Projects 29 Model A Couprielet, A Phantom Sleeper

After months of waiting, I finally took possession of this. It all started about March last year when I saw a pair of 30 Coupe doors for sale on the Aussie Hambers Facebook page. The price was too good to pass up so I contacted the owner and within a week I was the proud owner of a pair of coupe doors.

 

I was not really sure what I was going to do with them, I could have flipped them and doubled my money, but gut instinct told me to hold onto them instead. Around the same time as i got the doors I was buying a lot of metal shaping equipment so i figured they would make good patterns for patch panels.

 

Inspiration really came when I attended the Street Nationals in Bendigo at Easter time. I saw a number of very cool traditional rods around the grounds, but this one really stood out. A further investigation showed it had a disc brake front end and small block Ford. This really got me thinking about an almost stock looking car that was anything but stock.

 

The more I looked at it, the more I got thinking about doing my own. But instead why not keep the front end stock height and keep the bumpers. The stock height front end would compensate for the appalling roads and disc brakes would make it stop faster.

 

I already had the doors, so I began searching for a nice 30 Closed cowl. The plan was to collect what i needed piece by piece and fabricate what I could not find. I finally picked up a nice 30 A closed cowl in June, so the search was on for quarter panels.

 

At the same time I was also looking at complete or near complete coupe bodies, as I realized the chances of getting coupe quarters on their own were slim to non existent.

 

Keep in mind that any 26 to 34 closed body Ford body is extremely rare in Australia. There were a few coupe bodies for sale but being priced between 12 to 14 grand they were beyond what I wanted to spend. Still I kept looking until one day I spotted an ad for a 1929 Model A Cabriolet body. As soon as I saw the ad I contacted the owner and arranged payment. He had, had a 30 A cab for sale for ages so a deal was made to purchase the two, which in turn brought the price of both down considerably.

 

looks like some of the cut down cowls at my house... note the cowl half of the hinge look kind of like knuckles... they won't work with the male / female style, but if you have both of the same style hinge halves they will replace the other whole hinge.... those hinges were on the '29 Murrays.... Henry may have used them as leftovers... I have found them on coupes and trucks...
check your door hinge halves...see if they fit.

 

Between the Cabriolet body and the Pickup cab, I had enough parts to finally put a coupe body together, but one thing was missing, something to actually build it on. The missing component arrived a couple of days ago and is finally sitting in side my shed. It took a bit of effort to get it in there, but the effort was worth it. The frame is solid and looks to be straight and the running boards, valance panels and fenders are all repairable.

 

The back brakes were locked up so i had to replace the stock rear end with a later Borgwarner diff to get it rolling again. The bull bar on the ute came in very handy for pushing it up onto the flat.

 

The plan is to use most the Cabriolet Body, but instead of using the cabriolet doors, I will use the 30 Coupe doors instead. Hence the name Couprielet. It will be a hybrid of a Cabriolet and Sports Coupe and will use the Briggs cowl instead of the step down Ford cowl.

 

To keep things even more interesting I will be flipping the doors to make them suicide doors. I will use the shrinker/stretcher on the quarter panels to make sure the contour is the same as the one on the 30 Cowl at the A Pillar.

 

The A pillar will be fabricated to the same design as the B Pillar on the 30 Pickup cab that I can take patterns from.

 

One thing I was lucky with when I got the Cabriolet body was all the original timber I can use as patterns. I also have a number of diagrams showing the layout for each section. I will be replacing most of it with steel but the top will still have some timber sections mainly the hood bows themselves. The frame itself will be reproduced with a flat bar bender. The goal is to make it fold down like a normal Cabriolet.

 

Should be an interesting project, what running gear have you planned?

 

I'm also keen to hear your plans. Good luck with your build.

 

That cowl is a '29 Murray not a '30 [3 Pce. firewall] ... if you haven't bought the panel above the decklid, ford used the same panel on '28-'29, sport, special and coupes and '29 to '31 cabriolets.... the sport coupe should be cheaper...HIH.

 

Sorry for the mix up. The cowl in the image is indeed a 29 and was included when i purchased the Cabriolet body. However the cowl I am getting the layouts for the hinge placement is a 30 the reason being is that i am using the 30 doors instead of the 29 Cabriolet doors. It is shown here.

 

Hey Guys.
I spent most of the day indoors today trying to stay cool, we are going through a heatwave at the moment. Its 7.30 in the evening and just under 90 degrees f or 32 degrees c.
The summers here are not normally this bad, but we always get a few days like this.

Even so I still managed to plan out a few more things. This was mostly related to my workshop layout. I started rebuilding it in August especially for this project but as things stand there is not enough room to even stand in there.

 

I ended up building a rough sheet styrene model of the floor area in 125 scale and placed one of my Model A model kits in there to work out how to maximise my available space. As well as the cut down tourer I also have my Chev 34 coupe in there and another Model A frame. The frame or each of them is visible on the right. I finally worked out that by reversing the direction 34 frame so that the front end is facing to the rear of the shed and by sliding the A frame front first directly underneath the frame of the tourer, i would finally have the space i need to work.

 

My intention was to roll the A out each day to work on it but the front end of the 34 Chev is blocking me from doing that. I had to jack it up to even get it in there in the first place.

 

Anyway there is still plenty to do in the meantime. One thing I have not gone into more detail with is the build plans. I said it was going to be a sleeper, which obviously means a stock height roof and full fenders, but there is twist, as well as suicide doors, there will be a few other changes as well. I am not using the stock A grill, instead I am opting for a 32 commercial grill shell. I purchased this original one last year for a 34 BB Ford truck that I own. Even so I like the styling so much that I am looking at getting another repro steel one just for the Model A. There will be no headlight bar to interrupt the flow of the grill either. I will be using GM bullit style headlights with staunchions that attach to the sides of the grillshell.

 

I was lucky enough to get this solid Briggs hood at a swap meet late last year for only $150. This will be used as a pattern for one that I will be fabricating to suit the 32 grill shell. It is too nice to cut up and the shape of the stock one would need to modified anyway to match the shape of the 32 flange, so i figured it would be easier to build a new one. The sides will feature deluxe style cupboard style louvers similar to what was seen on the 32 Chevs just for something a little different.

 

As far as the drive line goes there will be nothing exotic. I have a 302 Cleveland sitting down in another shed that i will be using. Just in case you are wondering, the 302 Cleveland was built by ford Australia in the 1970s for our XA to XE Falcons and over the next coupe of decades it was one of the most popular choices for rodders in Australia with a few even finding there way into 34 Chevs. I will be coupling it up to a standard top loader four speed. As for the suspension, there will be no compromise on safety with disc brakes on all four corners and an aftermarket I beam/four bar front end. This will have the purists in both camps up in arms no doubt but at the end of the day from a safety and engineering point of view, it makes perfect sense. The state I live in is making it harder and harder to get street rods and customs engineered so I don't want to make it any harder than it already is.

 

The rear end will either be a narrowed nine inch, standard eight inch or something different again, a Jag rear. They can be had for only a third of the price of a 9 inch and would be perfect for the rotten roads in my area. If i cant get a decent 9 inch for less than $1500 i am sure i will get a nice jag rear end for far less.

 

With the exception of the rear end I want to keep all the other components in the drive train all Ford right down to the wheels. After careful consideration I have decided I want to go with stock 32 rims front and back. The hubs will need to be reworked to take the aftermarket stub axles and rear end hubs, but none of this will be visible under the stock 32 hub caps.

 

Until I get the workshop re arranged I wont be doing anything major but one thing I will be doing is making up a jig for the rear fenders so that i can hang the quarter panels off them once I am able to roll it out of the work shop. That's the next task.

 

Those grilles look real sharp chrome plated!


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

 

Nice project, I like the mix & match coachwork. Bob

 

Interesting, so it'll look like a Sport Coupe with door window frames but the top will fold like a Cabriolet? Not sure if I've ever seen that done, looking forward to seeing more of this.

I'm also a fan of the '32 truck grilles. The stainless trim band from a '34 truck grille fits onto the '32 grille really nicely and are available as repops from Bob Drake relatively cheaply, that's what I did on my roadster.