After Wildwood this year my friend Henry decided it was time to have a real hairblowin' hot rod. So his 'Vette went up for sale and we went on a search for an appropriate builder. The right donor came up when Homemadehardtop57 put a '31 sport coupe kit up for sale. We snagged the pile which was composed of a nice "A" frame, 9", deuce heavy axle, sport coupe body panels and a ton of small parts. We later picked up a decent small block, 350 trans and a bunch of other stuff. I've been trusted with the build so here goes..... As Henry is a big guy, and we're on a brutally tight budget, my first choice was a sport coupe. They are a bit bigger than a real roadster and generally a bit cheaper than a coupe or standard roadster. My first operation this week was to clean up the frame and sweep Z the front 2 3/4" along with a 6" rear step Z. The frame was then squared up and boxed with 10ga. pickled and oiled stock. I then shot it up with rust converter and put the mounts in for the SBC and trans. Some work to the front end is in order as we're going to run a Doane Spencer/Rolling Bones type front end. The rear will be the 9" hung on a nice chrome "A" spring that came with the package and some reworked '48 'bones with a top link added. The "kit" came with a pretty decent cowl and remnants of the subrails which is enough to get it together. The hardest part of the whole deal is when the doors were removed they burned the hinges off so I'll have to make some pieces and weld them up. In the interest of economy I reworked the cowl posts to take a fitted piece of glass and laid them back 15 deg. to get a West Coast look to the car without spending a load of cash. I was very careful where I cut to keep some nice lines and keep the pie cut on the sweep to an absolute minimum. They blend nicely! I will shorten the posts down to get a 7" min. windshield as I'm going to make one of my signiture aluminum lift off tops covered with 5/16 closed cell and Hartz cloth. There will be locating tabs incorporated into the posts tops to accept the roof clips. The top of the windshield will just have a polished edge and no top rail which will make the car look even lower. I'm going to spend the rest of the evening welding up the 3000 or so holes in the firewall, filling the gas cap, (I removed the tank from the cowl), and shooting everything up with some rust converter.
SUBSCRIBED!!love to watch your builds, Koz come to think of it---I don't mind watching anyone work ha ha
The bug belongs to a friend of my wife. She sent it to a shop where they left it set outside in the weeds for a few years after taking a bunch of cash upfront and didn't do anything to it. We picked it up and it almost fell in half. Since I've put a new beam and pans in it and pulled the body square. (It was way off from earlier colision damage). As Sarah is one of the Wildwood crew the bug is sort of half hot rod. It'll run nice wheels with '37 Ford headlights, a 3" chop and a 3" slam out front. Since it's coming out of here there will be louvers. Plans call for Candy Burgandy flake, a white tuck and roll with Moon interior stuff and a Mid America engine. I'm not big on air cooleds but this one is pretty cool. If no one minds, since it's a half a hot rod I'll throw a pic or two up in one of my threads when it gets more down the road. I havn't posted a lot of my shop work up here but there are a few guys who I'm doing cars for that have asked me to run threads for them.
This must be the Sports Coupe you were telling me about. That frame's pretty neat but I can't wait to see how you build the Doane front end. I've got my notepad out and ready.
A little progress on the coupester..... First I split up a set of '48 'bones with the drop in them and after matching them up I popped in a pair of Speedway slugs for Ford rod ends. I then fabbed a pair of tabs to mount that end to the frame. On a Model "A" you will find this setup exactly centers the rod ends under the bottom rivet of the two hole body bracket. I used a tapered ream to set the tabs for the rod ends. Next I liberated a pair of Model"A" axle ends and dressed them up a bit. These are cheap to free in most cases and are easy to come by. You will find these rod ends fit right into a '48 bone and weld up nicely. I will add.... If you don't trust your welding find someone who does. These are ultra critical welds! I always tack everything up and check angler etc. before any finish welding. Saves a load on cutting wheels. With the slugs welded in it is just a matter of locating your spring perches and cross drilling them to accept the spring shackles. I weld the hangers into the 'bones, wrap them in a fireproof blanket and let them cool slowly. So far I haven't had any crack in use. Obviously to do this you must remove the frame horns. I'll post pics of how I finish them off and set my shocks up. On some builds I pinch the frame rails to fit the '32 sell but on this one, in the interest of build cost, I have elected to hold stock width. This will allow for a stock SBC fuel pump which you can't do with pinched rails. We're using a deuce heavy axle, but just about anything will work. With a '28 to '34 axle using the 36 1/2" perch centers a 2" narrowed spring, which is very common for use under fendered "A"s with a drop axle, works nicely. I like this setup with a Model "A" as it looks a lot lighter. It's all just personal taste. I also took a bit and drilled the axle after I straightened it up in the press. This entire segment of the build took about 4 hrs. including the setup time. Not too shabby. I'm setting this one up with a '40 cross steer which is a bit different but works extremely well on the cheap and leaves a ton of side room along the engine. Lookin' good so far. I'm working on setting the rear up this evening with some '48 rear bones and a top link. I'll post up tomorrow with progress.
My computer system was down for a few days and I have a bit of progress to post. I finished reworking the cowl to accept the windshield. The idea is to make a fixed windshield that meets PA. requirements and still looks right with the coupester and doesn't cost much. To do so I just fabbed a glue in rail and at the same time recontoured the cowl to fit a '28 Chevy dash that was part of the package. The new cowl contour dressed out fairly nice with about 1/16" of filler. I made no attempt at metal finishing the cowl to save some bucks. Not sloppy or a bondo bucket, just got the metal right and called it a day. Henry is going to do the block out himself and I know he's not familiar with metal filing or lead work so the poly was the best choice. As you can see here where i added about two inches to the cowl to adapt the dash the metal work is pretty decent. I also fitted up new cross rails bent from 16ga. and 18ga. floor panels. One of the fun things was to take the relativly unpopular '40 steering box, which came with the package, and split it using a Borgeson joint and some flanged bearings to work in this app. The steering feels great and the ratio seems decent. It's going to be interesting to see just how well it tracks on the open road and the cost was minimal. The rear half of the body is going together now. I'll post some pics as we progress. Bear in mind we are two weeks into this build and I'm hoping to have it out of the shop and running by about the end of the month.
Really nice and looks like it will be a very simple Hot Rod. Thats the BEST type! Can't wait to see your plans for the top of the windshield frame/posts.
Henry's goes into body work on Monday and yours takes it's place contingent on the sodablaster holding his schedule! I'll be posting an update on your thread. I'll be finishing up the windshield posts tonight. The challenge being getting them to accept the planned roof securely when in place and not looking like I went nuts witha sawzall when its not. I always liked the way they did the '36/'37 Cabrios. I'll use that as my inspiration. To work with me. I ain't getting anything done typing!
Much progress this weekend! I've finished all the stuff up underneath including all the suspension mounts and the trans tailshaft cradle. Very nice and easy to work on. The shock mounts look weirdd in the pics but are really cool up close and closely resemble the Niekamp roadster mounts which I always admired. When the front bar goes on extra cool points. The body is assembled and all clamped up. I'm busy bracing and making inner panels along with fitting the doors etc. I really like how it looks with just the rust converter on along with remnants of the origional paint. If it were my car I would just shoot the bodyworked areas and new metal in near black satin black and matt clear coat the rest. With the right wheel color? I do think the car needs a the top for the full effect. We'll see how our money is running! A wqhite carson top on this sucker would be the nuts twice over. If it was teamed with an off white seat with a black R & P panel, too neat! The body dimensioned out nicely and is pretty square with the world. With the Chevy dash in there it looks real sweet. I've been running seven day doubles to get caught up. For not quite three weeks for one man, not too bad of progress.
looks really good, only constructive thing i can say other than keep it up is you might want to change the way you have your upper shock eye mounted. if you leave it like that it will bind and wear out the bushing quicker, or worse
Cornfield, I thought about that a bit before I did them and welcome your input. The Neikamp has them mounted this way and they seem to work OK. I've seen this done before and I ran the suspension through it's entire range of travel and this is how I established the angle the shocks are mounted on. The shocks actually travel in an arc centred around the spring center of the front end. In theory they should have no "bind" at all. I'm going to keep a close watch on this and welcome comment. I'm a keen study of the "old ways" and am very interested in how well this works. On the Niekamp the brackets were bolted to the "A" frame as I understand they didn't have a welder when they built it in '49 or so. Anybody else have any thoughts on these mounts? The will look super sweet when the front cross bar goes on and I think they will perform as well.
I'll be following this one. Lots of interesting ideas. I like budget builds and it will be interesting to see how well the steering works. Nice work.
I don't get the upper shock mounts either, I believe you are 90 out on that deal. Both ends need to rotate so the shocks are fully compliant thru the suspension's full travel and axle movement(s), IMHO. Perhaps rod ends at the top would free things up... they really aren't street friendly, eh? Gary
The theory behind mounting these shocks is that the shocks work within the arc of the Ford suspension. Geometricly, this should be the preferrable mounting method because it puts the shock travel within the radius of the suspension travel. To be truthful we're splitting hairs as any minor misalignment is easily taken care of by the shock rubbers. With the shocks mounted with eye parrallel to the car there is an enourmous amount of misalignment allowed because you just twist the rubber to compensate as the suspension goes through its travel. Most likely it became common to mount them up the usual way because you can put the mounts just about anywhere and they work. It probably also has something to do with the fact that they would be easier to install on the assembly line. I checked the shock misalignment with my Starett adjustable square, which is accurate to within .005, and I can't detect any misalignment of the shock eyelet through the entire 3 3/8" of suspension travel. I know Bill Niekamp worked for Chrysler when he built the muse for this setup back in 1948, and I believe he was in engineering. No matter what, he would have had access to some some serious technical assistance should he need it. When I worked at Dana I was a chicken shit nobody and I had access to some heavy duty Ford and GM engineering for my hot rod questions. This car is still out there today and ran 142 on the salt along with winning AMBR in 1950. As soon as we get this on the road I'm going to give it a real workout on some back roads around here and make sure it works as well as it should. I've pretty much come to trust if it can be broken, I can break it!
This rod is the shit! I have the privilige of watching the progress of this build in person and let me tell ya it's a beaut! Larry does phenomenal work and being that this rod a budget build makes it even more amazing! I cannot wait to see it done! Awesome job Koz!!!
I've been neglecting my HAMB duties for the last few weeks while I get caught up after the storm. A week without power was tough on the schedule. The port coupe has been progressing nicely. In the 4 weeks we now have into the build, (accounting for the week I lost), we have a nicely set up roller. The body panels are all fitted and are actually pretty nice when you consider what we started with. I have one door to finish up and we'll be in body work. I've constructed on of my aluminum roofs which is going to be covered with a layer of 5/16" closed cell and a proper Hartz Cloth rag stitched with all the right snaps and welts to give the illusion of a real top but with the comfort of a lift off. The rag is going to be a slight off white called Fawn White which resembles a white top with lots of years on it. We've fabbed a 16 gal. fuel tank of 16ga. with baffles and all the bells and whistles, held into a cradle with some strap work that will get lined with nylon webbing to secure the tank in the hard turns. It turned out really nice as well. The exhaust is finished up with a Speedway header kit and some turnouts fitted up to the chassis and flowing through a pair of Smitty's out the back. The turnouts have a pair of baffles in them with removable slugs that are taken out by a wingnut in the turnout. You can't see them until you look inside but they work real well and you can pull them without tools. Henry is already planning on a Wildwood romp with the headers open this year. The pipes tuck neatly under the sides of the car and hide the "A" frame rails. Everybody who has seen it likes it, (except Kess and nobody cares about his opinion anyway! LOL). Oddly enough, after we did it I spotted a pic in an old magazine I was paging through with the same setup, 1960!. The front end finished up and the just needs the shell and hood top fitted. Everything from the '40 split box to the shocks worked perfectly and the '40 box is really nice as far as ratio and turning radius is concerned. This car is LOW and still has a full lock to lock turn with normal effort. I'm surprised this arrangement isn't more popular. I'll post more pics in my next update. Enough for this post and back to work with me.
Fantastic workmanship! Do you have any pics of the roof framework or from the inside finished? I'd like to see them. Thank you.
Yup, I'm with him on this - if there's much suspension travel that top 'eye' and mount will take a pounding. (NB: Just started on this thread and haven't read past the quoted post yet - so maybe something has changed since then...!)
Scumdog, A few posts back I did a bit of a dissertation on the shock mounts. The way an early Ford suspension works is it rotates around a central pivot point, the center of the spring mount. These shock mounts are designed to take advantage of the Ford geometry nin that they are within the rotation of the Ford suspension travel. The geometry was proved on the Niekamp roadster and is as relevant today. If you bounce this front end it works perfectly. In truth, throwing the ears the other way allows for a lot more "slop" in the front end geometry and is much more flexible in as to where you can mount the shocks so just about anywhere will work. I thought this through and it is not a mistake how they are mounted. It's just another piece of funkyness on this car. I'm not real good at following the rules and have a firm belief that the old guys wern't that dumb. I love trying to find old stuff that hasn't been done in a while just to see how good it actually works. This one will work nicely. Bill Niekamp was a real pioneer and had his shit together. I have sme pics of the origional but I can't get them to post. I'd appreciate if anybody has any pics of the Niekamp setup could post up. I believe the car is in the Petersen or NHRA museam now but I'm not sure. Jakesbackyard..... I'll be lifting the roof off soon to blow the car apart for paint. I'll flip the roof over and shoot the inside. There isn't much there. It is just .032 aluminum and a ton of rivets. I use aircraft rivets and the gun when we are just going to leave the aluminum show, (and have the time to do so!), and pop rivets when it's being covered because they lay flatter and cost less to do. This entire roof as it sets probably weighs five to eight pounds max. Anybody can pull one by themselves. The only thing is you can't fold it so if we're down the shore I pull them and just throw it on the extra bed until we're ready to go home. With the rag on they get considerably heavier, but still manageable. The post man brought a care package today in the form of the deuce "Bullfrogs" that GaryT was nice enough to add to the project. Thanks Bro! I fought for these headlights and now that Henry has seen them, he's all happy. I'm lovin' 'em!!!!!! More pics soon.
Glad U like em I always gotta change things up Roadster had E&J's ,then 10" 32 Frogeyes,now Deitz,Wonder what will be next ha ha
I can love all of them except the EJ's. I can't see ten feet in front of the grill with them, but they are good at the swap meet. Thanks so much for the help with the lights. It made Henry's day! It's really hard to tell how cool this car is from the pics. It just sits right and has the look. It's gonna' fit right in at Wildwood next year.
I shot a few pics inside the roof. There's not much there. I do my seams with 1" and 1 1/2" x 1/8" aluminum flats for some extra reinforcement. I always make a cardboard mock up of the roof first. I use this for the tempates for my aluminum and always use just one side of the template to make both sides of the aluminum to minimize any variance from side to side. This way the top will automatically be symetrical. I bend the center of the roof consisting of three bends from the front header to the rear deck in one piece using the template as a guide. On a Model "A", 39" wide works nicely and this puts your rivet line directly under the two welts that get sewn into the rag. I bent the rolls on this one over an extra gas bottle in the shop and some 2" DOM as a mandrel but when I do a good one that won't be covered I use the english wheel to make the curves and put a slight crown in the large panel to keep it stiff. Also, after the roof is together I flip them over and line the inside with 1/2" grey felt carpet padding that I get at the local carpet supply for about $50 for a huge roll that lines five or six car interiors, (the whole interior, not just the top), and does a great job. The only glue I've found that really works is Trim-Tex drywall corner adhesive. This shit is cheap and sticks! The 3M stuff just don't cut it. Around here you can get it at any commercial drywall supply and I believe Lowes has started to carry it as well. Some pics..... You can see how I set the center first. The flats get rabbeted into the header to keep things flush and then countersink drilled and screwed. I bond everything with epoxy adhesive from Lowes before screwing / riveting anything. When it drys there is no slop anywhere. I frame out the rear window and rabbet the edge inside to take the glass and wrap on the cloth. This makes for a super clean outside and with a wood router I put a 1/2" round on the outside using a carbide bit that cuts the aluminum like butter. Obviously, wear good glasses when doing this, sometime I'll tell you how I know this! Hope this helps. Shout out if any of this isn't clear. One sheet of .032 aluminum, 48" x 96" will nicely build one of these for around $80 around here along with about 100 long and 400 short pop rivets. The flats cost me an additional $20 and beer cost on building one of these is directly related to who stops in while I'm working on it. (Only kidding, I'm like the only rodder on earth who doesn''t drink.) As always I'm always up for the Forums thoughts on better ways of doing any of this. Just shout out.
Thanks for the pics. Very nice work. I'll be making the top for my Sport Coupe this winter and although it won't be removable, will look similar, hopefully. It's always nice to see how every one fabricates. Well done!
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