Hey all, I’ve been collecting parts and tearing down my 1930 model a coupe. I got the car a year ago and progress has been slow between my 4 jobs and construction project going on at my house. My plan for this car is a full fendered, lowered coupe with the appearance of a build year of 1955-57. Parts I scored for this car are a factory 4bbl 1955 chevy 265, 57 air cleaner, 39 trans, cragar adapter, hurst front mount, later model banjo rear end with juice brakes, Anson axles 4” lowered front axle, front juice brakes, F1 steering box, 48 steering wheel, BLC lights, lowered bar, real 40 steelies, 5.5 x 7.5 pie crusts, 30 plates, 32 K member, F1 pedals (maybe changing to 32), proper clutch/flywheel/pressure plate, wood body mounts, welting, new floor mat, new US radiator top of the line radiator for SBC (ouch), F1 shock mounts, all kinds of chrome shackles/perches, split wishbone kit, smithy’s mufflers, new SW period correct repop gauges and repop hub caps. Digging deeper into the car I realized whoever restored it did a real bang up job. When I was pulling out the banger engine, I noticed the crossmember was welded in with oxy acetylene back in the 60s when I was told the car was “restored.” Well due to the flexing of the frame, it cracked there and was barely hanging on, and upon further digging I found the frame had a crack in it elsewhere too. They used mismatching bolts for everything, and I realized that it was going to need to be completely torn down. If anyone is interested in following along, please join the journey!
Ah restorers. Over the decades they have sneered at 'hot rodders' yet I have found a huge percentage of restorers are quite adept at butchery and crude methods. And they are NOT afraid to use bondo! Wait until you get into the bodywork. Fingers crossed you get lucky.
First order of business was to get the car to run. I was so damn excited to cruise it, I just wanted to get it on the road. I rebuilt the carb, and found the line into tank was barely dripping. I shot compressed air into the tank and it started flowing nice after. All the chunks fell in the bowl and I was able to start and rev it. I was enjoying cruising it on very short runs around the block, but the radiator was bubbling over. Also scored some tools under the seat!
Thanks Tim! My buddy Dom lives and breathes early fords and traditional stuff so I’ve just been riding his coat tails and finding cool parts along the way. Really excited to see this car come to life down the road - pun intended!
You aren’t kidding! I worked in muffler shops for about 16 years so I saw hundreds of properly restored cars that I would do custom exhausts on, and my OCD/attn to detail always picked them apart when they weren’t as nice as others. This was def on the polished turd side. It was like lipstick on a pig I guess. However, the old lacquer paint and imperfections in that was exactly what I was looking for, and it was a cool blue color already! Plan is to leave the body alone, and not chop it. For now…
Looking further into the radiator boiling over, I could see chunks in there so I pulled it, flushed it real good, and got a bunch of chunks of rust and calcium im guessing out of it. This only allowed me to drive a few more miles down the road really which was a shame.
Last effort was to pull the head as I thought maybe it had a head gasket issue. And the water neck broke. I found another on eBay so bought it and in the mean time, pulled the head with the help of this little makeshift jack.
New neck finally showed up. While I was torquing the head studs down, snap. Broken. Grrrrr! I said screw it and designed a quick flange on my cnc plasma table and used a stainless tube I had and welded that up. Also converted to 12 volts at the same time. Needed a new battery and figured I wasn’t going to buy a 6v one. I also cut a new rubber seal under the radiator cap. I cruised it a bit longer, but wanted to get this car built into something, so again started tearing it down.
I got my steel wheels from some guy in LA along with the rear end. I ordered tires, rattle canned the wheels, and had them mounted.
Mocked them up and was so fired up that I slapped in the Anson Axle drop axle, so that I could see how it was going to look! Was so excited seeing how sweet that front end looked, now the car was ready to come apart for the actual build.
After taking the fenders off, I saw how bad the frame and crossmember were. I think this is when I decided the car would come completely apart for some frame repairs. After cutting those lower tabs I used a plasma cutter to slice the crossmember and make room for the SBC.
I traced the missing piece, transferred it to plate, cut it out with the plasma, gouged the crack near it, turned my welder up and laid a real hot penetrating weld in there. I then ground it down, sanded it, blended it, corrected the old rivet hole locations, and decided to counter sink for some stainless bolts. I used the straps to pull the frame in tight.
Next up was the F1 mounts. I had been reading the book “how to build a traditional ford hot rod” by bishop and tardel and that’s the way they cut the F1 mounts. After welding and blending, they went in the old rivet holes that were drilled out to 7/16 for the new bolts. Straps went back on and I tightened them. Frame was solid up front again. I noticed the passenger frame horn was bent a bit, so heated it up with the rosebud and made it look like the driver side. Last thing was to design some tabs on the cnc for the lower crossmember. Bolted them in place then tacked them. Pulled the crossmember out and welded it all up.
I wanted to see what the V8 would look like in it, so lowered it into place. I got a visual for the firewall cutout, and went conservative. I put in the new radiator and mounted the fan on the engine. I realized that I would have to cut another inch or so off the firewall. I decided to look at the body mounts and realized they used some 2x4 material they found and wasn’t even close to the body blocks. So I was at another stand still because nobody had them! Finally found some a couple months later and drove up to CW Moss and grabbed them. Figured before I hack the body more, I wanted to have the correct body to frame height.
I stripped the rest of the body down. Then unbolted from frame. My buddies came over and all helped lift the body and I slid some large steel pieces under it. We got 5 of us to lift it off and lower it back. I figured I’d flip it over to get some decent welds on the split wishbone mounts too. Finally I was able to attack the rest of the frame repairs. There was one more crack, a few holes I wanted to plug, a crossmember that was cut so I added a strip and blended it, and was then able to paint the frame! The rear cross member was also bolted in with all mismatched rusted bolts so that will go back together with stainless too.
Cross members should not be just bolted in. They should be either hot riveted or welded. That's what I think anyway.
Although I agree hot rivets are great, I don’t like crossmembers welded in. The frame will flex. There are accounts of frames and crossmembers cracking near welds. There are probably many that haven’t too. On mine, each side of the crossmember now has 7 bolts. 5, 5/16” bolts and 2, 7/16” bolts holding it together. I’ll keep an eye on it as I would if I would have welded it in too.
I hot rivet mine in. Bolts will allow it to move too much. Rivets swell and grip on the shanks where a bolt can not. You can see how broken up yours was with bolts. Dave
When I was into 63-66 Chevy trucks the truck arm crossmembers used to break rivets and crack all the time. I’d grind out the old rivets to replace the crossmember. Grind off all rust and spray with zinc primer. Position the crossmember and clamp tightly. Then drill the holes to the proper size to tap frame and crossmember at the same time for a grade 8 1/2” bolt and thread it in with a flat washer and red Loc-Tite and torque to 60 ft lbs. Then add a flat washer and nut with more red and tighten to 80 ft lbs. never broke a bolt, cracked a frame or crossmember. One 63 I did that to I drove it everyday winter spring summer and fall, kept it outside, and overloaded it on a weekly basis hauling golf karts, black dirt or steel. Put 129,000 miles on it before I sold it.
Last night did a second engine and trans mock up with the radiator in place. Plan was to weld in the front motor mounts. I also wanted to test fit the fenders, splash apron, and grille shell to see if it would all work. Then tried to get the angle right on the engine to clear the lower water outlet on the radiator with my fan. I realized with the sbc and 39 trans/adapter that my setup is kinda long and I’ll need to cut out the A crossmember and install the 32 k member around the same area. More work needed on the frame before I can proceed at all. My engine mounts are also a 1/4” shy on each side since the sbc mounts a tad further back than a flatty and the frame is wider those couple inches back. I redrew the mounts in cad and will blast them out on the cnc in the coming days.
Curious if those shock mounts fit under the fenders or if the tops will need to bend or curve outward?
They will definitely need to bend outward! I’ll get my torch on them on the vise when the time comes.
Great start to a cool car! I too just started on my 30 A Coupe. We have very similar taste. Enjoy the build!
Start looking at Model A maintenance videos on YouTube and maybe join a local Model A club. I haven't had to change the neck on mine but there is some trick with paper match sticks that keeps them from breaking. To get the head off the easiest way looks to be stuffing a bunch of rope through the spark plug hole and cranking the engine over.
Whoa!! Rope in the combustion chamber!! I heard about the match stick trick on the filler neck. Luckily I will never need that again.
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