Projects 50's Roadster Resurrection....

I'm finally posting up the story of my little roadster. Its taken a little while to actually post any pictures because i wanted to move it forward a little to actually show some progress and like everything.....as I changed one thing, another came along and before you know it you've got a pile of bits and nothing to photograph.

I bought the car a couple of years ago from the HAMB cl***ifieds after falling in love with it....something about the overall look was perfect in my eyes and after being promised it was a running, driving car I took the plunge and bought it without actually seeing it in person. first mistake (I'll never learn). when it arrived one rear wheel was stuck, the other rear cylinder was weeping uncontrolabl rattled around inside the column because there was no top support bearing of any kind, the gas tank was wedged in behind the seat and secured with nothing but blue foam stuffed down the side, the engine would not run smoothly no matter what i tried and wept oil and vapor from every orifice and every where i looked the car was held together with mismatched Home Depot fasteners and snotty weld. So after two years of working through just some of the awful work the PO had done to the car i'm nearly at the point where it'll be back on the road and be safe to drive. It was built in Canada in 53 apparently, and was originally a 32 roadster. The original body was sold off a few years ago and the PO fitted a very nice 31 body to the original frame, motor and running gear. That story is covered else where on the HAMB and i'm sure you can find it if you look. for me I'm moving forward and my intention is to resurrect the car and keep it fairly authentic to a 53 era hot rod...kinda like if a guy was building it back then with a lot of the nicest, easily available stuff he could lay his hands on. here's a couple of shots from the day i received it to where i am now...

 

The roadster does have the look,I can see why you fell in love with it and lie a lot of cars we buy,,we use our hearts instead of our heads. HRP

 

Whilst working on the rear brakes so that i could at least drive the little roadster round the block I discovered that the rear end was actually from a 49 Merc mounted with the original wishbone welded to the axle housing. I also found out after a bit of searching that the cool gauge panel in the dash was part of a dash from a 41 Merc and so a plan began to formulate......and when I scored a very healthy 53 Merc Flathead for a bargain price the theme was set. The plan is that this little car will become a Mercster.....so I've been sourcing the parts i need and it'll sport a full 41 Merc dashboard and steering wheel, obviously the Merc engine and rear end and any other cool Merc pieces I can get my hands on....I'm at the point now where the new engine is in and I need to put in a fuel system to feed the dual 94's on a Navaro intake. The Geardrive Headers (nice job Matt) are off to the platers and I need to fab up some sort of bulkhead behind the seats to hang a moon tank on...then, once that's all dialed in, i'll turn my attention to the interior and body.

 

The gold color on the flatty looks super.

 

Diggit... cool buggy, glad you are doing it some justice!

 

I too can see why you fell in love with your li'l roadster. It sure has "the look"!

If you ever decide to go a different direction with your dash (the gauges DO look good in there) I would dearly love to have that cluster as my Merc is missing that section. I hope you have better luck than I sourcing '41 Merc dash parts..

Making someone else's rod roadworthy is sometimes a larger task than we would prefer. You're doing a nice job of it!

Dave

 

Nice! I'll be watching this one...

 

Nice! The white firewall is great period feature, glad things are moving along for you. Bob

 

cool hot rod

 

Looking great !!!! Def. has "the look". Love the gold mill too. Enjoy it to the fullest. Good thing you're in Cal. We might get some snow out here mid week !!

 

Looks like another example of someone selling you a lemon and you deciding to make lemonade. I agree that it could draw you in with that cl***ic look and not taking the time to peruse the details until after the purchase was made. Thanks for letting us watch the rebuild.

Frank

 

Thanks Guys, I do love this thing and its gradually coming together just the way i want it. I'll probably bounce around on this thread as I've been working on it for the past couple of years and it hasn't always been regular. First thing I did once the brakes were sorted out was to find some Bias Ply tires. The radials that were on it when I got it made it look like a kit car and the low profile of those tires gave me a bit of a problem over speed bumps...I met a guy up north of LA when I answered a craigslist add for some small items and a pair of long U-bolts for the reared. When I turned up there I could not believe the collection he had...I counted 14 32's in various body styles and condition. of course he knew what he had, there were no bargains to be had but I did score a very nice set of Allstate whitewalls on 16"ford rims off of a gorgeous 50's 5 window highboy. I actually tried to persuade the guy they should stay with the car but he wanted to put mags on it. Oh well, couldn't afford the coupe but wheels look great on my little car...here's some shots of his place and the transformation the car underwent with just the tire swap.

 

a few of the projects at this guys place!!!

 

Like HRP said, I can see why you fell for it,
Good transformation, good thread!
I like the direction your going with it.

 

You know Dave, I thought many times about going. Different route with he dash but I've never seen a 41 Merc dash in a roadster before and I lke to be a little different, I've got most of the pieces I need now and might have a couple left over, I'll let you know....and also, having scored a 41 Merc wheel I think the whole thing is gonna be very cl***y.....now I'm hunting for a full set of 41 hub caps.

Felix

 

What a sweetheart roadster, I love the Merc with plain non-finned heads, this my friends is a cool hot rod. Congrats on having such great taste and taking this baby to icon status. Rocks!! ~sololobo~

 

Thanks Sololobo, that means a lot man.

As I work through this project there's a load of stuff I need to learn but I'm taking it one step at a time and trying to do it right, I'm not afraid to take constructive criticism so if anybody see's something I'm doing wrong please feel free to school me.

One of the first things i did on the roadster was to sort the windshield out. there was a bout an inch gap between the bottom of the screen and the cowl and the fit of the stantion supports to the body was horrendous, I soon found out why....

As I investigated it turned out that the bottom hole in the support on each side had been drilled through and attached with an ordinary household nut and bolt, even worse, the top hole had just been welded through and then plugged with body filler...the things rattle around like crazy and the photo's speak for themselves with regards to how they fit.

I drilled out the top holes and managed to fanangle the supports off of their mounting posts then took them into work and milled out the correct recessed openings. a quick run up to the Early Ford Store got me some correct screw head bolts and I was then able to move the mounts around with a little cutting and re-welding to get them to fit better....they're close now but still need a little m***aging. after that I lopped an inch out of each stanchion support, beveled the edges of the cut and tacked em back together. after a little bit of adjustment I welded em up, ground em smooth, notched the backs of the pivots and built up a little wed on the actual stanchions so that i could lock them in with a slight rake. The whole thing looks a lot sleeker now. I'm gonna leave the final finishing till i tackle the body work later.

 

Kool

 

love the engine color!

 

Beautiful car.........just cl*** all the way.

 

Great job man! You're doing this roadster right.

 

You're doing a cool thing sticking with the good looking Merc dash - it was just my frustration at not finding this stuff that led to my greedy suggestion!

I love the direction you are going with the roadster by spiffing up the rough edges and staying true to the car's vintage style. Oh, and the new wheels and tires look spot-on!

Please do keep me in mind if you trip over anything '41 Merc dash-ish.

Dave

 

the second thing i tackled on the car before i even rolled it out of the garage was to sort out the hacked up metal above the rear axle. The frame has got a pretty heavy kick in it bringing the body down low over the rear end and I couldnt believe how rough it had been left when i had a good look round it. And yes, the break lines were run in a way that lets them be pinched between the body and wishbone mounts on full compression. anyway, I did a little bit of searching here on the HAMB and at a couple of car shows to see if there was a "right way" to do this and decided to go with my own instinct and create a sweeping shape that follows the kick up of the frame and then curves round nice and neat behing the shock mounts for maximum clearance. I was thinking about making a small panel with a hammer formed lip to let in here to restore some strength to the edge but I'm open to advise on the best way to tackle this, any ideas guys?

Then finaly once i'd improved the placement of the brake lines i took it out for its first spin round the neighborhood. I'm still grinning a couple of years later, even though it wouldn't run right and pissed oil all over the place!

 

Glad you guys like it. Just trying to fix all the little things on this car and make the adjustments to get the proportions right. its never going to a be a polished shiny show car, i want it to wear 60 years of battle scars proudly.

next thing i had to sort out was the steering wheel, it was literally flopping around inside the column, I've got no idea what the column is from but if anyone recognizes it it would be good to know. I made up a br*** bearing to sit inside the column shroud, obviously the "tulip at the end of the shaft wouldn't allow the bearing to just slide over so i split it and made a retaining plate to hold it in place. m***ive improvement but not perfect. any other ideas are welcome.

 

To me it looks like that steering shaft was fabricated so it would fit the taper of a Ford steering wheel. The bearing you made is a good solution. What steering box is in the car ?

I can see why you loved the look, I do too. I think any car a person buys has some things that need corrected or changed , even the best ones. But at least you will be intimately familiar with every aspect of the car if and when repairs are needed.

Don

 

Thanks Don, the taper on the shaft is larger than a standard ford p***enger car taper...the Merc wheel i have to go on it doesn't fit. The wheel thats in the car now is a kinda mustang/aftermarket wood rimmed thing with a fairly badly cobbled together home spun adapter (was FULL of metal shavings and grease when i got the car) my ***umption was that the steering box was an F1 or F100 unit....

Felix

 

Yep, that makes sense, Felix. I would simply find an early Ford steering box for parts and cut and weld the top splined section onto the skinny part of your existing shaft. Ford uses a tapered little sleeve that drops down into the gap between the column and shaft and it acts as a bearing. You could also use an early Ford F1 or F100 column if you wanted.

Don

 

Thanks Don, Thats kinda what i was thinking. I had thought about just reaming out the steering wheel but not even sure if thats possible and i guess that would still leave me with the bearing issue.

Felix

 

Great to see your car on here with the story and build details. What a great looking old Roadster. Thanks for posting it!
I've enjoyed seeing some photos of it pop up on Instagram, too. (@hoesing)


Malcolm

 

I can see a definite improvement to the roadster due to the things you have done. You have one cl***y hotrod!