I have posted about my 36 ford custom sedan before as I was looking at fitting it with a Studebaker engine and I may still do this at a later date but I am going to leave the Flathead in it at the moment. I am planing to get the car on the road later this year so I am flat out doing the 100 and 1 things I need to do to get it finished and will up date this thread as I go if any one is interested. I started the build many years ago but I have been doing other projects and this one has been put in storage a few times. but now is its time to get done. it started when a friend purchased a chopped 35 sedan project for the hot rodded chassis that he used to put his roadster body on and he had no need of the sedan body so I got the bare shell and 4 doors as a start for a custom, I made up a chassis from 2 broken ones and fitted a falcon diff on parallel leaf springs and a 46 ford front axle and wishbone with its sway bar and panhard rod then fitted vented disk brakes, a rebuilt Flathead was next and a 5 speed gearbox.
I decided to fit 36 ford guards and do a full custom nose the grill surround has be filled at the sides and the 2 piece guards have been joined and the headlight mounts removed. next I removed and filled the cowl vent and made the bonnet top one piece with hidden hinges that retract into the upper cowl by the roof pillars, 39 ford tail lights and 39 Chevy bumpers, stock seats.
the Flathead needed some hotting up so I fitted 3 x 97s on an alloy manifold with home made progressive linkage and a Motor City full flow oil system a 3/4 cam with adjustable lifters and 60 thou pistons, next was a big clutch and an alloy bellhousing and a 5 speed gearbox, I made patterns and had cast a finned alloy air cleaner and twin covers for the top of the firewall to cover the frenched battery box and fuses,
and thats about how she sat in storage for a few years until I got her out and ready for some flat black paint so I could put her in a local show as an unfinished
the car was a hit and I planed to get it on the road as fast as I could but my daughter got diagnosed with leukemia and we had to relocate to spend 6 months in a child cancer ward followed by 2 years of chemo treatment, this ment storage again for the car but now my daughter is well again I am back into the car with the hope of getting on the road by the end of the year. I sold my 63 Studebaker to get the funds to finish the 36 so have been buying all the parts I need and doing the work needed to get the car going. I have removed the Chevy hea dlights and added 1930s Lucas king of the road chrome lights to change the look a little and fitted burst proof latches to the doors and am now making a grill from alloy flat bar, it will be painted black and will have stainless trim around the grill opening to give it an almost factory look.
got the grill bars all fitted today with top and bottom plates in and all ready to weld together, because the bars are slotted into the plates for strength it was a case of needing 5 hands to get them all in without the others falling out what a laugh Ha Ha its amazing what you can do with a hand drill a box of files and a can do attitude.cant get much more custom than that I guess
here are some more pics of the burst proof latches the stainless steel cover plates and the rod ends hooked up to the outside handles I have not yet fitted the cables from the inside handles, on one side of the car the doors latch smooth and tight on the other side the front door is too tight so the center post will need to be moved back a little [about 3mm or 1/8 of an inch] so I'll be needing my big hammer Ha Ha
Here's some pics of the hidden bonnet hinges that retract into the cowl and pivot up by the front roof pillars under the dash, the hinge arms are curved in a C shape to reduce the size of the slot in the cowl, I am about to remove them to heat treat them for strength. the angles for these needed a lot of thought and it was a case of fit and remove over and over to get it working right without binding.
Hi Jeff I had not seen this done before myself but was the only way to have it tidy and lift away from the cowl as it raised without a double acting hinge. it was a lot more work than I planed but it works and looks like it should be there and is more fun than buying off the shelf.
got the grill back from my mate who did the alloy welding for me he is pretty good at this so I will only need to finish file the welds and drill and tap some mounting holes then paint it black and fit the stainless trim around the surround add a badge and its done. I have cut some brushed alloy sheet to mount the gauges and fitted them to the 29 Studebaker gauge surround it looks great so I will fit it to the dash as is the start running the wires to the senders.
Nice work buddy. The only thing I would say is that you may have been able to save yourself a lot of work regarding the hood hinges if you had used ford pilot hood hinges. I only say that in case anyone else is thinking of a similar set up. The car in my avatar started life as a UK 1937 ford four door sedan and has a one piece hood with the hinges I mentioned. Bob in Scotland
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