Projects New project - Channeled 31 Model A Roadster.

I've been a lurker for a long time -- mostly surfing the classifieds. I've finally pulled the trigger on a project, so I figured I would jump into the fray. I'm starting with an abandoned Brookville 30/31 roadster project. I pick it up over the holidays, and I CAN HARDLY CONTAIN MYSELF!!! I haven't been this excited about Xmas since I was a kid!

The body is already channeled. I think I will keep it that way, although I'm not sure I would have made that choice if I were starting with a blank slate. I already have a sbc and T5 I plan to drop in. It will not be a high dollar build, so I'm planning to use what I already have to the extent I can do so. I'm thinking of going for a late 50s - early 60s Jersey Shore/East Coast vibe (minus the cycle fenders)- channeled, white walls & smoothies. I'm thinking I will dress up the sbc to look like a late 50s vette motor.

I will post pics when I pick it up. Stay tuned!

 

sounds like a great start , post pictures when you can

welcome to the Hamb

 

pics needed - so, we can see the now to appreciate the future changes.

 

Welcome to the site! your project sounds like a good one, please when time allows post some photos as its always good to see before and after ! Enjoy

 

Welcome Oz and yes, we live by pictures. Tim

 

Sounds good and welcome to the HAMB, I'll be watching.
.

 

Was this the one thats was for sale on the fordbarn? I almost pulled the trigger on it, but i wanted an unchanneled body

 

Lodaddy - that's the one. I had the same reservations, but in the end decided I could un-do the channel if I decided I really hated it. The stance looks pretty good as is, though, so I'll probably leave it alone. I know this comment/thread would mean more with pics. Maybe I'll post the seller's pics when I get home. At least it'll give y'all something to ponder until I can pick it up.

 

Here are a few pics I received from the seller.

 

You got a good start there. Almost looks as thou you could drive it home.

 

Looking good !! I subscribed

 

Welcome. Massholes watching

 

Cool man! Looks good. Great start right there

 

great start welcome.

 

This will make a great first build. Welcome to the HAMB

 

So, I picked up the car three weeks ago, and not much progress other than taking stock of the parts I have and need. I was going to start in earnest this weekend. The suspension is pretty much done. It looks like a Pete & Jakes frame (based on the design of the rear cross member - let me know your thoughts). It is zee'd 4 inches in the front & rear. The front axle is Super Bell (and probably the entire front suspension). It is 4-link front and rear, with leafs in front and coil-overs and a Ford 9" in the rear. So basically all street rod stuff - traditional "inspired", but not traditional in the true sense. The admins will have to decide if this thread needs to move to the general board.

The suspension needs very little work (mostly just parts - to be more accurate). It needs fasteners and the front panhard bar, but not really any fabrication needed. Since there is not much to be done to the frame/suspension, I thought I'd start fitting the engine and working on controls/pedals/steering. I have a bell housing now (bought from Grumpy -thx HAMB), so I was going to pull the body off and get the engine and trans mocked into place.

That was the plan... then on Wednesday I tripped over my dog and separated my shoulder. So, here are some pics of the car in my garage and the engine and trans on the bench - where they will likely stay for the next couple of weeks until my arm is out of the sling. This gives me more time to plan and shop for parts, I suppose. Speaking of planning, there is a question for you guys below...


So here's a poll, lakes headers (if you say lakes, say with or without rear exit)...

or shorty headers with the exhaust under the car?

 

Lakes headers with cutouts and mufflers under car. Run'em open when you feel bold and close'em up for getting home after midnight.
That looks like a great project, too bad about your shoulder - is the dog ok?

 

A channeled roadster, how cool! I love it!!

But why not go all the way on the east coast look and run bike fendere in the front and bobbed rear fenders.

I like them very much that way.
I would run small headers and under the car exhaust.
Small guide head ligths and bucket seats.
That's a cool little rod. I'll keep watching

 

The dog is fine.

 

Like I said, dog is fine.

 

I got clearance from the doc this week to take off the sling, so I made a little progress today. I started cleaning up the engine. It is supposed to be rebuilt, and based on how it looks inside I believe that. I'll probably just clean up the pans, put a new coat of paint on it, and button it up. Since I have been doing nothing but spending $$ on parts for the past month, I had to mock it up with the intake and valve covers, just for inspiration. Here you go:

 

The plan is to go all black engine, with the fins and script polished as an accent. Something like this, but glossy and with the intake left natural aluminium. Oh, and I'll go with ram's horn manifolds.

 

Congrats on your new car! (nice to start with solid steel)
My .02 on exhaust? NO LAKES HEADERS- everyone and his brother has them now. They are cool, but nobody ran freakin' "lakes headers" on the street where I live-we all ran headers with "dumps" you unscrewed on Friday and Saturday night when you headed out to the local straight-a-way and raced yer ass off.

If you use the ram horn manifolds ( which flow very well), put the "DUMP" on the exhaust right at the 90* turn- same thing, different approach. Uncork those bad boys and listen to the music!!

Have fun, be safe.

 

So here's an update.

I finished stripping and painting the engine. Re-sealed the pans and installed the water pump. I just used Duplicolor engine primer and enamel paint from the auto parts store. I hesitated to use this at first, mostly because I plan to paint the frame and suspension black also, and I want them to match... more or less. I wasn't ready to start buying supplies for painting the frame at this point, so in the end I went with the Duplicolor. This isn't going to be a high end show car.

Like I said in the prior post, I am going to paint the valve covers and polish the raised portions of fins and script.

I soda blasted the intake. This was a new process for me. I picked up a cheap media blast gun on ebay for $15 and picked up a 50# bag of coarse soda at Harbor Freight for $40. I dragged my air compressor into the backyard, shoved the media pickup into the bag of soda, and went to town. It came out pretty good. It still isn't completely even, so I think I will probably paint it with aluminum colored paint and clear coat. I need to helicoil a few of the threads before that happens.

Here's a close-up of the intake where you can see the unevenness:

In this pic you can also see how rough the valve cover castings are. I will clean these up before I paint them.

I started rebuilding the carbs, too. No pics yet. I tried Pine Sol in a crock pot, and the first one came out pretty good, but the float body came out kind of a dark gray. I may try soda blasting the carbs too, since it seemed to work on the intake. Stay tuned.

 

Well, most everything looks pretty cool. I will admit its a shame to see every roadster built with a 350/SBC in them. I know its what you had available, and its purely my opinion, but a Ford should be Ford head to toe. It reminds me of all the cars built in the 70s-90s that are just chromed to shit and have their generic motor. Nothing differentiating them at all.

Are you going to leave it channeled or bring it back up? If you leave it channeled, bring the rear up a bit to give it a little less "beetle" look. Too low and it looks like an insect's abdomen. Keep the photos coming!

Also, if you can link the soda blaster, I'd appreciate it!

 

I'm going to bring the subrails back down between where the frame is zee'd. Fortunately the channeling is not the finest work, so it won't be that hard to restore. Fortunately the seller still had most of the pieces that were cut out, including the front pieces that mount to the base of the cowl. Not sure what I would've done if these were missing. When I get back to my computer, I'll post some pics of the subrails.

Ideally, would've done a nailhead, but using the sbc lets me spend that part of the budget on something else. Like this tripower setup which will put me in the poor house before it is done. I guess that's the trade off, and the question of the day: all other things being equal, would you rather have a sbc with vintage Weiand tripower or a nailhead with a 4bbl?

 

Why do you want to um channel a roadster, made to fit on a 32 frame?
That would make it an awesome and era perfect hot rod. It's so rare to se a new build that is channeled over a 32 frame

As long as you can sit inside it and not on top of it.

 

So here is a link to the EBAY SANDBLAST GUN. It worked fine. The hose that comes with it is pretty flimsy and was prone to collapse from the suction. I had to keep moving it around as I was blasting. I will spend $5 on some of that reinforced clear vinyl hose from Home Depot next time I am there, which should solve the problem. The blast media I picked up at Harbor Freight for $40. I fed the gun directly from the bag. The gun comes with a metal feed tube, so I just tore the corner of the bag and shoved in the tube.

Volvo, it is not a '32 frame. It is a custom job -- I believe it is Pete & Jakes -- made from 2x4 rectangular tubing with frame horns welded on the front. Also, it is zee'd 4 inches.

Here are some pics of the channeling work. I have blocks between the body and frame right now to give myself some room to plan how to deal with the subrails I will have to channel the first 6" or so back from the firewall so the body sits flush on the zee'd portion of the frame at the transition. The firewall will be channeled about 4" and will sit on the highest part of the frame, but the subrails will be mounted to the body at the stock location and will sit on the lowest part of the frame. I will mock this up first to make sure it doesn't look silly from the side, because you will probably be able to see the zee'd part of the frame sitting below the body. I've toyed with the idea of adding running board skirts -- any thoughts? I've never seen this done on a channeled car (for obvious reasons), but it might work on a zee'd frame. I love that look on a highboy.

The pic below is the inside of the right cowl panel looking toward the firewall at the left of the picture. You can see I have clamped the internal bracing to the bottom of the cowl where it would have been mounted originally. You can see the surface rust on the subrail where it was overlapped by the bracing. I plan to re-attach the bracing and mount the subrail back in its original location, then cut the inside 2" or so of the bracing on each side of the frame so it sits flush on the angled part of the zee'd frame where it goes from high to low.


Here is a pic of the other side from the firewall looking in.


At the front of the door:

At the rear of the door


And finally a view of the back portion of the subrails. I haven't really planned this out yet. I will probably end up doing the same thing as the front and cut the subrail at the transition where the frame is zee'd. That piece of rectangular tubing seen in the pic would be cut out and moved to just below the subrail (what remains of it) at the top of the zee where you can see a mounting hole in the frame. If anyone is channeling a car and would like to donate the parts of the rear subrail removed from the front of the wheel well back to save me a little fabrication work, I'd gladly accept the donation. The PO was kind enough to include the bracing from the trunk area that goes from the trunk rail down to the subrail, so I will put this back in when I get to that point.



This whole post is a tangent from the current task-at-hand. I want to get the engine and trans together before I start on the body. My plan for this weekend is to work on the carbs.

 

I'm 6"4, so I need all of the legroom I can get.

 

Nice Build!