The last Grasp Special '34 3 window build

So Tony and I headed home to Port Fairy dropping in to check out Peter's coupe along the way. Well I checked the 3W over, asked a few questions, Peter started it and we talked some more.
Whilst there we aslo checked out the '35 phaeton Peter had recently bought. A nice car that Peter wants me to do a bit of striping on.
Anyhow I said to Peter chances are I may buy his 3W, but I would like to maybe think it over for a week or so. So we left it at that.
Geoff aka whodaky
PS It would make a good stable mate for my 5W.

 

We would get to see Frank again later, as he was coming over for dinner at Rita and Tony's.
When we got to Rita and Tony's, Renee', Sam, Spencer T and Jude were there and would be staying for dinner also. Wow are the boys growing. More noticeably Jude as he is now walking and talking; he is going to be a real character just like his big brother.
We had a great meal and all in all had a nice evening.
When everyone had left, Tony showed me through a lot of the images he has been saving on the computer. All images that are inspirational for the build of The Last Grasp Special.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Monday morning after my usual walk on the beach and then having a coffee for breakfast with Rita and Tony, when I had returned. As usual Tony and I talked hot rods as we had breakfast.
We then headed out into the garage to work on The Last Grasp Special.
Because we will be pulling the lower section of the rear of the roof out to meet the body at the beltline, a number of relief cuts would need to be made to make this happen.

The first cut we made was a veritcal one about 5" ( 125 mm ) around from the rear window. At first we did this cut 5" vertically, but with this much ,this area of the roof was still under to much stress to pull the area of roof we were concentrating on; easily back to the beltline. So we ended up making this cut a total of 9" ( 175 mm ) long vertically. With this much, the roof was starting to be a little less stressed.

Geoff aka whodaky

 

With this area of the roof now pulling relatively easily back onto the beltline we pulled it out into postion and scribed a line at beltline in preparation for trimming this area of the roof ,to form a butt joint for welding at the beltline.

I forgot to mention that in this series of posts that the rear of the roof is just slipped down inside the body.As we didn't know exactly how much would need to be trimmed off this lower section of the roof, until we go through this whole process that I am detailing in this series of posts!
Below is this area trimmed and tack welded back onto the beltline! This image also shows the next vertical cut we did about 8" ( 205 mm ) around from our first vertical cut. Again it ended up being 9" long in the vertical.
With this second cut done it reduced the stress in this area enough to tack weld the area towards the door. This is only a temporary tack and this area of the roof hasn't been trimmed at the bottom, this will happen later.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

At this point the middle section was still under a fair amount of stress and wouldn't allow us to pull it easily back onto the beltline. So it was obvious another relief cut was necessary. Both Tony and I looked and rubbed our hands over the roof and thought about the next cut. To Tony's surprise I said I wanted to do the next relief cut in the horizonal. My reasoning was, that I knew it wouldn't need to be as long as another vertical cut. So there would be a bit less welding. Which is always a good thing in this type of work. Another part of my logic was, we had done a similar thing when we had chopped Frank's 5W. So I was fairly sure this horizontal cut would work. Although our horizontal cut would be a lot longer than Frank's was.
Here is a shot of Frank's roof . The arrow indicates what I am talking about. Maybe it isn't horizontal, but it is at right angles the the other relief cuts.

Before we made the horizontal cut we did a number of tacks on the first section of roof we had pulled out. We then made the horizontal cut. Once again we made a short cut and then felt what the roof was doing stress wise. As the stress was reducing we made the cut a bit longer, until we were happy with how things felt and how easily the middle section would now pull out onto the beltline!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Great work fellas.

 

So with this centre section pulled onto the beltline we scribed a line and trimmed it's lower section. We then pulled it once more onto the beltline and tack welded it into position.
Also at this point we had put a few more temporary tacks on the section just behind the door.

I think the shot below shows very graphically as to how things open up as the relief cuts are made to get this area of the roof to fit up correctly and most importantly under the least amount of stress.

This whole exercise is because of the compound varying curves in this section of the roof.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Next we moved onto making the filler pieces for the gaps that had opened up through this whole process.

In that first shot you can see a small vertical cut we did at the top of the middle section. This was done to align this area in the compund curve.

Here's a shot from the inside.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

That's it for this part of the left side for now.
So we then moved to the right side and did all this again. I won't go into a description of that as it is virtually the same, only a lot easier because we had formulated the game plan from doing the left side.
So I will only show a whole bunch of images of the right side.
I am doing this as it can be seen from a sightly different perspective. And of course we can never get enough images of all this stuff taking place! Even if I do bore you to tears with all my words.
So virtually no words for a while!!!!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Because Tony is so photogenic I knew I had to get some images of him working his magic.
Of course it is also good to see Lucy in the shot, boy has she grown!
Geoff aka whodaky

Geoff aka whodaky

 

More of the same, but a bit different than the left side!
I will be back later today to show the work on aligning the rear section of the drip rail to the lower section just behind the door frame!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Altogether, a very informative post; thanks Geoff.

 

Hey Davo, good to see you; it has been a while.
I have today been working on the scoop for the Austin A40 drag car a friend is building.
I am a bit worn out, so I will leave my promised remaining posts on what we got done on the chop until tomorrow morning.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Maybe a can or two of ' relax'. Lol.

 

Ah ha Davo. I very seldom indulge in the ' liquid relax' stuff. Generally a bit of checking out the HAMB, maybe some TV or reading a book.; is enough to relax and take away any stress. I do a lot of reading nearly all hot rod, custom and cars in general ,type books. I have a very big library of books. Tony saw that first hand when he was here a couple of months ago.
Anyhow onto the next posts of our chop!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

In the last 3 images I showed, we had also got around to marking and trimming the lower section off the roof just behind the door. We then re-tacked it, with more tacks this time; in preparation for our next move!

Next we moved our attention to the section of roof just behind the right door 'B' pillar. Because of the chop the body moulding that goes up to the rain gutter moulding needs a bit of work to get these 2 pressings to have a nice flowing transition into each other.
Looking at this area previously I was of the view that the section below the horizontal cut needed to be cut out and moved to suit, to get the right look!
When it came time to decide on the best plan of attack, Tony and I sat back and looked at the area and discussed what we were seeing and what needed to be done. Tony suggested that the section above the horizontal cut would be the better piece to move to get the best look.

In the above image it is hard to see the misalignment caused by the chop in this area. But it is very severe and definitely required a lot more done to it than it would seem, as seen in this image.
We definitely wanted this to have a real factory type flow and look to it.
This is an area I have seen on some chops of other '33/'34 3 windows that is often not quite 'right' after a chop!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

So we determined where to cut this drip rail moulding above the door. This would be a pie cut shape when opened up to it's new position to allow alignment with the lower section of the moulding running into this section we are reworking.

Rather than cut this piece right off it was left attached at it's forward most point by a tack weld. With it still attached, we could merely pivot up from this point until everything flowed and aligned nicely. Next a filler piece was made and tack welded into place.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

So that is where we stopped on the chop on this trip to Port Fairy. Yes we had spent more time working on Frank's chop than ours. But that didn't matter, Tony and I were extremely happy at how much we did get done in the one day we had worked on our 3W.
When I next go down to Port Fairy, Tony and I will finish the drip rail area on the left hand side of the body. Hopefully this will be before Christmas and then it will be onto welding up all those cuts. When we do the final welding, we will not be welding the door tops. We will do this eventually when the chassis is done, the floor is in the body, all the patch panels are fitted and the body is firmly bolted down and the doors are aligned. By not having the door tops welded as yet, it will allow us to do any necessary alignment in this area, when all the above is done. Then we will weld the doors tops on, finally.
I hope that all made sense.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

On the Tuesday morning Tony and I discussed the parts each of us have, to put together our chassis ( the chassis 'Frank' had donated to the cause, damn Frank, you cut a good deal on that one!!!! But we had a blast paying for it as we did!!!! )

We made a list of what each of us have. The next time I go down to Rita and Tony's I will take the parts that are on my list ( I will start gathering those parts later today! ).
Once we have the chop welded up, we will leave the body and begin work on the chassis.
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Next we discussed what our grille insert may be like. I had taken a couple of books with me ( one being The Monstrous American Car Spotters Guide ). I lot of grilles in this book to gather ideas from.
With our grille shell and grille insert, we want it to be unique; but still have a factory feel about it ( not necessarily a Ford feel, just a factory feel ). As Tony said, we don't want it ending up looking like some sought of sculptural piece. I totally agreed with him there.
So from the book, ideas were starting to flow and discussion was happening. I know we will achieve our goal here!
Geoff aka whodaky


PS I need a spell from this. I will be back later with the final couple of posts from my 4 days at Port Fairy!

 

My initial plan was to leave for home at 4.00 p.m. However Rita and Tony wanted to take me to Jodie and Brad's ( their eldest daughter and her husband's ) new coffee shop in Warrnambool. They have been open around 3 months. So we left Rita and Tony's at 3.00 p.m.
The Silver Fox is the name of the coffee shop. It is nice little spot with neat decor, that Jodie and Brad designed and made themselves, along with the help of friends and family.
Brad makes a good flat white and the menu has a lot of tasty home style treats, that are mostly made on the premises.
So if you are ever in the Warrnambool north area and come across The Silver Fox coffee shop, make sure you go in for a coffee; you won't be disappointed.
I said my goodbyes and left The Silver Fox at around 4.00 p.m. and pulled into our driveway at 8.35 p.m.
It had been a great 4 days away, spent with special friends doing the stuff I love doing. Can't ask for more than that!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

To finish this series of posts from this last trip to Rita and Tony's I will include this bunch of random shots I took in the time I was there.
In the 5 months since I have been down to Port Fairy Tony has been busy on the chassis he bought for his '36 3W. Basically he has had the front and rear ends out of it and modified the crossmembers to get it a lot lower.
He and Rita have also been building a new chicken coupe and run for the chickens. Some of the timber that made up the pallet that our 3W body came to Australia on was used for this project. Sorry I didn't get any shots of the chicken coupe.
Geoff aka whodaky








This is the engine that is going into Tony's '36 3W.

 

Incredible work and just an awesome job describing your visit, Geoff. Looking forward to more posts from you as The Last Grasp Special takes on it's own identity.

 

Hey Greaser I am glad you are liking what we are doing.
As I said in one of the posts above, yesterday I was going to round up some of the parts from my collection for the chassis of The Last Grasp Special.
I had to dig into places of my garage I hadn't been into in a while. Even found some stuff I had forgotten about.
I will just show a few images of what I came up with. I layed it all out on the driveway out the front of the garage. It almost looked like a site at a swap meet. I even had 'Gussy' sitting up on the fender of the Victoria trying to sell stuff. But he reckoned everyone was shooting low-ball offers at him all day. So he sold nothing.
But hey, Gussy is another story. You have got to have a laugh!!!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Looking good Geoff, somehow I missed this one.

 

Hey Tman.
I guess the title is a bit obscure, so it cold be easy to overlook viewing this thread.
Sometimes there is a fair time span between updates, but we generally have something happening.
Good to see you mate!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

I mentioned in a couple of the above posts that I have been sidetracked and have been working on a scoop for a friend's Austin A40 drag car.
Well I got quite a bit done on the scoop on Saturday.
I will just post a bunch of images and if there is any interest I may give a few details of this lil race car!
Geoff aka whodaky

 

Don't know how I missed this, but great job on an awesome hot rod.

 

Thanks Geoff for the great read! Really enjoy following along on the builds almost feels like we are there with you.

 

Awesome stuff!