Hot Rods A 40 Ford Coupe for Uncle Mike Build Thread

Very nice sir.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

Thanks for the compliments on the book guys. I have decided the book does need and a table contents or index so I will be doing that sometime in the future. The coupe has had two trouble free adventures this month. Uncle Mike and I took it to Deuce Days in Victoria and to the Goodguys in Puyallup. It was fun to share those two events with him and have some fun with the coupe.

I did a couple of small projects I thought I would share. he first one is the club plaque mount. I got this idea last year in Spokane.

I had been looking for someway to mount a club plaque without drilling any holes in the bumper brackets while still keeping the plaque out of the way of the trunk access.

Since I am not above stealing good ideas I took some pictures for further reference.

Note this one does not have a through bolt. My design is similar but not as refined as design. And by the way it is a nice sedan!

I used some 1/8 aluminum I had laying around. Simple bends were made on the HF break.
I made patterns off of the bumper brackets for the contour.

I looked around town for some black gasket material with no luck and finally went to the local Hobby Lobby and asked them if they had anything that looked like rubber around 1/8" thick. The clerk showed me this stuff. It is perfect for this purpose and many others on the car comes in two thicknesses and is priced right. This stuff was cut and glued to the brackets to protect the stainless bumper brackets.


A single 3/8" bolt provides the clamping action.


I put this on just before we left for Victoria. We drove the car quite a bit in the last two weeks and there is no sign of this loosening so I would call the project a success.

Project number two was needed to repair the trunk tool box covers. One of the covers I bought from Bob Drake broke when I applied my substantial weight to one knee when crawling into the trunk.

I did not have time to fix earlier so I had just been trying to remember to plant my knee on the latch brace when entering the trunk.

I was unable to find plywood that was the same 3/8" thick as the Drake pieces but I did find some 1/4". I did intend to add some metal cladding to the pieces anyway so by using the 1/4" plywood and some 1/8" aluminum sheet I was able to come up with the 3/8" dimension I needed. I traced the pattern off of the the Drake pieces and made a few minor adjustments for a better fit.

I had some old signs that were the right thickness but did not want to leave the sign material on there.

I used a heat gun and a putty knife to remove the signage.T hat still leaves the adhesive which came off fairly easy with some Lacquer thinner.

I roughed up the bottom surface with some 40 grit paper. and then used some super 77 3M spray adhesive to glue the aluminum to the wood. A word of caution here. It would be a good idea to leave the aluminum slightly over size before gluing as this glue allows no movement once you have set the two glued surfaces together. Once the glue is set you can use a belt sander to grind the aluminum down to the wood contours.

I used a 1" hole saw to drill the finger holes . The Drake pieces only had a hole in the passenger side cover. Did any of you notice this on the stock pieces?

The upholsterer had left the tool cover portion of the insulation attached to the floor portion for some reason. I decided to cut it loose and then glue it to the covers with the 3M spray adhesive.


A slightly fuzzy picture of the end product. I can now confidently place my knee anywhere on the covers without fear of breaking through. For now I only have the battery maintainer in this tool area so I don't need to get in there very often.

As they say a Hot Rod is truly never finished so there will probably be more posts. Hope you all are having a fun summer.

 

Looking good. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.....


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Great Job, thanks

 

You're right ,Sam, excellent idea and nice fab by you. I got my tool tray covers from Roy at Fordbolts.com and so far no issues. I'm glad you and Mike are enjoying the car.

 

I really enjoyed your 40 build project. I have been a 1939 and 1940 Ford owner since I was 23 years old - many moons ago. My Dad's 1939 Ford that is unfinished since 1970 is now mine and my 16 year old son's project to build and finish. My son is reading this post and your generous information will help train and educate the future hot rod builders.

 

I missed the part on the seat belt install?

 

Mike Stewart, Thanks for the c0mpliments! That 39 coupe looks like it is right out of 1961! Cool!
Your son is one fortunate young man! I hope you two have a great time working on the coupe.

34toddster, I don't think you missed the seat belt install since I don't think I posted much on that subject. I bought 3 lap belts from Bob Drake and installed two of them initially for the early test drives.
I just used some extra heavy large diameter washers on the underside of the floor pan. I asked the upholstery guy to install the third belt but he did not do it. I am ok with that so far since it is hard to get a third person in the car anyway.

We did consider using the three point shoulder belt system in the car. I think it would have certainly been a wise decision to do that. I guess it just came down to not wanting the shoulder system for esthetic reasons.

 

Hey a lap belt is better than nothing, I've always been a big seat belt guy, sadly my good friend was killed last week while driving his 49 Merc, without any restraint, ejected, the young Lady was of course free of injury.
So be safe, it's getting very bad out there with all of the talking texting etc.
Love the look you achieved on the interior ties the whole car together as one.

 

Just posted on 54 Merc build- turned out I had followed this build- like I said I build my 39 in a one car garage and painted on the drive way in a subdivision- try that now- it was my daily driver for many years-

 

Nice coupe 2bubbas! The subdivision came to me over the last few years. I once had several acres of fruit trees insulating me from the curious. Now the neighbors are just across the fence line. We have done some sand blasting in front of the shop but no painting so far. We might do some bondo and prmer work out there on the 54 Merc this spring though.

An update on the coupe:
Last fall the engine started running poorly and I thought I could hear a bearing going south so we pulled the engine and transmission out of it to give it a close inspection. I didn't tear the engine down until recently. We could not find any bearing problems but found the intake gasket had blown out at the back of the manifold. There was oil on the fire wall and oil in the intake runners even though the manifold bolts were tight and not bottomed out. I don't think I had run the engine very long in this condition but it sure made a mess internally. The combustion chambers had a heavy coat of carbon on them. I suspect that my PCV valve and system was not doing it's job. We will have to address that to make sure this does not happen again.

The compression numbers had always been suspect also so we checked and found that the valve job done on the engine was terrible so I decided to fix that. I also decided to replace the rotating assembly with a Scat 4" crank, H Beam rods and new .080 over pistons. No there was nothing wrong with the stock stuff, I just wanted to install a 4 inch crank in the engine from the beginning but Uncle Mike did not want to spend the money. He was and is still right about that but it is just something I want to do.

So the machine work is done now and I am just waiting for the rods and we can start putting the engine back together. Meanwhile we are going to open up the transmission today and see if we can figure out why it locks between gears on occasion, pops out of second on compression and why the 2-3 synchro isn't working correctly.

I will probably post up a few pictures and discuss the results soon.

 

Do you know what caused the oil problem? PCV?


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Not yet Joel but we have a good suspicion that the PCV system was not working and the block may have been pressurized blowing out the intake gasket. The mystery is that the breather passes plenty of air and should have worked as a pressure relief valve for the crank case. As to the oil getting under the gasket. I checked both the intake deck and the the intake manifold for flatteness. They are both fine. Do you have any ideas?

 

Such and amazing built! Very inspirational - thanks for taking the time to assemble the posts.

~ Carl

PS - time to check out Don's 54!

 

Thank you Carl! I am happy that you found the build interesting enough to read the whole thing and that it has been inspirational to you. I hope your build goes smoothly and provides you with many hours of fun and challenges as this one did.

My coupe is back on the road again and running and shifting well. I need to get busy and post up that engine and tranny rebuild project. It was quite a challenge.

Sam

 

Yes get busy! Eager readers await.

 

I'm sorry for the mishap, following from the first. Good luck.

 

Thank you for sharing the build. Both the car and the thread are works of art. The book (and this thread) should be a "must read" for anyone wanting to build a 40! Beautiful work! Great to see you enjoying the ride.......and i know you will be on the road again soon. Congratulations!

Phil

 

I saw your 40 at the Chelan show this past weekend, and it is better than the pictures. Really captures a late fifties or sixties feel. Looks like the engine is running fine now, what was the problem? Would have said hi, but your chair was empty.

 

Hi John! Are you finally back in the Northwest? Still no time for a detailed report...but I will.

Thanks FOURTYDELX, It's all part of the experience,and it gave me an opportunity to learn some more stuff about engines and transmissions

Thanks fordflambe! It is always nice to get such a nice comment. Although the methods used in building the car are not all the best way to do things, they usually worked for me and some seemed to give some inspiration or ideas that were transferable to their projects.

Thank you daleeric! I am happy that you appreciate the the efforts to capture the the late fifties early sixties era with the car. Not everyone gets it. Most seem to think the car is unfinished with the black wheels and no hub caps..... That's okay though, I will be adding some sort of hub caps some day. I am sorry we didn't get to talk. I did spend quite a bit of time near the car but I was sitting with a bunch of friends behind the purple and orange 34 coupe next to it. The empty chair was my spare for visitors.The weather for the show was perfect and I thoroughly enjoyed just relaxing and visiting with my friends form Wenatcheee ,Chelan and points West.

The 40 mile drive to Chelan was the first long drive for the new engine and transmission. They both worked well. The engine ran cool and after I caught up to the big block powered cars I was traveling with it would cruise right along at 65-70 mph at 2000 to 2100 rpm. It also ran on the thermostat for all but the climb into town but never overheated. There were also no signs of the PCV system not working which is good news.

I had also installed a different electric fuel pump the night before and I liked how quiet it was.I did not use the filter provided but used the same bronze element cleanable model I used in the engine bay at the carburetor.

The original fuel pump I had installed failed me a couple of weeks ago on a hill so there was not much coasting to the side of the road for the swap to the spare pump. While researching to buy the next spare pump I dsicovered the pump I had been using was not really compatible with the Ethonol fuels we have to use these days. This one is good for all fuels (they say) so I bought two ( always be prepared).

Sam

 

I've decided to run a mechanical pump on my Y Block rather than the electric so we shall see what the results of that will be

 

I for one would like to know what kind of elec. pump failed and what kind is claimed to be OK for the ethanol added fuels as I have a '31 Hiboy with a Carter elec. pump and a '40 Ford coupe with a Holley red, both of which get driven out of town a lot. Is that a K&N elec pump? Didn't know they made a pump, details?

 

Blue One, mechanical pumps are always the best choice for single carb applications( imho). They are quiet and require no electrical circuits. Keep it simple if you can is my mantra when I can.

dirty old man,

This type failed. I don't have the part number on hand for the one that failed but I bought it from Speedway and it is identcal to the one I show you here.


http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Speed...gn=CSEGOOGLE&gclid=CO7g2OvbqdQCFQeGaQodswkI2w

Go to the above web address and read all of the comments and Q&A. After reading all of the comments I called Speedway and asked the tech guys about the fuel issue. Since they pretty much said it would not work with ethanol I took their advise and bought the K&N pump.It puts out less gallons per hour but I don't think that will be a problem with my flathead.

Go to the web address below for details on the K&N Pump.

http://www.speedwaymotors.com/K-N-8...line-34-GPH-10-PSI-5-16-Inch-Line,107398.html

Sam

 

Thx Sam.

 

I'm going to find out if it will work with my 3 new Strombergs. I will be running a low pressure Aeroquip fuel pressure regulator.

 

Should work fine! Sure have enjoyed your build!

 

I much prefer a mech. fuel pump, but on my Hiboy the frame is pinched till there isn't clearance for the pump diaphragm. And the sbf in my '40 is a late model block with no provision for a mech. pump.
Sometimes I think I should have done a little research on the Hiboy's sbc as some of the pumps do have a somewhat smaller diaphragm than others, just don't know any info on gph and pressure, and don't know where to find it.

 

Thanks

 

I recently purchased a Carter 12 volt positive displacement electric fuel pump from Flathead Jack. I'll be a guinea pig and see how it works out.

 

Do you have a model number for the pump? I would be interested in your performance report on the pump.

That's what you get for using all that modern stuff Dave