Projects An Amateur Chops a Brookville Coupe & More

Here's an idea I got from a build thread by SDS of his roadster project. I liked the idea of bracing the dash panel to the fire wall with struts, but I took his idea a little farther. I made the frame from 1/2" square tube, and you can see how it mounts to the firewall and the support structure behind the dash.


One reason for this frame was to have a way to brace the lower part of the dash panel to have more support for the upper steering column bracket. You can't see it in the photo above , but I did add a mounting bracket to the bottom edge of the dash panel that will get bolted to the frame.
I also had plans to use the frame to mount electrical components like the fuse panel, relays, wire bundles and any other stuff that needs to be supported under the dash. I've been adding more things to this frame as I go along. It really is handy to have this feature under your dash and is quite the multi-tasker as you'll see in future posts.

 

If you aren’t using regular windlace, what are you going to use to stop the breeze through the doors? You have a modern rubber weatherstrip in the jamb?

 

I'm trying to clean up the look of the interior, especially at the dash and windshield area. I've looked at photos of other coupes, and I don't like how they look with the windlace going up passed the dash, windshield and door. I'm also skeptical on whether the windlace would make a good seal. Most cars from way back to present use a foam rubber seal around door openings.
Will there be wind noise, probably, do I care. No. This is a hotrod not a modern daily driver. Will there be wind noise when I drive with the cowl vent open and the rear window down, most certainly.
I'll sacrifice some noise to get the interior look I want. Honestly I think adding a foam rubber seal from Steele Rubber that would seal the gap around the perimeter flange of the door would do a better job. If I need to I can add that after the car is painted.

 

I'm using the standard five gage layout on the dash for the speedo, water temp., oil press., fuel and alternator readings. This doesn't leave much room for to many other controls to be added without being out of reach or behind the steering wheel. I needed room for the ignition switch, but didn't see a good spot to put it on the dash panel.
I made a hammer-form to make a face plate for an under-dash pod to mount the ignition switch. the form was also used to make the body of the pod.

Here it is after welding. I also added holes to mount the A/C and fan controls. The pod was bolted to the under-dash frame I made.


This worked out good, it's easy to reach and keeps the dash panel from getting to cluttered with knobs.

 

Don't discount the appearance of windlace too much. I hear you out about it passing the dashboard, but the other thing windlace does it cover up the gap between the door panel and kick panel/quarter panels. Without it, you end up with a painted outline that highlights the jambs, rather than hide it.

Properly fit jambs lead to excellent sealing windlace. Judging by the quality of your work, there's no reason windlace wouldn't do its job.

 

My mind is made up, I won't be using any windlace for the interior. I went and talked to the upholsterer today and when I showed him photos of the work I did to get a tight fit on the dash and windshield garnish moldings he agreed that windlace and I quote " are ugly and don't work good to seal out the wind". He said that on this type car the larger type windlace would have to be used to fill the gaps, and he feels that it is even uglier than the smaller type especially when it is run above the doors. I totally agree with him.
Look at the photos below and you can see that there is a large space between the inner door jams and where the windlace is installed. That's a big gap to seal. And no, I'm not going to cut up the door jams and redo them so that the windlace can do a better job of keeping some wind noise out. I've already spent a lot of time getting the doors to fit good on the outside. Case closed

The upholsterer said he can finish the interior any way and make it look nice even without any windlace. If I have to I will add a foam rubber seal around the door if wind noise becomes a problem.

 

This is the style of vent I'm using for the A/C. I didn't like the mounting tabs that came with the vent, so I machined a collar that slips over the vent and holds it tight to the dash and also acts as nozzle for the flex duct to attach to.

 

The A/C unit under the dash has three outlets. Two are being used to supply the vents on each side of the dash which leaves one outlet for me to use for a center vent somewhere. There is no room for a center vent on the dash itself, so I made a housing to go under the dash for a center vent.
I bent up the middle part first then made hammer forms to match the sides and made end caps.


Made a hole in the back and glued in a short collar for a pvc fitting for the flex duct to connect to.

Another form was made to make the faceplate to fit a rectangular vent that matches the round ones on the dash.


I mounted it to the frame under the dash. There isn't much room to run the flex ducts for the A/C under there. I had some leftover 2" pvc tube from a hole house vacuum system I installed that fit the flex duct and I remembered that there are short radius fittings available to route the vacuum lines in a 2 x 4 wall that would be perfect for the tight space under the dash.
The vent is mostly hidden under the dash, but will do a good job of getting cool air to the center of the car.

 

I attended the Vintage Air rodder seminar in Louisville more than once.
They always stressed that to be effective, the air has to blow on your skin, as in arms, legs, face. If the air just blows in the cockpit space, you will never feel that the air conditioning is effective.
Just a bit of their professional advice.

 

Not true, just think of how your home A/C works. You don't have cold air blowing over you to make you feel cool. The A/C system removes heat and humidity from inside the space and moves it outside, which makes you feel cooler.
If the Vintage Air system has to be blowing directly on someone to keep them cool it's not a good system.

 

Where is the exit vent on your AC system that moves the hot and humid air outside?

 

Your car isn't insulated like your house is! Try running A/C in an unisulated house and see how well that works.

 

I never said that the hot humid air is moved outside. I said that heat and humidity are removed from inside the space and moved or transferred outside. The liquid refrigerant (freon) in the evaporator coil under the dash picks up the heat from the air passing over it. When the liquid absorbs that heat it boils off into a gas, that goes to the compressor which sends this hot compressed gas to the condenser, you know the small radiator in front of the big radiator. As outside air passes over the condenser the heat that the refrigerant removed from inside of the car is taken away to the outside. This condenses the refrigerant back down to a liquid state and is sent back to the evap coil and the cycle starts over again.
As for removing humidity, have you ever left your vehicle running in park with the A/C on. The puddle of water you find under the vehicle is the humidity in the air that was removed and drained to the outside.
Hope this explains how A/C works.

 

It works all the time. There are millions of older uninsulated homes that have air conditioning and it works just fine, I grew up in one.
The Btu capacity of the A/C unit just has to be sized correctly to handle the load. An uninsulated home would need a larger capacity unit than a well insulated home.
I'm not aware of any cars on the road that are insulated as well as a modern home and the A/C systems seem to be able to do the job.

 

Hard to tell an expert anything.

 

The humidity air inside car does NOT get taken out by ac. Water under car from condensation on unit as inside air passes over ac unit & gets cooled

 

OK. That's probably enough about air conditioning.
Let's get back to following the build progress on this nice rod.

 

I don’t like cold air blowing on me so I point all vents away and it still cools down my truck cab fast…..Nice work on the vents!

 

Let's get back to following the build progress on this nice rod.[/QUOTE]
I agree, let's get back to the regularly scheduled program.

 

Thanks Mike. I do the same , no matter what I'm driving I always aim the vents away from me.

 

Here is one of those necessity is the mother of invention situations that force you to make your own parts. I needed a three port fuel log to feed the carbs so I ordered one made by Edelbrock. After waiting two years for the backorder to be filled, I gave up and came up with my own design.
As usual I started with a chunk of stainless steel and turned a dome on each end of the part with my ball turning attachment.

Then I used this not so ideal setup to turn down the center section to form the rib detail.

Here is the almost finished piece with the inlet, outlet and mounting lugs.

I silver soldered the the fittings onto the main body.

Here it is after a trip to the buffer and mounted to the firewall. I added an extra outlet for a pressure gage.

 

Great thread! Your work is Beautiful and inspirational.

Thank you.

 

I think that's the coolest fuel log I've ever seen.

 

Thanks Mike. I really like the way it looks, it reminds me of the Moon fuel tanks mounted on the front of old dragsters.
This kinda all happened by accident, I was just trying to come up with a design that was easy to machine. The ribs were a last minute addition to make it look cool.

 

Thanks Johnny

 

I needed trim rings for the shifter and parking brake lever, I cut out the shifter ring with a face cutting trepanning tool on the lathe and the park brake trim on the mill from 1/8" stainless plate.


I'm using the Mighty Wiper windshield wiper on the driver's side. The kit comes with a piece of aluminum to make an escutcheon to cover the wiper shaft that sticks out over the windshield. I made mine out of stainless steel so I could polish it to look like chrome. I milled a fishmouth on the end of the stainless bar with a 1" endmill, and this fit the body contour perfectly and added a taper profile to it.

The 303 Olds motor came with a spark plug wire bracket that mounted to the water passage block off plate at the back of the passenger side head. I liked the way this bracket looked and wanted to use it to separate the plug wires, but I needed one for the drivers side to match. I made a mirror version of it.

These will be the last updates I have to show until the car gets to the painters, hopefully later this month. I'll stop by the paint shop and try to get as many progress pics as I can.
Here is the car as it sits waiting to finally lose it's gray color.

 

Povo me, I make do with a jigsaw and a file.

I like the factory style plug wire bracket.

 

Any updates

 

The only update I have is that the car finally made it to the painters shop last week.

He has several other customer cars that are being worked on, but he said he wanted to stay on my car till it's done since none of the other projects are this near to be going into the spray booth. I hope it gets done in eight to ten weeks or so, but I'm not rushing him.

 

Is it out of the paint shop yet?