sold my shoebox to another hamber last may and picked up a mech. restored a roadster from a guy in maryland.it came with a bunch of extra parts including n.o.s dirttrack tires with no dry rot on 35 wires.he said no one would want to buy them because there ugly.guess i like ugly.anyway i'm gonna try to do a build thread even though i've already done a ton of work.going for a 40's style lakes feel.90% pre 49 ford parts.these pics are the day i got it home.
i bought a complete 38 ford chassis with running 24 stud 39 motor and trans.it has wide fives and a 36 alxe.even had new exhaust.i pulled it all apart and sold the frame and brakes for almost what i paid for the whole mess.
Ugly to him, gold to me Looks like you got a good one with a good plan, keep the pics and progress report coming.
i pulled the a chassis all apart and sold off all the original parts i didn't want.i gave the frame a 3" step in the back and fabbed a k member.this thing gave me nose bleeds so i bought a 40 filled dago axle without a strech off the hamb and added a reversed eye spring and fabbed some shackles to fit the axle.inthe back i used a speedway reversed eye t style spring.
i used the 38 rear shocks in front with some bending of the arms.shortened some dog bonesand welded the to of a model spring perch to the wishbone for the shock link ball.the back has tube shocks with 48 lower mounts.
headlight bar is a 31 that i mounted to the side of the frame with a bit of fab work and added guides for class.
steering is f1 box with model a flange.i shortened it and added a keyed shaft for my 40 wheel.also fabbed a colunm drop from aluminum with a cool pilot light.
added a 32 grill and shell and made an aluminum hood top.i'm not sold on the hood yet, but i'm still gonna make the sides.i may end up selling it off in the end.
Those are the original "Knobby Tires"... When I was a kid growing up in the country, all the local farmers ran those on the back of their trucks year round... Known as one of the first mud and snow tires... Those are Allstate's, sold exclusively at Sears...
the tires are like brand spankin new.i don't know how the guy kept em so nice.i don't think i'll run them all the time.they will come out when i remove the head light and wind screen.firestone made a tire that looks almost the same i've seen on old racers.
made alot of progress in the last couple weeks.i got all the metal work done.and i chopped the windshield frame to fit the john lee williamson posts.skinned a door and replaced the other.gettin ready to finish the body work before snow flies.pushed it out for a couple pics.
good looking roadster, I like the hood. What aluminum did you get to fab the hood? thickness, type etc. I'm thinking of doing side panels with louvers for my hood.
tex, i used .63 5052-h3 aluminum.roughly 16ga.it's very hard to roll by hand.i think if i had to do it again with any bend i would use a slightly thinner sheet.around .50 thick.
Just a quick note for Tex if he is thinking of louvers. We tried a scrap of onekoolkat1950's material and it will louver. Just have to ensure it stays perfectly flat on the die so it doesn't catch when hydraulics return the ram.
thanks for the replies guys. Looking for some aluminum. Started snowing today, '34 didn't go so good so I had to use the front wheel driver.
before i removed the body today i took some pics of the finished bodywork in primer.now itt's time to finish the chassis and start painting everything.so much left to do!