So back in September I came across these 2 fords locally. After a few weeks of going back and fourth on a price I picked them up and brought them home for some TLC. Both the 51 and 50 are a more door car, but I don't mind at all with 2 kids in tow all the time. The 51 was in far better shape. I know the pics look horrible, but the car is pretty solid overall. The 51 still had the 239 in it locked up. The 50 was pretty much a rust bucket for spare parts. This is my first attempt at anything like this. I have had my hands in quite a few OT cars over the last 10 or so years, but never anything of this caliber. So please go easy guys!
I waited a while to start the post because thing have been going kind of slow. With the holidays, family travel, and my schedule I haven't got the chance to move as fast as I would like. I pretty much have just sundays to tinker on the car. The first few things I did were removed the interior, and started to remove the front clip to make room for removing the flathead. The floors are decent, but it seems like most shoebox fords the front pans are shot. The trunk is very solid as is most of the body. The car needs lower rear fender patches, p***anger toe board patch, and p***anger rocker. The driver rocker is still solid but dented and will end up being replaced.
I know I will catch hell for it but the flathead was going and a 302 aod4 combo was going in it's place. The flathead was locked up and I just didn't have the money (being I trying to stay under $3500 for this build) to rebuild it up to reliable standards. I picked up a running 302 and ****** from a 88 ltd with less than 80,000 on it for $500.00. That included the hole car driving. I am in the process of getting the motor rebuilt with new gaskets and adding a mild cam and some heads. So with my lil helper in tow I yanked the 239 out.
Next on the agenda was removing the body. I can not say enough times how heavy this body is. We were all shocked when we removed it. I wanted to body off to clean the frame up and get rid off all the rust I could.
While I had a rainy weekend I decided to strip the interior and clean up the dash. I sanded it to bare metal and then sealed it off till I paint it. The seats are still in decent shape with only a couple small tears in the front seat. As far as I can tell this is still the original interior.
The frame took the better part of 3 days for me to strip down to good metal. I gave my poor little 4" grinder hell but it took it and laughed back at me! Most of the frame was sanded over my holiday break. Once again I had my helper Jr. telling me what to do. He calls this his car! You can see some before and after shots up by the front shock tower. You can also see where the previous owner pulled the cars out of the mud with a tow strap around the steering arms. This in turn ripped the steering box out of the frame. So I cut the bad area out and took a new section from the donor car to weld back in place at a later date.
The frame was then painted in a flat black to keep it from rusting up anymore. I was shocked about how good it turned out after seeing before and after pics. The car picture is a small toy car I painted trying to figure out how I want to paint mine. I really like the flat black and metallic roofs. I especially like the bright metallic greens.
To put some money togeather for part I needed I pulled the steering wheel and dash from the parts car to sell. That same weekend I purchased a welder series notch kit and my 4 link. The notch isn't quite the perfect width but it will do and clean up nice. I also took some time to remove the steering box mount patch from the parts car so I could get it bolted in place for welding. Once welded in I think it will be as strong or stronger than the original.
With the idea of this being a budget build I decided to try my hand at the upright flip from rocky's tech article. Let me start by saying this is a ***** if your king pins are stuck. The two small soft steel pins popped right out with the help of a small socket. The first king pin came out with hardly any effort. The second pin was hell. We worked at it for 3 days with a torch and some pb blast. I smashed my thumb through some welding gloves with a 3lb hammer. This was my last straw! I asked a buddy who works at a Auto Hobby Shop on the local Marine Corp base to take it to work with him to remove in the press. After soaking the upright in a tank to clean it up it would not budge even with a 12 ton press on it. He heated it also and still would not go free. So we then pulled the p***anger upright out of the parts car. Luckily it came right out.
After flipping the uprights and getting them back ***embled I painted them. I also welded in my front bag plate in the lower control arms before painting them as well. I just last night put the front end back togeather with new bushings in everything. This next few weekends should bring a good amount of progress. I am getting a ford 8.8 for the rear with 3.73 gears. I also picked up my new gas tank, bags, jamco motor mounts/****** mounts, and all my rear bag plates. So we are going to try to get the rear end bagged next weekend. Then the following weekend we are going to get the body back on and start the motor.
So with the quest for the golden maverick rear not working out so well I found another way to make one on shoeboxford.com. Another member had taken a 8.8 rear from an explorer and cut down the driver side to center the pumpkin up being the rear is longer on the driver side. If you remove 3" from the driver side you can use two p***anger side axels inside and have the perfect width rear for the shoebox. So here's what I did... I used a 10" insert pipe that measured 2.875" OD that was .250" thick. You have to cut a groove for the seam that is present on the inside of the axel. This is acutally perfect because this acts as a ral and aligns both ends back up to perfection. I did this all in my garage with a cut wheel on the grinder and my mig 140 welder. I supposed I could have had a better finish seem before welding had I used some sort of saw that cut the original half apart in a perfect 90. Like mentioned before we are on a budget here so it will just do fine. The pipe inserted inside is very VERY snug. I inserted 5" of pipe into one end of the housing and rosette welding 4 different 9/16" holes up to secure the pipe in place. I then had to "tap" LOL the outer end of the housing back on and rosette weld 4 more holes up. In the end I removed exactly 3" from the driver side of the housing. The end product is going to be 55.5-56" from mounting surface to mounting surface. I don't have the drums so I took a few pics and you can see the back plate to back plate is 48.5", and the back plate to middle of lug nuts is about 3.5" per side. So add 48.5", 3.5", and 3.5" and I came up with 55.5". I have less than $100.00 bucks in the hole rear end now!
NICE!!! i flipped my spindles and bagged it too.. what did you do for your steering... mine wont line up!! and when i get it to fit it only turns the wheels about 1/4 the way.. ive tried adjusting them but nothin... any ideas?
If you need any 51 front sheet metal, I have a complete 51 front end, fenders, hood, grille and bumpers that I am not going to use. We put a 49 front clip on Pat's 51. Mark
Did you grind the backside of the steering arms down to fit inside between the spindle and upright? You have to grind a bit off to get the proper clearance. Other than doing that I had no issues at all. The only step left for me now is bending the uprights which I will do once the body is back on the car and the motor is in. That way I can get my proper ride height.
Addiction is right. It's a love affair! I live in my shop now. I feel like my 4" grinder has become part of my arm.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD cl***=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by tedley Waiting to see how the flipped spindles worked out. Any progress these days? I might do the same. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> I'm waiting too,Imight do the same to!!
Sorry guys for the slow pace of the car, but I spent the last 4 days out in Denver visiting my daughter so the build was on hold. If all goes well this comming weekend we will have the rear 4 linked, notched, and bagged. As for the front flip questions... It seems like it will work just fine. The bending doesn't worry me a bit as it seems like most guys have no problem with that part. The only thing I am a little concerned about is getting the steering arms bent correctly. I think it will go smooth, and hell it's been dont a hundred times before so all I have to do is ask for help. I personally don't see why you would spend upwards of $700.00 to buy parts when you have better made parts that are way stronger already on your car. It the car is a little harder to turn so be it, it's not like I am building my Grandmothers Cadi. Thanks for all the positive comments guys!
I've been wondering about moving the upper A arm outboard abit instead of bending the uprights. Have you given that idea any consideration. It's just 2 bolts. Using a 'L' bracket would also give a option of shimming the caster as well.It's something i might try.
Do you mean somthing like this? http://www.jamcosuspension.com/products/sfID1/73/sfID2/39/sfID3/77/productID/698
The Jalopy Journal
