COE Salvaging a 1938 Ford COE

Tony, your work is incredible but I am curious about one thing. It looks like all your panels and welding are perfect, will there be any mud at all?

 

Thanks for the good words. The plan is to be 100% bondo free.

 

Trimmed and tacked in. I'm also repairing the headlamp mount area.







Welded up.



Still lots more work metal finishing, but I need to make a patch at the rear of the fender where the running board mounts.

 

This is why that body line is the way it is ... to line up with the door

 

Don't know if this guy might have your door, but he sure seems to advertise lots of COE stuff,... Might be worth a shot,.

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/cto/4747812978.html

 

Working on pancaking the roof about 1.75". M***ive amount of trial and error to get the look I envisioned. I really never cared for the high crown roofs these COE's have. I'm going for the leaner look on the pickup trucks roof.






The side view is the worse part with the roof being too vertical over the doors. I will taper these to get the look of the pickup.






It's going to take some time to get this roof all back together, so bare with me while I progress with it.

 

Getting the right side back together. I'm very pleased with the profile.

 

That looks great ! How much do you think you lowered the lid?

 

It's hard to judge, but my guess is about 1.5" to 1.75"in the front and 3/4" to 1" in the rear. The roof now has the lean forward look like your pickup truck. I was mostly trying to get rid of the big forehead and near verticle sides over the doors. Both of these look worse on Coes when you have a chopped top like mine.

 

Any picture of the door as you put it back together?

 

After looking for a 1938-1939 Ford Cabover driver door for the last 18 months with no luck, I decided to build one. This is the last thing I wanted to do because of the amount of time it would take. The best choice for a donor is a 1939 Ford pickup door. Since I have a 1938 Ford pickup door, I'll use this. It is the second and only other choice for a donor. Yes the '38 and '39 doors are different as you will see later on.

The first thing I needed to do was make a template/pattern off the good p***enger COE door I have. Once I had the pattern, I traced it on the pickup door and trimmed off the excess metal.

And since the pickup door is about 2" too short and damaged already, I've decided to wheel out a whole new COE door skin.



The first major obstacle I started to tackle is the lower door hinge. The lower hinge of the pickup door is a complete reverse of the Cabover door. My cab has the COE hinge halves, so I only need to make the door side hinge halves. The lower hinge on the pickup cab jamb side will work for the lower hinge on the COE door. Simple fix. Next I needed to make a lower hinge mount on the door.

Here I cut a notch on the door's hat channel on the hinge side. I cut out the whole hinge side to fix this. Then welded in a 1/4" plate to mount the lower hinge.


Here you can see the new lower hinge mounted and where I removed the old upper hinge.


In order to test my new lower hinge I needed to mount the door to the cab. Before I could do this, I needed to cut off the window frame since I chopped the top.


I mounted the door. The new lower hinge location is spot on and the body lines all align perfectly. But now you can clearly see that the pickup door is too short at the bottom.


Normally I would start making the upper hinge, but I can't right now. I had to send off my oxygen regulator to get rebuilt. In the meantime, I will fabricate the arch to close off the cutout for the front wheel. I also bought the lower inner door patch from Northern Cl***ics to help me add the needed 2".

For the arch cutout, I brake formed a 2" x 4" x 30" angle out of 19ga. Then I started to stretch the 2" leg with a hammer and english wheel until I had the correct radius of the wheel arch cutout.



Then I flanged the 2" leg of the arch.


Just so you know where I'm going with this, here is a picture of the right door's arch panel. I am make this piece for the pickup door.


After a few more hours of metal shaping, I ended up with this arch panel.




To be continued...

 

Tony, this is good stuff for me. About the next thing I have to do on my Autocar is remake the doors. They have to be converted from wood framework to steel, so I will be doing a lot of tin bending. I will be converting from 4 separate hinges on each door to a piano hinge, so that will change the shape of the door skin, but simplify alignment.

 

More nice work, Tony!!! Wow! How'd you get the new door skin "folded over" the new arch panel?

 

Yep, that looks good. I remember rebuilding mine at a time when the bottom patch panel was not available. They sure make the job "somewhat" easier.

Have you thought about using hidden hinges? I also wondered what you plan to do about wipers. That is something I am still dealing with.

 

Rick, I didn't tip over the edge on the door skin yet, but I don't see any problem doing this. The curved area over the wheel will need to be stretched as it is folded over.

Mike, I am trying to keep my COE as traditional as possible. I still need to make the upper door hinge, but need my torch to do this. I'm still waiting on my regulator to come back from being rebuilt. Hidden hinges would have been a nice touch, but I'm too far along now to redo the front jambs. Besides, I only need to make one half of one hinge now.

The plan has always been no wipers, no radio, no heater, and no accessories. Just headlamp and ignition switches on the dash and rear turn signals only. Maybe someday if I decide I really need wipers, it will be difficult since I raised the windshield 1.75" and lowered the roof another 1.75". I lost 3.5" in the forehead area for wipers.

 

I'm such a newb! What tool other than a stretcher will you use to tip over the edge?

 

HO. LEE. CHIT. That is incredible!!!

 

I just bought a 38 COE myself, I hope I can get mine anywhere close to yours in quality. I think I'll be dealing with more rust than you have but if I don't do it I don't think anyone will and it'll become one less awesome truck in the world. Anyway, I'll be running the original drivetrain, flathead, 4speed, and 2 speed rear. It's a dump truck but I'll be running a flatbed and taking some leaves out of the springs. Very cool build, I hope I'll come along as quickly as you have.

 

Looking real nice!

 

My doors have returned, but unfortunately they are not completed. The guy bailed on the job after 6+ months. I will need to create a patch that is at least a portion of tony's outer panel above. I'm completely unclear on how to get the outer panel "folded over" the inner panel along the curve of the door near the fender... Can someone point me to the Dummies Guide?

 

You can make yourself a tool to tip the edge, its easy. Cut a slot in the end of a piece of 1/2 steel bar, i like to use two hacksaw blades to do this, thus giving a slot with a little wiggle room. The slot should be just little more than than the width of your fold. Then simply use the bar to gently ease the edge of your door skin until you have it tipped enough to fit to your inner frame. Just remember to go slowly and just a little at a time to tip the edge of your door skin, don't try to do to much at once. Its a old, simple method that works well.
Its a little hard to explain but i hope you get the idea, if not ill try to get some pictures up.

 

That will work where the door panel is curved like along our COE fenders??? I would guess the metal needs to shrink as it's getting bent over (from flat up to 90 degrees), but then stretch back on it's way to meet the inside of the outer panel (90 to 180 degrees)..

 

Rick, you can just use pliers to tip the edge over along the curve. Just deburr and smooth out the jaws on the pliers first. Don't want to mar the metal if you don't have to. Just start to tip over the edge every 3/8" or so a few degrees at a time. Slowly work it up to 90. Your panel will start to curve up too, but don't worry about that yet. Don't shrink the edge to correct this. It is all part of the process as it will really need to stretch as you lay the edge all the way over.

Once you have the edge tipped 90 degrees, fit it to the inner skin and kind of force it to fit as you finish tipping the edge all the way over with a hammer. The hammer will stretch the metal as it tips over.

It's really simple once you've done it. Experiment on a s**** first if needed.

 

Yes pliers will work to of course, i just find the slotted piece of bar easier and more consistent. As Tony said, its really simple.

 

Thanks guys... I sure appreciate the beginner's lessons and they give me enough confidence to give it a try. I will definitely try a test piece first..

I did notice that the body shop guy was using thinner stock that what's in the door or what's on the Northern patch panels. I plan to use the same gauge. I think it's 16ga IIRC.

I also ***ume that I need to add a little extra to the edge that's getting tipped.. If I just measure what's there I suspect it will be a bit short unless I account for the portion of the actual bend... Maybe add 1/8th?

 

1/8 or 3/16 will be fine. With a little practice and patience you'll be surprised how easy it will be. Good luck

 

Tony, I see there were tornadoes in your area the other day. Everything OK?

 

We just missed the path of the tornado, again. A few blocks south of me is looking like a desert now. All the big trees are gone. Many roofs gone and most all block building are rubble. Very sad to see. I haven't worked on the COE since December. I had to build my wife's 1970 C20. Then she insisted I shorten it and keep the original patina. All done now, so it's back to my '38 Ford Cabover.

 

You now have permission to move....

 

Good to hear your back on your COE , I've missed seeing your Sheet Metal work . Blue