Hello everyone, Well I'm working on a 31 model A, that I pick up last month. The car is pictured in my avatar. This car was already choped when I bought it and it was just setting on the frame. Well I brought it home and moved it into the shop to get started building my dream hot rod. I have it bolted to the frame in the front at the firewall and my question is what is the best way to get the body squared up. As of right now my doors don't fit, there is a m***ive uneven gap at the top and they don't close. It has nothing bracing the trunk. No trunk lid, no panel below the trunk and no subrails. so I'm sure there has been shifting of the body. There is very little wooden substructure left in the car. I would like to get this car squared up and bolted down so I can start putting the trunk together and install the patch panels I have for it. But I'm afraid that the problems that are showing up with the doors is do to the real ****ty chop job on this car. Any advice would be great. I would like to start a build thread, but I'm waiting till I have some good progress so I don't bore people with the slow progress. Thank you in advance. Travis Here are a couple pictures, please forgive my shop its a mess.
Good questions Travis, I too am at the same stage with a Un-Cut Tudor, same door issues. Talking with an old timmer he told me it will all come together once the sub frame wood is in and I start bolting to the frame. I am following this thread, as I want to here from the experienced guys on the HAMB. -Don
The subframe & wood tye it together. Once that stuff is in you'll have to restretch the body - it will have 'drooped & shifted' from years of sitting caddywumpus and unsupported on the frame. For the 'a's you can run 2X4's across the top of the frame rails and set the body on them for support - it is straight and level. The subframe (they include your door jambs etc) when replace them will sit on top of the 2X4. The one i am working on now had rotted out behind the door (tudor sedan) and the whole rear of the car drooped back, i had to bolt the cowl and front body mounts in place and put a hydraulic bottle jack under the rear and over a period of many months kept increasing pressure until the door jambs and gaps beecame acceptable.
Can't tell if it was welded wrong until you start aligning it. You must start with the fit of the front of each door to the back of the cowl and windshield posts. These have to be perfect before going further. If those are ok, then look at the gap at top of door along the roof. As you align that, you need to be aligning the rear of body and get the beltlines to match. Model A's are tricky with the overlapped rear door edges, you can't quite tell if the gap is even, because it is hidden from the outside, so you need to look from the inside. If you can't get the roof rails correct while you get the beltlines to match, then it is either welded wrong or tweaked from shipping. When you do all this setup and fitting, you need to be working on a frame or a jig, to be able to brace/tack weld the cowl ridged, and be able to force things into shape. A good squared up frame or ch***is is good because you need to measure off of something. You want to get the cowl perfectly 90 degrees to the frame rails, so that one side of the body is not "ahead" of the other side. You can't just weld on subrails yet. It all has to get real close first. Any time spent getting it tacked as close as anyone could, will pay off in a big way later. If you make a mistake, fix it, because it will make something else fit wrong.
I have run into this problem on un chopped model a bodies. The factory had to shim many bodies to get door and belt line to fit. The model a club of america has some diagrams on line showing shim locations that correct the body alignment issues. first job will be to measure the chop and make sure it is square. it appears the chop cut out the top door hinge. This creates a upper door sealing problem. I have found in the many chops that I have done to always incorporate the upper hinge. travis if you have additional questions you can PM me.
Geez, maybe I see worse than I thought but the last pic looks like the subrails are still in the body. If that's the case, I completely agree with F&J and N2hotrods about spending time shimming the body to get the best alignment. Make sure to do ALL your body work while the body is shimmed and bolted to the frame you will finally use. Model A's sure are flimsy and they move all over the place when unsupported. This will help you reinstall a new wood kit too.
I would say that you need to level and square the frame first, get a good 4 foot level and measure the diagonals. Then cough up the change and get the wood body mounting kit from one of the antique auto suppliers. The mounting blocks range in height from no block at the firewall mounts to somewhere around 2" high at the rear crossmember... They are not the same height. Bolt the body down solid to the square and level frame and you'll be ready to start tweaking sheet metal...
I'm by no means an expert, but it appears to me that the doors are simply sagging. In which case once you get it bolted down on a frame (w/ a subframe and wood installed) the cowl can be shimmed to get the door top and belt line lined up, which is not an uncommon procedure.
You don't shim the cowl - it sits square on the frame bolted in the front with a single bolt and again with 2 bolts on the pads (each side) at the 'a' pillar that holds the door hinges and roof/windshield header. Everything else in the body shims to them.
I remember reading somewhere that when the sill wood is good shim the front door post ( A pillar ) up as nec to align the rear of the door. A little is a lot.
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