Projects 348 powered 40 Ford sedan

A little question, does anyone know where I can buy a GOOD clutchfork boot? This ones from Summit, fits the bellhousing great until you move the fork, and it pops out the bellhousing, it has virtually zero flex. BBC bell housing, thanks

 

Neil, here is one for the truck bell housing
Manual Trans Clutch Fork Seal-Clutch Fork Dust Boot Dorman 14577 for sale online | eBay
Dorman has others, might look up their catalogue

 

looks good, Neil. Progress is always slow in the body and paint zone. You're doing a first rate job.

 

Splashed some epoxy on it, then went on holiday.
Back now, so priority now is to get back on the rear inner fender, finish that, then back axle of to Royal Kustoms for the Quick change upgrade and narrowing.

 

Thanks, it seems they’re all a bit rubbish judging from the replies in my other post, so I’ll look at that again later.

 

Finally!!! I’ve got the inner rear quarter on the passenger side mini tubbed, all cleaned up and back together, I can finally look at getting the boot floor in, which I thought I’d be doing this time last year…

 

I’ve had a disappointing time with chrome though, I gave my towers to a good platers, but after £200, they just couldn’t get them right.
So I found a really nice NOS pass side tower and linkage on eBay, not cheap, but it’s right. Just need a drivers side one now, if you know of any….

 

Nice job on the wheel tub! I know how that stretched out timeline works. We just finished up the rear quarter on my tub after one year of fabrication.

Were those first two pictures of the finished product from your chrome guy ?? j
The last one looks great!

 

I know the frustration of having things chromed. I gave a brand new pair of Bob drake 40 Ford standard headlight bezels to a company from Texas that always showed up at the Wichita swap meet with nice chrome parts to deliver to customers. When I received mine back, I couldn't believe they actually expected me to be happy with them. They had what I would call fish eyes like happen in paint and the chrome was so thin in spots that you could see through to the surface underneath. I ended up with $500.00 dollars worth of bad parts. I don't understand how so many customers before me received such nice parts and when I finally decided to go with them they served me with this mess and expected me to be happy. Life is weird sometimes.

 

Yep! The last one is the NOS one I picked up on ebay

 

They had them ages as well. To be fair, they did a great job on my window garnishings, but not pot metal.
I had a couple of headlight rims done a while ago by a different company, chrome was good, but the changed the shape of one rim at the bottom completely.

 

That makes sense. My. Drake bezels were pot metal even though new. I forgot to mention until you brought up that the bottom edges were changed that my edges were buffed away in places also. Pot metal must be really hard to chrome because as I said they had brought beautiful pieces to customers over the years but thinking back I only reember sheet metal moldings, bumpers etc. I don't remember seeing any returned pot metal pieces. I guess we need to do some homework on chromers to see if they have had experience with pot metal before turning our prized parts over to them. They must have fought hard with them which explains why they acted so proud of the results. I had a feeling that they had done the best they could so I decided to eat the parts and didn't mention it to them. I still hurts to eat $500.00 . It sure puts fear in a guy to turn over your pride and joy to anyone after an experience like that.

 

It’s been a while, I’ve been consumed, and still am, by an off topic car resurrection, booked in for a show in two weeks time, hopefully I’ll get it done.
But, I have been trying to chip away at the 40, trunk floor has been the latest challenge.
I’ve made a new crossmember clearance hump, by making a simple rod frame and shaping metal to fit over it. This will be removable.
I also borrowed a bead roller from a mate, and asked my wife to help me bead roll the trunk floor.
A bit of a learning curve, the metal moved around quite a lot even in the part I pre stretched. I was a bit concerned that I wouldn’t be able to flatten it, and indeed it is still a bit wobbly when it’s standing in its edge, but when it’s laid in the car, it levels out nicely, which is a relief. I’ve still got to cut the hole in the middle to clear the crossmember, but I’m going to put a 90 degree return around it to reinforce it, that and the hump screwed to it I think will give it plenty of strength.

 

Really nice work! Thanks for sharing your fabrication details on that cross member cover! Both projects came out great.
Sam

 

Looks great Neil1 Always nice to have a helper in the shop

 

Little update, just in case anyone thinks it’s ‘stalled’
I’ve been working on one of our very off topic (beach buggy - cough) cars, so not had much 40 time, but I’ve managed to do so more trunk floor work. Made a hammer form to reinforce the hole in the floor for the crossmember hump. Still have to add the fuel sender hole, but everything done is something less to do, and polished a bit of the old paint, it may have some life in it yet..

 

Nice job !

 

Nice work on that hump! Thanks for sharing your hammer form technique!

 

Sorry to hear about your rechrome of the towers--had the same issue here as well. Some came out ok, others not so good. Same issue with a hood nose piece--rechromed 3 times and basically it is now a $400 piece of junk. I have 3 more decent deluxe nose pieces with handles but am afraid to try this again.

 

Dropped into the engine builders on Saturday to drop of the inlet and alli water pump. The crank and cam are in.
I took some of the parts away to a well known uk painter a striper for a little tidying and striping. It’s getting closer..

 

Closer is good ! Keep up the good work.

 

Finally, the trunk floor and seat brace are back in! So next step is clean up the welds and rest of trunk area, epoxy prime, then body off to paint the underside of the floor and seal. While I’m doing that, I’ve decided to have the rear axle fitted for me. I just know i’ll spend more time starring at it trying to work out what to do than actually doing it. Bit of a shame cos I’d like to fit it, but I also want it done!

 

Thank you for sharing this. I need to make a replacement for one of my B-pillars as well an I could not figure out a better way to do this. I will make the same mould.

 

Nice work. Thank you for sharing this Neil. I will need to do the same thing some day.

 

It’s been a bit slow on this, an off topic car took a lot of my time earlier this year, but I’m back on it

Body off the chassis, now on a body rotisserie so I can finish the underneath of the floor and paint it. Mounting the front to the rotisserie was pretty simple, I’m a little concerned about only having four 1/4 inch bolts holding it up, but it seems ok. I had to get a bit creative on the back. I didn’t want to use the rear tail pan body mounts, as I wouldn’t be able to paint it underneath, so I made a frame that mounts to 6 rear fender bolt points to spread the load, and then made a frame that attached to them. Again, it seems ok, time will tell.

Chassis will be going of to Royal Kustoms to have the narrowed rear end fitted.
I considered doing this my self, but I know I will double guess and ponder way more than actually doing it, but Jim at RK has done loads and will just do it. I’ve found a split in the inner x member, so I’ll repair that when I get it back.
When I took the body of the chassis, I was slightly worried about the amount of flex in the floor, so I added a bit of bracing, it’s pretty solid now.

Unfortunately, it turned out that my quick change Center section is warped, and currently is unusable, which I was rather pi$$ed off about, but on the plus side, I now have a really strong banjo with 9 inch shafts setup for f100 brakes, and I can still use the prop shaft that I had made a while ago, every cloud and all that.
I thought about buying a winter v8 Center, but none are available, apparently a shortage of alli to cast them. I’ve spoken to a couple of people about repairing mine, see what happens.

 

I don't get the quick change, but nice job stiffening the body for the rotisserie. I like the 9 in. shafts with the banjo center; I'd just go with that. Keep up the good work.

 

I will for now Joel, a quick change has always been on my 'list' though, like louvers and halibrands, manual trans etc. I'm not going to let it hold up the build though, its been long enough already...

 

Now the body is off the chassis and on the rotisserie,I’ve been cleaning the rust off the sub rails, time consuming, but worth it

 

With the body pulled, I could see that the chassis needs some work, the double skinned areas at the back have suffered a bit over the last 80 odd years, so I loaded it in my van and took it to work to address. I’m self employed, and things are getting quiet with the economy being ruined by politicians, perfect opportunity to get this done

 

The back art of the doubled skin section on this has been giving me thoughts for concern, so I’ve decided to remove it, blast, weld, epoxy and refit it on both sides. Paranoid about it moving about while doing this, I made some frames that bolt in through some of the standard holes to locate it all and let e river it all back in