Just wanted to share some pictures of my car with everyone here, and have start some sort of documentation for my car. The first four pictures are more or less how I bought the car. Found it on Craigslist, and bought it from a gentleman that was familiar with the HAMB. Pictures five and six were just some updates. I think pic. five was from last winter, and pic. six was from this past summer. Pictures seven through ten are the most recent ones that I've taken. I have a few more pictures, but these are probably the only ones that ya'll really want to see any way. Recently I've started welding the roll pan and the sides up to about the B-pillar. And started working on the floor and toe board. Last weekend I got my rear floor braces in place and finished off my inner rockers. This car's bottom 6 inches of the body was pretty rotten all the way around. So I need to fix it. It's come a ways. Got a longer way to go, but I'm having fun. Plans are a drive train swap to a Ford 300 inline six with a five speed manual transmission. A heavy duty chop. And eventually all the cool little custom things like frenched lights and a different front end. Maybe I can dream up some kind of cool looking grill, and I'm thinking no bumpers. But getting that fun stuff is a little bit away as of right now. I encourage comments, questions and critisism. Thank's for looking at my car!
Looks familiar, but misery loves company Keep posting pics. There's a shoebox group if you're looking for more info... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=127
That's some nice metal work. Don't go to nuts with the chop it can look weird when too much is taken out. Also a lot of shoebox owners really don't know how nice the original grill is on the 49 and 50.The original can make that ride so perfect because you retain the flow of the front. Remember less is more
Thanks for that! I'll check it out right now. Appreciate the advice. For the chop I was thinking 4 inches in the front and 6 in the rear. I don't want any more than that. But I definatly want a bit of a sloping roofline on it. I really don't feel bad cutting this one up seeing as how it had alot of rott in it to begin with. And about the grill, I agree. I really like the stock '49 grill. My favorite part is the turn signals. To me it looks very clean and simple. Chances are it'll stay stock for a while. But the thought of a custom grill will always be there.
If you want more reading material, this has a lot of good info. I printed the whole thread and keep a copy in my shop for reference... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=296506
As requested, here are some more pictures of my progress. If I dig any deeper into my photo gallery there are just more and more gruesome pictures of daylight coming through the car where there should be steel.
That is some good reading. I've seen this one before though when I first started getting on the HAMB, but lost it. Now it's here. Glad I have it again! Thank you for posting that up for me.
Looks like you have a nice start with this project.I got pretty much same rust issues with my shoebox.Keep it up!
With all those nice smooth new lower panels i would go for the no bumper, rollpan look. Front & rear.
fordy-nine, that is some serious metalwork there. You may not have bitten off more than you can chew, but you must be chewing a lot and awful fast too! I agree with hombre that the stock grille looks sweet - as you say, start out that way - you may learn to love it over time. Please keep the posts comin' - you are off to a great start. Cheers.
Thank you. I do what I have time and money for. I'll be updating as I'm able. Right now I'm trying to source a 300 straight 6 and transmission. With the basic structure of the car pretty well tied in, my next plan of attack is to finish the floor. But I think I don't want to finish the floor without the new to me transmission in place. I would be kicking my self in the rear if I had a pristine floor, then realized I have to cut half of it back out again just to make the transmission fit. Besides with the front half of the floor out, I can very easily access the trans. crossmember to modify that as needed, and run some fresh brake lines. Agreed. I really think I don't want any bumpers on this car. I like the no bumper look on the rear of these. Which is why I went roll pan. As far as the front goes, I'm not sure what to do with it right now. How to make it look right. I have a few ideas, but I'm not ready to tackle that yet. That project will come soon enough. Thanks for the support. I have to admit when I bought the car, I really didn't think it would be as involved as it is. I've never restored a car before. But as I got into it, I almost gave up on it. But I have to try and save this one. This is my project. I need to see it through. Since the car needs so much work, that really motivated me to just go the full custom route. Even though I haven't started a chop on this car yet, I think if I had a mint shoebox and went to cut the top off, I'd feel bad about it. I don't feel bad at all modifying this one!
The Jalopy Journal
