Projects Project Mattitude: the Beginning

Today, I went back to work on the door sectioning in between the body lines so the upper body line is 3/4th of an inch closer to the lower one. Welding and grinding took up most of the day but I can see the impact that 3/4th of an inch has on the proportions. I'll reshape the top of the door so it isn't as high and sits flat in relation to the corner of the A-post and cowl brace.




I decided that it would be better to section the doorjamb edge of the door after I narrow the A-post so I got that off.




Oh, part of the bolt broke off inside the door hinge. It had been working fine the last 2 days and decided it had enough screwing around and broke off inside.. Crud.

 

Cool build. Looks like you are off to a flying start with the car, keep at it & you will get there. Your car needs most of the same patch panels that I put into my dad's coupe. you can check the build thread if you want: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=348159

Looking forward to more progress pics. One cool tool you might want to look into adding to your arsenal is a shrinking disc. I always kind of figured that they were difficult to use, but I took a metalworking course and had the opportunity to try one on the back panel from my A sedan. The thing works like black magic. Find the high spots, heat with the shrinking disc, quench with cool water & blammo, no more ripples & high spots. Just smooth straight sheetmetal.

 

I actually plan to buy one. I figure I've got enough patching to do that I don't need to buy one now, but when I stumble across one, I'll get it. I can think of 2 major areas that could use some shrinking but there's still more cutting and welding left to do before I get to straightening out metal with a shrinking disc.

I'll check your build thread out. I'm sure there's something I could learn in there. Thanks, man.

 

Today, I worked on the A-post narrowing.. I began by making a bunch of reference points using a right angle, rulers, tape, and a bunch of lines so that when I weld it back on that it remains straight for the door hinges.






I didn't take any pictures in between but you can imagine what it would look like with clamps holding everything together, a lot of measuring and mocking up. I took out a little over half an inch. I could have took out 3 quarters of an inch but wanted to leave it a little thicker on the sides to preserve some of that Model A characteristic it has. It matches the cowl brace nicely though.





You can see that I decided to cut one part off and weld it back on. I decided on this method because I knew that at least half an inch would come out of that area but the bottom part wouldn't lose as much. I'll pie cut this part and reshape it on there. This also made it easier to ensure that the part I tacked back on would be straight and true. Here's a picture of the A-post mocked up with the cowl brace, cowl sides and gas tank for comparison. You can find a picture in the previous posts and compare the stock A-post with this one. I think it looks much better. The devil is in the details.

 

black wires with red pinstriping is a traditional look that will never get old.

 

Looks good man, like how your sectioning the door post by the cowl. Thats the one area i dont like on those year model A's... Keep up the good work!

 

Looks good Matt, if it keeps snowing like it did up there the other day you'll have plenty of time to work on this thing.

 

Nice job man, keep up the good work!

 

Thanks. I just felt that it would look too thick on a coupster. With a stock coupe roof, they look okay, but roadsters don't have that thick an A-post and I wanted to slim it down. Aesthetically, I only wanted to make it more subtle as opposed to completely eliminating it.

Everyone else, thanks for the comments!

 

I did a little work today. A bunch of errands came up so I didn't get a lot done. However, I did manage to figure out the bottom part of the A-post. I cut a little too much out at the bottom but now I know not to do that with the passenger side. Here's a couple quick shots so you can get an idea of what it will look like once everything's together. I just have to make a couple of filler pieces but everything lined up beautifully. The bottom of the A-post will be pretty close to stock but the top part will be narrower. As a result of this, the entire A-post will be as narrow as the bottom part of the stock A-post. It worked out great.

 

Great progress. Your metal working skills look good.

 

I couldn't help myself so I headed out there a while ago to tack on the bottom section.. I felt like I should have accomplished more than I had before today so I feel satisfied for tonight. I think it came out great. Here are the pictures.




And here's the corner that I'll redesign after I section the door to suit the A-post..


I'm pretty happy with how things are progressing along.

 

Nice work Matt, I like the subtle changes you're making.

 

Looking good!

 

Today, I decided to attack the door and at least cut it into the two halves so I can mock the door skin on the body then trim the inner door frame to suit. The bottom section of the door frame fit perfectly but above that, it was too thick to fit. I had planned on sectioning the doors to make them thinner anyways. Roadster doors are thinner than stock coupe doors because they lack the window mechanism that the coupe doors have. Since I won't have windows on my coupster, it made sense to section the doors.. One of the distasteful and tacky looking things anyone can do to a coupster is to cap the door off while it's thick. That leads to a fat door top which detracts from the aesthetic value of the car. I stopped a while ago as I have some school work to attend to tonight. So far, the outer half of the door is clamped to the body but that really boosted my motivation to get the door done, seeing how close to being done with the A-post and door I am. Of course, I still need to finish the door, get some door latches and get those in, then redesign the front corner of the door to blend into the A-post and cowl brace.

So, I began by drilling out the door hinges, cutting out the old door latch mechanism, and then finally cutting the door itself in half.




This bugger is starting to annoy me. I've tried using a drill bit extractor but that didn't work. Any ideas? I'm not liking the idea of drilling it out and re-tapping it. I have a bunch of door hinges though, so maybe I'll look around in that inventory and see what I have.





You can see how the curvature of the door matches the A-post so that won't have to be modified. My plan of attack is to get the door frame to match the A-post and for it to fit right in the door jamb, then I'll replace the door skin from below the belt line down to the bottom.

In this picture with the body parts all mocked up, you can really begin to see the effect that I've been going for. It comes off as almost stock but you can tell it's been modified and when the welding and grinding is all done, you won't be able to tell that it's been narrowed unless my coupster sits next to another coupster or stock coupe.. Well, of course, those of you that follow my build thread will be the wiser.


Another thing I feel that needs explaining in the pictures above.. You will notice the door top is still taller than the A-post. I plan on fixing that after getting the door finished and aligned in there. The body line is exactly where I want it to be though.

Thanks for the feedback. Y'all are awesome.

 

good to see your progress staying steady, starting to remind me of one of those build threads where some one is trying to build a car out of a weesner drawing. tweaking pretty much every tiny thing leaving it almost stock looking but not at all at the same time. preety cool

and thank you for posting pix of you measuring things out and mocking things up. makes me freak out less thinking you just hacking into things randomly

looking good

 

That's the look I'm going for. I want people to look at my A and think "that's a good looking A!" but leave them wondering why my A doesn't look like theirs. That's one of the key goals in this build, to keep this as stock appearing as possible, as if this could have been produced back in '28, but entirely custom. So far, the cowl, gas tank, trunk lid, and panel below trunk lid have not been cut up. Everything else has but the gas tank and panel below trunk lid are on the list to get modified..

No problem. It actually started out as random hacking, but it evolved into wanting perfection and taking as many steps as possible to achieve it. This is my first Model A, as well as my first ground up build, so I definitely want to build this to the best of standards.

Thank you.


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I have a set of those tires for sale in the classifieds.

-Fryguy

 

Fryguy - Those tires you have would be sweet but I'm shooting for a late '50's build and have already decided on blackwalls. Thanks though.. Those are some sweet tires you have though. Those would be perfect on a 60's build.

Not much to share with as I haven't had much of an opportunity to work on it the last weekend. I was out of town. However, I took advantage of the afternoon today to move some stuff out of the garage to make room and to bring home this front axle set up which has everything on it from the late '40's Ford it was on. I'll be stripping the entire thing down and determining what I want to use on my frame as well as what will go back in storage.



So far, I know the friction shocks would be cool, as well as the steering set-up, spring, and wish-bone stuff. I haven't decided on friction shocks or tube shocks as I have a nice pair of F-100 shock mounts sitting aside. I don't have any nice front wishbones aside from the Model A wishbones and the '40's Ford wishbones (with the minor upsweep). I think I might just go and pick what I like from each set and put them all together and try to make an aesthetically pleasing suspension set-up that works well. Form follows function, so to speak. I have the entire set-up from a F-100 to use, steering box and column, pitman arm, and steering linkage, so I think that one's probably decided upon. I need to find a K-member or a X-member too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I should be able to get the upsweep and rear Z done without needing to get the center crossmember in. After all, I'd have to redesign how to get the angle on the motor and transmission correct after doing the upsweep right?

So far, I think I might have everything to try and set up the frame although I need to get my front A axle disassembled (still haven't brought the torch home from my friend's shop) and get it dropped. I don't know how much to drop the axle and would like to know how.. I plan on upsweeping the frame like Bob Merkt Sr's roadster so I don't want to get it dropped too much and have the frame sitting way below the scrub line in the middle.

This is called overthinking, isn't it?



Anyways, ideas, suggestions, and/or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone.

 

Today, I took the leaf springs off the front axle so it would be more compact to keep in the garage. I focused on finishing the A-post. I welded the front and back of the seams, as well as started grinding them down. The front of the A-post has been ground down and metal finished. The back still needs a lot more grinding. I'll be working on the bottom gap another day. I also left the top part kind of rough so when I get to redesigning the corner where the door meets the A-post, I won't have to cut out what I spent a hour on should the situation call for it. I only took a picture of the front of the A-post for this.. I hate grinding down MIG welds. Haha.

 

I had a little bit of time today in between school and schoolwork to go out in the garage and clean it up. I threw the body back together and pulled it outside and took the opportunity to snap a picture of the passenger side A-post which hasn't been sectioned yet and the driver's side A-post for comparison.

 

Just browsed the whole thread.... Your work is great. I like where your going with this! subscribed...

- Jon

 

great build you got going on here. awesome!

 

Ford Houdaille (WHO-DYE) shocks from 28-48 are NOT friction shocks, they are hydraulic lever arm shocks. Houdaille also made airplane, or tubular, automotive shocks beginning in the mid-40s.

 

Ah. Now that, I didn't know. I'll have to do some researching on that. Would Houdaille shocks been considered prime hot rod material back in the day? I'm leaning toward tube shocks anyways but it'd be good to know regardless.


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Taking a short break to catch some grub.. I'll be heading back to work after I finish eating. Here's a small update.

I cut out some material from the inner door side to fit it to the outer door side. After mocking it up inside the door jamb and measuring and mocking it up again, I tacked it together.



Then I bolted on the door hinges, the top one had to have some material cut off the end but the bottom one fit in perfectly, so I might just weld up the holes and redrill them out for the new door hinge holes. The upper one will have to have the outer 2 holes redrilled to fit as well.




I'm starting to think maybe it's not thin enough. Maybe I need to cut off the top of the inner door because it's still higher than the outer door. Then I'll get a better idea of how thinner it is and decide whether to continue from there or to take a little more out.

 

Well, it doesn't look too bad. I'm toying with some ideas for the inner edge of the top of the door, so maybe I can make it thinner visually then.


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cool man

 

Small update:

I knew I wanted to upsweep the frame but I didn't know how much. I wanted to imitate the Bob Merkt Sr. roadster upsweep so I PM'ed Bob (Bobbleed) to find out how much he upswept his dad's roadster. He told me 5 degrees so I used that to figure out how much material to take out of the frame. I made a template of the side of my frame, made sure it was the same height as the frame.. I cut straight through until there was little material left to hold it together at the bottom and overlapped one side until it was at 5 degrees, then I taped it together. I cut down one edge that was overlapping the other and had a little patch of paper that resembled a very narrow pie. I moved the template back to straight across and measured the gap left behind from the mock upsweep and got just under 3/8th of an inch.



Now armed with the knowledge of how much to take out, I put the firewall on where it should be on the frame and put a piece of 1x1 tubing against the firewall and marked the lines in front of the tubing. I centered the 3/8ths of an inch on that line and taped it all up in the next picture. I measured, remeasured, re-remeasured, taped it, measured, remeasured, re-remeasured.. Get the idea? (sorry about the bad focus in the next picture.. Didn't wait for my iPhone's camera to focus)



Here it is, taped up and ready to go. I made sure it was straight across the frame and not lopsided by using a right angle, tape, a ruler, and a tape measure, measuring to certain points on the frame. Everything measured out good.



Then I tacked 2 pieces of 1x1 tubes in front and back of the cut-zone so that when I cut the material out and pull the front of the frame upward, it won't flop around and throw the measurements off.



I put the frame on the floor of the garage and it was leaned back about half a degree.. There just can't be any room for error here so I got 4 pieces of 2x4 wood and placed them under the frame until both frame rails were at zero degrees. Unfortunately, air tools are loud and preferably not operated with when the neighborhood is asleep..

Nonetheless, the frame is all tacked up and ready to get upswept.



But after getting everything ready to go, I'm wondering about whether I should move the gap back against the firewall a little more. I think being able to see the beginning of the upsweep from the side of the frame may take away from the overall visual effect. I could put it right behind the firewall which will have to get modified after channeling the body anyways, so I could just make the upsweep start from right behind the firewall..

Thoughts and opinions? Advice too?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.