Projects Little Red Roadster Resurection - original 1929 body on original 1932 frame

I had noticed this roadster For Sale in the Sacramento area of Craigslist (but located about 15 miles from me in Carson City, NV and tried for months to get a hold of the seller to no avail. Coming home from ID on a fire assignment I saw it in a shop yard on a trailer next to the famous Moonlight Bunny Ranch. Nobody was there so I sadly left a note. The next day the owner called and said he had had over a dozen inquiries and if I’d like to take a look he’s be available so I loaded up my trailer, grabbed some cash and headed down. Long story short, nobody was able to get a hold of the seller because the elderly widow had put down the wrong email info. The grandson had contacted this guy on a trade and he was only interested in the motor advertised as a 283 sbc. When he looked up the engine numbers on he realized it was a rare GM 302 out of a 1969 z28 Camaro and immediately sold the motor for $5000

 

What I immediately noticed is this appeared to be an original 1929 Model A body on an original but heavily modded 1932 chassis. The roadster showed some 50/60’s period traditional goodies but it looks like someone had tried to make it a “street rod” in the 80’s with sbc, auto, disk brakes, some billet and other quite frankly hack job redneck ingenuity. Some of the original parts are a AA stamped chromed dropped axle, chromed buggy springs with Ford script still on them, F1 steering box, Ansen Engineering Front shock mounts and other things I’ll keep discovering.

 

The back story is that this roadster started getting built around 1950 and supposedly had a flatty. I couldn’t believe I had found an orginal hotrod, albeit it had gone thru several changes. Man, the eighties and 90’s sure were a rough time for original hotrods . Apparently about 20 years ago the owner was pulling it out of the garage and “the throttle stuck” and the car struck the inside of the garage and a heavy shelf fell on it breaking the windshield, stanchions, and put some good dents in the body. The car has sat until the owner died and the widow wanted to sell the car. I am desperately trying to find the widow to see if I can get some more details on the car and even some photos.

 

The prior owner obviously didn’t care much about the car and even let the rumble lid fly off towing it home, the car was barely bolted on and I noticed it had a slight cant to it, the right rear of the car was sitting on the POS Chevy 10 bolt and I noticed a “cant” to the frame but it was hard to tell because the right rear was sitting on the axle, the body was shifted off center and the front shackles had one side bottomed out. I bought the car hoping the frame wasn’t bent but got a good enough deal that even if it was, it was still worth it.

 

So it has sat in my driveway waiting for me to get the other roadster body out of the garage and each time I walk past it something seems off. I think both the body and frame are twisted. Unfortunately, as I start looking closer at the rear axle it’s got a crack in the center section and the right tube looks a little bent. And then I start piecing together that it likely had at least rear fenders (due to poor patch jobs in the fenderwells) that were likely smashed from a pretty hard impact and taken off. So now the teardown begins. I normally wouldn’t post this early during the tear down but figured some advise on resurrecting this roadster is needed, especially since the frame and body have a twist. I really want to keep as much of the original parts that I can but until I figure out how bad it is I’m just speculating. The original top hid a telltale dent/ripple in the body.

 

With that start I’ll introduce myself...lol...I am a firefighter in the Lake Tahoe area and live in Minden, NV. I got bit by the traditional hotrod scene a few years ago when I found a true barnfind 1930 Ford pickup. Since then I’ve owned a 30 Tudor sedan, a 29 coupe, a 29 RPU, and now own 3 roadsters. I like to hunt down projects and parts and keep trading and selling until I get exactly what I want...ahem I mean need. I have a really supportive girlfriend and my young kids enjoy time with the hot rods. I have several other builds under my belt and not new to fabbing, welding, rebuilding but am for sure a newbie to the traditional hot rod world so I’ll need all the help I can get. Something about the simplicity and purity of the traditional hotrod where I can spend a few hours at a time disengaging from the world has me faced with an apparent addiction of parts and projects that keep growing. I’m sure none of you can understand.

 

I’ve met a lot of great old rodders hunting for parts. Just this morning a gentleman down the street stopped to talk to me about what I was doing with the red roadster and turns out he grew up hotrodding in SoCal in the 60’s, and raced in Bonneville. We had a great talk and I invited him by anytime to help out, lol. I looked him up and turns out he has several Bonneville records including over 200mph in a roadster. Small world.

 

Congrats...time to turn the clock back. It sure sounds like somebody was lucky to be alive that's for sure. I guess between a bad tow job and the probable garage incident (hmmm maybe a rollover on a bad Hoodlum night nawww) that will complicate things but the potential is very enticing...I look forward to your adventure back to the 50's @Fyresq ...

 

Congrats on the purchase hope you can track its history.

 

Congrats

 

Veddy cool project. Looking forward to seeing you bring it back to life.

Thanks,

—louis

 

It would be great to watch you turn back the hands of time. Looking forward to watching this.

Sent from my XT1565 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Sure looks like some extensive twisting, but it's worth saving. Disassemble, throw away the 1990's garbage, get the frame jigged up and straight, and reinstall the body for pulling back into shape. Simple!

 

Fixing that is going to be a different kind of challenge than we usually see here on the HAMB. Keep us posted.

 

Looks like a great start.

 

Some of the later “redneck engineering”. Auto shifter between the legs and I do believe that’s a VW ebrake

 

Man, i hope you bring that poor model a back, rescue it from all that poor craftsmanship. good luck

 

I lived in Carson City in the 70s and through the 80s and I don’t recall seeing this one, but it could have been brought in from any where. A lot was going on then.

 

Ok.....body is off and the frame is pretty messed up. Consulted with Gary at Blackboard Hotrods since he builds and repairs 32 frames and he thinks it’s too far gone. I happen to agree and most of the “originality” of the frame is gone since it’s been so heavily modified. So I have a couple options:
1. Have a new frame built and keep it looking vintage
2. Use another 1932 frame I have and leave it unpinched (its boxed with a 40 xmember welded and front crossmember welded in so lots more work to pinch
3. Use a near perfect model A frame I have with title which would require redoing the subframe on the body

 

And here’s what the rear axle looked like

 

Have Blackboard weld up a new set of rails (pinched) and reuse the good parts of that chrome front suspension. And make sure to find a way to use those Ansen shock mounts. Those have got to be rare.

 

I'm watching this at work and I had to laugh out loud at that axle pic, scared my employees. Glad you are coming to that poor little car's rescue. I'll be watching, but with my door closed.

 

I would bet with your location and some of the parts on that car it was probably from the Bay Area , that rear is probably recent ...more than likely someone swiped a quick change from it which is why it has a t spring in it , looks almost like A rails are grafted on at the firewall from pictures, nothing’s to far gone but how much time do you wanna spend on it

 

when the time comes to repair your cowl post. look me up

 

I'd like to know more about why a Chassis builder says your existing Chassis is past repair. I can see the bow between the mounts and the front body mount holes. My guess is that that was done when pinching the rails. I see a filler welded in place to fill the Body to rail top gap and a very mild (in my opinion) twist front to back. I don't see anything that would make me tell you not to repair your chassis, that is unless I was a Professional Chassis builder looking for a Pay Check. If your going to Scrap that chassis I'll take it. I will mount it to my Frame table and straiten it out and mount my Roadster Body on it, No Problem. How about posting up a close up photo of the real damage that makes you both throw in the Towel?
The Wizzard

 

Congratulations on finding a cool hot rod built back in the day, it looks like you are well on the way to knocking the 80's ugly off and correcting the problems, I will be watching this. HRP

 

Take the twist out and rock and roll! Keep us posted on your progress.

 

I had assumed Model A horns had been grafted but from the firewall forward makes sense since there’s brazing on the frame there

 

Looking at mine they are torn but I may be able to reshape them but I’ll definitely keep that in mind, definitely higher quality than other ones I’ve had for repair

 

I’ll try to get more pics. First I’d love to keep the frame if it’s possible. The body spacer is actually wood strips (painted) and bolted down old school style. The issue I was told is that with a model A front it doesn’t fit into a 32 frame jig and there are really no measurements of what it was before since the frame has been pinched and heavily modified. I wouldn’t say I was told it couldn’t be done, just not by a frame builder who uses a jig. He was super helpful and answered a ton of my questions and had great customer service. Id happily pay to have it straightened if it can be done but I don’t have a frame table and don’t know anybody who does. I suppose asking a frame repair/collision repair shop if they could do it on a sophisticated frame table made for straightening won’t hurt but figured they’d tell me the same thing since there isn’t really any “factory” measurements for them to reference. You are thinking that the issue with the frame is pretty much firewall back? Ill try to measure.