Projects 1937 Ford Pickup Build | Project FUBAR

great work !!!!! thank you for photoes

 

Lookin good.

 

Great wiring work you did there.

 

Wow....you have a good eye. I did have to bend and lengthen the dipstick bolt tab. I ended up bolting it to trans case dowell hole with a 1/2-20 bolt which worked out perfect. I did get lucky and didn't have to re-bend dipstick tube.

 

Thanks for the kind words as well guys! Clean wiring is one of my pet peeves...I was lucky to find neat looking braided sleeve and shrink tubing etc... I bought everything off www.wirecare.com. Great site!

 

Still cranking on the ol 37 pickup. Seems like incredibly slow progress recently, but progress none the less! Rear end and dash was the main focus of the past 2 months. Trying to get all of the drive-train parts completed so I can test drive and set the motor timing etc…

Dash…
Gauges are final installed with quick disconnect connectors.



What seems like forever ago (05/2013), I bought blue LEDs to backlight the gauges. Finally starting to see my imagination come to life.


Dash installed in the truck. Only missing the heater switch and choke cable.


Turn signals / Fog Lights
A couple months back I figured out that I needed dual filament bulbs so I could use my fog lights as turn signals. The originals were Wagner 4412A, but I couldn’t find an amber dual filament bulb … so I tinted them using lamin-x film. It was incredibly surpris how well it worked!
The bulbs I ended up with were 5.75" H5001/H5006 bulbs with H4 bulbs (got them off ebay)

Before/After wrap


With a heat gun, the lamin-x went on beautifully


Original 4412A bulb compared to the amber colored tint I installed. I wanted a darker color vs the yellow.


Rear End…
This has been a long running fiasco. After countless hours of calling local shops, I gave up and bought a complete rear end to match what I needed. The primary issue was the axles. Due to the large 5x5.5 bolt pattern I needed, I couldn't simply buy "cut-to-length" axles off summit. All in all $600 bucks and it was done…fresh housing and axles ready to paint/install. Worth every penny.

Left – New
Middle – Original with mismatch axles
Right – E-150 that I intended to narrow…but bought new instead















Sound Deadner…
Say cheese...Haha She keeps coming back for more…so I had her install fatmat sound deadner on the roof and floorboards. Next is the doors.










Never a dull day in the Banta shop. Haha Crossfit meets hot rodding.


Can’t wait for the day when I can throw my bike in the ol pickup and cruise out for a ride!

 

Cool

Jim

 

Wow! Great thread on your build. This will really help a lot of guys out with their future builds. Thanks for taking the time!

 

Hello all! Asking a favor to all that have a Facebook account. Open the link below and 'like' the post - we are trying to get cash back from the dealer! WE NEED 435 LIKES!!!

https://www.facebook.com/BobDunnCars/posts/1057231104362985:0

 

Just Wow; love the dash, great build you guys do very nice work, impressive. Regards, Rusty_bits

 

I'd so love to do my '37 pick up but have decided to put my funds into my 40. Nice build, nice work. It's fun to follow along.

 

First update in 3 months…. I’ve been slack with updates and progress has been at an all-time low. Over the past few months the focus has been on the first test drive! I’ve finished the parking brake assembly, rear end install, bled brakes, and routed new spark plug wires.

Parking brake cables…
I bought the lokar universal kit. I’m sure there are tons of other cheaper options, but it looked clean and simple so I jumped on it.

I made a slick bracket where the cables pass thru the bottom of the cab. It took far too long to make, but looks good in the end. If I had to do it again, I’d weld something into the bottom of the cab…heck with a fancy bracket.







Bracket used to hold the cable ends, this is on the inside of the cab.


All parking brake cable brackets before paint


Completed assembly - bottom view of parking brake handle


Final painted assembly - fits between the seats.




Rear End…
The rear end story is finally over. I installed a Yukon posi unit so I can avoid peg leg burnouts. Expensive, but I couldn’t resist!!!


Final rear-end install.



Brakes…
With the parking brake complete, it was time to bleed the brakes. I ran into an issue with a pair of Allstar stainless flex lines as you can see in the picture below. The flare nut on the 90 degree fitting broke after very little torque. Summit refunded these, so I was thankful for that!


Replacement wildwood flex lines, I decided to ditch the 90 degree fittings for straight.


Spark Plug Wires…
I did a trial run setting the distributor so I could go ahead and final route my spark plug wires. Extremely happy with how this turned out. The Squeegs plug wire kit is a perfect fit for the truck. Plug wires are from The Brillman Company w/ a radio suppressed spiral wound core.

Crimped Ends


Passenger Side


Drivers Side


Old plug wires…new wires make a BIG difference



Battery Box…
I was going to make a fancy box and mount it on the chassis, but decided to go a simpler route. I bought ammo cans to hide the battery in the bed of the truck. This will make jump-starts and replacing the battery much easier. It takes up bed space, but looks sharp!

Test fit picture while trying to decide between the Fat 50 SAW box and a 30mm box. I ended up choosing the larger 30mm box. The smaller box looked…well…like a battery box. Where the larger box fit better visually, more of a centerpiece in the bed of the truck.


Ammo Box Outside


Ammo Box Inside w/ drilled holes, grommets, and battery clamp


Overall bed view - bed is final installed!



Current truck status!
Next big ticket item is exhaust! I need to find a good muffler shop in Charlotte!



I found a cherry and picked her up? hahaha

 

Progress is a good thing.

 

You have a sealed battery or you going to vent the ammo can box?

 

Yep, I bought a sealed Optima battery. Its going to sit vertical so I have more room at the back of the box for storage.

 

Your truck looks great, nice progress! With your fab skills why not do your own exhaust?

 

Bending exhaust tubing seems difficult, but maybe i can give it a try. My dad has a bandsaw, so it may not be so bad?? My other thought was time, a professional could likely do it in half the time leaving more time for me to finish up the small details. Depending on the quotes, I may end up doing the work after all!

 

I bought a "Rod builder kit" from Stainless works along with mufflers, clamps, and hangers. It worked great, used a mig with stainless wire. Have enough left over to almost do another one. The "Grab Bag" of tubing bends helps a lot.

 

After taking a look, I like the stainless works company. While we are on the topic, does anyone have clean exhaust hanger recommendations?

Here is a pic of the stainless works hanger. This is my favorite so far.

 

I used those hangers, really like the flexibility. They can be shortened, the grommet fits all holes.

 

Looks like I need to update all my photos…photobucket nixed the free image hosting service.

I apologize for slacking on updating for the past year! Life has been crazy but it’s been an incredibly special few years! I’m now married to the gal seen installing sound deadener in my truck and my passport pages are now stamped with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Korea, and Mexico.

Some professional photos from our wedding. 








INNER FENDERS
My dad championed the repair of these. He is the man when it comes to sheet metal work. I struggle and don’t have the eye for it, but it’s definitely something I’d like to learn. He spent a bunch of time on re-constructing these. It was a good excuse to play with his sheet metal toys. 









SEAT BELTS
Fasten your seat belt folks, it’s gonna be a bumpy and noisy ride with guaranteed burnouts. 

I had to get a little creative with the seat belt setup. I wanted a crossover belt, but there wasn’t a good way to secure the shoulder strap to the corner of the cab. In the end, I beefed up the cab support structure and ran a box beam across the back of the cab. It will likely pull in the cab corner on a huge impact, but at that point it will have served its purpose.

The beginnings of the seat belt brackets. These went at the back of the cab behind the seats. I needed a riser to keep the belts from rubbing.


Completed base bracketry


View of how the upper shoulder support brace. Basically, the shoulder pivot will connect to this part.


This one requires quite a bit of description… This pic was taken looking downward just behind the door. Essentially, I welded in a large plate to distribute the load along the cab pillar (top to bottom).


Long box beam welded within the belt line of the back of the cab.


Final Installed seat belt assembly with brackets and belts




INTERIOR
Made two pretty slick panels out of aluminum for the parking brake and shifter. Nothing too special, but they match the raw metal theme.

Parking Brake




Trans Tunnel / Shifter




WHEEL CLIPS
Short and sweet project that my gal did for me. Some of the old ford wheels I had did not have the clips for hub caps. So we made some new ones and riveted them on. So far so good.
Before


After

 

FENDER WELTING

A bit tedious, but not too bad once we decided to glue/tack it onto the fender.





EXHAUST
I was lucky enough to find a local exhaust guy with the patience to do a good job on my ol pickup. He let me work with him and we spent most of a day to get things right. We had some issues with clearance around the wishbones but worked our way around that by going down to 2.25” pipe. I wanted the Dynomax Super Turbo mufflers, but ended up rolling with Xcelerator Turbo mufflers which the guy had in stock. They do have a low RPM drone, but not bad enough to worry with. It’s a hot rod and I don’t think other mufflers would fix that issue.

Tight squeeze just after collector












WATER PUMPS
The water system on this ol’ Ford small block drove me crazy. First it was leaky freeze plugs, then the water pump. Ford had a water pump for every flavor and the aftermarket parts made it even more difficult to track down. I spent countless hours trying to find a pump with the correct rotation, inlet size, inlet location, pulley offset, and casting (with vanes).

The first issue I ran into was with the inner water pump bolts leaking. I had bought a standard Airtex 4024 OEM replacement pump to suit my application. As it turns out the casting for this pump has an open plenum which caused a slow leak around the inner timing cover bolts. Lots of old fords used 7 bolts around the perimeter rather than 9. Take a look at the pictures below. Essentially, There was no gasket pressure on the inner edge of the flow channel due to the open plenum design. To fix this, I found a higher quality pump (Gates 43058) with internal flow channels. This fixed the issue. I could have also bought one of the nice Flowkooler pumps…but didn’t want to spend the extra $60-$80 bucks.










DISTRIBUTOR TUNING
Once everything was up and running, I ran into issues with my distributor. The stock distributor I had fired well, but the springs were too light and/or broken. I also didn’t know what curve the distributor was set up for, so it made for a mess while setting timing. After tinkering for a few Saturdays and getting inconsistent results, I decided to ditch the old Ford distributor and replace it with a stock Pertronix with an adjustable curve and vacuum. The one I ended up with is pertronix part # D130700 which has the stock socket style cap so it served as a drop-in replacement. The best part…no need to change up my spark plug wires. Once installed, it was an instant win - the motor ran WAY better which allowed me to focus on the carburetor tune.

Distributor vacuum advance
Yet another massive research segment. Noticing a trend? After much research, I figured out that the timed vacuum advance port was forced down our throats by the EPA. Essentially they cause motors to run hot since the fuel is still burning as it leaves the cylinder. The moral of the story is…more advance at low load conditions (like idle) is a GOOD THING! When you have a lean fuel charge like seen at idle and cruise, the mixture takes longer to detonate. Because of this, you want your vacuum advance fully advanced at idle, not at wide open throttle. During the wide open throttle conditions, you should have 0 vacuum advance. You want zero advance at wide open throttle because you want to rely on your pre-defined mechanical curve and all-in max advance settings. You’ll notice reduced idle temperatures which is part proof that this is correct. Thanks to the EPA for making our old motors run like crap.

For reference, my Ford 289 is bored .030 over and has a mild cam. I’m not sure of the details, but it pulls around 11 inches of vacuum at idle. Because of this, I needed a specific low-vacuum vacuum advance can. The advance is “all-in” at 8-10” of vacuum. These are widely known as the “B28” vacuum advance cans. For my pertronix distributor, I bought a AIRTEX 4V1053, but other part #’s are VC-1810, VC177, D1312C





Pertronix mechanical advance - looks like GM internals, right?????



Distributor Oil Pump Shaft
Another tip I can offer in regards to the oil pump shaft that runs off the end of the distributor. I’d recommend getting the ARP shaft. Much higher quality and it won’t bind in the end of the distributor. I had issues with the stock shaft binding and not letting the distributor fall into place.

Notice the one on the bottom is ~1/8” longer

 

CARBURETOR TUNING
This has been my latest fascination. I bought a Holley 4160 have realized that it isn’t as tunable as I’d like. So I’ve been reading a ton about idle circuits, high speed air bleeds, idle feed restrictions, jets etc… More to come, on this. Right now I have a pretty severe off idle stumble at cruising speed. To try and troubleshoot, I bought a Innovate LM-2 so I can record air/fuel ratios, throttle position, and intake vacuum. Should be an interesting experiment.



Looking a little rich - hoping the LM-2 tuner will help me dial her in.


PCV Valve Side Note
Topic after topic after topic. Soo many tricks to the trade. These little guys can really mess with your tune if you have a low vacuum at idle.
After tons of research, I ended up with me buying a dozen valves to test. I needed a PCV valve for a low vacuum motor to prevent it from flowing way too much at idle. This is seemingly a “black magic” device with no flow specs or characteristics. Some engineer at ford/chevy likely has a whole folder full of flow charts vs. vacuum….but none are available on the internet. This would be nice to have for us hot rod guys. I’d love to pick a PCV valve based on my modified motors needs.

If you have any questions…feel free to message me. I tested a TON of these.


After testing lots of valves, here is what I ended up with. ACDELCO 19310788 (Fram FV181, Standard V158 ) It closed at the lowest vacuum of the ones I tested. The canister reads “2051”, but the “2057” canister (NAPA 2-9220) is a close second.

I may end up going with the “fixed orifice” crankcase vent in the end just due to the consistency. Yeah, it’ll vent less under wide open throttle, but this is a street driver and I need it to run clean rather than having the motor act like it has a vacuum leak.
FRAM FV410 “Fixed Orifice” ~0.1” diameter hole



CHEAP JUNK RANT
First up is a rant about a crappy Chinese brake fittings. These little frame pass through fittings caused me a ton of headache and re-paint work. The hole through the AN fitting is drilled off center and the wall thickness is super thin. The cone of the AN fitting deformed during assembly and leaked all over my frame and front axle… Do yourself a favor and buy the billet machined parts (seen on right). Not chrome plated Chinese/speedway junk.




THE MAN…MY POPS. He's pretty cool if you haven't noticed. haha Just after finishing up with the trim for my grille!



She’s got a little attitude…haha

 

Looks great! It's a shame Photobucket sucks, but it really does.

 

Great update it's things like that that keep readers coming back for more. Have you considered a catch can in you PCV circuit? I know it's not traditional but they can be hid easily. You would be amazed at the amount of bypass oil is removed from your intake charge even with a newish tight emmissions engine.

 

I haven't, but i'm not opposed to it. How much oil do you see? on a typical oil change cycle?

On the PCV topic. I have a little breather on the drive side valve cover. Should I plumb this into the air cleaner or leave it as-is? Any thoughts or input on this?

Also, if anyone knows of a lower spring rate / lower vacuum PCV valve than the one I found, let me know too! The "2051" PCV valve is ok but not perfect.

 

I get approximately 1/4 inch of excess oil after a run of about an hour and a half at highway speeds. Less at lower speeds. Over 3000 miles if I let bit build up maybe half an inch in a 2 inch diameter container. Just from the PCV.

 

Hi JLB3.Just an FYI,there are adjustable PCV`s available also.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

So, who sells the good quality through the frame brake fittings?

 

What brand? ME Wagner? Those are crazy expensive, $130 + shipping! :-0

These are the replacement fittings I bought:
Billet Specialties 66310 1/8" 3 AN Thru Frame Fitting