Featured Hot Rods Upgrades on 32 Ford Tudor

Few years ago and on a couple separate occasions, I seemed to be a magnet for parts that had either come off of, or were destined for the rebuild, of a famous (or maybe infamous) Canadian hot rod. Some of the parts I’ve sold off, but I have kept many and am slowly ac***ulating the missing/needed pieces to eventually use both the front and rear brake kits.
The front SoCal brake kit may end up on the Tudor if the look works better with the wheels I’m currently having made. The extra polishing that was done on the Buick drums (covers) is amazing.
Still looking for a couple little parts for the rear brakes before they can be properly ***embled and used.
Bet you can guess why I was able to pick up these parts so cheap.
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^^^ wow

 

Yup, you got them cheap because they didn't work, ha ha!

Chris

 

This pup is all grown up now, but she loved being the inspector general on this project.
Three years ago she was inspecting the rear, and picking out her future travel spot.
It was like…no seat please…how about a nice big flat spot for my pillow.
Might not be an upgrade to most, but to her it was.

 

Might have to make this pic my new avatar.
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One of the final ‘upgrades’ I want to do this winter is to put the radio/stereo in that I had planned to install a couple years ago. I don’t really need it as I prefer to listen to the engine/exhaust and the rest of the mechanical parts as I drive. But my copilot says she would like to listen to tunes like we did back in the day. And I must admit that it will be nice to tune in local radio stations as we pull into new towns/cities on our longer trips. Hear what’s shakin locally.
I had already built the removable stereo mount and the speakers are already tucked in behind the interior upholstery, so it shouldn’t take me long to do.



Getting close to the end of my nit/upgrade list on this build, but I’m really bad at leaving something well enough alone, so we’ll see how long before I think of something else to ‘enhance’.
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What’s the hose/line looped up behind the rear body brace?

 

It’s a gas tank vent line with a rollover valve in it.

 

Cool, I couldn’t 100% make out the valve but that’s the only thing I could come up with for that routing as well. Thanks for the reply

 

Do you know if it ever got rebuilt?

 

My dogs would love that.

I have a harness so I seat belt them in the front seat. Mainly it keeps them from licking my face.

 

As far as I know, it did not.
Heard the body, engine, and a new set of rails went to a fella that was going to take it in a different direction. Last I heard it was going towards an IFS, four wheel disc brakes, yada yada real streetroddy thing.

 

That's too bad.

 

Agree.
Fun fact. The original owner of that car is the fella that came over to my garage and helped me prep/polish the Tudor for Autorama last winter. By the time my brother got up here to help, all the heavy lifting was already done.
To say that gentleman is a polishing fiend is an understatement. Put me to shame. Worked his fingers to the bone and did a way better job than I could have.
In fact, he made me do some of the areas (that I did) twice to get them up close to his standards.

 

Looking like you are making the most of the off season. I’ll have to check the car out again this summer to see all your improvements.

 

I’m groovin so hard on the new look in the engine bay that it has me thinking about running the Tudor next summer without the hood sides.

Have done this before with my old 5W, and then my old roadster, using some black leather straps that I got from Eric (RIP) on here.

Still have those straps thanks to Roger (Vicky dude) for sending them back to me. So may just use them again, but cruisin through some threads on here, I saw some ingenious solutions that use spring loaded pins in the hood tops with some hold down loops on the firewall and grille shell. Thinking of building these pieces to try it on my Tudor. Just need to make four pin brackets and four spring rods.

Might have to start another upgrade list.

 

Sorry I missed your post before. Thanks much for the compliment. Always nice when someone appreciates the effort that goes into these builds.

 

Thanks for the compliment. And Merry Christmas all.

 

Waited until after Christmas to do a parts run down to the warehouse in Montana. Dang there were a bunch of snowbirds heading south. Border crossing (southbound) was nuts. Northbound crossing was just me, myself and I….so zipped back through.
Picked up the new skins for the ET Indy wheels which were shipped direct, but still not here yet .
Had some of these 700r18s before and love how they run on the rear of these cars.
Bought the tubes for these, but still undecided if I’m going to use them. Seems like many don’t.

 

New Year is off to a great start.
The rims showed up today and the inspector says….very nice.
Can’t wait to get tires mounted and get them on the car.

 

I can't wait either!

Chris

 

Garage is still too cold to work out there, so here’s some pics of ‘upgrades’ from a little earlier in the project. Sorry for going backwards, but that kinda suits the owner (me).

Origin story: When I found the car online, it had been up for sale for quite some time and when I spoke to the owner, he inadvertently told me that no one had come to look at the car in months (if ever, I thought). When I found it, all I was truly looking for was a 32 Tudor body, but the price was getting into realm of what I could part the car out for and maybe just keep the body for myself IF it turned out to be as good as I thought it might be (based on where it came from). Couple months later and a long visit to go through the car, and it was in my trailer and on the way home. We negotiated a price that reflected exactly what he had and what he had now come to realize it was worth.
Cash in hand helped too.



Luckily the body turned out to be everything expected and in almost perfect condition, but its 2” chop wasn’t going to work for what I wanted (had a vision in my head). So here’s what the body looked like after getting stripped and re-chopped.
Chop is now way way better than what it was, and the car will now have the profile I wanted, so it was definitely the first upgrade IMHO.
I’ve posted a pic or two of the body in bare steel already so just one more here.



Cannot post a pic of the street rod ch***is that came under the car (verboten on here), but here’s a pic of the ch***is that I was putting together for another project that did end up under the Tudor. The ch***is that came under the Tudor had a torsion bar independent front suspension (remember the Volare?) and a chromed out jag rear, and I felt very fortunate to find a buyer up north that wanted to build a street rod style pickup chuck. Whew .
Some may not consider the new ch***is an upgrade, but I did/do. And I already had it powder coated black so that was going to work out well for the Tudor build.



And yes, that orange fender you see in the ch***is pic is on the Tudor in ‘before trim’.
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Thanks for all the details on this build. Just an outstanding level of fabrication, vision and final fit and finish. Congratulations on saving this one from street rodderdom. I salute your chops in finding an overpriced street rod and getting it for a realistic price. Also appreciate the starting point photos. If you don't mind, would really dig some details on the 2" original chop and the re-chop. Chop methodology is super intriguing to me.
Thanks again (from a guy who got to ride in his little league coach's 32 Tudor to practice a few times back in the '60s. Formative.)

 

Abridged version:

The original chop was a basic 2” front/mid/back with no other tricks and no lean on the A pillars. It originally looked pretty nice until the paint/bondo was off. Then it was pretty easy to see it wasn’t done to any real level of professionalism. What I mean by this is that the welding effort attaching the top back down was all just perimeter welds. Couldn’t find anywhere where the skin was removed to facilitate the welding of the inner structures.
That was going to change.



The fix (and look I wanted) was to go a little more aggressive on the chop (the last 5W I had was 3” and if I had kept it much longer, it was going to get another haircut). And to get the profile right (in my eyes), it needed a bit of a wedge on it to make the side windows look more even and just flow better. This is where I really agree with that Bobby Walden guy. Get the side windows right or the chop just won’t look right no matter how much/little you do.
The other big thing for me was a hard NO on leaning the a-pillars. I get why some guys like leaning them back, but I’m just not one of them.
As far as the final numbers, I’m kinda keeping them to myself and was only planning to share them with a buyer (if/when that day ever comes), but I will share that the chop is more than 3” and the wedge is less than 1”.
I guess some industrious fella could always sneak up with a tape measure, but…
I’d also bet there are guys on this board that can just eyeball the pic below and get pretty dang close with their guesses.



FWIW: one thing I did with my last 5W (and would recommend for anyone doing a chop) was to sit inside and look out of the windshield with different amounts of tape along the top (to mimic windshield height) and see what visibility you have at different windshield heights.
Note: Make sure you get comfortable seat/leg setup first though.
Doing this I figured out I could easily do more than 3”, but 5” would be way too much.
Hope that helps.

 

I’m gonna guess around 4” with a 1/2” wedge.

 

This was tire shop week.
The folks I use shut down for Christmas (god bless ‘em), so had to wait for them to open back up in the new year.
I’ve been going to this same place for years as they are the only ones around that I know have roadforce balancers and an ol skool tech that loves doing hot rod stuff.
Even when I forget to ask for it, he always clocks all my rims/tires. And best of all, it’s a family shop that opened in 1931.

Sneak peeks.



***Love how my ivory and grey pinstripes now make more sense. It was just a matter of time.

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Close

 

And on…
Still need to be cleaned up, etc, and get some better outside shots, but here’s a couple quick snaps.

View attachment 6616064

*** time now to just ****on everything back properly and get it ready for springtime.

 

Just wasting more time looking at some pics and thought I’d do a single post with all of the different shoes this thing has worn during its highboy evolution. Probably should have used the skills of this sites photoshoppers more.

You’ve probably seen them all before, but thought I’d dump them all in one spot for an easy reference/comparison. Maybe these will help someone else shortcut the process.

It’s amazing how much the look changed with each different set.


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Looks Good. I'm running those Excelsior's too with tubes but, sanded the sidewalls.