Some terrific work here and da## nice of you to share the details with this mere mortal. You indicated that you "did the wheel well to the curve on the table". Not sure I understand what you meant. Other previous question, assuming that you have now done it, how did you attach the new sub rails and sub rail connectors to the lower edge of the body (weld, panel adhesive, etc.?). My A is channeled (poorly) and I am removing the entire thing and replacing it with all new subrails, subrail connectors, and floor. I believe originally the subrail connectors were riveted to the subrail and the A pillar. Just can't thank you enough for taking the time to post your work. By the way, Brookville in Ohio, has a lot for Model A's. HTTPS://www.brookvilleroadster.com. I've been to their plant. They've been in the biz for many years. The current (Kenny) owners dad started out making patch panels to sell at swap meets. Thanx again
Very good work you've done there. Thanks for sharing, lots of help to many of us. Keep up the great work.
It's been a while since I posted pics. I wasn't too happy with this area. I made a brace to go across the roof. I made a windshield frame from aluminum bar stock and channel. Off comes the body so I can finish the bottom and work on the chassis. I needed to figure out how to mount my spring so my tire was centered in the wheel well. I decided to flip the axle bells around to move the spring in front of the axle and move the crossmember forward. Speed holes! All filled in. Torque tube shortened. Tie Rod ends welded to the wishbones. Wishbone mounts. Transmission mounts.
I got everything in primer. Time for paint. Bolted the body down for hopefully the final time. More primer And more black paint. Got the front end together. I should have more tomorrow. This should be a pretty good week.
I finally got the car on the ground. I'm not super happy about how far the rear tire is from the body. I'll figure that out sometime. On my roadster I cut the flange off a model a steering box and welded it to the f1 box. This time around I decided to make the flange from scratch. I cut the box at an angle with a band saw and fine tuned it on the sander. I need some shorter bolts. The ones in the pic are just for mock up. I borrowed the tie rod from the front end of some pickup that was sitting out back and it fit just about perfect. I want to run the old style ball and socket tie rods but this works for now. I didn't drop the lower steering arms at all. All I did was cut the extra hole off the passenger side. I was a little concerned about the tie rod hitting either the wishbones or the frame but it's about a half inch above the wishbone and it seems like there's plenty of room below the frame. I could bend the steering arms to get the tie rod below the wishbones but I don't like it to hang that low. I run it between the frame and wishbones on my roadster and it just barely touches the frame when I'm driving it hard. I didn't notice any paint missing until I made a few laps around a dirt track.
I needed to shorten my driveshaft. I brought the coupler to a machine shop to have him open up the splined area to be a press fit on the driveshaft. I heated it up and dropped it on. Then I drilled the hole and put a hardened pin in and peened the ends over. Then I threw a bead around the bottom. I put the engine and tranny in again to make sue everything fit. I also started working on an upper steering arm and modifying my pitman arm. They still need some tweaking.
I stared at my upper steering arm pretty hard and considered scraping it and just ordering a Chinese one, but before I did, I tried dropping it so it followed the axle better and it made all the difference in the world. Just needs one more thing. A speed hole! I need to do a little more welding and grinding to smooth everything out but I'm pretty happy with it now. It's cool being able to look through it and see the axle. I also mocked up the drag link. It's just a piece of pipe with a couple tie rod ends for now.
When you replaced the front sub rail extensions did you have a problem with the bottom lip of the body panel matching up to the to the sub rail where you're supposed to spot weld it? Mine has about a 3/4" gap.
Hey Chris, Looks killer buddy. Makin quick work. Me and Casey are coming out next weekend we will get ahold of ya. Ryan.
I'm starting by spraying out the inside. Etch primer is first. Next is the epoxy primer. Then black urethane. Next I'll be spraying some undercoating on parts to help reduce noise and rattles. I went to Superior Radiator for my radiator. I ordered it on eBay. It took a week and is pretty good for the money. Decent welds and was packed very well. No complaints yet. They got a little melt through on some welds but it should be fine. The holes for the support bars were there but I had to drill the rest which worked out really well. I started making my hood too.
Very nice work sir, keep up that hard work and you'll be driving that car soon! Sent from my SM-N920T using H.A.M.B. mobile app
I'm just about done making the hood top and sides. I also started working on a little something for the front.
I've been following, nice work! Are you using quarter turns on the hood sides? I like the front apron on the horns! You don't see that too often.
Yea there's 6 dzus fasteners per side. I still have some work to do to the splash apron or whatever you want to call it but it's shaping up nicely. I'm going to continue it down the frame rails to make it flow better.
Dude! You are a MASTER! Man, you could build the whole damn body from scratch if you needed. Shit! I wish I had that skill.
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