That new shop is the BOMB! Love the stone work. We don't see that here in earthquake country. Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Scored myself a killer deal at a local estate auction this weekend. I bought a big pile of flathead parts and this old race engine out of a dirt track car was in there. It has a Weber Cam (R1C ?), adjustable lifters, bored .030 over, some port work, aluminum Albro flywheel, etc. It will save me some time as it already has most of the work done to it I was going to have done to my stock engine. I'm gonna drop it off at one of the local flathead builders and have him go through it for me this winter. The older guy I got it from said it was pulled from a multi-time winner at his local track. Curious how wild that cam is.. Either way it should make the coupe scoot right along.
Finally all moved into the shop and am mostly organized. Very happy with the new work space! First order of business was getting some wishbone mounts made up. Whipped this set up and tried to finish them so they look like an old cast part. A lot of work for something that will never be seen but was a fun little project. Dropping my block off to one of the local older guys that specializes building flatheads and should have the engine all refreshed and ready to go for the spring. Hoping I can wrap up the last of the chassis and associated projects before it comes back. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Pulled out a hacked up dash I scored at Hershey for cheap this year and filled it in anticipation for cutting a new hole for whichever set of gauges I decide to use. Decided to take it to metal finished to keep body filler out of this car.
Thanks, I hunted for a long time to find the perfect property when buying. Cant be happier! Haha, I traditionally am a messy person., but I've made an early resolution to keep my shop fairly tidy. Taking that extra 20 minutes to put away tools and clean up the major mess you made that day just helps you stay more focused with your next project.
Neat coupe and a very nice property you moved onto. Was your shop created from the foundation of an old barn?
It was specially built this way from what I've been able to understand from speaking with the family when buying the property from the estate of the previous owners. Rumor has it the original owner built the shop to put small planes in and he used to fly them out of the field next to the shop (before it was all developed). The stone walls are actually built up around the monster I-beams in the ceiling and there's remnants of the old curtain style front doors that would open from the center and slide around the front corners of the building and into the shop (hard to explain). I need to make it over to the town historical society and see if they have any old photos of my street/neighborhood from back in the 1930's-1940's.
Finally holidays and moving/house renovations have slowed down so I can focus on getting this car done for the warm weather. At the advice of one of the older local early Ford gurus I dropped my engine off at an old flathead fanatic and engine builder. We looked the engine over to see what all was done to it and it had some odd things done and others not done.. it's had bigger valves put in, bored .030 over., intake ports polished, Weber cam, with a standard Ford crank. We can't figure out why they punched it out only .030.. seems like a lot of work for such a small gain. Don has a set of .085 over pistons in stock I think we may go with to open it up a bit. Also the exhaust ports were never touched on this engine either so he'll be opening those suckers up too. In the end this sucker should wake up quite a bit! I also decided to change my steering box setup. The box I had in there just wasn't working how I wanted and I didn't like how much I had to hack up the frame to get it all to fit. On top of that all the bumpsteer from the drag link angle was going to annoy me when it was done so I pulled it all out and decided to upgrade to a later truck box and mount the box on top of the frame. I got an old box from my buddy Jerry that had been in an A and the flange was all hacked up to fit. This made a perfect donor to cut the flange off and make myself a clamp-style adjustable bracket for the box mount. I always hated how the triangular brackets guys have used to mount the boxes on top of the frame stock out like a sore thumb. I wanted to make this mounting bracket as low-profile as possible, but also look like it could have been an old cast part I stole off another car. I had some old cast brackets from a 37 Terraplane I used for inspiration and made this one. I started by cutting off the flange and smoothing out the area that I would clamp. I got some tubing and cut off a section that was about as wide as the top of my frame. I then sectioned some box tubing and sat it in to get my desired height of the box. I then made a pattern and bent up a bracket and sunk the tubing/riser into the base plate and welded it in place. I then cut a section out of the tubing and took some small pieces of box tubing and welded a cap on the one and a nut into the other to make my mounting tabs. This gave me my clamping I wanted. I then took some 1/4" round bar and bent it to fit the bends and sections of the bracket that I thought would need reinforcement. I added two pieces to the back of the tubing to give it a "backbone" so it didn't have too much flex. I ran a couple of passes over each seam to build up the weld so I had extra material to sand off. I used one of the Eastwood carbide kits to fit in each seam and blend the weld into the webbing. This took some time but gives a great look when done. I then welded some washers in place of where the mounting bolts would go. I also blended these seams in. In the pic below you can also see some small spots where I filled minor pits with a dab of filler rod here and there to make a cleaner blend. Finally I put the entire bracket in the blast cabinet and blasted it with Aluminum Oxide to give it a textured finish and get any residue out of the crevices. This aggressive media also allows you to work on sharp edges and detail areas to "soften" details so it all looks more like a cast part. I now need to fill the old holes in the frame and add some threaded bungs. I'll also add two mounting bolts in the top of the bracket but I want to get the side mounting bolts in place first. The box came with a later pitman arm but I'd prefer to stick with the earlier ball/socket style. I may get an A arm and go that route. I just have the drag link ziptied in place to get a rough idea of the angle. Should work out pretty good when done. Working on the steering column tube and shaft and all that jazz later this week. Hoping to have it all together by the weekend so I can keep moving along.
Very nice. I like seeing the custom touches as they progress. One can appreciate the end result more. Looking forward to updates. Ryan.
Got most of the tedious stuff done on my steering setup last week/weekend. I turned down some oil impregnated bronze rod and made my bushings for the column tube. I then welded a 40's truck column tube bell I had kicking around onto my tube. I also welded up the column itself, putting an earlier keyway shaft on so I could run a banjo wheel. I spent yesterday welding up all of the old steering box holes and redrilling for the new cast bracket. I turned down some 3/8" nuts and welded them into the frame so I could bolt the bracket and box down. Everything in and it all turns O-so-Smooth! Last big thing is to either get a new end link for the drag link or so if an A pitman arm will fit the truck box (anyone know this off the top of their head?) with the ball and socket style connection. Don't worry the gold hardware will get changed out or modified to look more correct on final assembly of the car. Oh and a shot without clamps holding all of the steering together for once.
I've been putting it off for a while, but I needed to get the dash bolted in place in the car. I was dreading cutting out the bottom of the original gas tank because I knew it was going to suck and be a pain in the ass. After some cursing I had it out and I welded in some threaded inserts into the car to match the '32 dash holes. I rounded the ends with a hammer and dolly so they flowed into the A pillars and cleared the doors. I also finally settled on running this old Ensign SW panel. I replaced the mounting studs and drilled the dash for those and punched holes for the gauges. I have a few coffin needle SW's, so I'll probably gather up the rest to fill it up. One of these days I'll make a turned/finished trim insert for the panel. Couple pics of everything all bolted back in place.
Very cool Matt. You make it look easy. But we all know the time and effort into it that the pictures can't show. Keep up the great work. Ryan.
Been picking away at small stuff. Got a ball welded on the old chrome pitman arm and shortened the drag link. I also put two small indents in the box and added two small set screws through the steering box mount I made to help locate and lock it in place. I have a little flex in the steering box when I first turn the steering wheel so I'm going to make an additional column brace behind the firewall for piece of mind if anything. Either way I'm happy I can steer the car finally! I've also been messing with figuring out my radiator for the car. I picked up a $10 "B" radiator at Hershey this year to use for the tanks but turns out it was a 34 radiator and wouldn't fit my grill. I decided to use the B lower tank and a 30-31 top tank. Since the A tank doesn't allow you to full slide the grill onto the radiator to match the radiator cap hole, we came up with a '35 Chevy radiator filler neck that was a flanged part that allows you to move the neck forward on the radiator and we can match the filler up to the hole in the grill. Hopefully the pic of the radiator below of the Chevy radiator helps my poor description. I need to relocate the grill mounting brackets and I can send my mocked up chopped radiator to the local radiator guy and have him put a new core in it. Oh and I also threw on this other grill I had for the car. Need to swap inserts but this one matches a lot better and hasn't been hacked up on the top like the other. Going to visit the engine today. Local guy is about finished with it just needs my intake and other parts so he can get it test fired and ran in a little. Big progress!
Hi Matt, how much did you shorten your steering column? Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Thanks Matt, don't bother measuring. I'm figuring out my steering on my coupe right now and thought I'd ask. After thinking about it though, my steering box is in a different location anyway. Thanks though. I'm digging your coupe man, I've been following along since the beginning.
Went to visit my engine last night and it's all back together for the most part and ready to start bolting the last bit of stuff on. In the end it got punched out .085 and we recycled some factory 8BA pistons. Also upgraded the oversized valves to modern stainless valves. We had to replace one rod as we found this engine was blown up at some point and a rod had a little ding in it and the oil pan had numerous holes brazed up when they scattered the engine at some point! Luckily the engine cleaned up nicely, my old weber cam, adjustable tappers, and Allstate heads were all in good shape and could be reused. Saved me a ton of cash. Waiting on the last bit of parts and we'll be ready to fire it up. I'll make sure I get a little video of it running! The other weekend I hit the 3 dog garage open house looking for shock mounting inspiration. The Fred Steel roadster had a slick solution I knew would work well for my car. I took a pair of later rear shocks and mocked them up last night and man should it be easy work to get them going. Should be able to just tap the frame for the bolts and make a small bracket off the wishbones. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Man I love those heads and shock location. It just keeps getting better, keep it comin. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I got the body off with some help from some friends last weekend and I've been buttoning up some stuff and finish welding all the crap that was half welded for mockup. Last night I took the old torque tube and driveshaft that came with the rear in the car and cut it in half, knocked the center bearing and carrier sleeve out. I then took the excess out, beveled the joint and I welded a root pass and came back and weaved a cap pass to fill the rest of the seam. Should be strong and fits nice and gives me a starting point for cutting up the driveshaft. Dropping more parts off for the engine this weekend, shortening the driveshaft, and dialing in the front caster in the axle with a couple small slices in the bones. More to come next week.
Been busy finishing up odd jobs on the frame and getting it close to being ready for paint and reassembly. I ended up using a pair of 46-48-ish rear shocks and mounted them upside down on the bottom of the frame. I drilled and tapped the frame to mount them and heated and bent a set of the long links. I then cut the tapered bungs off of the end of two old shock arms and welded nuts to the back side. Finally I hole-sawed an opening for the bung and welded it into the bones. To mount you spin the link into the bung until it's tight and then mount it to the arm on the shock. Little cleaner than just welding a tab hanging off the bone. Pretty happy with the outcome. I also rigged up this old chain hoist I scored a while back and lifted the back of the body up so I can finish welding the floor and subrails and seam seal the whole mess. Thought the photo was pretty cool with it hanging like that! Hoping to start on the brake line routing and the rest of the small details before finally pulling it all apart. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Went to drop off the last bits for the engine to Don. He's got the engine all set up and pretty much ready. Just need to dig around my stash for a 3 brush generator for us to convert over to 12v. Really cool seeing all of the old parts I've gathered from all over the country from different friends finally coming together. I can't wait to hear it run!
The Jalopy Journal
