Projects The Anti-nowhere coupe. Banger to Av8 build

To preface things, I have had my 1930 model A coupe for almost a year and half. When I got it (I traded a very rough 36 coupe project) it was basically a stock vehicle minus the fenders. In an attempt to get something on the road, I worked out a few bugs, chopped a little more out of the roof, and scooted around town under banger power and mechanical brakes.

It didn't take long for me to decide that a v8 was in order so parts were collected and a second chassis was sourced out in order to keep the coupe on the road.

Plans are to finish the Av8 chassis, then swap my body, wheels, and other things over and then cruise around under V8 power.

I was lucky enough to participate in the 2016 hotrod hill climb, so I think it would be pretty cool to be able to take it this coming year in its more capable form.

So, into the car. Here are some pictures of what it looks like now. Good driver, fun vehicle, but not quite enough power for me.

 

First thing I found was the motor. Actually at one point I had two motors, this 8ba and a 59ab. I ran the compression for both (which were running motors) and the later one had some great numbers so I ended up keeping it and selling the 59ab. This one came out of an F6 farm truck that had a PTO and a dump bed. The guy said i had to take the transmission too, which is now on the side of my shed in my backyard.


And here is the frame I ended up finding. Fully boxed model a setup for $200. But it didn't start out this nice. It was used under a streetrod for a while so I had to cut off a lot of shit (like 4 bar mounts and all that).

 

A little jump ahead but I found a complete 33/34 front end with juice brakes for sale. I also brought home a stock banjo rear from Bert's. With these I was able to get kind of a roller ready.

I learned a lot from Elrod's build thread and decided that going the f1 pickup route for my crossmember and pedals was a good idea since I have a really good resource for f1 parts.


So here is the start of my crossmember. A little engine and trans mockup got me here. I also borrowed a cowl from Bert's for this purpose which proved to be very useful.



So one cool part about doing a F1 crossmember is that once you cut and shape the verticals surface to fit the model A frame, you can heat and bent the bottom flange to meet up on the bottom of the frame which results in a very natural looking modified crossmember.

 

While there have been other ways to move the pedal mounting inboard, I chose to just cut, relocate, and weld

 

Next it was time for steering. I was initially going to utilize my 33 drag link which would have necessitated me to move the column back a few inches


Aside from that, it was decided that I would go f1 on my column and box as well. By now I'm sure most of you are familiar with the process of welding a model a flange to an f1 box...but here it is again.

 

Turns out using the 33 drag link put my column in a lame spot...so now I had two holes in the side of my frame


After fixing that i made access on the inside of the frame




With a model a drag link everything lines up nice


One thing that will be addressed is the drag link angle, i know there worse out there, but when everything gets assembled i want to see if i can flip my steering arm upside down and have my drag link come in from the bottom. Either that or heating the steering arm up and bending it.



Looks like adequate clearance.

 

Another killer tip from Elrod's thread was his motor mount idea. I had an old jacked up 35-40 front crossmember so I cut the motor pedestals off of it and made it look like something a little more organic than rectangle tubing



Looks like fitment is close

 

Not too shabby

 

During all this I was able to locate another banjo rear but with juice brakes. Bonus on that was it had a reversed eye spring as well. Since all of my big fabrication work was done (or so I thought) I decided that getting all the brakes pre-plumbed would be a good idea as well.

 

The fabrication part of this went unusually smooth. I guess i am used to having to figure everything out on my own, or scour the web for info. With this thing, everyone knows the formula and it certainly works! Probably as close to bolt together as you could get.

 

Keep goin!!

 

At this point it was getting close to the hillclimb and I wanted to make sure the anti-nowhere coupe would be ready so I sent off my wheels to get powdercoated and ordered some tires.
Fronts are 16" with a 600-16 and rears are a 17" with a 700-17.




I also lowered the seat and put some cool helicopter belts in it.

 

Then it was time to have some fun at the hot rod hill climb. If this thing wasn't the slowest car there, then it was the 2nd to slowest. Still a blast though. It was at last year's event that I made the decision to build a car like this. I've had plenty of cool old stuff, even another model A, but nothing with this much loyalty to a certain period.

 

Better safe than sorry right? Did a tardel style z in the rear to compliment the reverse eye spring. Plated it with some rectangular tube to give it additional strength

 

So after the major fabrication was done i took a little break, and decided to hit it hard at the end of the year.
For how nice this front end was, the spring perches were pretty stubborn. I didn't need to get them cherry hot, but some heat and an air hammer were both necessary to get them out.

 

Brake time. cleaned up my drums and sent them out along with the old shoes to be relined and contoured

 

When i first got my car I had ordered an axle from Kohler Kustoms. The ironic part was that by the time it arrived i had already started on this chassis so it just went in the corner. Nothing against the guy but the axle is pretty pitted and will probably only be on there for the first season. A little filing of the perch bosses allowed the axle to slide right into those 33 wishbones.

 

Man is that a full stack...



Thats better

 

Cleaning my backing plates up

 

This rear leaf spring was so crusted with grease, it just sat around for a while before i even wanted to mess with it. Brake cleaner didnt really do anything, and i thought i was going to have to take it to a tranny shop or something to get them cleaned. Turns out gasoline strips that shit right off.

 

I decided to try something a little different on the frame. This stuff was recommended to me by the paint and body supply place. One thing i really liked was that since it is waterborne it didn't off-gas as much as other types of paint. The only thing i didn't really like though was the overall sheen...way too shiny. My recommendation is Duplicolor's Acrylic Enamel. That stuff sprays really nice, and has a great eggshell sheen. Not semi gloss but not high gloss.

 

And that basically leaves us to where we are at this week. I bought a cool old drill press too, but this week i am focusing on assembling suspension. I am hoping to get my brakes back before the weekend. If so i will have a roller. Plan after that is to freshen up my pedal set, steering box/column, and then mockup the motor and trans one more time to see where i need to fab up my wishbone mount.

 

Great 3T build!
Tried, true, traditional.
Keep the progress going.

 

Nice work, this car will be a lot more fun at the hillclimb with more power, and look good doing it too.

 

Thanks guys. I haven't posted in a while. Glad to hear there's still people on here lol

 

Looks great. Hope to see you at the hill climb this year.

 

Solid looking coupe, you should have hopped up the banger Will be watching

 

Nice build, I'm in for the ride! Nice garage too!

 

Nice car,nice work too!

 

Thank you all for the comments. This weekend should yield some pretty good progress. Yesterday I got my drums and shoes back from our guy here in Colorado (at only twice the price and twice the amount of time I was quoted...wow what a deal!). So I kicked off today with painting my drums then assembling my backing plates.