Projects Flashback

50 ford

 

Just trying to help out.

 

Highlights of this multi year project are being assembled and will be posted here. The car is now, for all practical purposes, finished and I would be happy to share any information, sources, solutions with anyone else that might benefit from those 'bits' of information. Here is a picture from last weekend.

 

Nice! Cant wait to see the progress pics.

 

Understand. I will keep this one focused on the car from the original custom I did in 1954 - 1956 to the attempt to duplicate it after retirement. I do feel that the original and the basis for this one (Flashback) are truly custom projects on a 1950 Ford and understand that the forum does not care (want) details about he power train and can simply avoid talking about the power train for the purposes of highlighting the essence of this project. If I am still 'off course' please let me know and I will simply back off entirely. Bob Bertolasi

 

So, here goes the 'rest of the story' as Paul Harvey used to say. When I was 14 (1954), I bought a 50 Ford 4 dr. Custom with money I made mowing lawns, and since I could not drive it legally for 2 more years I decided to do some customizing. As a 14 year old the only space I had available was next to the old Oak tree and our one car garage (which I had to beg for) so most of this work was done in the yard outside our house from May to October. Here are a couple pictures of the car before I started my 'first' project.

 

I had no experience with 'leading' and decided to do all the work with chicken wire, sheet metal screws, and fiberglass sheet and blanket material set in epoxy resin. I found out that 55 Pontiac side trim fit almost perfectly with the curvature of the ford doors and decided to use Ford hooded headlight rims and a 53 Chevrolet grille. Looked at several taillights and settled on Olds Rocket taillight lenses which I decided to 'french' into the fenders. The rest of the 'chores' concerned mainly getting rid of the chrome and cleaning off the hood and trunk areas. Door solenoids were not around in those days so I simply stuck with the handles.

 

I had worked for my dad for a couple years at a local construction company as a grease ball (he was master mechanic) and we were allowed to paint the car in the garage over a long weekend. I turned 16 in September of 56 and within a week or so was able to start using the car for high school transportation for the next two years. In October if 58 I enlisted in the Air Force and sold the car before leaving town. I tested out for vehicle mechanic or electronic technician and chose the latter as I already knew what mechanic work was all about. Here are a few shots of the car the first fall/winter that I drove it.. The color shot is a bit blurry since you had to hold still forever in those days to get a clear image from a Kodak box camera!

 

One of the things that always bothered me about the end of the two tone area was the masked off line down the fender bead into the bumper pan. So, 60 years later (2014) when I decided to 'do it again' I was still thinking there should be a better way to deal with the end of the two tone area. I thought (novice) that finding old car parts would be a breeze - - - hmmmmm! While I was trying to find a suitable car to work on/with to recreate the project I was also trying to find the Pontiac side trim, Chevy grille, and Olds Rocket taillights. Only made it through on one item, the Pontiac side trim (only remaining full trim set in a bone yard in Denton Texas) and that was for a 2 door so the aft pieces were about 6 inches too long - but knew how to deal with that. The only 53 Chevrolet grille I could find for sale was in Canada and half rusted through with an exorbitant price tag so had to do something different there. Absolutely could not find any Olds Rocket taillights (8 flutes in circumference at base) like what I had used originally. Then I learned about the HAMB site and the cars for sale area and started to check in routinely to see if I could find a good base car to start with.

 

After about 4 months of searching through hundreds of listings on various sites I found the listing by mrkling on the HAMB site and asked a work friend of mine in Seattle to visit the car, take it for a ride, and let me know what he thought of the mechanical condition and body shape of the car.
He did and the reply was positive so I called the owner and we proceeded to work out a deal. Clearly I was not ready to travel from Illinois to Washington and drive the car back home, not knowing the more significant facts of condition so I found a carrier that specializes in cars and the Lakewood 50 came to Illinois in the company of a Lotus Ford, a Ferrari, a Shelby Cobra, and a very conscientious driver who made a great breakfast conversationalist. Set me back $1800 but still feel that was the best move considering! We drove the car for about a month and I let all our kids (grownups - - sort of) and their spouses drive the car at least once before I put it in the garage and started the 'transformation' to Flashback 50. Sold off, through the HAMB channel the more valuable parts that I was not planning on using (visor, fake spotlights, grille, etc. - still have the parking light assemblies if anyone is interested) and started to do some design sketching to figure out how to deal with the grille changes and the brake light changes that were going to be required. By that time I had also discovered that there was no way to find the original hooded headlight rims I had used in the original build so was working on that also.

 

I cruised around looking at various magazine and car sites for ideas of what/how to deal with the various components that were no longer available and have the results still look 'close' to the original project when I got finished. The Pontiac side trim was the no-brainer in the new project but it managed to throw us a curve ball also - will get to that later. Decided to use a 54-57 Corvette grille which I could buy new for less than 1/4 of the rotted out 53 Chev. grille the Canadian guy had for sale. With that in mine I started with sketching of the front end and details related and that is why the original project (Now locked because I forgot an important rule) was named Flashback 50 front end redesign and implementation. After a few dozen attempts I arrived at something that I felt would work and still keep the spirit of the original project. Without the parking light 'bullets' at the ends of the grille bar I had to do something so to keep the spirit I found some round marker (Truck supply store) lights with vertical openings (like teeth) and though not nearly as big a diameter as the bullets they were round and would complement the grille. Converting the lights from marker (single intensity level) to parking (dual intensity levels) was not an issue for me as that was in my wheelhouse from 50+ years of electronics built upon the Air Force training. I have long been in favor of hooded headlights but have not ever been able to adjust to the ones that do not continue the curvature of the fender that they are extending so you can see an exaggerated roll off of the line as it ends at the light. We were actually able to achieve this fairly easy using a patch panel from a very popular car - more on this later. As I was sketching it became painfully apparent that the grille surround of the corvette would not work in the Ford and there was no part available that was going to fit with the proper angle back (to match the hood lines) so this was also going to be a design requirement and fabrication headache.

 

I decided to work a bit on the headlight hood fabrication details and came up with some custom formed pieces that would do the job. That left me with a headlight rim detail to work out and I found that the 54 merc chrome inverted rims were still available so went with them as the clearance that rim and it's mounting offer made it possible to remove the headlight from the front and not have to drop the bucket out from the back side of the fender to get at the headlight mounting rim and screws.

 

I decided to dig into the issue of the grille surround and see how hard this was going to be to come up with. I regularly visit with the guys in the shop next door to ours, the Kings, and they are one of the few fully qualified restoration facilities for the old 'woodies'. so I went over to their shop and told them my 'problems'. Without a lot of thought Tracy said,,, why don't you make a pattern to form the metal to. I went back home and started working on the design of a pattern set - one piece to put in the opening to form the surrounding metal to and one piece to form the surround piece (which would have to be chromed) to. The patterns had to be built out of hardwood so that they could stand up to welding heat and sputter but for the Kings this was kids play. Took several weeks to setup all of this but probably saved some serious time and a lot of cuss words when reforming the front end to accept the corvette grille without looking like an afterthought.

 

The closest tail light lenses that I could find to the 'feel' of the original Olds Rocket lenses was an aftermarket Chevy sized without flutes. Slightly larger diameter but not as high a bullet profile. I decided to go a different route and designed a aluminum mounting rim with I ended up polishing and finishing off with Simichrome compound (import from Germany available in many auto parts stores) to look like satin chrome finish. To get the recess without the chicken wire used in the original, I found some frenching cans to base the rework on. The cans were much deeper than what I needed but easy enough to cut off when happy with the setting. The biggest issue here was trying to convey the shaping that I did on the original to the new project. In addition to sketches I decided to use some modeling clay and 'mock up' the result I was looking for so it could be understood from all angles.

 

We started the tear down and I was not ready for the 'surprises' that showed up. The fenders came of in one piece and were respectable condition with some rusty areas to repair. Hood, doors, trunk, and fenders were sent out for media blast but due to the rusted areas of the rocker panels and rear quarter panels we decided to rework the body in smaller areas so that we did not advertently cause a chasm to develop or fragments to fall of in media blast. That was a good decision because when the loose parts came back from the media blast process we knew we were in for replacing a bunch of the car. Here is a picture of the trunk before we threw it in the 'not now' pile along with the doors and hood - the trunk was in the best shape and, as you can see, that is not saying much. All those recesses were filled with lead and then I understood why the trunk closed with such a 'thud'. We pulled about 200 pounds of lead off the body quarters and rockers while digging them out of the depths. Most of the flooring was gone as well so ordered replacement panels and started the 'reconstruction'. Rear quarters were completely rotted out from the original trim line down and rock pans were crunched up, straightened out, crunched up,,,, etc too many times to make it worth trying to straighten out so repair panels were ordered for those as well. The inner fender sheetmetal was all messed up with bends and holes punched in so they ended up getting replaced or rebuilt as well. Firewall had to be cleaned and repaired as best possible for several reasons, mainly that there are no replacement panels available for that area. As you might expect,, I was on the internet every night trying to find panels, doors, hood, trunk, etc. but lucked out and found a 49 sitting in a corn field not to far away. Had to talk a lot to get the owner to let loose of it but Flashback 50 was actually 49½ by the time we got it all back together. Did you know that the biggest change in doors between 49 and 50 was the latch and striker plate? NOW I know!

 

In the midst of all the body surprises we were in for a totally unexpected curve ball. The bone yard in Denton Texas had shipped the pontiac side trim and I was tracking the package when it dropped off the radar for a couple of days. I got a call from the garage and it had arrived with a 'you need to come over and look at this' notification - never a good thing! So in their 'years of experience which was supposed to make me feel totally comfortable' they managed to tape the long pieces to a piece of 1x4 instead of putting in a tube as I has suggested. Somebody has a bad tape because the 1x4 was about 4 inches too short to support the entire length and YOU GUESSED IT, UPS managed to stack things on top of the package or whatever till they bent the part of the trim hanging over the edge. Mind you this was the last remaining full set of 55 Pontiac side trim in the US. Ironically, the girl in the add of the newspaper/magazine which they wrapped the shipment in is laughing at us right where the package runs short. Now the battle starts,,,, I offer to fix the trim and back charge them, they want to fix the trim against a damaged in shipment (a lot of boloney) insurance claim against UPS. They insisted so we sent the long trim pieces back, they 'fixed' them and sent them back to us, I filed a claim against them and then had the trim really fixed by an old wizard with the big wheels and small pliers. Trim, after polishing, looked even better than new and no one has ever even questioned the slight blemish that is still on one of the pieces.

 

While waiting for the side trim to be 'repaired' and sent back we started with the trunk and taillight reconfigurations. The trunk of the 49 Ford had a handle/light holder/lock mechanism with several holes going through the trunk so when we removed it all and thought about how to do something a bit more elaborate than the original (had light in frame only) and get the license plate up off of the edge of the trunk, Andy (restoration wizard we were working with) came up with a 57 Desoto license plate section and it was just the right thing to use for this build. With that detail worked out it was time to fabricate the new frenched taillight arrangement and do a prime coat test of the surface details to see if it was matching the sketches and ideas to that point. The trim came back, was properly 'fixed' at the shop and we hung a side to check the fitting. So far so good so it was time to work on the front end transformation. Andy's shop does not have pulling and rolling machines so we moved the car to Hopperstads to get that work done with the proper equipment.

 

Hopperstads used the wooden forms to create an envelope for the grill bar first, and then anchored the envelope to the car with temporary bracketing so that they could form and weld into place the surrounding metal to fulfill the sketched concept that I had provided. As you may have noticed in the two previous pictures we were also trying to implement the hooded headlight scheme but were having issues with all the reverse bends and tucked in surfaces. We decided to source some 56 Chevrolet headlight 'hood' patch panels, sectioned about an inch out of the center (they had a very wide profile, but the correct shape) and then cut and fit metal to the lead in so that the lines of the Ford fender were preserved. Kerry fit in the frenching cans that I had found for the parking lights and reformed the corners of the hood and matching front sheet metal to get the designed curvature. Then he suggested and I really liked building a full air baffle for the incoming airflow, based on the 49 Ford's baffle cover. I will eventually decide if I want some graphics or other content in the recessed area but for now I am happy to have it simply a painted surface. The last step for this visit to Kerry's shop was for him to form an insert which could be chromed to make the 'rim' around the grille. Due to the limitations of his rolling gear the diameter of the rim was a bit bigger than had been planned but, when all finished, it did not seem to make any difference in appearance. While the car was at Hopperstads (which was more convenient for me to work in) I decided to untangle and try to organize the wiring under the dash, and get ready for several harness cluster replacements (nicked, aged and brittle insulation, broken terminal and lugs, etc.) so with a marker pen and several rolls of masking tape I took on the task of wiring upgrades.

 

Got into a conversation with Kerry on the hood latch since 49/50 Ford hoods were notorious for coming unlatched and flying up and Kerry told me that he had used the VW latch mechanism on many of his creations so I looked into the issue and decided it best to follow his recommendations. Already knew that there would be some 'obstacles' to overcome when we filled in the bullet rim scalloped area (would no longer be able to reach in and release the Ford safety latch. I ordered the latch assembly and we proceeded to fit it to the hood/front end rework in process.
We tacked all into place to check alignment and operation and determine the best method to provide access to the safety release.
After we confirmed fit and function Kerry went ahead with the fillers for the open spaces. Another smaller detail that I was working on while the car was at Hopperstad's was the new (from junk yard) electric bucket seats and consul (ordered from Jeep aftermarket supplier) mounting. To fit the bucket seats we had to section about 4 inches out of each base while reshaping the mounting feet to accomodate the sloped floor of the car vs. the van that they were taken from. I had a base welded up for mounting the consul but had to 'fit' it to the non-symmetrical 'hump' in the floor for the transmission/drive shaft. I used a contour gauge and a lot of masking tape to layout the torch path along the boxed sides of the original fabrication. At this point I also started to look at windows, window frames, seals, and trim issues. The rear vent windows had been removed at some point and there did not seem any way to go back to having them in place and functional so I started working on a plan to replace the one piece rear windows and seal them (in place).

 

Wow, great work. I like it!

 

The car was brought back at Kerry so he could form the trim around the grille and it could be sent out for chroming. While the car was at Hopperstads we got into a general conversation about how to deal with the two tone trail off at the end of the side trim. I decided to do some photoshopping to get a 'feel' of what might work or at least be considered. Here are a few of the thoughts that I processed, and in order of consideration given.


We had also considered ending in black to red or black to yellow flames to separate the two paint colors. When we were discussing it with Kerry, I had mentioned that I had looked at the 54 Merc rear wheel lead in where they had used a scoop design and had some chrome short strips in the opening. Kerry got out a knife and some hard foam an in a short bit he had whittled out a shape that looked like a 'lance' or 'spear' for us to hold against the car to get the idea he was suggesting. . Immediately liked the idea and started to work the graphics to accommodate the spears. First I cleaned up a design for the spear itself and found a local precision machining facility to 'contour mill' the shape in aluminum blocks so that they could be cut out and polished and prepared for mounting. . They machined up three doubles for me (I needed four spears but wanted a couple of spares just in case) and used a premium aluminum alloy that would polish up nearly like chrome. I cut them out of the web and learned how to polish aluminum without too many 'incidences'!
While working on that I revisited the scallop idea, rounded the inner area and massaged the shape a bit to sequence the scallops into the bumper profile to make it seem more 'planned'. Andy and I had already discussed the final painting of the car and my desire not to have the white touch the gray anywhere and he had suggested silver pinstriping along the separating edge, made a test panel and we really liked the idea. With that in mind, we laid out the scallops assuming spears at each point under the end of side trim point and bottom sideline running under the bumper profile. I drew a full size sketch so we could get a better feel and it felt 'great'! Needed to determine the 'overlay' of the trim point and spear points to the pinstriping so did some more photoshopping to get that into perspective. The final result was even better than I had imagined and has been a 'talking' point of the car at shows as many do link the appearance to the 54 Merc rear wheel leadin scoups. Once the side trim, spears, and bumper were mounted the idea flowed very well. .

 

When we first received the car I had taken notice that the speedometer was 'chattery' and illumination partially out so I had planned to rebuild the instrument cluster before closing up the project. It seemed proper to take this all on while the dash was out of the car to be stripped and painted and everything would be easy to get to. I decided to get the overdrive switch off of the bracket under the dash and to rearrange the heating/cooling controls (aftermarket upgrades) to get some consistency in the dash area. I used an image of the dash for planning purposes and marked up as I went along. Here is what the image looked like about half way through the planning process. The original start switch was still in place as well as the cigarette lighter and it was clear to me that I did not want or need either one of them. The wiper switch which had been supplied with the electric wiper replacement assembly was, like the air conditioning switch, not a suitable fit for revamping of the dash so I found switches that would replace them and use the original (replacement) Ford dash knobs and bezels. I lucked out on the overdrive bezel in that the 51 actually had one and also the black knob series from the Crestline. We had already decided to build a skirt for the dash that would hold the vents for the AC and heater. Since they are separate units we planned the AC for the three vents near center and the heater for defroster splashes as well as the outer vents in the skirt. As you can see from the picture I was not comfortable trying to weld in a patch to close off the ash tray opening so decided to make use of it and turn it into a USB power port but keep the 'original look' to the dash by leaving it as a pull out assembly. I put the main dash area back together to make sure all was going to look 'proper' and was satisfied with the changes. I found some vent assemblies that were black with chrome highlights and ordered them to finish up the skirt area when it was time. It was time to get some planning done on the interior so I will address that next.

 

I had been reading up on restorations and custom modifications and noted that many remarked, after putting all together, that they wished they had put some sound deadening into the project as the new panels and typical desire to paint the underside and not undercoat had led to more 'road noise' than desired. I compared a bunch of products and decided to go with the B-quiet product from Canada. After finishing up the floor we decided to do the top and doors as well. Even with all that supposed sound deadening, the roar of the HushPower mufflers that I switched to still can get your head pounding at highway speeds. I am in the process of changing to a quieter set of mufflers over this winter's 'garaging' time. I had ordered a replacement steering wheel as I wanted/needed to get away from the 16" wheel that was on the car when we received it. After my wife saw the steering wheel I had picked out I got locked out of any further involvement with the interior, other that drafting ideas of door panel designs to work around the speakers that I was installing in them. She worked with her cousin Sheldon (who does custom interior creations for vintage and special builds in the area) to create an interior that was updated, but not over the top, and used durable fabric covering so that I could enjoy sitting in the seats for more than 10 minutes. Next highlight on the interior will show is the results of her designs and fabric choices for the upholstery. Before we get to that I better catch up with the grille surround, door latch issues, and other little interruptions we got into while working out the update from 50 to 49 doors, hood, and trunk.

 

Before the car left Kerry's from the first visit, he had created the base metal 'skins' around the grille, headlights, and parking lights per the sketch work I had supplied and modifications we made in process. The car had to come back to the shop in Sycamore in order for the surfaces to be properly filled, trued, and primed.
Since the chrome rim around the grille bar needed to be a 'tight' fit, forming of same had to wait till all the prep work was done and the surface represented the final dimensions as accurately as possible.
We returned the car to Kerry's and he proceeded to form the rim around the grille bar and made it fit 'snugly' in the opening that he had created in the base metal. We sent the surround rim out for chrome plating and went to work on another 'small' detail of big importance.
The 49 Ford doors were dimensionally the same as the 50 doors, but the latch and latch plate assemblies were entirely different and even used a different pattern of mounting hardware. We had to make a decision whether to modify the latch assembly in the door or the latch plate on the car. After a lot of 'what if's' we decided to machine up new latch plates for the car. We started by using some dimensional comparisons and made an oak latch plate to 'whittle' on.
By the second set we had figured out how to make a plate that would mount to the body frame (had the convenience of rear upholstery and backing panels off and no window mechanisms to work around) with some new holes and a rather strange looking nut plate. We tweaked the patter a bit and then made two steel latch plates which were sent to a different facility for chrome plating. They came back before the grille surround so we had time to install and check all for fit and function before returning to main body work.
The grille surround came back
and we were ready to move the car back to Sycamore so the final prep and painting processes could begin.

 

Hope you all had a great holiday break and are staying healthy. Picking up where I think I left off I had mentioned the interior which my wife took over after she saw what I picked out for a replacement steering wheel. We have a relative that is a professional interior guy doing antique cars and all other 'hard to imagine' projects literally as if second nature. He agreed to do the interior fabrication when I t old him he would not be working with me, but with Lois. They had one of those huddle sessions and told me to 'never mind' about the interior it was all taken care of,,,, and it was. They carried the red piping from the steering wheel through the design of the seat coverings and then used matching colors to create door panels with subtle 'snap'.




The white tube around the lower steering column was an idea in test mode. Did work out to use PVC drain tube, primed and painted dash gray to hide wiring and shifter rods. The tubing has about a 2 inch wide section cut out of it lengthwise so that it can be 'flexed' to fit over the column and then close up tight enough to stay in position.
The mesh fabric in the seat inserts is like cotton steel wear resistant stuff which provided the ventilation I needed because I cannot sit on leather for any length of time without breaking into hard sweating.



The steering column cap is actually custom manufactured from an aluminum alloy that is good for polishing and finished off with a compound made specially for Aluminum, called Simichrome. That is the same compound we used on the 'spears' at the end of the quarter panels where the white breaks to gray. I am going to do the next segment on the trunk latch design and implementation. I wanted to shave the trunk hardware off the outside so needed solenoid operation. Since the battery switch ended up in the trunk and most shows require disconnecting the battery it was important to have a backup plan in case the battery ever went completely flat and could not operate the solenoid or if the remote was ever lost. We designed a system that has two methods of recovering from a 'lock out'. Till then, hope you all have a great February and are staying healthy. bob

 

Stopped by the Kings shop today and they just got a '29 in for wood restoration work. Have posted various images of their stuff in previous build ( https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...front-end-redesign-and-implementation.819879/ ) but their shop is really getting crowded as they are now getting cars brought in from all over the US. Here is a shot of the 29 which they were explaining, was trailered in from upper Wisconsin yesterday and there was a LOT of salt on the roads so they need to do full washdown before they can start any work on it.
The vehicle seems to be a conversion of early pickup truck style to enclosed cabin and seems someone was in a hurry (notice flat front wood box sticking out at front of door - Kings would not have done a mod that 'crude').

 

Stopped over to see how the King's were doing and, as often happens, learned something else that I never knew about the old 'woodies'. I never dawned on me that anyone would build a car without a metal frame - now I know.. The focus of this shot is the reconstruction of an old woodie wherein the major portion of the body was wood framed and wood skinned.

 

Just a quick post from an old timer (born in 1940) on how easy brake bleeding has gotten. I knew I had to bleed the Flashback 50 brakes after I replaced the master cylinder - - - and was dreading it for several reasons. Do most of the work on my own in our commercial building garage and it is not easy to 'borrow someone' for hour or so - and wife is not inclined to do this type of work either. Also, don't like the dance with the bleeder screws open, bleed, close, repeadal, open bleed, etc. and watch for those stupid bubbles. While I was looking up the bleeder screws to replace the old, mauled up ones I stumbled across Quick bleeder screws. Has to be one of the best time and sweat savers ever made for brake systems. Due to age of car ( 1950) and various swaps that have been made in the hardware took me a while to find the right parts, but once I had all in place the entire bleed process took less than 1/2 hour - ALL BY MYSELF!~ I am attaching a cut-away of the part that I am talking about that has some basic information on it .

 

I have finally got to the point of changing the exhaust system. AND NOW I realize that I have consistently forgotten the important rule about stepping back and looking at the forest so the trees don't get in the way,,,, or something like that. In my original project post https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...front-end-redesign-and-implementation.819879/ toward the end of the project I had posted an image of the exhaust system rework that I planned.

The replacement mufflers are three inches shorter than the current ones and as you can see - I did not 'think' this through as I figured I would just add the three inches after the new mufflers. Now that I am getting to the point of doing the work and realizing all the cutting and welding that I so easily diagramed but would now have to do I thought it would be a good idea to take some measurements and after jacking the car up and getting under to take the measurements I realized that there was nothing stopping the new mufflers from being positioned at the point of the old muffler output instead of the input. Thereby eliminating the three inch sections (2) weld joints (4) and lots of cussing. After taking the measurements I decided to arrange the parts on a layout table and then realized how much simpler life will be without all the 'extra pieces'.

I plan on clipping some of the 'collar' off of the pipes that connect to the header collectors and then welding those joints as well as the reducer to muffler joints at the output. I will use slip joint clamps for the remaining (4) connections and am still puzzled at how I could come up with such a complicated diagram for such a simple change. Hope you all have a great Easter weekend and are staying healthy and busy. bob