I'm dedicating this story to one of my fellow fabricator friends back home in Texas who passed away recently. Rest in peace buddy. Hey everyone I thought this would be a good place to share my car build story so here goes nothing! I picked up a 29 Ford rust bucket out in a field in Conroe, Tx. back in 2010 after I saw a craigslist add put up by one hell of a roughneck named Taylor. The car was in rough shape but seeing it lay there lifelessly with junk piled all over it made me think to myself... Oh hell no. I'm bringing this car back to life again. It would be the first time in about 50 years this little Ford has felt the wind rush down it's steel body. Since the body was so far gone my vision really was simple. Clean it up..keep it simple stupid..and turn it into a raw mean lookin' rod. Before I started cleaning the layers of farm fresh rust off I started cutting out the lower door/quarter panels that were really rotted out from rust. This way I could recreate the shape of the body and not have any rusty projectiles flying off down the highway hitting traffic I'll be uploading plenty more later..
Before you post a lot of photos,,a introduction will save you some trouble from the intro police,,just a heads up. HRP
After replacing all the lower sheet metal and doing a couple of quick bondo patch jobs I decided I needed to start getting all the rust off the best I could but still leave the pitted look to go with the style I had in mind. Once that was done I could start laying down the primer.. While the primer was drying I figured lets mess around with the seat that was thrown in the car and see if I could come up with any wicked ideas. I used black diamond abbrasive for the blasting since the tubular frame was still plenty strong and the rust was caked on it. Bead blasting really works miracles. For the seat belts I found some pretty cool 50s and 60s USAF trainer lap belts and shoulder harnesses from a place called Omahas Surplus Store. For the seat cushions? Some regular foam bedding sitting under Garden Ridges quality patio furtniture cushions hahah I saw them and it just looked right. Gave it that olive drab military look. (guaranteed to make your ass hurt after long drives!)
Welcome to the forum. Looks like you have brought it a long way from when you got it. Much better. Keep us posted as you go along. Don
After tons and tons of research and shopping around for the right frame I finally found the perfect fit. Of course, it would have been great to use the original frame but for the height of the car and the power I wanted to drop in it..it just wasnt worth trying to box and Z the frame. This is when I came across my good friend Eric's company called Riley Automotive. His double Z'd frame was the first thing that caught my eye. 4" swoop up front and a 8" kick in the rear would drop the body while the 2x4 steel boxed frame was plently strong to drop a high performance sbc in it without any worries of twisting it. Very easy and simple buggy set up concept with leaf springs both front and rear. For my front end..Pete and Jakes drag link,tie rod, panhard bar, hairpin bars, shocks, etc..The axle is a 4" dropped superbell I beam with ford spindles and vented mopar rotors/GM calipers. The rear end I went with was the 9" Ford from Johns industry's with a 3:5 diff. Pretty good combination if you want to get up and go quick I figured! Nothing special with the brakes..just standard Ford drums and Pete and Jakes ladder bars to keep that tailend from swervin'.
Lets drop the body on the frame and see what she looks like. Sits nicely! Alright since theres a new 8" kick in the rear..time to cut out the old wheelwell T and make some bracing for the floor. Flat black for the body..even put some 1/4" bolts on the lower door panels to give it a frankenstein kinda look.
While the body was off I went ahead and finished up drilling and tapping the rest of the brake/fuel lines. NAPA steel lines all the way! I positioned my CPP proportional block behind the MC on the drivers side frame rail and flipped it upsidedown so I could reach the pressure increase/decrease knob easily. Time to buy some new rubber 550x16 up front and 700x16 in the rear is what I went with. Coker firestone deluxe champions. 2 1/2" WW and 4" on the back. They look like big frosted doughnuts..which makes me kinda hungry. The wheels are steel gennies. If anyone is ever in the houston area looking for a powder coater I'd suggest Westside Coatings. Very good quality and reasonable prices. The owner Jorge is a great guy to deal with.
Thanks yall. I often wonder if its from up north. The owner before me got it off a farm in Arkansas which had to been years and years ago since it sat for a long time in tx I know. It's a mystery..tried to even look up the VIN but its been sitting outside for so long its impossible to make it out on the top frame rail or even on the front of the original tank lol.
Since I had the wheels now, time to start looking for a motor. It took me a couple months to find the right one and sure enough I got it! Craigslist add for a 56 Chevy apache with a roller 350. Ring ring ring I called him up as fast as I could and told him I have a rust bucket of my own and wanted the motor and tranny only. I thought he would shoot me down and say no since I already had about 10 no's before this guy..but he didnt! Thanks Chris! Up to huntsville tx to see what it looks like.. After listening to it run for a while with no knocks,pings,dings of any kind I was determined this was my motor. We made a deal and off to the hangar I went my new motor Its a unique kind of motor I like to think. Before his Apache it was in a trike that looked like a 57 Belair. Its a Boss Hoss sbc that was converted all roller and boy it sounds mean. Pushing about 370hp with 400+torque. Definitely quick enough to scoot around a 2000lb rod. 99 motor with less than 2000miles on it with a rebuilt TH350. The cooling source is a custom aluminum radiator made by griffin good up to 400hp and a 16" electric pusher fan. It has a Delco Remy HEI distributor, Edlebrock performer series intake manifold and a Q-jet 750 which at first I understood lots of people called them quadrajunks and lots of people liked them because its a dummy proof kind of carb. It can be a bit challenging at first to work on I must admit but just like anything else give it time and study the crap out of it and then you will understand it!
Swept tube lake headers gives it that right amount of sex appeal. Compliments to Matt out of Gear Drive Speed and Custom. Sick headers. lets get this thing rolling.
Got this 29 cluster from a junkyard for $10, blasted it with glass beads, scored some free 40 ford deluxe trim rings, then the transformation began! Stewart Warner Deluxe black face gauges. View attachment 1730582
Putting the body back on with the frame rolling for the first time.. Chopped the radiator shell a bit to compensate for the double Z in the frame and added my devil head.. Off with the body one last time so I can drill the 7/8" hole on the drivers side rail for the brake pedal, weld it up, and make sure its perpendicular to the X-axis.
Since everything now is drilled,tapped, and welded on the frame that needs to be it is finally time to send eveything off to powdercoat and put it all back together one last time! Gloss black? Oh yeahh Thanks again Jorge.. Bye frame!
Dropped the body back on and bolted it down.. Time to start on the interior work. For the doors I cut out lower panels of 11/32" regular plywood and then stained them mahogany red and polyurethaned them to make it pop a bit more. Threw some signs I picked up from the Lonestar Roundup on them too. 1941 20mm dummy shells for door handles? Sure why not.
The flooring in the rear was pretty simple. The thing that took the most time was cutting out the 1/4" thick 54 chevy truck bed steel for the floor board underneath the fuel tank. Didnt have any plasma torch..just my trusty angle grinder. I felt that if I put a sheet of thick metal under the tank it would just add more strength as opposed to plywood holding up a 17 gallon RCI going down a bumpy road. The rest is 3/4" plywood and 11/32" for the walls. The tunnling for the driveshaft may not be the most beautiful thing but it sure as hell works! Another thing if you fellow hot rodders are in the Houston/Katy area I got my steel from Brookshire steel. Huge supply with very low prices.
I started with the idea of just having roof ribs then decided to go against it and just threw a big wood roof on it, bolted it down and stained it.. The lights were a bit difficult for me to choose. I really like the big 32' ford headlights and liked the kingbee's so I was stuck for a while on that one...but decided it would fit the car better using the kingbee lights. Maybe the next vehicle I'll use the 32'? The tail lights are 39' ford 2 wire teardrops.
Time to cut open the old tank to clean it out for the wiring. I was surprised to see it was actually pretty clean after sitting in fields for decades. I didnt put too much electronic stuff into it so I figured no need for all those fancy wiring harnessnes and whatnot. Just a simple push in 8 blade fuse block I mounted under the old tank and came up with my own wiring diagram from there. I ran all the wiring neatly under the floor boards along side the passenger frame rail and even put in a little kick switch dimmer for the headlights. So many damn zip ties... The battery is mounted behind the passenger on the floor before the kick up where the tank sits. As far as the fuel tank goes, like before I mentioned, its a 17GAL RCI. I made my own straps out of 2" wide 1/8" thick strip metal so there would be no up and down motion and to prevent side to side motion I mounted two old 50cal ammo boxes which I use for my glove compartments. The fuel filler is a home depot special I like to call it.. two 2" long by 1 1/2" wide galvanized steel piping with a 45degree elbow in the middle. I just tack welded it all around a small piece of metal I drilled a hole in then bolted it in 4 places to the body. I finished painting the seat frame flat black and mounted it down. Welded up a BBQ grill for my radiator shell and shot it in flat black.. And just recently I mounted an aircraft wet compass my buddy gave to me that used to belong in one of his cessna 182s and some cheapo pin stripe decal till I can find a real pinstripper. The picture of the man you see is my grandfather standing in his army air corps outfit taken 69 years ago.
People always ask me how do you wake up one day and just decide to build a car at your age? Well..from how I see it if you honestly and truely have a deep passsion or love for something your not going to give up on it...ever. Even if that means working on it a little here then a little there. Its better than nothing! I spent numerous days hardly even eating because I just kept pushing and pushing myself to get more done. Along side having a full time job in aviation this was damn near another full time job. Through countless hours of phone conversations, emailing, readings blogs and forums, youtubing you name it...was it worth it? It sure as hell was. It took me around 1 year 8 months and 2 days to get this Model A back on public streets and the people I met along the way are some of the best friends anyone could ever ask for. Heres a quick video of it idling. I'll post a better video up in the future. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkMJGFpMR_s
A great story, not only about the build, but also about determination, zeal, and passion. Those are traits that obviously carried the build to completion. Thanks for sharing!
The Jalopy Journal
