Customs 50 Ford Kustom Build "THE DELUXERY BOX"

Welll here goes nothing. I'm starting my first build thread so as to keep myself accountable and on the right track in getting this thing finished. So the hope here is to end up with a modest 50's kustom DRIVER built purely for the purpose of reliability, style, class, and fun, all on a working mans budget with limited build hours through the week (one day a week to be exact...my day off). The engine will be built for reliability, the body mods will be modest and practical, and the build will be slow going, but the idea here is that a little bit here and there in the way of time and money will all add up eventually.
Starting off with a 1950 Ford Sedan bought from a good friend for $500. I've personally ALWAYS wanted a shoebox and this is the first car that me and the ol' lady looked over and picked out together, and despite it's current ugly duckling state she absolutely fell in love with, so now that it's been given the green light, it's time to get to work.

 

Starting off with a crusty craigslist 302 for $150. One of those "I sware it runs" deals so fingers crossed on this one, but the price is right, it's mostly complete, and I'm planning to have my brother rebuild it anyway so I pulled the trigger.





An old trailer rear end was welded up under the car to move it around and that just wasn't doing it for me, so with another $100 the girl and I headed out to the middle of nowhere to pick up a complete maverick rear end. Couple that with a salvaged pair of leaf springs a friend had bolted up with lowering blocks, and we're on the way to a respectable ride height. (Yes it does snow here in Colorado)





Well the car was in the air I figured this was a good time to throw a recently purchased disc brake conversion up front, as well as a steering rebuild from Dennis Carpenter, and finally Aerostar springs to bring it down up front a bit more up front. The springs were cheap, but the other two items were by for the most expensive aspects of the build, but as I said I want this to be a comfortable driver and I don't want to say a little prayer everytime I try to stop or turn.

 

I'm one of those guys that constantly gets ahead of himself, so although the interior should be the last step in the build, I just couldn't help sending my seat guts out for a bit of black and white tuck and roll. This will serve as furniture in my apartment until the car is on the road.





Also found some time to restore my old steering wheel and with a lot of trial and error fit the center of a lincoln hubcap in the middle of the horn ring. It just classes things up a bit and I've never seen anyone do it before.





The old dash was in need of some attention, so I took it down to metal, patched up any holes I wasn't going to use, and got rid of the radio gap in the middle. This will later be drilled for SW gauges, with the radio mounted in the glove box.

 

Now that I've gotten some interior work out of my system and put the cart in front of the horse for a bit, it's back to the car itself. My old man is an absolute genious when it comes to bodywork, and made a living for years in the trade, so with his help and the help of his garage, it was time to say good bye to the door handles, gas door lid, any uneccessary emblems, as well all the rust eating away at the car.


New rockers





Shaved trunk





Luckily at one point over the years somone went absolutely wild with undercoating on the floors and trunk, so although the rockers and lower areas of the car were starting to see some heavy rust, all of these undercoated areas were untouched by the cancer, UN-luckily, it was just WAY to much undercoating and I wanted to get a fresh clean start for the floors, so it was time to go through the painful task or removing it.

 

With the addition of much better fenders than the others I had, whitewalls, the 3 inch blocks in back, some much needed body work, and the aerostar spings up front, things are starting to come together!






With all that said and done the now rebuilt engine and newly acquired $50 C4 transmission are dropped into the car. Gotta thank my brother for the rebuild and fabbing up the mounts, and the little lady for spending half a day with sandpaper and wire brushes prepping the engine bay for paint. God love em.







As far as fuel goes a tried and true Mustang gas tank is dropped into the trunk (no pics). So now that somekind of a driveline is coming together, we figured it was time for the fun stuff. Let's chop this thing!

 

Body braced, windows out, sawzall blades and cutting wheels sitting close by, this is going to be fun!

 

Now neither I nor my old man have ever chopped a shoebox, so we were both going into this thing blind and using the power of the hamb and the many threads on this perticular subject to walk us through it. Sidenote: the day we started chopping the printer on the computer ran out of ink, so the first day we probably would have gotten a lot more done had I of not had to keep running back and forth between the garage and the computer in the house to pick up instruction and guidance as to where we should mark the cuts, and in what way we should tackle the project. Did a lot of running that day!
Off she goes!






I decided to again keep it modest and take 4 inches out of the front and 5 out of the back. All of the door and roof corners were cut out before hand to be modified later so as everything flowed smoothly in the curves, and would make stainless a bit easier.

 

Now for anyone who hasn't done this before I can tell you right now getting to this point is the EASY part. It's from here on that you actually start chopping the car. Don't let that discourage you in anyway, just know that this is the time where you start to get down to business and assuming you took your time in the cuts and measured accordingly, it will make the remainder of the work much easier.
I've seen some good looking hardtop style chops, but for me slanted B-pillars was the only way to go. This meant a LOT of fab work in the way of corners, welding, door gaps, etc. The metal in those corners takes nothing to burn through with the welder so it took some time to patch everything up, and a lot of bandsaw to pie cut the the corners and get them to start flowing as they should.





Getting closer.





The rear window is laid forward a few inches and overlaps slightly over the rest of the roof. To this day we're still not sure if this is the right way to do it, but with the profile and the roof crown looking as good as it did, it's tacked in.





While I'm still working on those damn B-pillars, my old man is hard at it filling the gaps and working the sheet metal around the sail panels.





Dig it!

 

With the sheet metal work being MOSTLY done, it was time to put a quick skim coat of rattle can primer over everything to protect it from the Colorado snow and elements through the next couple weeks as I wont be able to get at it again until late January. And with that here she sits today!







Not to bad for not yet having a stitch of bondo on the car and still being well under $3000 in total costs. Now if you're factoring in labor from all those that have touched this car it would actually be worth around $375,000. Mounted the spotlights, caps, and skirts for a little extra boost of adrenaline, and she's starting to look more like what I had in my head when we started. Keep in mind I've owned this car almost 2 years now but we've only been getting on it for a total of 3 months, and this is NOT my shop that we're doing it at. Also as mentioned earlier the work being done on the car is a only one full day a week. Yes ONE day a week. No weekends, no evenings, just religiously working on the car on my day off from my paying job. So through the week she does have to be rolled out again for 6 days so my dad can have his shop back (hense the skim coat of primer), before hammering at it again a week later. Definitely very difficult to make a whole lot of quick progress with this kind of schedule, but thanks to a ton of help I think we've come pretty far in just a few months. Future plans include the remainder of the mechanical and bodywork, stainless, re-installing side trim, a bit more of a drop, as well as a nice copper paint job with a complete white/black tuck and roll interior. Before that there will be many stages of progress as this will be driven as I go, and with any luck will be driven often. HUGE thankyou for all the help from those that God has blessed me with. My family, the woman I love, great friends, and the hamb, but especially the help and many hours given from my best friend, my dad. Couldn't have gotten this far in any aspect of my life without him and he's been there working with me through the majority of this build allowing me to use his shop, tools, and resources to get this far.
Still shooting to see it on the road by Summer, so updates should be coming before then!

 

Show off! Very nice work!!!!

 

Awesome! The chop is soo tasteful. Excellent work. I've subscribed.

 

Very nice!!!

You make it look too easy!!!

subscribed as well

 

Great job on the chop! Looks great!

 

whoa, nice job. cant wait 4 more pics!

 

Keep us posted! One day a week for 3 months. Wow! You can bring your crew to my house any day. Nice job.

 

Looking good,i will be watching this one.Keep it coming!

 

Kick ass!!!

 

Nice

 

Incredible job on the chop, nicely done!

 

Looking really good. Keep going, and keep posting updates.

 

Nice job.
Not chopped too much,just right

 

Great transformation on the shoebox. Dig the Olds hubcaps.

 

awsome job! i wish i had that much fab skill.

 

Great work so far - I can't wait to get rolling on my shoebox . Great-looking chop , BTW .

 

hey asshole! quick making fast work of your shoebox!!! makes me look bad for not finishing mine! now come over and help me finish mine!!!

 

sweet

 

Looks great!!

 

very very well done, i am super impressed.

 

Very nice! Wish I had the ability to do that.

 

I hope you are going to be giving some people some nice presents come Christmas. Looks like somebody sold you a bargain in that car. Plus all the other help you're getting, you owe them big time. I'm subscribing and will be watching for updates. Looks most excellent so far. I can't even get anybody to hold a part in place for me while I bolt it on.