Not sure if this is a 32 or 34, car or pickup chassis. My father couldn't finish his 53 Chevrolet and this old A model, so he gave it to me. Engine is a 1966 Pontiac LeMans Sprint 6 inline 6cyl. 203hp Transmission is a 3 speed from the same LeMans Rear end comes from a 67 Impala Carburetor is a Q-jet Not sure I like what he did with the front suspension, he changed the castor, he wanted the front wheels to "lay over" some when turning, but I think he went to far with it 40 years ago when he started this thing. He's always been busy doing other stuff for other people for side money and hadn't had the time to finish it. And since my brother totaled his 51 Chevrolet pickup, he built a 67 GMC, wasn't happy with it, sold it, got the 53, now he's building it. So this is mine to finish since he's 72 now. I'm a pretty big car guy, but I'm not used to this old stuff, I'm out of my comfort zone of McPherson struts and EFI. I know I want disk breaks and a more proper front suspension, the rest I think I'm good on. Any suggestions for the easiest and most economical way to get there?
1930 cowl, if 3" from the top of the post down to the top of the upper door hinge then it is a coupe, sport coupe, fordor cowl... if 4" then it was a tudor or truck cowl. If you run the six you may want to reverse the '30 firewall... memory says it buys you about 4"...
Parts car. not all bad. As it sits the chassis engineering is hokey at best. Cowl is about a foot back from where it should be. From here you need a solid plan.
No the oval speedo is correct for 30 early 31 cars and trucks. It is definately a 30 31 cowl. The round speedo came out in late 31.
I love the Pontiac 6 engine, but it's going to be tough to pull off in a model A. Not that it can't be done, just not going to be easy. Tough way to go about a first Model A build. The front cross member has been pushed out already, moving the front axle forward, and that is going to mess with the aesthetics, it's hard to beat Henry's original dimensions. But if you're OK with a stretched wheelbase, you could always stretch the frame for more room for that engine. Someone mentioned reversing the firewall, that will help gain some room for the engine, but I don't think it will be enough. You may end up doing like Porknbeaner and opening up the firewall and letting the engine sit farther back inside the cab. (do a search for his build thread on his Model A, and/or pm him for info) With a Tudor body you can then move the seats back to make room for your legs. With a coupe that aint gonna work so well. And what's up with the wishbones? Nasty looking cut/weld/angled piece installed, not sure about the integrity of that modification. Not sure what the purpose is either. But I don't know that I'd want to be driving that around like that, I'd hate to have a front wishbone fail going 65mph down the road.
gee, you need a plan, but if your "finishing" it your going to struggle, it might be best to consider it a pile of parts . Proper front suspension is what you have ............ easiest and most economical way to get there? those two things don't really go together. Id suggest going over as many Model A build threads on here as you can and come up with a plan.
I agree, I'm not that concerned about making this look like it has the original body, so where the firewall sits so long as I have leg room and I'm not over the rear end is fine. I may cut the firewall and flip it around and weld it back in at work (work in a sheet metal fab shop as a TIG welder) for more clearance but yeah it's going to be tight. The driveshaft has already been made for it and installed as well so If I wanted to lengthen it, I think I'd do it from the firewall forward. So the mounting points for the transmission would stay the same, engine mounts are easy enough to move and fabricate. I'll most likely start saving a little out of every pay check and when I have enough just order a front suspension for it, but that means it wont be any time soon. Which is fine, gives me plenty of time to figure out what I really want to do with it. And how I want to go about it. Also yeah, he did that when he was in his early 30's when he first got a stick welder... he's 72 now. Yeah I don't like what he did there either. Funny cause he went on to become a master GM tech. He did it to change the caster angle, I think he probably over did it. I could correct it and bring the caster back to 0, cut and reweld those bars. And I may, but that leaves the front still needing disk brakes and that would require me to fabricate who knows what depending on what they come off of. I may do that just to save money, but the newer IFS is nice. Thing is, do I want to spend that much on IFS but then turn around and put a home made body on it a budget built hotrod?
Look at the Speedway Motors website, they have all kinds of disc brake kits for that front axle. You can't beat an original Ford axle for strength, and the kits are the easy way to go. As to the weird welded radius arms, you could either get a set of originals that have been split the correct way, or go with hair pins or a 4 bar system, each a step up in pricing. Speedway has a lot of good tips in their catalogs, too. Stay away from an IFS setup, they never look right on a fenderless vehicle. The straight I beam axle is a proven front end under millions of cars and trucks. What kind of body do you plan on using? A tudor sedan wouldn't look bad with a stretched nose as long as it wasn't too long, or a open tub would be about the same. A roadster pickup with a short box is another idea, again the length of the extended nose is the thing to watch for. Maybe even a home made woody style wagon. Take a good side pic, then if you are good at photoshop, put a body on the pic, or if not, just print it out and draw it on paper. I'd decide on the body and how long I wanted the hood before I started extending the frame, you might find a happy place with the frame length you have now.
I just took some quick measurements, looks like the frame is 106 1/4", which puts the center line 53.125", which looks to be what the firewall/cowl is centered over. ETA: Thank you for posting that information above about speedway! As far as body, I don't have a plan there, it's completely open so long as it's not expensive lol. That said, I work at a sheet metal fabrication shop and I'm a TIG welder.... sooo I'm thinking I may home brew something. Here's a front shot of the suspension. That said, I like this sort of thing. I'm thinking just add a roll bar, and maybe some sort of removable cover.
This would be a good time to sit down and figure what everything is going to cost. You are at the first step in a journey of a thousand miles and it would be good to know what is at the end. It is better to know now than later. You should put your general location in your profile, you can never tell when it might pay off. Is the paperwork (title) clean, that is a good first step? Charlie Stephens
There is a ton of good information on these Model A's on this site. Spend some time searching and reading and looking at pics, ask questions, look at some build threads to see how others have done it. There's a gold mine of good info here for you, but you have to do some mining. The 2 pics you posted are both on 32 frames. You my just mean you'd like a roadster. That's cool, but you've got a cowl from something else. Sloppy jalopies posted some tips above to tell which cowl you have, so you can match up a body to it.
oooOOOOOOooo This, all this, minus the silly German helmet fighter silliness and helmet. Strip the "theme" crap off and, that... "Red Barron" Hell, it even has the same engine! As for a title, ugh what title?
I always wanted to make a closed cab roadster pick up... using 3 doors, cut one in half, with the factory jam at the rear, cut the jam off about 1" from the outer skin, use that "flange" to butt the rear cab panel to, still need to build b pillars and latch options... gives factory looking edges to the cab..[Canadian?] ... but I did... cut away, trim off the section of W/S post that would be hidden when the door is closed [about 1/2" front to back] cap it with a section of flat steel, makes it look more like a cabbie, tilted back about 10*, use a Vicky style filler panel under the W/S...this lets the W/S frame fit better when closed. Clamp a 31ish" section of 1.75" exhaust pipe onto a rigid steel table, 1" block under each end, 1.5" in the center, heat red hot 3/8" wide each side of bottom center, need not be red all at once, just once... It will expand the steel at first, as it cools, clamp the loose end down with c clamp vise-grips... wiggle the clamp, if it moves take a little tighter bite, check it every 30 seconds, if loose re-clamp... the heat bakes the carbon from the steel making it shrink as it cools in a smooth even arch, after cold rotate 90* so the 1/2" arch matches the '30-'31's outer door skin's arch, you can weld it in at different hights on the door... I had a pair of doors cut at the upper beltline crease I welded the pipe at that level, it blended pretty well with the larger beltline's radiused bead resulting in a '32 roadsterish doortop... 1"square tube arched across the top of the rear cab panel... pix on my frozen computer, will try for a pic..
pic #1... '30 coupester, exhaust pipe doortops with narrowed, tilted and chopped posts... pic #2... '30 pick up come roadster pick up, narrowed but not tilted posts... exhaust pipe door tops... . .
Way back in the day we used to bend the heck out of our radius arms for oval track racing, it allowed you to turn a lot sharper, otherwise the tires would rub on the arms. I do agree this is a sloppy job, good for maybe up to 15MPH! But it looks like maybe the guy was trying to get more turn radius.
Small update, pulled the drive shaft, starter, transmission and bell housing, also my father gave me his old stick welder and some old "vintage" I suppose Dixco gauge's. That old 3 speed "Rock Crusher" is F'ing heavy for it's small size. Counted rotation of the drive shaft and rear wheels, only one would turn and got approximately 1.625, my father told me since it's not a posi you have to turn the other wheel in sync with it as it's probably just going though the spider gear set, if I double it that would probably give me the actual ratio, so that's likely a 3.323:1, with a redline of 6,5000 rpm on the engine wound out in 3rd (1:1) if it would pull it's self there (doubt it with a rat rod home made body) it should be around 155mph gear limited with the rear wheels/tires on it. (13" radius from center to outer edge) I think it was like 2925mph for 70mph, so that's not to bad for the highway. Wish I knew what 2nd gear was, I'd like to know if it would do the 1/4" mile in theory with one gear shift. GUILTY!!!! It's an old PennCraft machine with a range from 20-230 amps, with a bread box full of filler rods.
Yeah the way they're building the body by running tube and then a skin over it was what I had planned to do, Not sure if I'm going to have the rear square or try to sort of curved rear, I work in a sheet metal fab shop but we don't use English wheel's or anything so we can't do compound curves, (we can do curves with press's and dies just not compound) Or well one or two of the real old guys can somewhat do compounds but I sure as hell can't! And they're not big pieces they do it on. So that will be a big limiting factor. Not much progress today, straightened up the shop some, bagged and labeled a couple bolts, removed the pressure plate and clutch disk. Couldn't get the flywheel to budge, so I'm going to have to look for some sort of puller I guess or build one.
I sprayed the flywheel with some Liquid wrench and waited an hour, came back and put a piece of a 2x10 between the flywheel and grabbed a fairly good sized ball peen hammer and worked my way around it going from one side to the opposite, once I got it where it would wiggle pretty easily I grabbed my pry bars again and wiggled it off. Glad I thought to put a piece of wood on the floor for it to fall onto as I had no way to wiggle it off and catch the thing at the same time. Felt like it was 25-30lb! I f#$* hate freeze plugs! Got tired of fighting it in the humid heat and came back inside for a glass of tea...got to brew it first but I'll make some and enjoy a glass and go back out later when it's cooled down. Might as well attack them all I guess so I'm not doing this to the other two later on. I was trying to get the whole thing to come out rather than have to bang out the center and then mess with the ring/side of the plug. But it's seeming it will be easier to just bang around the inner edge and "rip" it around until the center is tore out and get the ring out then.
Just a side note, that rearend is not a '67. Last year for a dropout center section GM rearend is 1964 Cliff Ramsdell
had a GIRL at napa tells me in no uncertain terms that those are core plugs... the block would crack long before it froze down to the plugs... and I hate them too...
You're correct, he told me 62, he had a 67 GMC pickup so that's the only thing I can think of as to somehow I came up with 67...
Way Kool build . I like the idea that you are using the Pontic Six . Build what you want there are no rules . Just keep it safe. Remember none of the r#t things here .
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