Hot Rods A 40 Ford Coupe for Uncle Mike Build Thread

Well we finally got around to cutting and buffing on the coupe fenders. Don shown here, has a little experience at this and I have none so we are going at it cautiously.




We converted the rear end dolly with a little bit of 2x4 fabrication to hold the fenders at convenient height.


A small bolt was placed at the bottom of the front fenders to hold them together and two wood screws through the rear fender brace holes hold the back. A couple of small ropes keep the fenders from spreading in the middle.
Today we cut the orange peel with 1000 grit then gave it a second cut with 1500. I think I will get some 2000 grit and make one more pass before we buff them.

 

looking good !

 

Good work; making them smooth and shiny. I can't wait 'til I get there.

 

Thanks Joel and Kan Kustom!

After a pass over the fenders with some 2000 grit sand paper we set up the portable paint booth again to contain of the buffing spatter.


Don was volunteered to do the buffing since he had done it at least once before.
We used Norton Liquid Ice Extra-Cut with a Norton Liquid Ice #3 pad followed by a clean #3 pad and Meguiars Mirror Glaze 9 Professional Swirl remover 2.0.

With the sanding prep we had done it did not take too long to do the fenders. Thankfully the shop is air conditioned and the lighting is tolerable.The temperature outside was in the 90's.

The pictures can do this shine justice but I will post a few of the finished product anyway.


Mike the painter did a good job on these fenders. The paint had very little orange peel and there was enough clear on them to allow us rookies to cut and buff the paint without wearing through the clear.

 

looking good!!!

 

Gonna be a looker.

 

Very nice finish. I use the whole 3M system, but it's good to see other systems produce as good or better results. Just curious; what color welting are you planning on?

 

This is a great read. The Car looks fantastic. I have enjoyed reading all of the ups and downs. I think anyone who has ever done something like this can relate to all of what you have shared.
Anyone who is about to start a project like this needs to read this post so they understand you will always run into some roadblocks. Problem solving can be a fun part too.
Congrats on a job Well Done.

 

Thanks southpaw-customs,It has been a long journey with lots of problem solving detours. Some detours are fun some not, but we learn from each one and try to take them in stride. I feel that posting the positives and the negatives will hopefully encourage some HAMBER to work his way through a problem rather than abandon months of work , our possibly help them avoid the same mistake all together.

Joel the fender welting issue so far has been one of those learning experiences. I sent a color sample off to Juliano's since they advertised they had over 200 colors. They said they had no match. I tried one other outfit (can't remember the name of it right now) same results. I have been told that any upholster that can find a good marine grade fabric could make me some. So far I have not pursued this issue any further as I have some of the stainless welting on hand that I will try to use. The stainless welting is kind of traditional (I think). I used the stainless welting years ago on my previous 40 coupe. The stuff is really hard to bend around the rear fenders front curve.

Thanks okiedokie , All of that sanding is not so bad on a forty as it has such beautiful curves............

 

My friend just painted his welting to match his car,Ford sunset, was told it would hold up well as long as he didn't clear it. Matches perfect.

 

So....... what kind of paint? Painted over white welting? I'll have to look up ford sunset since I have never heard of it before. Thanks for the tip i.rant, since I had considered painting the welting earlier and abandoned the idea I will take another look at it.

 

Sherwin Williams sunset metallic, D7.
For some reason can't insert a quote 39 guy.

 

www.fordscript.com/ford_bolts/products.html
In the 32/48 section under hardware, go down to page 35. They have a fender welting that is " manufactured as original and of original materials" which is paintable. I would use the same paint as on the body with the addition of a flex agent like they use on plastic bumpers.

 

Thanks for the tips on the fender welting guys. I had to do a lot of yard work the last few days so progress is a little slower than usual........


We finished cutting and buffing the rear fenders and trunk lid today and started sanding the the hood.

 

Trimmers can indeed make the welting very easily. It's basically the same as making the piping that goes on seats etc.

Meant to add, any diameter you want, including same as welting.

 

Wish my yard looked soooo good !! That's looking most excellent.

 

I come to this thread very often! Aside from providing tons if useful techniques and detailed pictures... It's inspiration for me!
AND!
I find something new every time; how a bracket fits, what a missing piece looks like and on and on!

Thanks again!

 

Well this was an interesting day. It actually started Sunday afternoon. We are in a drought here in Eastern Washington and our first major fire of the season started as a small brush fire and evolved into a fire storm that destroyed at least 24 homes in short order. While the houses were burning the wind carried large ash debris over a half mile to the industrial area of our town. A recycling center (card board) started on fire and soon spread to other large buildings ( two fruit packing warehouses, and a Les Schwaub Tire center and a furniture store) in the area causing some large fires.

Why is that important to this thread? Well my hood and doors for the coupe are in a body shop just a 100 yards or so from the large building fires. So I didn't get much sleep last night thinking about what fun it would be finding a new set of doors and a hood and then trying to figure out how I would get them to fit as well as the parts I had spent untold hours gapping and shaping to fit my coupe. I waited to call the shop owner this morning so far he thinks the building is still standing. Some short but heavy rain squalls put out most of the brush fires in the early morning hours and by evening it looks like the downtown fire is starting to settle down a little.I should know for sure by Tuesday whether or not the shop and parts survived.

We picked up the body from the same shop last Friday. It looks pretty good . We were having trouble getting the doors to match the body color had some problems with the clear coat and Eric thought he could fix color match problem and add some more clear to the body.

Since the body is now done we were able to take it off the rotisserie and start fitting it to the chassis. We had sent the body off for paint before we modified the chassis and installed the motor and transmission so we expected to have a few fitment issues.


We set all of the rubber body pads on the frame. I think they all need to be glued in place since we are constantly picking them off the flood and putting them back in place.

The body was rigged for lifting using the spreader beams. We have used this system several times now and we are quite happy with how well it works allowing us to transfer the body easily and precisely.

Since we wanted to leave the steering gear and column in the car we had to lift the body up pretty high.

With the frame on rollers we pushed it under the body.


It is a little nerve racking dealing with all of that shiny new body work.

We have two expected fitment problems up front. The governor for the OD transmission was just touching the underside of the floor. Since I wanted to have an access door for servicing the governor anyway this gives us a chance to make a hole and cover big enough to stick my big fingers and a wrench in there.

The other problem area is the master cylinder. It sticks up above the floor about a half inch . We have an idea of how to address this and will cover both projects in an upcoming post.

It is starting to look like a car.... even if it does look like a racing jalopy......

We also discovered the shock cross member sits too high and holds the rear of the body up about a half inch off the frame. That makes me glad I made it a bolt in item. We will have to cut the end flanges off the cross bar and weld new flanges on the cross bar a half inch lower.

Well it's all part of the fun of building your own Hot Rod and keeps retired life interesting.

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...that colour is perfect...absolutely perfect...

 

What are you going to run for wheelcovers, fiestas, or do you have a set of starfire caps like on your nieghbours old car?

 

Falcongeorge, I bought a set of star fire type caps from Speedway. I really don't like the quality of them. They look cheap and will no doubt get a rust coat on them if I wash them with soap and water. I have a set of beauty rings and Ford caps too and will run them also. I 'll post a picture of another set of wheel covers I would like to run on the car in a future post. For some reason I also like the plain black wheel look too and will initially go with no hub caps at all.

 

We'll be anxiously awaiting word on the fate of your hood and doors, plus the body shop where the work has been ongoing for a really nice paint job.

 

I want a set of starfires for my convert, but gennies are hard to find.

 

Got fingers crossed for hood and doors. Everything looks good, as expected. Hope rain is in the forcast.

 

Good news ! The body shop was not listed as one of the destroyed buildings. Although the fire danger is still extreme with low humidity and temperatures around 100 degrees it looks like a lot of fire fighting assets are in place in case of a flare up.

Unfortunately two of my friends and former work mates lost their homes to the fire Sunday night.

 

This would be my first choice but you can pretty much buy a set of custom wheels for what they are asking for them. Looks like close to 500 bucks for a reproduction set of theses Cadillac wheel covers


The Dodge Polara wheel covers look pretty nice in the picture but I wonder if they are of the same quality as the spinners I purchased from Speedway.

 

How about the Fiestas? Night prowlers has them, I dont know how good they are. There are also some very nice re-pop sombreros out there, but they are big $$.another REALLY nice option, theres someone in the Hamb classified that sells re-popped '56 merc flippers, but again not cheap. When it comes to re-pop wheelcovers, theres cheap, and theres good, not a lot in between. The mercs would REALLY be nice,put a small bullet in the center, and bobs yer uncle. I remember seeing a white channeled model A roadster in hot rod in 1957 with merc flippers, it looked great.
I am leaning towards 15" long bar lancers on my convert, but I am going for a very specific circa '60/'61 look.

 

Sorry to hear your friends lost homes and I hope no one was injured. I'm really glad the body shop was spared; I'll bet you can't wait until you get the hood and doors in your hands.

 

Time for an update.

Uncle Mike came for a visit and we put him to work.

That's Uncle Mike standing, me kneeling and hard working build buddy Don on the floor.

We had to lower the shock crossmember 1/2" in order get the body to sit down on the pads. Although time consuming we did mange to re-drill the holes in the frame boxing plate and lower the crossmember without having to make any welding changes.

We had to move some of the Drake frame to body pads around . We also used some of the Bob Drake Shockliner shok shims. By using the shok shims we were able to get the body mounted with good door gaps and used no steel shims.

Just put this in to show that Uncle Mike did get to work on his 40.

The doors arrived and fit well. Although the it does not look like it in the photo the doors do match the car this time. We had to remove some paint from the hinge pin holes and contact surfaces. (standard procedure I think)

With the body mounted we could see that the master cylinder sticks up through the floor much more than I expected. So that nice flat cover plate I made before went to the scrap bin and Don got busy shaping a new cover with a blister in it. Don used the shot bag and nylon hammer to rough out the shape before planishing.

The HF planishing hammer has been sitting in the shop collecting dust throughout this build. Don spent some time fiddling with it and added some oil to the hammer and it worked great.

He started with a blistered cover for the transmission governor. The governor was barely touching the floor but we thought a little extra clearance would be a good idea. We made the hole large enough to allow the governor to be pulled out for servicing from the top.

Next was the cover for the master cylinder. Besides the shot bag and hammer Don also employed the bead roller to match the bead on the floor.


I spent way to much time installing nut-serts in the floor to hold the covers in place. But it came out nice and will be easy to remove the covers. I painted undercoated on the bottom side of the covers and painted them with undercoater with clear coat, same as the rest of the floor.

I decided to use the wood floor boards but also decided to put a thin aluminum cladding on the bottom side of the floor boards to protect the wood from water and oil.

I used alignment punches to mark the mounting holes in the aluminum.

I used 3M High strength 90 adhesive to bond the pieces.

I didn't need all of the holes in the drivers side cover so I made some patterns for the throttle hole block off plates using clear plastic.

I found some wood dowel for the dimmer switch holes. I glued them with white Elmer's glue.

Sanded smooth and ready for the plate and paint.

I had to trim the boards down a little to get them to fit the hole and with the gasket on them.

You can see here that the Drake floor board gasket was considerably oversize.

I had to cut the gasket apart and section it in order for it to fit snug to the cover.

I used this 3M product on the covers for the first time . I like it better than the yellow. I had a little more time to work with it and seems to adhere well.




I won't bore you with all of the pattern making and cutting it took to finish putting the Dynamat in. I did learn though that it should be the last thing you put in unless you intend to keep it covered with something as it it tends to ooze some of the tar ( whatever it is) out of the joints which can ruin your clothes and tick the wife off if you forget to change clothes when you go in for dinner..........

Next was the Dyna Pad. This stuff was another time eater. It seriously tested my patience (lots of patter making) and the darn glue fumes could kill you. The pad cuts easily with scissors or utility knife but you better be careful when you place it on the glued surface because it is not easy to reposition........ I used 3M Supper 77 adhesive for this project. Before I started my second gluing session I took great care to ventilate the area.

So now I can move on to installing some firewall components and start laying out the wiring. The hood has arrived and looks great. The dash is off at the painters and I hope to get it back in a week or so.

 

Good work as usual and I'm about to install the toe boards in mine; I hadn't noticed how big the seals were.. still in the box. Your pix will help. How you noticed that just when you think you are gaining, the goal post moves back.