Projects Milner Lite 32 aka graffiti removal

You have made good choices in the changes to make it your car.

 

I think it's a great idea to start from scratch to build a car .
I have bought several and made changes . It's easer to start from scratch , you know what you got
Blvdbill

 

I was looking at the car and couldn’t figure out what it was I didn’t like. Then I read your comment on the frame and pow right in the kisser it hit me. YES a black frame is in order. IMO.
Andrew

 

It is a great looking car love what you’re doing.
Andrew

 

I cannot say I like the giant chrome headlights. They seem to belong on a much bigger car. And changing out the Covico did not help the Hot Rod image that car had going on. Let's see where this keeps going.

 

Car looks great.
Maybe chrome the windshield frame?
I love the unchopped look.
Maybe have one of the photoshop guys paint the frame black to see how it looks, I have my doubts.
What brand and model number are the new headers?

Great transformation and its your car so do what floats your boat, we all have opinions.

 

Graffiti Removal... hah! Love it.

 

My buddy has a Henry 32 5w with an unfilled roof. He wishes he had filled it, and put a "fake" insert in it instead. It's noisy, leaks water, and is starting to come apart. Maybe a "fake" roof insert would be a good option for you, rather than replacing the roof section.

 

that car was vandalized with graffiti, wow you did a good job fixing it ! ... just kidding , looks great ... well done..
way to many a Graffiti clones ...

 

Nice transformation..the car obviously landed in the right hands.

 

Really nice car, love it,keep us posted.


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

 

I do plan on switching to a chrome windshield frame down the road.
The headers are Summit brand. Not sure who makes them for summit but they are decent for the money. Unfortunately come out of Mexico not the USA. Well made thick flanges. Only complaint I have is the stamp the part number and date of manufacturing large right on the flange. Had I known that I would have ordered them uncoated and ground that down.

 

Your '32 is the purest form of perfect hopup...Just tasty!
My first '32 five window was bought from a friend's Mom after he got accepted to M.I.T. All steel, N.O.S. fenders & running boards, fresh paint by Flyer of San Jose.
I hated the maroon paint, (and black frame!) so I sold the 324 Olds and hydro, all 4 fenders/running boards, and bumpers. Stripped the beautiful Maroon Flyer paint (!) and gave it 32 coats of Indian Red Nitrocellulose lacquer.
My mom's boyfriend owned/operated Presto Plating in Santa Clara...so I chromed everything but engine, tranny, and frame...LOL
Fresh 304" flathead, '37 Lincoln box, Culver City Quickie, (borrowed from a friend; '27 'T rear spring, 'A' crossmember.
Looked like yours in the later photos, but RED with RED frame.
Black frames on Deuces make them look like finished chassis with off-color 'glass bodies dropped on them. Please think this and the 'haircut' thru...They're only original 'jewels' once.

 

I appreciate your honest opinion. I can't say that I'm really sure about the steering wheel change either. I do like the feel and even the quality of the limeworks forty wheel. The grip being thinner and the 16" wheel just has a nice feel in the car but the look might not be right. It may change again. One thing everyone will find out as this thread progresses is I'm not afraid to change it all more than once! I'm on my third set of headers and my third set of headlights. They all have their pros and cons.
Headers as an example. I like the GearDrive headers I got from Matt. They are quality pieces and are my favorite look for the car. The engine in this car is a 10:1 383 it moves a large volume of air. It's hard even with baffles and packing to get it to a reasonable noise level. In the end I may go back to the lakes I just need to see how the car winds up looking.
The headlights are big. I went to those once I got a full size grill back on. I had the Arrow 775h on there. They looked good but seemed small on the low mounts. Probably a chrome arrow on a different mount would be ok, but I happy at the moment with these. I have the turnsignals wired in the indicators on top.

 

Don't get me wrong I feel very fortunate to be able to have this 32 to work on. It's been truly a dream of mine to own one and make it my own. But sometimes it just seems easier and defiantly cheaper to build it once the way you want from scratch. In the end so many things are already done that I would have done differently. Not that anything is done poorly just differnt than I would have done.

Since I don't have any new progress to show I'll add some old pictures I have of the car from when I was working on it originally. As I said before I put a quick home made interior in the car a few years back. I took a number of pictures with the interior out to show the mods and condition of the car.






These are pictures of the car as I'm disassembling it originally. I removed the majority of the sound deadening material. The steering column was a temporary change before being put at the correct location and angle. The original rear window wood was already trimmed down to remove the package tray and crank when I got it. The rest of the original wood is all in place including the roof.
The front floor is done in plate steel. Who ever did this changed the angle that it meets the fire wall. Makes the floor very flat the trans tunnel is more of a bump.
So many things are changed since these pics. Steering column redone, switches removed from dash and the dash smoothed and painted, the brake pedal was a joke. You pushed straight down! No leverage. I cut and welded the correct angle and length on it. I had just installed the crank windows in it. Had power that didn't work prior to that.

 

actually let me show you what the interior looked like the day I got it...



This picture makes it look way better than it was! The column was an old GM tilt unit. It was short! Shorter than the dash by 3-4"! It had an 8" drop on the dash and was only able to clear your legs when set flat. Like a t bucket steering wheel. All the excess wire is wrapped around the column. The seat is a glide unit. It's nice but at this point set on risers and back and forth adjusters. Your head was touching the roof. Chopped feel with out the chop!
The black panels are literally plastic cardboard from a craft store cover in vinyl. With speakers mounted in them for good measure!
Since then fixed most of it. Lowered and mounted the seat in a fixed position. Re wired the majority or the cars interior. Made the interior panels out of actual backer board. Ditched the stereo stuff. Put the tilt windshield in it. Installed an emergency/hand brake the car had no kind of emergency/parking brake when I got it. Put the moon tach. Etc etc.

 

I like all the improvements you've made to the car so far, only suggestion, if I may, is to
move the headlights up, and back. Maybe back far enough so the center of the bucket is
even with the center of the grill shell. Just a thought, and thanks for the updates...

 

I've been looking at getting this limeworks mount or building something similar. Not much taller than the stands I have now but I could make one to put the lights at the height that looks best. One thing I need to address is the appearance of my front shock mounts on the frame. They work good but look bad. This could kill two birds with one stone.

 

sweet !!!

 

You have done good. Car is nice.

 

Beautiful!

You are driving my dream car there, be good to it.

 

Nicely done, keep on keepin’ on.....

 

This is my buddy's coupe. The outside exhaust is one of my favorite parts of the car. He had long tube headers on it initially. The outside headers completely change the look of the car! He built the entire exhaust using a header kit from speedway and a bunch of u-bends and straight lengths of pipe. It has a tri-4 bar rear so he ran the exhaust back to just ahead of the axle and there it turns down. It has mufflers tucked up under the body. It sounds good with the full exhaust, and looks cool with the outside headers!

 

You talked about two colors something like this with black walls and a top insert so I thought we might take a look...

 

^^^ Right on! Thanks for taking the time to do that! While I like both. I think the maroon looks the best out of those two. Funny how much a color change can effect the car. Has a more classy vibe to it.

 

I need to move a few things around under the car if I decide to run the exhaust through the frame and out the back . I've spent a lot of time putting together my own exhaust for various cars I've had. I too just buy bends and pieces and stick em all together. In my normal quest to do things multiple times on the same car. The exhaust currently on here is also temporary. I'll use some of the elements and correct all of the things I don't like if I run it under the car in the end. I really prefer to run a crossover/balance pipe on my exhaust I prefer the sound. I have one on it now that goes under the torque converter cover. I even notched the cover to run the pipe tighter. I have a small converter so there was plenty of room. Made a heat shield and wrapped the pipe. But like every thing I learned from this set up and will improve it next go around.
When I first got the car I ran all new stainless fuel line and the correct edelbrock pump. Mounted it inside the frame rail above the double insulated batter cable. The old set up had 5 separate pieces of various material line with holes rubbed in them. A pump that made too much pressure and a twist regulator that did not work consistently.
Old line..

New line..



At the same time I installed a deeper aluminum finned transmission pan, and overkill trans cooler. When I did thus I knew I would need to move it if I ran the exhaust through the frame instead of under it. I will move it all soon. One thing not seen here is I also ran the e brake cables in the rear. They are not in the way, but do take up some space where the exhaust could go.
Old trans cooler that came on this car..

New overkill temporarily run (right through the exhaust hole)cooler...

 

All of this transmission cooler, pan, converter cover talk made me realize I did not mentioned an important detail of the plan. I going to put a manual transmission in next. It's going to be a tremec tko. Sorting out the details of it right now. But I'll be sure to post it here once I get all the pieces together. Checking into running the brake and clutch master cylinder under the dash possibly?? Not sure just yet. Currently the brake mc is under the car. Yet another item to run te exhaust around.
I'm excited to get that 3rd pedal in this car. This is one of the few automatic cars I've had. It works great but I prefer the manual and look forward to the OD on the 5 speed. The coupe had 3.55 gears on a short tire when I bought it, but I had to put 3.00 gears and taller tires to get it highway friendly with the th350 not having overdrive. With the 5 speed I can go back to the 3.55 gears.
Stay tuned!

 

Nice looking car and some nice changes, carry on.

 

Tell me about changing the front windscreen back to original. I have a flush mounted & glued in one in my deuce and would like to change it to the correct tilt out window.

 

On my coupe the original windshield pivots had been cut off flush in the pillar and the rivets for them smoothed over. This was the part that made putting it back in difficult. I bought a set of pivots from UnitedPacific and got them back in position. The pivot location was the most involved part on my car. The upper hinge location was still intact on the interior but covered over with a few pieces of metal tacked over the holes. Once I got the tacked metal removed everything was still intact. I had a set of factory hinges, windshield frame, new pivots, new slide arms and hardware for them, gasket, etc. I carefully cut out the flush mount glass. Was lucky enough to remove all of the urethane holding it in without removing the paint in the jam. With all the pieces in hand I was able to make it all work. Just need to see if the original hinge location holes are still present in you body under the header panel. If so everything else is pretty easy.