Projects '36DD - (My Double Duty 3-window build.)

Thanks again KB. Great idea with the castor! A guy over here had done something similar under the front of a '34 roadster a few years back but he only used a skateboard wheel which I guess would have scrubbed if it didn't hit the obstruction straight on.
I'm still toying with some kind of front bumper, since I'll be running one in the rear, so I will definitely keep this idea in mind when I come to make up the front bracketry.

Cheers
Bear

 

Thanks!. I guess it is nice to look at, but I would rather be driving it!

Bear

 

Thanks Rokit! The nature of this build means that I do have to fabricate a bunch of stuff, but I'm trying to do it in a way that doesn't look out of place for the era. The bonus is, it's cool fun learning how to do this stuff!

Bear

 

This build is very nice - keep up the good work. Great to see you document it so completely and I have no doubt the finished product is going to be incredible.

 

Thanks for the kind words, LKR.

I've been finishing off a couple little jobs on the frame, just so as I can get a clear run at the bodywork when I finally get up the courage to start on it.

I made up some mounting discs for my bump stops and got them fitted to the underside of the frame rails. Welded a nut to the back side of the plates for the bump stop to thread in to, and drilled a clearance hole in the frame for the nut.





Then I ran a weld around the perimeter and screwed the bump stop into place. Front ones shown here...



And the same deal for the rear... (Frame is upside-down in these pics)



It works out that I have 3 3/8" total travel at the front axle, and 4 3/4" at the rear.

Bear

 

Looking good! Where did you find the short bump stops?

 

I bought a bunch of these from a local rod shop that was closing down. Just had a look at another bag and it looks like they came from Speedway. They have a nice long 3/8-16 threaded stud which is great for if I need to fine tune the bump stop height I can just machine up a spacer to go between the stop and the frame.



Bear

 

Those are also available from Energy Suspension.

Summit Racing has them.

 

Great; I may be needing a pair. Thanks, guys!

 

While I was messing around setting up the bumpstops, I discovered that when the frame was raised on a jack with both rear wheels hanging, the rear panhard rod just came in to contact with the upper tube on my torque arm. It's never gonna' hit it during normal suspension travel, but I figured it's not a good look if it ever goes up on a hoist, so I took the opportunity to sort it now.
I trimmed an arc out of the bottom of the torque arm tube and closed the hole up with a bit of 1/8 mild steel, then fitted a diagonal brace from the top to the bottom tubes to replace any strength that may have been lost.





Everything set back in to place. Things are really tight to get that nice long panhard in there, and particularly to have it dead level at ride height, but I think it's worth all the effort.



Now, with the rear shocks fully extended there is sufficient clearance to the torque arm - the two bars only just 'kissed' before. That top tube goes into tension under acceleration, so I can't see that the recess will have any effect on it's strength under load.


Bear

 

Bear, before I got too deep into chopping mine I had a conversation with Cole. You are correct that Kirk's '36 started as a 5W. Cole recalled that the chop was closer to 4" as they worked toward the perfect fore versus aft height. He remarked to me that the magic occurred when they dropped the door sills a 3/4" tape width. Using his remark I too sectioned my door sills and my quarter windows by 3/4" tape width. It is subtle but much better matches the beltline detail that wraps around the turret. It also makes the chop look less than it actually was. Check it out. Another bit of info to plug into your chop decision process.
As always, Best Regards, KB.

 

Bear, what size bags are those on the rear? And what type of spring are you running back there? Like that pan hard bar. May have to incorporate that in my build. Now all I have to figure out is how to weld like that

 

Outstanding fabrication. I really like your headers. I may borrow from that on my build...

 

Bear,
Discovered your thread today and read it from start to to end. Very well done without being too over done. Well thought out to make a nice clean build. Look forward to more.

 

Read the whole thing! Awesome!


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

I don't know how I missed this thread. Great work, keep it up. Can't wait to see progress. '36 3 window is one of my dream cars!

 

Thanks again everyone for the encouragement.
I don't know where the last few months have gone. Work has been crazy busy, and when I finally do get done for the day I just seem to be able to eat my dinner then fall asleep on the couch! Not great for building hot rods.
That, combined with a couple quick trips over for the LA Roadster Show and Bonneville, has meant very limited progress on the '36.
The flip side of this is that I have been picking up more of the parts I need along the way, so when I do get a 'burst' of energy, I have a bunch of stuff to do.

To be honest, the thought of tackling the bodywork on this scares the hell outta' me, so I have been avoiding the issue up till now. But I have reached the point where I need to get it happening so I can get the floor welded in, in order to make a whole bunch of other stuff happen.

I figured I would mess around with the dash first, as a bit of a practice run for the real sheetmetal.



The right hand drive '40 dash I got out of Ohio (what the hell it was doing there I do not know!) is a great fit width ways, but obviously needs a lot of work to make it fit along the windshield area.
Unfortunately I never got a '36 dash with my coupe, so I had no existing windshield mounting flange that I could cut up, nor anything to use as a reference.

I got a piece of 18g sheetmetal folded to a right angle, then ran it thru' the shrinker/stretcher till it was close to the profile of the lower windshield flange.



Then I worked the horizontal flange with a hammer and dolly to make a radius to roll down into the top of the dash.



When I began trimming the top of the dash to suit, I started to realize just how much rust had gotten into the lower edge of the dash.






Apparently the dash had come out of an Aussie Ute body that had set without a windshield for a very long time.
It came without a glove box lid, so I picked up a new one from The Early Ford Store in San Dimas while at LARS last year. The dash was quite a ways out of square, so I pulled the dash around a bit and tacked the lid in place, before I started cutting out the rust patches.


I added in a new lower edge under the glove box, which I will clean up and trim once everything else is welded up solid and I take the lid back off.



Then I made up a patch to sort out the rust below the instrument cluster. I wanted to smooth out that area, as I no longer needed the recess to clear a column shift.



Scribed around the patch and trimmed out the rot, then cleaned up the inner support and coated it with zinc spray.





And began the tedious job of tacking it all together....


Bear

 

Really nice work.

 

Sorry for the late reply. The bags are Firestone rolling sleeve type, they're 4" diameter and 3.5" compressed, with an inflated length of 9". They are rated at 800 lb. each, so they are basically 'helper' type bags.
My plan is for the transverse spring to carry the weight of the car at the low 'tail dragger' height, with the bags giving me some adjustment for when I want to run a 'hot rod' rake, or need to get thru' a steep driveway or curb crossing.
The rear spring is a Vern Tardel reversed eye Model A main leaf, with as many original 'A' leaves as required to get the correct base height - I envisage around 4 at this stage. The whole deal will work fine without the bags and just a couple extra leaves added - I just want to have the dual purpose hot rod/custom thing going on with the flick of a switch!

That panhard bar needed to be as long and as level as possible to get the best geometry / least sideways movement thru' full suspension travel. There's not a lot of side clearance up inside those rear fenders with the low ride height and big rear tires, especially when the skirts go on! Would have been a bunch easier to run a 15 on the rear with a smaller profile tire, but I wouldn't have had that rubber rake when the tail's up and the skirts are off.

Thanks for the kind words on the welding - I'm very careful about which pictures make it to print....

Bear

 

Made up another patch for where the radio had been cut into the dash, and got them both fully welded.



Now that there was some strength back in the dash, and it is hopefully back to square, I test fitted it to the new upper edge.



It needed a bit of hammer and dolly work to get the two pieces mating up nice, but I think at this point they are pretty close.



I decided to do away with the opening windshield. The cowl vent and wind down rear window are both still functional, so it should get plenty of air thru'.
The wiper mounted above the windshield was really bugging me, so by fixing the frame in place I can now run my wiper pivots on the cowl for a much cleaner look. (Wipers are required in New Zealand as part of our annual vehicle checks.) Plus , it's one less place to leak!

I'll carry on fixing up the dash panel as best I can before I scribe the two pieces and weld them together.



I've got the first patch fairly close now, think its time to invest in a shrinking disc...


Bear

 

Nice work on the dash, your patch work looks really slick.

I got hold of a RHD 40 Ford dash for my project from a fellow in North Carolina. It seems to be easier to find them in the US than here at home!

 

Thanks Tom. This is my first attempt at tig welding panels.and I'm trying to get 'close' to a metal finish. Still a little ways to go..... I figured it was a good place to start experimenting.

I did find two RHD dashes in Australia over the last couple of years, but both were 'rough' and would have owed me well in excess of $1000 by the time I got one home.

This one ended up just over $800, and I got it blasted before anyone here saw it - they would have thought I was mad if they had seen it in its original state!

Bear

 

Nice work mate, will be a grouse car when finished! Looking forward to seeing more progress.

 

Got the dash pieces scribed together and tacked, then started to lose my nerve when it came time to weld them up. I can't afford to stuff this up 'cos as I said before, these RHD dashes aren't easy to come by, and the dash is one place that needs to be right. Just like the bedroom ceiling and the back of the bathroom door, I'm planning on spending a lot of time looking at that dash, and if there's something not right I know it's gonna' taunt me for the rest of my days!

So I set that aside and started work on tidying up the firewall where the metal is a bit heavier and more forgiving.
The metal itself is all in good shape, but there were a few additional holes that had been drilled over the years, along with some original ones that are no longer necessary.


I got started cutting out some patches and tacking them in to place. Most were fairly straight forward while a couple needed to be shaped to match up with the beads in the firewall. Some rivets needed to be ground off and the holes filled too.





There were a couple real ugly ones where someone had previously 'punched' some holes thru' with a spike of some sort.



To tidy these up, I tacked a small patch in place to provide a centre for a holesaw, then cut the holes larger to get rid of all the stretched metal.


Then made up patches to suit...




Once everything was fully welded and sanded, it ended up looking like this.



After all the drilling, welding and hammering, I realised that there wasn't actually much holding the firewall in place. It looked like someone had pulled the firewall out at some time, and it had been very roughly tacked back in with a stick welder. So, after a little bit of unpicking, I had the firewall out on the floor.
Would have been a whole bunch easier filling all those holes up on the bench instead of reaching around trying to work both sides of the metal in place!



Of course , once the firewall was out, there was a whole lot of ugly from the previous stick weld repair that needed to be fixed up.



So I cut out the mess, and bent up some patches to finish that area off. From what I could see, there was originally a 'v' shaped gap there from when the bend was formed in the firewall, but I figured making a continuous piece would be stronger and look nicer when painted.




So here it is, all filled and ready to go back in once I have cleaned up and straightened the body flange.



I'm gonna' leave it out for now, while I finish up mounting the dash and fixing a couple holes in the sides of the cowl.



Bear

 

Is that shop floor photo shopped for cleanliness?
I am giving you a "Like" because there is no "love" option!

 

Nah, just had a quick sweep up last weekend ready for the club 'Round the sheds' visit.
Actually, I'm ashamed to say I haven't been getting out there often enough to dirty it up!

How's yours coming along?

Bear

 

Such an amazing build keep the updates coming.

 

I don't believe that they do any work in this shop. It is entirely too clean!!!

 

Your work is incredible

 

How's yours coming along?

Bear, I don't talk about my build in the presence of your build, it would be like comparing peckers of a 70 year old man and an 18 year stud muffin, it just doesn't measure up!