Projects My '32 5 Window Project - Done and Cruising!!!

I've posted in several different threads where I've asked questions, time to bring it all into one build thread. Lots of info up-front to get things in one place then I'll add to it as things happen. Thanks for following along.

In the beginning I started selling old race parts that littered my shop. We raced for 25 years in IMCA stock cars, modifieds and dirt late models. I have also had several OT projects thru the shop in the last 30 years. Time to clean and decided Craigslist was the place to start. Once I sold for a month or so, it dawned on me that I could possible sell enough unwanted stuff to fund a '32 5 window build I had always wanted.

After selling for 3 months, I had enough for an "entry level" street rod/hot rod kit. I started shopping hard. Asked a lot of questions and got some great feedback from the folks here. I went from looking at $15,000 roller body/chassis kits to working direct with manufacturers to build exactly what I wanted. The thing that was a big tipping point was selling my '55 2 door sedan. That put me over the top. I started looking at higher end stuff yet still keeping the flavor of a hot rod.

The plan started to form. I noticed a lot of builders used Pete and Jake front and/or rear suspension components. I'm only 3.5 hours from P&J so I drove down and talked to them, took a tour and got a quote. Great guys to work with. Went home, poured over the P&J catalog and made tweaks. Drove down a couple of weeks later and made my changes and left a deposit. The ball was rolling!

That weekend the wife had some time off and we were going to do a road trip to look at bodies. I have to touch before I buy. My intent that weekend was to drive to BeBops in Louisiana and look at their body. Something just didn't sit right with me about them and at the last minute I contacted Ed at New Age Motorsports in Connecticut and we changed the direction we were going. After meeting Ed and Chris, and feeling totally comfortable with the quality and care of the product they made, we placed a down payment to hold our place in line and wait 8 month to get the body.

The big parts were ordered. I looked around the shop to see what I could use that I had. A set of coated headers, Weiand intake and Holley carb, some valve cover spacers and early valve covers, a roller 302/5.0 and a C4 were looking for a place to land so that became the engine. I made a couple trips to Yogi's in Monticello, IA to get some parts. Again a great group of people to work with. Also placed an order with Summit, Speedway and another with Brookville. Parts started rolling in!

 

November 2017 I got the call that the chassis was done so a quick trip down was in order. Threw my tires and wheels in the back of the pickup and drove down to pick up the rolling chassis at Pete and Jakes.

Got a '32 frame with triangulated 4 bar, hairpin front. The 9" is all new and full of 31 spline axles and a 3.25 gear and has drum brakes and polished aluminum adjustable coilovers and chrome springs. The front end is a Hi Lite polished Alum-I-Beam, chrome Posies spring and some bling mixed with some natural finish parts to paint for contrast. Had them install the stainless brake line system, proportioning valve, Vega cross steering and combo headlight/shock mounts. Since I was doing a hi boy, they filled all the fender mounting holes, too! Also picked up a set of their polished stainless spreader bars.

I highly recommend working with these folks. Couldn't have been a more pleasant experience from beginning to end. Plus they have a great showroom!

SPark

 

Once I got that home, I mounted the engine/tranny. I raised the front of the engine 5/8" and the tranny 1/2" to gain some clearance around the oil filter. Also got my fan away from the lower radiator hose. I'm using a '71 style timing cover, '69 water pump (right hand hose) and some early 1 grove pulleys (Speedway chrome parts). The secret to using the early pulleys is a Pro Products balancer. It has 3 bolt and 4 bolt lower pulley mounts. Lets me use the 3 bolt lower pulley on the later crank. I did have to make a 1/4" spacer to fit behind the pulley. Everything lines up great.

Also ran fuel lines, trany cooler lines, tranny vacuum line and tacked the stainless exhaust together. Starting to look like a chassis!

SPark

 

Hoses. We've all fought the battle. I use the old "bend a welding wire to shape and browse thru the hose supply at the local parts store" method. Found great fitting upper and lower radiator hoses, a stock bypass hose and then I got to the heater hoses.

I want to hide some things in plain sight on the engine to clean it up a bit. What I ended up doing was a pair of 3/8 NPT to 5/8 hose barb fittings pressed (soon to be welded) into the ends of a piece of 3/4" x .083 wall steel tubing. I then welded tabs to the tubing to mount it on a couple of intake bolts. Another trip to the hose rack and I found a nice molded hose to go from the water pump to the new steel conduit and hopefully I can use some of the cutoff bends to run hose to the heater location once the body is mounted.

Also mounted the temp sending unit at the back of the intake. Had to drill and tap the holes for the 1/2" NPT fittings.

I hate flex hoses, molded will always look nicer to me. It's worth the time measuring, trimming and shopping to find it.

SPark

 

Got the call from New Age Motorsports! They've started on my body. It will have:

3" chop
Filled roof
Rain gutters
Stock style firewall set back to clear my engine location
Custom tranny hump to clear my engine/tranny location
Flip out windshield
Working cowl vent
Hand crank door windows
Roll down back window
Stock style trunk drain
Stock style trunk catch
Flat dash
Stock type hinges and handles
Glass and garnish moldings
All the internal steel tubing bracing and wood

Plan is to head back to Connecticut May 25th to pick it up. Only 1200 miles each way, should be a nice summer cruise again.

Pics taken from the NAM website (their pics show electric windows, mine will be hand crank)

You are now up to date! Will continue to add to this as things happen.

Thanks for looking!
SPark

 

It was a good day! Cardiologist took me off another med. Down to one half of one blood pressure pill a day! Quite a change from 4 pills for BP and 1 or 2 for heart rhythm every day. Quitting work was a good idea and now hopefully I'll feel like working on my toys more with my heart rhythm back up where it belongs instead of hovering around 45-50 all the time!

When I got home from the Doc, had a package from Honest Charlie's waiting for me. Got the stainless dash panel and stainless insert. Had the gauges all winter, just needed a pretty home for them. Car porn!

SPark

 

Been kicking around those gauges in a cluster like that nice to have a chance to see how it looks.

Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Decided on an OBT air filter setup, kinda mimics the hub caps.. The main bod will be painted engine color and the dome is polished aluminum. Also got the stainless fuel lines and PCV line made.

Decided on '41 caps and ribbed trim rings. Got the caps the other day.

The last 6 pics are teasers. Took a scale 3" out of the tops of a couple Revell '32 Ford 5 windows to play with some color combinations. Leaning hard towards the Sage Green with Celery Green wheels (not sure why they look so blue in the pictures, they are a pale yellow/green in person) and trim. The red one also looks decent but it's just overdone to me.

SPark

 

Green looks great. Keep up the quality work.


Phil

 

SPark
I am watching your build with great interest. I am building a 32 also with a Ford 5.0 and Walker radiator. I was able to read the part number for the lower radiator hose, could not make out the number for the upper hose, I'd like to ask if you would share the part number.
Also, are you running a heater, looking at the water pump hose routing leads me to think that you will.
Thank You in advance.

 

Upper hose. Attached a picture.

Using a Ford Motorsports thermostat housing but they don't clear the bypass hose the greatest with this Weiand Stealth intake. Had to do some clearance work on the bottom side by the bypass hose location and will have to tig it back in, kind of hit air in a couple places...

I plan to run a heater. Looking at this:

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Flex-A-Lite-640-Mojave-Universal-Heater,304.html

with the extra (model 650) plenum on it so I can have defrost. Have to have defrost for the inspection to get a title issued as a specially constructed vehicle, 1932 Ford. They might pass it with a bus fan depending on the officer doing the inspecting but they have to pass a defroster. Also like to hit a few shows at the end of the season where a heater could come in handy!

SPark

 

Color decided......I think......
SPark

 

Think we’ve agreed on a color (as of today anyway).

Sage Green with Celery Green accents. Probably a little pinstriping for accents, too.

Got all the battery cables routed and secured to the frame. Also chose the solenoid location. Tucked out of the way but easily accessible from the bottom. Ground lugs welded to the frame. Worked on our dirt late models, should work here!

SPark

 

Nice build and workmanship,
but while I don’t like to be critical, I don’t see too much that fits in with this forum.
Front discs, coil overs, are what I am referring to.

 

That's a very similar color to Jerry Hagen's 32 five-window out of Illinois a few years ago. Did you ever see that car? He had it at Des Moines GoodGuys at least once.

 

That's true. Between the coilovers (common on early 60's drag and show cars), radials (Patented 1915), front discs (1902), glass body (1940's) and a lot of other things maybe it doesn't need to be here. Seem to be a lot of other cars here with coilovers, discs, etc. It will have a somewhat traditional look but it will be all new parts. I plan to drive it a lot and enjoy it. Want to be able to get parts anywhere I need to. Trying to keep things simple. Time marches on and I learn as I go. Built a lot of cars and learned something on every one.

I'll just stop sharing my progress on this board. The car will still be built the way I want it but you won't have to look at it that way. Have a nice day.

SPark

 

Maybe I have seen it, don't remember it though. Been to Good Guys several times and always spend a lot of time going over the '32's. Might have stuck in my head and I didn't even realize it. Spent a ton of time cruising the internet looking at colors. Saved a couple hundred pictures I keep going back thru trying to decide. I'm usually happy with primer and getting it driving, wife agreed to the project with the stipulation this one gets painted.

SPark

 

The HAMB has a plethora of cars like yours (and mine), not sure why Clem would say that.
Please continue, if I'm not mistaken this is the general discussion area, not the traditional hot rods category.

 

Kind of what I thought, too.
Thanks, SPark

 

Sorry,
Probably a poor choice of wording.And probably should have expanded on what I was thinking.
I thought that front discs and coil overs were not considered traditional.
I have followed other threads on here that were very similar and mysteriously disappeared.
I assumed that they disappeared for the reason of parts used, front discs etc
Maybe it was other reasons, I don’t know.
Maybe the key to that is your comment about being in the general forum or traditional forum.
That is my misinterpretation of things.
I have always been reluctant to post any thing much about my coupe due to it having - front discs and coil overs. I don’t consider it traditional and thought that it didn’t fit on this forum.
Ironically it is a ‘32 5 window also.

Clemens.

 

I hope that you continue to post.
Certainly didn’t mean to be offensive , although that’s how I came across.
My apologies.
Clemens.

 

Whew! Biting my lip and shaking my head. I just don't understand post such as #14. Unfortunate! I am helping a friend with a very similar build to SPark's and have thoroughly enjoyed him sharing his build with everyone. I sincerely hope that post #14 does not discourage SPark from sharing further progress with Forum members. A great build for sure, with lots of good information shared with others. Please continue sharing your build.

 

After reading your post and DDDenny’s, I went back to the forum’s guide lines, and yes I got it wrong on the discs and coil overs. My lack of understanding and something that I should have researched more. DDDenny had it right with the difference between traditional and general discussion forums.

So to all involved, especially the original poster, my sincere apologies.
Sorry to also taint your thread with this.

 

Just a short derail to your thread.

Clem
Regarding the traditional versus general categories, I personally experienced something that happened here recently that I couldn't quite understand.
I had posted a photo of my engine which by traditional standards is non HAMB friendly, in a short time it disappeared (no explanation). Couldn't figure out why when I had posted the same photo on other threads before.
Come to find out, due to low battery on my regular tablet, I was using another tablet that I had the HAMB saved as "traditional hot rods" and hadn't given it any thought when I used it to post the engine photo, apparently the report button got pressed enough times to get the moderators attention.
Stay between the lines, the lines are your friend

 

Pictures tell the story of the last 74.5 hours. Body meets frame tomorrow afternoon!

SPark

 

Thanks to a great group of friends on a 95* day. At least we had free beer for them!

SPark

 

I have enjoyed this thread and happy motoring...……….

 

Body mounted. Had to remove a little boss on the bellhousing before it would come forward all the way. Little fiberglass trimming at the top 2 bellhousing bolts and it slid into place perfect. Engine fits the firewall nice and tight. They did a great job working with the pictures and drawings I supplied for engine/tranny location for creating the firewall and trans tunnel. Great custom fit. Really happy with the body. Doors open and close nicely, everything stayed as build in their jig moving it to my chassis. Happy day!

SPark

 

Uber cool!

 

Little bit of progress. Decided on Chevy taillights. Got them where I wanted them and drilled the holes. Dash cut for gauges and insert laid out. Also drilled the brake pedal hole. Baby steps. It's 95* in the shop again so work will be slow.
SPark