Anyone care to share some details about ditching the wood in your car and replacing it with steel? I know, you "just get some rectangular tubing and put it where the wood was". But that doesn't cut it... I'm looking for details. The original stuff was all held together with nails and bolts so do you just tack weld along the edge? Spend time drilling holes through the pillars, etc. and fill with a rosette weld? I know how I did the roadster and I know how it looks...I won't do it that way again. But I did learn some stuff to apply to the next car. So share some details about how you make the new steel a part of a 70+ year old body. And while we're at it I want to hear how you attach sheet metal to the new structure. I'm not lucky enough to own a Deuce so let's use a model A for example. Originally the quarters are pretty much wrapped around the B pillars and nailed into place. The only way I see to do this correct would be drilling lots of holes, clamping the skin in place, filling each hole with weld, and dressing it down with a flapper wheel. Is there a better way? how many holes did you drill? Where do you weld? Beggers can't be choosers but I'd really like to keep the answers to "I've DONE it this way on my car and not I think you COULD do it this way answers."...or at least let me know if you've actually done it, just seen it done, or just have the idea. i'll take what I can get. Thanks.
I would say that removing the remainder of questionable and obviously bad wood and then fixturing up or re aligning the panels is going to be the worst of it. Because its at this point you lose most if not all structural integrity. add to thus a common ailment of the missing areas be it around the bottom or other critical areas.... I've chopped a few "wooden" cars[20-30's GM -that were metaled out as you said. they were done mainly with 1" flat strap metal 1/8" thick for the shaped panels and 3/4 and 1" square tubing as the uprights. The attachment points were set as to where these bracings met the sheetmetal panel. Mainly the heavy square/rectangural tubing was installed at the Jambs of doors frt and rear and then tied into a webbing of the strap I mentioned-VERY EFFECTIVE .
the jambs of my 30 a pick up i did with 1x1 box bent to match the shape of the outer panel then plug welded every inch and a half. for the roof i made a channel in the shape of a hat and curved it to match waht i wanted the roof to look like. the roof skin will get glued to the supports with door skin addhesive along with some spot welds. on a model a any where the body was nailed to the wood you can use the nail holes opened up some for plug welds. just be sure to coat any of the overlaps with weld threw primer to protect it from rusting.
Grim, on my '28 Tudor I pondered the same problem. The old wood was either broken or rotted out. Not wanting to prolong the job, I went to a restoration outfit and asked what they did. They said that because Ford had done a fairly good job first time around, why not replace the wood? The wood replacement kit (all the roof pieces) was less $$$'s than I would have spent replacing them with steel tubing that would take a lot of fabrication time. (and deal with the problems your asking about) I can't say if I was lucky or just found an excellent replacement set, but everything just bolted into place and it's as good as new.
I agree with Dave on the Wood aspect. Thats how we do it at the shop, I have had a hand in many of the cars. Even so much as fabbing custom wood for a 32 Vicky, you cant buy it. As for metal, if you decide to go that way, I have seen many guys go overboard, both local and stuff I see on the HAMB. Even modern crash proofed cars use simple sheetmetal reinforcement. Not 300 pounds of tubing! We have a lcoal 35 Chevy Sedan that it takes a forklift to raise the body...literally. Less is more. Bead rolls and flanged sheet can be as strong or stronger than heavy guage stuff. As for attachment, rosette welds and welding along and edge of say....where you cap a B Pillar are the way to go, helped a pal do his 33 Chevy that way. Remeber this, think of your interior guy when you do the steel. On Model A's for example, the wood is what the interior was tacked to. You need to drill for upoulstry fastners with steel.
[ QUOTE ] Remeber this, think of your interior guy when you do the steel. On Model A's for example, the wood is what the interior was tacked to. You need to drill for upoulstry fastners with steel. [/ QUOTE ] That was the first think I thought of when I saw this topic. A lot of guys cause a lot of work and added cost to the car owner by not looking ahead on upholstery anchor points. Ford wood kits are out there some are better than others. If you are chopping a top modify the wood uprights so they stay as one piece, and install them after the metal work is done.
On the Slazzen 36 chevy p/u I found a roached 37 chevy p/u cab and carefully removed the door jambs out of it. Then spot welded them in place of the wood. I had to cut a little here and there to make them work.When it was done it looked and worked great .I think you could also do this with other applications and have great results. Useing mismatch jams
We are doing this right now on "Edmurder"s 31 Chevy. I can post pics in a few days. Maybe Ed will fill you in on the rest!
[ QUOTE ] We are doing this right now on "Edmurder"s 31 Chevy. I can post pics in a few days. Maybe Ed will fill you in on the rest! [/ QUOTE ] Hey, I didn't know you were working on Ed's car. I'd really like to see the progress. Keep us posted!
I'm kind of converting a A coupe to a Modified. I am useing 1 inch square tube because it is handy and available. I am rebuilding the body cross members with the square tube and some scrapes of 20 guage. I don't have a good relationship with wood so that was out of the question. If I wasn't such a Retard I could actually post pictures.
I agree with the guys who did the wood, I just did a 30 sedan and left if with the wood and also made some of the wood pieces for my upholstery guy. He would not have done the car otherwise as there would have been no place to staple the panels to.
One idea I saw that seemed pretty clever to me was on a Chevy coupe. The guy replaced all of the wood with steel tubing but on any piece that was going to get upholstery attached to it he recessed it about 3/16" to 1/4". Then he cut strips of wood that thickness and used structural adhesive to attach then to the steel. Presto, the interior guy had what he needed to attach the interior. Frank
Lord Fusor is a good idea, I have used it a tiny bit, I could see using it to glue in wood AND steel!? in fact I was thinking of gluing wood backers into my Touring, now I know what I will glue it with!!!!!Hadnt thought of that one.
Chopolds & I are partially done replacing the wood in my '31 Chevy with tubing. No part of the job has been especially difficult, just time consuming. When we started, the quarters had been cut off the car and our project was to attach replacements that Tuck sent all the way from Kanada. We tried to line up the panels, but soon realized that nothing on the car was straight... the wood that appeared to be in excellent shape had sagged over the years, leaving the body twisted this way and that. At this point we decided to widen the scope of the project and replace the body wood. We started by levelling and squaring the old body. This was done by tack-welding the doors in place with an even gap all the way around and shimming the body as we went with washers. Before removing any wood, we created a header panel between the turret and decklid and anchored it to the frame. This allowed us to remove the wooden subframes where they attached to the frame. They were replaced with 1-1/2x1 tubing with a few 1x1 strips running across like ladder rungs to support the future floor and prevent the body from caving in at the bottom. The wood at the door pillars was removed and replaced with 1x1 tubing that we bent in a bench vice using a long pipe and lots of mechanical advantage. Slight bends spaced out every half inch help to minimize kinking. The tubing was welded in to the jambs and in fact is the only place that we've welded sheetmetal to tubing so far. We will likely also tie the frame to the body at the cowl and deck when we get there. The "non-structural" wood that surrounds the windows has been left in tact for upholstery. I'm not sure yet what we'll do at the jambs. There's a bit of weight in the body, but we were able to move it with two guys lifting and two guys holding it steady. I don't imagine the tubing is any heavier than the wooden framework. Making it solid and safe has been out goal --not weight. I just finished a roll of film today that I'll develop on Monday. The pics will be posted when I get them. Ed
This book has a chapter about this with some good pics. It looks like they welded tubing "frames" around where there were factory pinches or bends (jams and window lips) then connected these "frames" to one another with tubing and sheet metal. That way, it is only welded to the body where it's pretty stiff and wouldn't distort too much from the welding. I'm about to start doing this on my A as well, so I've been studying up.
I buy much of mine for early fords from Tom Bay @ R&J Ent in Arkansas City Kansas. This is for the popular A,32,33,34 fords. WoodArt went out of business or changed hands, I forget. But I heard they are up and running again? When i made pieces for that 32 Vicky it wasnt too hard. Of course, I grew up making wood chips but it was mostly in the thought process of how it had to work. Henrys wood was pretty involved, as was the GM stuff I have played with. There is room to simplify the shapes, remember, these cars were built when the workforce was more skilled and worked for pennies a day. Henry could afford to get pretty detailed. Even being the cheap bastard he was. (sorry still pissed about the one year run of 32s)
Not to hijack the post, here is that Vicky wood. Part is custom, part is modified 2 door sedan wood and that rear beltline piece is an actual Wood Art piece that the owner found at an auction.
[ QUOTE ] ...Then he cut strips of wood that thickness and used structural adhesive to attach then to the steel. ... Frank [/ QUOTE ] Lord Fuser doesn't come up on a search, except in video games.. How about recommending some product names?
I have searched and searched on resto boards and everything as I will have to get into this next year on a 1935 with tons of wood. I really like the idea of the wood tack strips over shallower steel becuae the interior is going to stay original with all of the fabric around windows etc. It seems there is a lot of interest in this . . . I hope one of you guys that has done it can show more photos.
This might be of help: http://allshops.org/cgi-bin/community/communityalbums.cgi?action=openalbum&albumid=9990093218361 A bit time consuming but it works. John www.ghiaspecialties.com
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