?) of dealing with this sort of framework a few times. I have often thought a system like the springs used to hold cycle exhaust together would be just as fun/frustrating as those eye bolts which tend to dent the inner tube. A nice tool to install and remove would be neat, but it's not mandatory.

 

Nice design and execution Tim! How are you going to seal the bottom?

 

Thanks...how to seal the bottom is a great question Sam. I'm not absolutely sure what I'm going to do yet. I may run a strip of duct tape around the bottom and see how it does. I also pondered placing the bottom tubes on a small strip of foam sill gasket. I'll need to experiment with that.

 

That might have been another solution...the approach I took was to drill the tubing on the near side of the locking bolt, so the bolt goes through one side of the tubing (so it can't slide out) and then snugs the tubing up to the backside of the joint (so it doesn't deform and makes it quite rigid).

 

Wow Tim! Can't you do anything half ***ed? Lol. Tremendous amount of work into those pipe joints and all. Am I sensing a portable painting business in your future?

 

My dad has a custom tool for exhaust springs that we've used for years on snowmobiles and motorcycles. It's a T-handle made from welding two bolts together and has 3/4 of a flat washer at the end, so the tool forms a J. It works great. You could make it pretty if you wanted.

 

.
I then saw a post from @Bandit Billy where he had used one of the inflatable paint booths set up outside his shop...I thought this might be a great solution! Size no longer would be an issue, and they are made to allow external light (in this case sunlight) into the booth. After discussion with Billy...he advised that controlling the internal temperature is a challenge! Especially if it goes from cloudy to sunny and back...which it routinely does here...so as I continued thinking about my options...I really liked the idea of re-using the booth at a future date (I have at least 2 more projects in waiting) rather than the one and done that lumber/poly offers.

'goes from cloudy to sunny and back... which it routinely does here" Maybe on Bowen but here is New West that could takes days, weeks, or even months! LOL

Excellent paint booth by the way! I was going to do something similar as Fitzees on his YouTube cannel but now I may alter that based on yours...!

 

I'm definitely full ***ed!! Lol

Thanks!

I'll start this post by focusing on the positive...the paint booth works great! Very pleased with how it performs!

I plan on painting in a lot of batches...as I like to have lots of room to walk around unimpeded. That way, there is less chance of dragging the hose over fresh paint, tripping, backing up into something etc. in an overly crowded booth. With that in mind, the first batch is the driver side front and rear fenders along with a couple of small parts that I had hanging. I first vacuumed the floor before loading the fenders into the booth to help reduce any dust. With the fenders loaded into the booth, I wiped them down with antistatic wax and grease remover followed by a last p*** with a tack rag, and then wet the floor down (further dust control).

I'm using PPG DP50LF along with the required hardener and reducer as a seal coat...while mixing up a batch, the hardener seemed much thicker than the old PPG epoxy primers that I've used in the past...so I added a bit more reducer to get to the viscosity closer to my expectations. Into the booth I went and sprayed the sealcoat...after a couple coats, the finish was not good...it was way too rough! It's difficult to show in a photo, but in the second shot, I tried to show a close up of the result.

Full stop....let it dry for a couple days...and sand with 400 and 600 wet to get it smooth again!

So, here's another positive...this place!! I sent a PM to @anthony myrick (keeping in mind I've never met the man, but respect his expertise here, not to mention his willingness to drive pretty much everything! lol.). I gave him the particulars of what I was using for products, the settings on my gun, temp of the shop etc...and asked for his suggestions and advice as to what was going on, why and how to fix it. In less than 5 minutes, I received a PM response with a number of good suggestions including a confirmation that the new epoxy hardeners are indeed much thicker than the hardeners of old (not like the hardeners I've used in the past...the new hardener had the viscosity close to corn syrup and I wondered if that might be the problem?), he recommended increasing the input air pressure of my HVLP gun, as well to try getting closer to the panel and moving more quickly. I love this place...and you guys for being willing to share your expertise!

Anyway, after sanding the sealer coat smooth again, I re-sprayed another seal coat...taking into account Anthony's suggestions, and it laid down as it should. Success, yay!


After letting the sealer set up overnight...my plan for today was to get the fenders in basecoat followed by 3-4 coats of clear...very exciting (for both me and my wife!). I had picked up the mixed paint late last week...and hadn't opened the can until today. When I opened the can, it seemed to be more yellow than I expected...
As a reminder, this is what we're looking for...(I must admit that I even looked at this photo on my phone when I first opened the can to make a comparison as it seemed too yellow!).

I thought, maybe after its sprayed and perhaps as it dries, it will darken?? Nope!!! Another full stop! Way too yellow, missed our target!

I will be heading back to the paint supplier on Monday to see what can be done about the color.

On another positive...seeing the fenders fully wet with wax and grease remover, and while putting on the wet coats of sealer and paint...they are indeed as straight as I had hoped and planned, so I'm very please about that.

 

Just my observation from building '30s Fords since 1958, the '38 design is the most beautiful Art Deco front end of the era.

 

Looks swell

 

Do a spray out card.

hold it against the car

 

I'm not sure I understand...I don't have a car in the correct color to hold a spray out card against.

 

Ok
I guess I thought you were matching
You could compare against a chip for a specific code