Projects 1940 Ford 4-door restoration project in Europe

Hi,

I'm hoping to do a thread on the restoration of a 1940 Ford that I bought from a kind man in Michigan. Attached are pictures showing the car in Michigan. I have the car in Abbekerk - The Netherlands now and I am taking it apart to get to the chassis which needs repairs.

I am a H.A.M.B. member for half a year now and I'm amazed by the high level of skills I find in the build threads. My compliments to you guys. I especially love the pictures of all the metalworks. You guys are real artists!

I'm just a starter. I have built a Dax Rush sports car but that required almost no welding.
However I took 3 welding courses and I love it.

I have made contact with a few of you by personal mail. Now is the right time to put my build in a new build thread to prevent the email exchange from becoming too time consuming. I'm a working guy and I have a wife and 2 sons of 2 and 4..

More photo's will follow soon.

Kind regards,
Chris Twigt

 

This is my current situation at home. My garage is really tight. With the bumpers on I was unable to get to the other side of the car. Hopefully the Dax Rush is sold soon so I have more room.




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Is that a tile floor Chris? I am looking forward to your thread. That car is pretty close to the wall. But you are working inside out of the weather. It should be fun watching you work out the space management issues while you build.

 

Car looks good over all, Good luck with your project!

 

good luck im subscribed

 

Good Luck with restoring it.

Groeten uit Zuid Holland

Hennie

 

Hey Hennie, a Dutch HAMBer. How nice! We should meet some day.

Regards,
Chris




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Yes that is a tile floor indeed. Not very practical but it will do. I can move the car around on wheel dollies.


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Today I created a special tool to remove the door hinge pins. They are very stuck and a sledge was not enough to drive them out.

So I cut 2 solid steel 1”x1” bars to length and drilled some holes. I added 2 M12 threaded bars and some nuts to convince the pins to move. They did. With loud bangs.

I know I could have bought a tool but I had these materials lying around.




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Great idea for a hinge pin press.

 

I like your hinge pin tool. your is much sturdier than the one I use pictured below. I can tell this will be a good thread if you keep showing us good ideas.

 

Nice car to start with, good luck with your build.

 

Some parts are candidate for replacement.
This part was mounted at the front under the radiator. Does anybody know whether this is an official part of the car or is it a custom made skid plate or something?





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I'm not sure but it looks like the remainder of the gravel pan protecting the radiator. Check the Bob Drake website to be sure. It's a great source of info. Also join up over on Fordbarn, they're a helpful and friendly bunch. Oh, and congratulations on scoring such a nice car. Not many left!

 

That's a factory part. They make them as reproductions, I think I got mine from Bob Drake.

https://www.bobdrake.com/FordItem.a...Category=ee755bdc-1d1a-4c31-8fdc-33829c169bed

 

So it is. Thank you very much for the link 40LUV!

Regards,
Chris




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Car looks nice and solid. Hopefully there is nothing worse than the gravel pan.
Seems like many cars from the US are going to the Netherlands. My 51 Cadillac was bought by a gent there about 15 years ago.
Enjoy your new toy.

 

Hi Bleach,

The body is fine but the chassis has some more spots like the gravel pan.. I hope to reach the chassis soon.


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Working in a tight spot does sometimes have its advantages. Like for instance when you want to take the hood of and you want to support it to keep it from falling.



I removed the hood, the doors and the trunk lid.


One of the rear door windows was broken. I removed it with from the door with help of my dad and checked the window operating mechanism. My dad also helped taking the seats out of the car and into my attic. This is great. I have a lot more space to work now.



I have to be careful with the rear doors because I can not get new parts for them.

I also started working on a body hoist. I want to be able to lift the body on/off the chassis single handedly in my very tight garage and perform the entire manoeuvre without having to move the chassis or the body outside. So I bought some steel and started cutting and TIG-ing. I did not weld for a long time and I’m happy with most welds so far.










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I created a hoist for the front of the body and another one for the back. The tubing is 60x40 3mm thick (pardon my metrical). I hope it will be strong enough to lift the body. I intend to mount wheels to them and small hand operated winches. I still need to mount the hoists to each other. As you can see they are not equal in size. That is because the target mounting points on the body are at different heights.



I also took the instrument cluster apart to clean it as the mileage was unreadable. Turns out that when you clean the small wheels with the digits on them you wipe the digits right off! Effortlesly. Fortunately I can get stickers to put the digits back on. You can get them at Macs auto parts. They are called “speedometer mileage wheel decal set”.






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That is good progress Chris! It appears that you have a good collection of tools to work with. I feel so spoiled with all of the space I have to work with compared to your small but well equipped garage. Where are you putting all of the parts you are taking off the car? It seems like when I take a car apart that I need even more than a two car garage to store the parts.

 

Thanks for sharing your build with us..creative use of limited space.

 

Hi Sam,

I'm trying to stuff all parts in the attic and it works out well but some stuff (like the hood) is too large to fit through the staircase to the attic.

I love that band saw and my Fronius welding machine. It manages to turn 220V into 220A! I never tried that. I never needed more than 180Amps so far. When I reach the point that I need to weld thin steel plate I'm going to decide whether I need a MIG machine as well. I have noticed on the forum that there is no agreement as to weld thin steel plate with MIG or TIG. What do you use?

 

Chris,
I use a Hobart handler 135. It is a 120Volt Mig welder. it will weld up 3/16 inch steel. It has worked well for most every project I have worked on so far. I borrowed a larger mig welder for for my rotisserie project though. I would like to have a tig welder. I have not mastered the art of welding with one so far. I have an opportunity to buy a used one though and may buy it just to see if I can actually strike and hold an arc with one.

I have three 39 Ford Hoods around the shop. They are very difficult to find a suitable location to store. I have one really nice one hanging on a wall. Have you considered hanging your hood from the ceiling?
Sam

 

Hi Sam,

Yesterday I had to weld some braces to the car to prepare for lifting the body. It was the first time I had to weld to the car. It was a lot harder than I expected. The steel of the car behaves very different than the construction steel that I used to weld. It seems to have a much higher point. The welds did not turn out very well..


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I have created two cranes to lift the body from the chassis. One for the front and one for the back. I used 60x40x3mm rectangle tubing. It is more than strong enough. It does not visibly bend.



They are operated with hand-operated winches and are capable of lifting the body easily.



I have braced the body. This required welding (TIG) fresh construction steel to the car. Welding to steel of 1940 is a lot harder than I thought. These welds don’t look very well but I think they will hold. Steep learning curve ahead..



Now I need to free up more space in my small garage so I can move the chassis out from underneath. This means I have to sell a car.. so this project is kind of stalled.

This is kind of a bummer. On the other hand winter is coming and it is a good time to do some real planning and to compile lists of parts I need to order. I can scrounge the Internet for parts and do small projects around the car.

And ... I am really excited though to find another matching instance of the chassis number at the rear on the left chassis rail.






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I like your hoist system. You seem to think things through very thoroughly before making a move. This will serve you well throughout your restoration. I remember it being very challenging to learn how to weld on the old sheet metal. It is near impossible if rust has been eating away at the metal over the years.

I am sure you will master the technique though. I see you found a place on the ceiling for the hood. I was thinking you might mount it upside down so you could store some light weight parts in side the hood. I think you made the right choice though. The hood is less likely to get damaged in the position you have stored it.

I am looking forward to more posts from you.

Sam

 

cool start....what were the plans for the build as to engine / trans /frame ?