It's been over 60 years since I bought an adaptor, dropped axle and a set of Hearst motor mounts to put a SBC into a '34 Cabriolet that my older brother told me I needed. Now, the '34's been gone for a few years and back in '98 I started digging into an old Chevy coupe that had been sitting in a garage since '70 when I got married. As I worked on the Chevy, I kept thinking about the hot rod Ford I wanted so many years ago. The combination of Brookville roadster bodies and the Bishop Tardel book created the very real possibility of actually building a California hot rod. I found a '32 K member about 3 hours away. A couple of A frames local, my brother gave me a couple of floor shift transmissions (it still took a bunch of parts to put together a complete and I was busy building a ch***is. The high light was going out to Brookville and loading a new body in the back of the pickup. I learned a lot work went into recessing the fire wall for the 283 I picked up at Hershey. Rather than cut up the K member I bought, I made a new one sized tor the 'A' frame and with the master cylinder mounted in the K member instead of beneath. I also made new pedals out of 3/8" plate. But the biggest challUTenge was in the rear of the body. I 'Zeed' the frame according to the book BUT I ordered the body with the Seed frame option. I realized right away that that body was not going to sit on my frame as it came from Brookville. They had carved out the body sub rail quite a bit and I saw that it had to be widened more so I cut some more out and patched it up. Then, I realized that I had to cut the ends of the rear cross member down flush with the out side of the frame rails. With all this, I lost the rear most body to frame attachment point. I spoke with the Brookville people and they told me that the Zeed frame body option is for THEIR Zeed frame which is way narrower than the stock A frame trimmed down. So, my advice to anyone considering this combination is to get the body not modified by the factory but get an extra length of sub rail. Use this extra sub rail to cut off the stock sub rail and Zee it just like is done with the frame. You'll have the frame "more stock" and you'll keep that rear body mount. I'll try to post some pictures.
I'm trying to teach myself HAMB. I had a nearby friend who knew this stuff inside and out but he died before I could get him to teach me....
Here are some more pix. I made bridge pieces for each side to strengthen the sub rails and new pieces for a flat floor. Those pieces are bent up to go up and over the rear cross member. I got a 10 gallon tank and the battery in the trunk ahead of the crossmember. I have to figure out how to run rain water around the trunk lid down to the road past the new floor.
The Jalopy Journal
