Projects The Helmuth Brothers Coupe

Yeah I know. Another "Someones" coupe, but I've been waiting a long time to do this. I've been lurking around here on the Hamb for a few years now gathering as much info as I could, trying to meet as many of you guys in person at the summer shows as I could, and save as much money as I could. This is my first personal "hot rod" build although I have been apart of a handful of other hot rod builds through my family. I, as well as some of you younger guys, have gone through the VW scene, then the mini truck scene, but have always been heavily into the hot rod scene through my family being we are all motorheads. Finally finishing college and getting a full time job am I now able to afford to build the car that's been in my head for so long.

That being said the name Helmuth Brothers derived from my Father and Uncle who use to drag race a few Chevelles back in the 70's around the South Jersey/PA circuit and had "Helmuth Brothers" pinstriped onto the door of their flatbed car carrier. Although I do have a brother, this build is a project for my Dad and I, but I can say that up to this point it has been a family affair. Everyone helping out wherever they can. That includes my immediate family, my Uncle and Cousin, super supportive girlfriend, and a great group of friends. I feel the "Helmuth Brothers" addition to build name for this coupe is pretty fitting.

Early on I tossed around the idea of building a 27' T Roadster. A mix between a 40s salt flat car, Jon Schuchart's 26', and some little ideas I had in my head. I looked around for about 6 months for a solid body that I didn't have to ship across country without any luck. Jon Schuchart and I had plans to build a chassis similar to his for my project but without the body in sight I didn't want to waste his time. So after looking on the classifieds here on the Hamb I came across a great deal on a 32 SoCal chassis with a Currie housing. It was different direction, but it was local, it was a Hamber, he was friends of friends, and we struck a deal I couldn't pass up. So now I had a chassis with no body in mind. I decided to move forward and get the chassis built as far as I could and find a body whenever one pops up. I saved up a good amount of money pretty fast with the additional help of selling a shit load of stuff online. After some time I felt had nice chunk of change saved to start looking for a body. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for 30-31 Model A Coupes on 32 rails. Not to mention the insane amount of great inspiration to pull from with builds like the Casney Coupe, the Kirby Coupe, the Rolf Coupe, and the Bass coupe all of which were project threads on this site. So after spreading the word around that I was looking for a 30-31 coupe it took me all of a few weeks to come across one and of course it was being sold from another hamber and he was local, a family friend, and gave me a good deal for a once in a lifetime find esp being an original NJ car w/ title. So after about a year of working on parts I had a 32 chassis with a 30 Model A coupe body.

The plan is to build the 30 Coupe body on the 32 frame with a traditional appearance but with some modern pieces. The frame had SBC motor mounts and 350TH/700R4 trans mounts so no plan to change that. It was kind of inevitable that I was going to have to splurge and buy all of the suspension through SoCal since all of the suspension mounts were done. Not saying I didn't like that, but it did take a good penny to get it all. I took a risk and decided to run SoCals new narrow front disc brake kit. It sits the disc inside of the 16x4.5 wheel tight enough where you can't even see the rotor from the front of the car. The car will definitely see plenty of highway speed use so I'm not ashamed of the disc purchase even though I would have liked it to appear as period as it would. The body will have somewhere between a 4"-5" chop. It will have a full hood. A set if 40' wheels with blackwall firestones. Color is a ways off but I have some simple "period" color ideas to play around with. The car will just be a simple, classic, clean car. Not trying to reinvent the hot rod, but I have some simple ideas that will make it stand out. At least from the cars around my way lol

EDIT* - Just to run through my current parts list to answer some questions that have been popping up here's what I have so far...

Chassis (All of which are SoCal otherwise noted):
-32 Step Boxed Frame (Not the A-V8)
-4" dropped axle
-Hairpin Kit w/ grease fitting
-Durant Mono Leaf
-"Narrow" Disc Brake kit
-Ladder bar kit
-40' style rear sping (currently 4 leafs removed)
-Panhard bar
-1988 Jeep Cherokee master cylinder (has ports on passenger side, not driver side so the lines can run straight out to the rail and not underneath the master)
-Steadfast Front Spreader Bar

Wheels / Tires -
-Front- 16x4.5 Gennie w/ 4.50-4.75 firestone (with tubes)
-Rear- 16x6 Gennie w/ 7.50 Firestone (with tubes)
-Hubcaps- 40' Standard

Body (so far and future plans):
-(Will have) 4"-5" chop
-3/4" Mini channel
-Full extended Model A Hood w/32 hinge
-32 Grile Shell
-37-39 Pickup Headlights
-30/31 or 32 headlight bar
-Model A taillights or 32 taillights
-Rear frame spreader bar / or nerf bar

Sorry for the long story...
Here are pictures of where we are at so far with pictures from when I bought the chassis last winter all the way to last night working on the mini-channel.














Built my first posi center section for this car. 3.50 Tru Trac. New internals with a used housing.



31 Splined Curries





Running a panhard





11" Drums in the rear

 

Supporting Steadfast with their spreader bar









Two minutes after UPS dropped off the tires. Running 4.50-4.75 and 7.50s





40 wheels...running 16x4.5 / 16x6. Picture with my cousins cap. Running 40 standard caps though.





Muscled the tires onto the rims after powdercoating

 

The SoCal narrow disc brake kit







Heres a good pic of how narrow they actually are...



First time we saw the roller

 

Here are pictures of the body. Some may recognize this from the classifieds. Sat in storage since 1974. Passed through a bunch of hands but never used for anything. Original NJ body w/ title.









^^No that's not me. Its my brother...

Time to strip the old red oxide.

 

Measured and measured to cut the subrails to clear the frame kickup. The worst rust on the entire car was the rear subrails behind the wheel wells. Luckily this had to be removed anyways.





















You can see how tight the space is lol

 

Now that's a nice looking body.

 

First time the body was placed on the frame. The SoCal frame is pinched up front, but not enough at the cowl for a model a body. This isn't the 28/29 frame that they now make. So this called for a mini channel and a rear frame bob.

 

Here you can see the infamous "gap". The front mini channel will get rid of this.













My Dad and I

 

Nice work!
That coupe is looking like a million bucks so far..!

Scott


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The start of the mini channel. Cut out the front feet and spread the cowl over the frame. Made a world of a difference.

 

As of right now we're rebuilding the front feet and then we'll move onto rebuilding the rear subrails. Hopefully these pictures can answer questions for people doing the same build in the future. It was a little tough for me to find certain pictures for some of the questions I had, so I made sure to take pictures of every angle of everything we've done. After the floors done, then the chop!

If any of you are on the ol' instagram my username is jhelmuth87. I post build pics on there every week.

 

WOW! What a great project, you nailed the rear wheel to wheel well fit, look forward to more progress reports. Bob

 

Thanks!! ^^ I should mention we took 4 leafs out of the rear spring. The rear spring is the SoCal 40' Style spring. There is still a little more of a gap than I want between the top of the tire and the body line, but it will definitely settle over time and with the added weight once more parts are added.

 

Looks Awesome!!!

 

Looks sick!

 

great build so far!

 

Looks damn good so far.

What's the story to your avatar?

 

Not another Model A! Looks great ,the chassis is the best part,Will be watching for updates

 

So cool that you get to share this with your dad. Good luck!

 

Sweet coupe

 

Yeah man! Looks F'ing great! I got to get over to your place bro! PM me your address.


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Sweet!

 

excellent! Very nice workmanship

 

Thanks a lot guys! Haha my avatar is a character from a 90s movie called Sandlot. His name is Squints.

 

nice work, keep the pics coming!!

 

Nice!!!

 

...nice project and nice 37 Chevy!

 

Thanks! The 37 was a streetrod built in the 80s by my grandfather. A few years ago my Dad decided to buy it off of him to keep it on the streets so we ended up replacing the entire suspension, exhaust, wheels/tires, and nixed the standard 80's CB radio setup hahaha