Projects 1939 Ford Convertible Sedan Resurrection

Wow Sam! You and Don are continuing to knock it out of the park! I've never used hot rolled steel on my projects...after hearing about your effort to strip the mill scale, I never will. Thanks for sharing that lesson.

Merry Christmas to you guys as well!

 

Wow, Sam, what a fantastic job. The work on the '39 is top shelf ,however, the fixtures, tools and shop modifications you guys have done is just as if not more impressive. I know how much energy can get used up just getting to the problem that needs to be fixed. Very well done. Atta Boy!

 

Just checking in on the progress. Looks awesome so far.

 

Looking good Sam. Im finally at a similar stage myself, body on rotisserie and at a friends body shop. He's letting me do all the prep there and he'll be doing the paint thing. It wont be a shiny show stopper like yours, i'm keeping the 'patina', only because I want to drive it more that I want a shiny car (its been 20 years, i think thats long enough) We're doing the inside in raptor and possibly a heat barrier spray on top, underneath will be shiny black, so that I can keep it clean and not have dirt grab in there. I'll update my build thread soon.

 

It really looks great,Thanks for sharing the pictures.

 

Thanks Tim! It's slow progress but any progress is good!

Thanks Joel! Solving problems is one of the most fun parts of this hobby. Buying and making tools to solve a problem is fun also!

Thanks Hot rod Ron!

Thanks Neil! I think I have owned this car over 20 years. Hope to have a driver by summer. depends on how this paint job goes. I am pretty sure i will regret this shiny black paint job some day..... my 39 ford Convertible has a shiny body color paint job underneath. It is easier to wipe down than the raptor finish but since it is white it is showing some stains . I will be using Dynamat on my floor and firewall.I am looking forward to your update.

Thanks chainsaw! Hope you keep watching the thread.

Progress! finally the car is all one color! It always seems like flat gray primed cars look pretty smooth, until you really look close... After another couple of days of sanding masking and cleaning we were able to apply the 2K primer and a couple of coats high build today. We start sanding with 400 grit tomorrow.

 

What a great project to follow along, full of good tips & ingenuity. Two thumbs up!

 

Thanks willysguy !

We took a a couple of weeks off for the Christmas Holidays but have been busy sanding and sanding fixing imperfections etc. for a while now so it was fun to be able to put some colonial white ( Wimbledon white) on the firewall today. This was a single stage Matrix paint. The rest of the body is also ready for paint. Hopefully the black and clear will be on before the weekend.

It looks a little yellow to me.... But should look good with the black car.

I think it is a good improvement over what we started with many years ago. This was the first piece I started with on the car.

The car had one of those manifold exhaust heaters in it so this jagged hole had to be filled . I also replaced the firewall behind the distributor with some 16 ga. There were just too many holes and some brass in the that area so I deemed it easier to replace the whole section.

That's it for now . happy New Year everyone!

 

Looking good!

 

Happy New Year to you guys as well Sam! You guys are really making great progress. Looks great so far, eager to see it in color.

 

Well done, Sam. I can't remember; did '39 have the battery in a shelf in the firewall? I thought all the open cars and woodies used the same cowl section 37 to 40.

 

Thank you Outback!

Thanks Tim! It looks like Friday or Saturday will be color day (black). We plan to clear it over two days as the cut sheet on the Matrix Edge MS-52 Clear says two coats a day would be best according to Don. I don't see that while trying to fact check this. The outside temp has been around mid twenties the last two days. I have to crack a window in the shop to let in enough fresh air for the booth exhaust fan so I have to keep the furnace cranked up all day to keep the temperature in the booth around 70-75. It's supposed to 10 to 12 degrees warmer this weekend so that should help keep the booth closer to the desired spray temperature.

Thanks Joel ! It looked pretty good today when we gave it a good close look. Just one little piece of lint got into the paint. It should clean up easily.

So I checked my V8 Club book on 38-39 fords on the battery box question. Apparently 38 Deluxe and 39 Standard Fords used the firewall mount for the battery while 39 Deluxe used the frame mounted battery box.
of course there are variations to the battery box and hold down systems on both models, as Ford was always changing things and of course using up old stock from the previous years.