My dad's wanted to build a hot rod for ever. Last fun car he had was a 57 chevy back in the late 60's. He's not a big metal guy, but an excellent wood worker. Back in 2011 I saw a rendering by Zombie of a Model A based woody hotrod. I thought that thing was too cool. I started talking with my dad and a plan was born. We are fabbing a lot of this ourselves to help save money. Over the next few weeks we are planning to have a rolling chassis done with engine and tranny mocked up. A good friend of ours is a early ford nut and helped us out with a lot of the model A tin we needed. So thanks to him we have a cowl, firewall, grill shell, etc. Along with a bunch of other misc parts. Basic Chassis will be 35-36 spring over solid axle up front with split bones. Cross over steering. Rear end will be transverse spring behind the axle with ladder bars. We are fabbing the frame from plate material and tube. Engine will be a belly button SBC. I know I enjoy reading everyone's build threads so I thought we'd try to add to the community.
Looks like a great start and a cool rendering for inspiration. I have a cowl, frame and flathead etc... with hopes of a similiar future build. Good luck.
I'm not sure if we'll do the rendering any justice, but we're going to give it a hell of a try. We are going to use a 30-31 closed car cowl. We aren't sure how we are going to do the doors or hinges yet. My buddy had the cowl so the price was right. We started building the frame last night. We found prints for the frame on line. Dad drew up the front frame horns in cad and then had them plasma cut from 11ga sheet. So the first 3' or so of the frame is fabricated and then the back will be 2" x 4" steel tube. Dad doubled up the sides of the fabricated area so we had pieces to nest into the tube. It seemed like it used a lot of extra material, but did make welding it up pretty simple. We measured up a factory front crossmember and will fabricate that also. The tranny mount and rear crossmember will be fabricated, but we aren't sure what those will look like yet. I'll keep posting updates as we go. - Jeremy
Well the front frame rails and front cross member are all tacked together. It's starting to look like something. Dad drew this all up and I was impressed with how everything fit together. Only had a couple areas that were a little screwy. Nothing big though. Other than cutting these parts with a plasma cutter this is all being done very low tech using squares and straight edges. Next step is we need to get the front cross member set in the frame rails. Then start building the other cross members. One question for the group is how do we figure out the spring perch spacings for the Model A rear spring we have? We plan to run the spring behind our ford explorer rear end. I was reading somewhere about perches being 49.5" apart, but want to verify that before we put the mounts on. - Jeremy
I got the cross member welded up and set in the frame. My dad had made a fixture to hold things square while we work. Fixture worked better than I thought it might. Dad also got the ladder bar brackets and rear spring brackets cut. Once we get the cross member welded in I think we're going to need to set the frame on the floor to get motor and other crossmembers mocked up. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
very cool .I am a furniture maker and have thought of doing a project like this at some time .this is a car that rolls around wichita.t,that got me thinkin about it.I am thinkin about a tall cab pickup.
Cool project - glad design does not show suicide doors. back in 90's friend had a home built 31 Chevy woodie that looked much like your project. since it was a bit breezy inside he put door sealer, etc every where. sealed it up too good and the pressure build up inside passenger door blew open while on a Calif freeway. almost lost his wife. only thing that kept door with car when they slowed down was the door stereo speaker wiring.
Is your plasma cutter cnc ?....real nice fab work!....doesn't your buddy have an extra FORD motor........( just say no to rodent engines!)
Thanks for the comments guys. Yeah my dad builds some furniture also. Just for fun. We've got a hutch he made and my kids have nice toy boxes he built. So the woody seemed like a natural for him. I figured we'd put his talents to good use. Correct the Plasma table is CNC. It's at my Dad's work. His boss was nice enough to let him cut the stuff at work. Funny thing is another guy at work with a model A coupe is getting a frame cut for it also. This is the first frame I've ever built from scratch. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turning out. It's also the most welding i've done that I really cared about the looks of. And I'm getting better. We've thought about suicide doors, but not sure how to go. Our plan for the body is to build a metal frame work and cover it with wood. Similar to how ford did the 49-51 ford woodies. I'm actually working on my buddies 50 woody also. In one of the pics you see a 50 ford frame and my buddy working on it. He's got brown hair. He's the same guy that hooked us up with the model A tin. At one time he did have some extra flathead v8's but not sure anymore. The v8 in his woody was cracked so he had to scrounge up another block. My dad is dead set on using the SBC. I know it's not very original, but they are economical power. It's been funny watching my Dad on this. He's normally really easy going and not pushy at all. But get a hot rod project going and he's a slave driver. He's been over 4 nights this week working on it. Couple nights i couldn't so he plugged along on his own. It's been really cool to see. I'm starting to regret I gave him a key to the shop!! - Jeremy Here's a hutch my dad built. And a 50 ford woody body to show how the wood on them is just outside skins.
We're still plugging away. Front spindles were rusty so I built an electrolysis bucket to clean them up. First time i've done this and thought it works really well. We found a thread on the HAMB about putting disc brakes on the older style spindles. So we machined up some adapters and it looks like it's going to fit great. Next step is we have to get the wishbone bolts removed from the front axle. Then we should be able to get the front axle assembles so we can put it on the front of the frame and start laying out the rest of it. - Jeremy
I don't know if it will help you or not, but the National Woodie Club offers '28/'29 Ford Woodie plans. You should also think about joining the NWC.
great build! I'm looking at doing the same thing. I have most all the parts to start but need to get my 50 chevy done first.
Your Goals and the Rendering are Awesome !!! Enjoy all of the time that you can with your Dad. You are building a car and making memories that will last a Lifetime......... Jeff
Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to check that out. Looks like there's a local chapter based out of Omaha, NE which is about 2.5 hours from us. Hey Thanks, That whole one project at a time thing I'm not very good at. Thanks! I'm hoping we do the rendering justice. Yeah building this with my dad's been really fun. He's like a kid in a candy store with this. It's a side of him I can't say I've seen before. - Jeremy
Junk, The National Woodie Club's address is National Woodie Club, P.O. Box, 6134, Lincoln, NE. Dues are $35. which includes a free subscription to the "Woodie Times" magazine. There is a chapter inGretna, NE. You won't regret it.
Thanks!! I'm hoping it's going to be stout. We won't have a ton of body structure on this thing. So the frame needs to be fairly rigid. Can't park it off canter and not get the doors open. Thanks Again! Definitely gonna sign up for this. Should probably sign my buddy up also. - Jeremy
Thanks! Zombie's rendering on this is really cool. We got our work cut out for us to do it justice. Well we the wishbone bolts absolutely spanked us. So the front axle with wishbones is at the local welding shop to get the perch bolts removed. We tried heat, pressing, beating, drilling, and strong language. None of it worked. Once we get that axle back we are ready to put the front axle under the frame for mockup. Dad turned out some shackle mount tubes last night on my lathe and did a really nice job. I think I found my new lathe guy. Sorry for no pics - Jeremy
We hadn't stop work on this, but it slowed down. We're getting back at it now though. Got the rear axle spring mounts cut out and welded the spring mount on. Dad turned the little bushings out on the lathe for the shackles. We made two sets. One for us and one for my dad's buddy. We also started prepping the 98 ford explorer axle. In order to put the spring mounts at 49.5" we had to flip the backing plates and caliper mounts side for side. This now moved the calipers to the front of the axle freeing up the room we needed to mount the spring mounts. Next step is for dad to cut off all the old brackets and crap and start wire wheeling the axle so we can start welding on it. Got the front axle back from the welding shop. It was 50 bucks well spent. Didn't take him very long, but he's got the big tools to get stuff done. - Jeremy
Subscribed. I'll be watching this one for sure, I wish I had the patience for the wood work! Hope to see fresh paint as part of the finished results. Also enjoy the team work Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
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