This has to be one of the best flowing chops and treatment of the quarter window that I have ever seen on one of these. Anxiously awaiting progress.
I really appreciate the positive feedback on the chop. It is chopped more than most would suspect as the before / right after pictures show. Reassembly detail.
I got the passenger side headlight panel roughed out. These panels were more challenging than I anticipated. There is so much shape with tons of constraints. The headlight openings have to stay centered on the buckets (fixed to the fender) at the right spacing from the headlight and square to the car both laterally and vertically so it doesn't look googly eyed. At the same time, the outer / upper / lower edges need to be tangent to the fender. The inner edges will have a blended radius to the flat front next to the grill. And of course the driver and passenger sides need to match. I made the small buckets and retainers for the turn signals. The sockets and bulbs are on order so I'll have to wait to finalize the back of the little buckets. I'm not the best welder but cheating helps. The copper quench bar makes fusion welding the .022 stainless pretty easy. I polished the inside before forming the cone. I used some simple dies to form the ends of the offset cones. Bucket with lens. Bucket and lens retainer pieces. Turn signal assembly. I'll weld some tabs to the back of the headlight panel for the retainers to screw to.
Very cool. I like the sober second thought that time away allows. Hope to keep following your progress.
Thanks for the positive comments! I've been working on grill options for some time and have gone through lots of ideas. I've come down to 2 finalists and each has pros and cons. Please forgive the misalignments etc. - these mock-ups are held together with magnets and spring clamps. Which looks better / is a better fit for the car - horizontal bars or vertical teeth? The plan is that the surround will be body color - should the bars / teeth be body color or chrome? The only other chrome on the front will be the bumper.
Just my opinion, but I like the horizontal bars. To me the front end of those Fords is wide and tall. Horizontal bars sort of give it the impression of being not so tall. The vertical bars remind me of a jail cell... I had a 47 coupe at one point and it was chopped. Used the stock grill though with horizontal bars.
Thank you - I appreciate your thoughts on the grill. I am leaning towards the horizontal bars after looking at them for the last couple days. But, I do like how the vertical teeth flow with the waterfall center. 48fordor suggested L shaped grill bars like the surround before the pause in progress. Maybe that is the best of both. I'll give it a couple more days of looking at it.
I owe 48fordor a beer, or maybe a 6 pack with interest since it has been so long. The L shaped grill bars were the winner. Hammer form with unequal inner and outer radii to match the '42 ford surround pieces better.
Looks like a tiki headed space bug on steroids. I’m a diggen it . Awesome work You have some mad metal forming skills . Thank You for keeping us updated
Driver's side fender is getting closer. Headlight panel is in place but more finishing is needed. Lots of trim holes and the original marker light holes filled. The trim step and scalop have been rolled flat and shrunk out. Light panel welded in place. The headlight bucket is mounted with spacers and rivet nuts. The bucket will have to be removed to adjust aiming, but hopefully just a 1 time thing. Marker / turn signal mount I originally made had to be modified to clear the panel that has the rivet nuts for the headlight bucket.
Got to work on the doors starting with the glass. When I got the car it was dissasembled with scrambled parts. I had 2 right side glass dividers and no left. One right was shortened for the chop, and the other was mirror imaged and shortened for the left side. 2 reconfigured dividers. Since the car was dissasembled, I didn't know where the glass was supposed to sit in the channel, so it took a lot of trials to find the sweet spot to keep the glass square as it rolled up and down. It is very sensitive to all the alignments since the B pillar is now angled forward greatly reducing the glass contact area with the guide channel. The vent window frame was cut into 3 pieces and reconfigured to fit the new opening. The top pivot is where it ended up after the chop of the garnish and vent window frame. It is not in line with the lower now pivot now, but it doesn't create any big issues. The glass just tilts a little as it opens. To move the pivot back in line would mean fabricating new pivots since the new location would be much more horizontal. The original screw holes in the garnish molding still align with the door after the chop. They were used to locate all the pieces when being fitted.
I see you decided to take a little of each style on the grill and combine them. It looks different. The workmanship is nicely done. Looking good.
Thanks! Hard to do something tateful that hasn't been done before. I think this grill is right on the edge.
Passenger door garnish and glass is caught up to the drivers door. Quarter window garnish moldings are underway. The tight rear radius has been a challenge. The glass will be stationary (no rear seat) so the garnish was modified to be 2 sides of the glass channel with the quarter panel opening being the 3rd side. The glass will sandwich in between with a rubber channel over the edge.
I finished the mechanism to remotely release the trunk latch with a control cable. The cable will be routed along the trunk lid inner structure to one of the hinges and then into the cab. The latch mechanism is unmodified, just operated from the inside now. Still have some sheetmetal repairs to complete near the latch where an old braze repair had failed.
Working on final welding and metal finishing on the chop. This car has well over 100 trim holes in total to be filled - 20 just around the door window frame and quarter window. On long seams, I TIG weld short sections (1" at most) at a time after having tacked every inch or so to minimize heating & warping. I hand file rather than grinding because it is easier for me to see what is going on and also less heat input. I try to finish the metal so that I only need a high build primer, but inevitably a little filler is needed in spots especially where I can't get to the back of an area.
The Jalopy Journal
