I said some time back that I would post some pictures of the car I'm building please bare with me as this is the first hot rod I have built. My intent is to build a traditional 60's style hot rod with some modern concessions in suspension and drive train. I bought this car after having looked at a couple other late 30's coupes to find out they had cobbled up frames. This car had an original frame and the body work was all done in primer. (yep mistake number one) spotted a small hole in the front of the frame didn't think it was a big deal can repair it will be ahead of the new suspension mistake number two. After getting the car home and doing further inspection I decided I would have to remove some of the bottom plate from the top hat frame that and changing the suspension I decided to build a ch***is jig. this as you will see became very beneficial.
I’ve built a few of these frames for Buds . There’s not much there but a metal brake and a shear will make repairs easy . Not sure what you want to do with suspension , front M11 , works nice , rear 66-67 Nova or Ranger 8.8 and it’s done . Rear springs aren’t much , they were designed to support weight , torque tube stopped them from becoming S shaped . My 37 was dropped straight axle , Vega box , disc brakes , sway bar from a jeep and tube shocks . 0 bump steer and handled like it was on rails
Thanks for the input Dave, actually I'm well past making all of those decisions. In the process of checking out the original frame I removed about six feet of the bottom plate and found that it had rusted from the inside not clear through but to about .020 in some spots. I felt at that point it was better to find a different frame. Being new to the hobby my search came up empty. As you will see in my future posts I came up with a pretty good solution.
As I have mentioned in previous posts responding to engine questions I owned and operated automotive machine shop for 33 years. Having bought this car before I retired I built myself an engine while I still had the facilities to do everything. Originally I was going to use a small block 383 that I had built and hadn't sold. As luck would have it a man with a 57 chevy came along and wanted it. After some thought and research and having a pile of parts I went down the road less traveled.
OK now that I have revealed the power plant we'll get back to the ch***is. I felt that an aftermarket ch***is would be the ultimate solution but it was beyond my budget. However I recalled reading on here that Cornfield Customs could bend 2 x 4 tubing I spoke with Mike and he was willing to do it. The next hurdle was its about 500 miles one way in the midst of figuring out the logistics a friend stopped by and mentioned that he thought that Auto Weld could also bend 2 x 4 tubing a quick check of their web site not only revealed that they could but they had them listed. Auto Weld is located in Danville, Pa. which is only 100 mile one way that's much easier. It was a bit of a wait Ron's a one man band anymore but he's a great guy and did a great job. Armed with the new rails, a front end kit from Fatman, and a triangulated 4 link from Welders Series plus a pile of tubing and an 8.8 housing I had the makings of a new frame.
In that the new frame isn't a mirror image of the old frame I can't tell you exactly how much I channeled the body I do know that I moved the cowl feet up 2". The original floor was in bad shape so I removed it all. In the next group of photos you will see pictures of the exhaust and plumbing which was work that I did during the winter followed by some shots of the body during media blasting.
It certainly was a happy day when I finally got finished blasting 2800# of crushed gl*** and a little pressure fed blaster. Then I got to move inside and cut out the rust and lap welded patch panels from the previous body work. Yes that is spray foam which doesn't fit the definition of finished body work that I have!
I realized I should have given you some context to one of the previous pictures the one before the missing tail pan is of the **** that showed up when I removed the inner structure of the trunk lid. In this bunch of pictures I'll show the finished tail pan, door bottoms, rebuilding of the trunk lid, and the floor sub structure and beginnings of the floor. Up till this everything has been premade patch panels that all changed with the trunk lid and floor.
Beautiful work . You did the best thing you could have ever spent your $$ and time on , building a new strong frame .
Thanks Dave, one of the benefits of being retired time is less relevant so you work until it makes you happy!
In this installment I will show the rest of the floor and drive shaft tunnel fabrication installation of the seat, steering column and air conditioning. I wanted to finish installing these things before taking the body off from the frame and moving it to the rotisserie to finish the inner rockers and filler work. While going through pictures I found some of re***embling the trunk lid and the 14' of tig brazing the edges together and also a shot from under the car when I tacked the trans tunnel to the extension piece that I thought was pretty cool when I took it hope it translates.
Thanks T.Turtle Yes I'm very fortunate to have this shop to work in it was my wife's suggestion to keep the building when I retired to build my car in. I think I'll keep her
In this installment you will see the more of the metal work including Frenching the license plate, and emergency brake cable bracket. Also the old girl mocked together in bare steel with the plywood wheel and tire simulators.
Looking good. Your frame is much stronger than the original one. I had put a 454 in my old 38 Chevy (hence my username) with the stock firewall. I moved the radiator forward about 4 inches from original and it all fit with around 1/4 inch clearance in many locations. Stock frame with MustII. Used block hugger headers which actually went out over the frame rails and then tucked back in. My steering also had 3 U-joints to go out around exhaust and then back to the rack, with the support rod end just like you have. I ran a 9-inch on the stock rear leafs, using the original MustII front bar as rear sway bar, along with a universal larger diam front bar. It handled real nice, even being fairly front heavy due to the BBC.
Thanks 38chevy454, My radiator is in the stock location I put a 1 1/2" relief in the fire wall for the p***enger side valve cover and bowed the firewall back about a 1/4" using a pretty thin electric fan as recommended by Walker Radiator it's pretty damn full ! Doing something different isn't always easy !
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