Hot Rods Paging Pgan - Build thread for the sedan?

Thinking that we all need to encourage Pat Ganahl to do a build thread on his new sedan. Now that Billy has sent it back to his Dad and it has run it's course as a magazine series, it would be fun to follow along as he blows it apart and finishes it.

The car sure sits nice, and it looks like it's going to be a sweet companion to his roadster, and the F-100. Besides, if he's serious about this retirement stuff, this will fill in for losing out on his writing. An he always builds cool, hands on stuff.

C'mon Pat. Inquiring minds and all that . . . .

 

Anything Pat touch's is golden. His work getting Rod and Custom back on the shelves in 1989 and the 53 Chevy he built for his cousin David is what brought me back from the dark side of late model pro street builds to the light of pre 1970 style builds and custom body and paint! although I still find it hard to believe he actually sold his Grandpa's 48! lol Larry

 

I have always thought Too Tall Ganahl is one of the great movers & shakers of the hot rod hobby. HRP

 

Com'on Pat, inquiring minds want to know!

 

For 45 years I've had to stop what I'm doing in my garage--or others'--to take pictures, take notes, and write captions and copy to explain it. That's what I've just retired from. On the other hand, if I don't have to do it, and don't have deadlines, maybe I'll be motivated to do a bit more of this. We'll see how far it gets. Besides, the Marty Strode Spalding T blog is becoming epic at this point. Do we need more?
As for the Fordor, I assume that most of you, like me, got the latest issue of Street Rodder recently with Rob Fortier's excellent lead photo spread for Part III, showing the car as it arrived in my garage from Bill's South City Rod & Custom, a few weeks ago. I seriously wish I had a magic wand I could wave over it to make it run and drive just the way it looks there, but that's far from possible. That article showed the seats, dash, steerng, A/C, engine/trans, new glass, and much more installed. But it's all got to come back apart to a bare frame to be painted and reassembled, piece by piece.
But first, there really haven't been any good photos of how the car looked when I got it from Bill at the Early Ford Store in San Dimas. So here's a sampling:









Both the body and chassis were very straight, complete, and totally rust free. It had a good 59A flathead with new carb, wiring, and radiator, tube headers and smittys, a good '39 trans, '40 brakes, new dropped axle, and steel wheels. But the lowering job was by flipped main leafs and no shocks. Not drivable the way it sat. So, since Bill had another '34 frame and a jig set up, I sold this rolling, running chassis to one of his customers. I also sold the original mohair seats to someone else. And Bill said he'll take back several original parts (headlights, gauge panel, n.o.s. steering wheel, etc.) in trade for several new parts I need.
So the first order of business was to remove the front sheetmetal, radiator, engine accessories, and extract the 305 Chevy and 700R4 trans with the hillbilly engine hoist system I rigged up in my garage about 30 years ago:


That was a couple of weeks ago and was fairly easy.
Trying to figure out how to separate body and chassis took a little more creativity. Fortunately Bill clued me in to taking the doors (with heavy glass) off first. I also had to take everything out of the interior--seats, dash, A/C, steering wheel and column, brake pedal, etc. This involved lots of numbering parts with tape, bagging and marking fasteners, and so on.
So as of yesterday, this is how things looked, with the body lifted by a stout strap around the floor, onto a pair of sawhorses:





The next step is to remove everything else from the frame and roll it out from under the body. I'm in the process of reshaping and cutting down a dolly I made for my '32 roadster, to mount the '33 body on.
In the meantime I mounted the engine on a stand for a thorough cleaning. Yes, it's a measly 305, but it's all this Roadee needs. It was free. Bill did a compression check and leak-down, which were good. He got an Edelbrock Performer manifold and 4-bbl, as you've seen. I pulled the pan to check the bearings, which look very good. And I decided to install an Edelbrock Performer cam and lifters while I was at it, and good thing I did. The stock cam's nylon gear was completely worn out, with the chain so loose it was wearing a hole in the timing cover. So a new Cloyes Tru-Roller chain and timing gears went in, too. The engine is now painted hammertone gold, and I really wanted to use the early "Chevrolet" script tin valve covers. My other choice is a set of Corvettes. But in either case there's no provision for breathers or adding oil. Have to figure that out.



I think that's enough for a start. Hopefully this will quell some inquiring minds. More when there's more to tell.

Cheers, Pat

 

Thanks Pat!
It's going to be a fun to watch.

 

Thanks Pat, that is why we love you, your place looks a lot like a lot of ours, and you do things kind of the way we do. Now I don’t pretend to have the skills or talent you possess but at least there is a similarity in the process. Now that you have retired the chance of another rise of R&C with you at the helm is gone for sure. Sad, but glad you get to enjoy retirement now. Watching.

 

Here's one solution Pat, and yes I dig script rocker covers too.

 

Cool Beans Pat. Will be cool to follow along.
Eric

 

Awesome

 

Pat, congrats on retirement and now being able to set your own pace and deadlines. That's a fantastic looking Sedan. Will really enjoy following along.

 

Thanks Pat for taking time out of your retirement to update us! Looking forward to your updates and eventually finished project!


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

Please explain what is going on here!
-Thanks

 

Looks like a fitting in the rear of the intake to draw fresh air into the lifter valley from the air cleaner. The oil fill at the front of the valley has the pcv valve plumbed to the carb base. Hard to tell from the photo, but that's my guess as to what is going on here.

Phil

 

Sorry Pat, I didn't want to hijack your thread with a lot of tech talk that really doesn't relate to your car.
@a boner
This is all 66/67 era OEM Chevy small block hardware showing oil fill location.

 

Thanks for updating us Pat. I'll be following along and congratulations on your retirement!!

 

OK inquiring minds, here's a quick update. I was going to do this yesterday, but my faithful camera broke and died, so I had to get a new one and learn (sorta) how to use it. So here goes:






You know how you save things 'cause you might need them some day? Well I saved the body dolly I made out of Bill's old bed frame for my '32 roadster (behind Anna's garden shed). But I made it 4+ ft. tall so I could paint the bottom of the body. It took me two days to cut it down, recurve and redrill the top rails to fit the '33 body, reweld and rebrace it, then find some stronger casters to hold the sedan body weight.
Before attaching the dolly, I had to strip everything from the front of the chassis so I could roll it out from under the car, between the sawhorses. Next I'll strip the rest of the chassis so I can paint it gloss black.
In these photos, I've got the back of the body jacked up to clean off a little surface rust in nooks and crannies, which I'll ultimately spray with rust converter, and maybe some undercoat.
Last night I got all the extra holes in the firewall welded up. Plenty more to come.
Cheers, Pat

 

A-frame and a come-along. Love it. Thanks for sharing Pat!

 

Beware of poles

 

Looks nice.

 

I paid Pat a visit last Thursday. Bill certainly does some great work, and Pat will complete it in grand fashion !

 

Looks like the same progress I have made recently. Lol.

 

Holiday time impinges on retirement time. But between visiting, shopping, and other attendant activities, I was able to get some work done on the '33, so here's a short report:



The front fenders looked pretty good in primer, but a quick hand-rub told me they needed some massaging and finessing. Plus this one needed a hole filled and a bit of other welding. So I did this while I had the welder handy. Then I massaged it with hammer and dolly. The first photo makes it look like there's more Bondo on it than there is. This is just a first coat, lightly roughed out. We're just getting started here. Most will get sanded back off. These 80-yr. old fender are surprisingly good.

There are no rust hole in this car, anywhere. But there was a bit of surface rust in crevices back here, so I gave it a shot of RustMort, then a coat of spray-can paint just to preserve it. I used 3-M spray undercoat on the bottomside of this panel. The floors are remarkably good.

On the inside of the firewall and cowl I used a combination of rust converter (for minor surface rust) and semi-gloss spray-can black. The electrical panel mount in upper left already has a piece of heat shield glued behind it, which this whole area will get once the outside is painted.



So here's where I feel like I'm finally making some progress. I welded up about 25 holes in the firewall, and ground them smooth, using a tad of Schmunda on a few before block-sanding the firewall smooth and coating it with a direct-to-baremetal high-solids primer recommended by Junior Conway. It appears to work quite well. Again, this is just a first coat, with more blocking and priming to go. But at least it's progress, not just disassembly.
Happy Holidays! I'll see how much work I can sneak in between times.
Pat

 

Looking good! I love those old 4 doors.

 

Thanks for sharing Pat. Still nice reading you're stuff. I sure as hell hope I'm not looking up car parts for people after I finally retire, haha.

 

Gotta love a 4 door. HRP

 

Looks like it was a Clean , straight car to start with . I Like Fordors now that I have one . Thanks for the updates

 

Great looking fordor!

 

Was at Jr.'s the first part of the month researching Sam Bronze paint for my car, he said he had just talked with you!

 

Remember, you folks asked me to do this, so don't blame me if my reports on the '33 build are a bit spotty. I've got legit excuses--it's the holiday season, and I'm retired! But here's a quick update.
If you've had any old car reupholstered, you know that tack strips (especially those around doors to hold windlace) that have been used more than once don't work very well a third or fourth time. The situation is worse for cloth top inserts because (1) tops wear out and get replaced several times; (2) consequently the channels for the strips are usually rusty (if not rusted out); and (3) the top gets "pulled up" by strong windforce as you drive at speed (like an airplane wing), meaning the attachment has to be extra strong. A fourth problem is that we have little idea what this tack strip material is--asphalt-impregnated cardboard??--or where to get replacements. My upholsterer strongly recommends a medium-hard plastic strip, about 1/2" x 1/2" that comes in rolls. He's ordering 16+ ft. for my top.
But the first job is getting getting the old tack strip (which had held at least 3 tops) and its channel out. This took 3 days.



The job started with a sharpened old screwdrive and a hammer to chisel the stuff out. Given how tough it was, I began wondering if it wouldn't hold new tacks just fine. But once I started.... Then very quickly I found large-head rivets buried halfway in the strip, about every 6 inches. You see one in the above photo. There were 65 in all that had to be drilled out, from the bottom up.


I left about a third of the rivets in to hold the channels in place while I chiseled, wire-brushed (on a drill), and finally used a large X-Acto knife to cut the rather stubborn stuff out. Once the channels were clean, I drilled out the rest of the rivets and carefully pried the channels out of the groove around the roof in the body (sealed with some kind of hard body tar). The channel is made in five pieces. The most amazing part is that the groove in the body is virtually free of rust. (This body is also full of wood, none of which needs replacing, including the top bows.) This car definitely spent its life in the Southwest, probably on a deserty Air Force base.


The grille looked good from 20 ft., but it had been worked on several times. I had a hard time finding anyone who wanted to touch it, but Terry Hegman finally volunteered, spending a couple days on the outer shell, but saying the bars "still need work." So that's my job today. Patience. Then to Bob Barnes at Verne's Plating for chrome.

Finally, here's a hot tip that has cooled. Years ago I discovered Eastwood's High Temp Stainless Steel coating, which goes on smoothly with a brush and lasts forever. I've used it on cast iron exhaust manifolds and exhaust pipes with excellent results. Unfortunately it's no longer available, and my old half-filled pint can, which was getting gummy, said it could be thinned with "Toluol," which is also unavailable. After much searching I found a Toluene substitute, which did the trick, and I brushed a coat on these Speedway Rams Horns (after some smoothing with a body grinder). At right you see Eastwood's current silver High Temp Coating for exhausts. I haven't tried it yet, but I hope it will look nearly as good on the beautiful mandrel-bent exhaust system Bill built for the car. Okay, enough of this. Time to get out in the garage. Merry Christmas! Pat G.