This is building the seat frame, I didn't know how most people attach seats to floors. But everything seemed weak to me. You can see the little handle and linkage made up for the locking sliding pin setup for the seat. Nothing crazy or all that pretty but works. This is building the floor, I had already built the outside edges earlier on in the first post I think.. When I installed the subrails I boxed them and virtually made the start of a flat floor underneath. I used the original style cross braces and boxed them as well. Past that it was just filling in the blanks with 16 gauge. Yeah its heavy and not as cool as bead rolled, super trick floors, but have to match the job to your abilities. As you can see I maximized my engine and trans mounting for the least amount of trans hump. Also with the seat I started on the pedal placement for the Ansen style setup. Where it ends up on the bead I wasn't sure how most would proceed so I made a bracket to match the MC outline. You will see that closer later on I'm sure, as I didn't finish it until way later.
I did exactly the same thing on my 32, same master cylinder, too.. Very inspirational & impressive build so far, lots of cool fab stuff to look at in your build......keep it going. .
At this point I was waiting for another big order from the states. I would try and do an order in spring and fall and drive down to the border to pick up the parts. I had drums, steering column, u-joints, axles, center section for the diff. Really making some progress. So this was what I saw when I finally got it down on the ground, off the jack stands. Inspirational stuff, I couldn't believe how the planning had payed off. Another black and white shot, I'll add the side profiles here in a bit. I can't remember what the diff was for width I believe 51 or 52", very narrow. I was a little concerned that it'd end up too narrow, but its perfect. I like the look of tires in close to the body and I managed to pull that look off.
I guess being Canadian theres a lot of them pucks laying around up there, eh? I was born in Canada...
Spring 2017, I finally had a roller. This was a huge step for me, I hated being a guy who talked about what he wanted to do, I was finally just doing it and had something awesome to show for it. From this point forward its just filling in the blanks. The stance, tires and chop were perfect. I could stare at it all day long. I could almost just have this sitting in my garage just like that and be happy, but I'm not one to bask in the previous accomplishments. When I reach a goal I often don't take the time to enjoy it, I set my sights on the next task and do what I can to get there. Its probably what drives me to actually get this thing finished. The constant question from my boy "dad are you done your hot rod yet?" haha, I love their excitement.
I appreciate your dedication so far on your build. If you have the support from your family, especially your wife, I see a real nice hotrod being finished here. Thanks for all the photos, they are very helpful...…...
Man, that thing is awesome. I’m hooked! Love the chop, and all the fab work is top notch! Can’t wait to see the rest of your posts
Just to add some info and set the stage of where the build was at...after this I ended up a little burnt out. There was so much work put into that first year, I needed a break. I didn’t do much to the car for the next year. I needed to save up money to buy parts, ended up getting distracted with other hobbies and house work, etc. Come this past spring I heard deuce days was a go for 2019 and thought it’d be a good goal. I didn’t think it was attainable, but worth shooting for if everything fell into place. I buckled down, streamlined my hobbies, liquidated old junk, parts, guns, hunting gear, etc to build up enough money to get this thing around the block before the snow flew. Hopefully that should setup for when I get time to post the next round of pictures.
Thanks for your posts/pics.... A lot of idea's there! Flattery will get you somewhere! Great job on things! Continue on! Watching!
Pretty much the only thing I accomplished for the rest of 2017 is in the following pictures. I cut up an old original headlight bar that I had lying around. Old mounts ground down with a spot to accept the bar. Also keen observers would have noticed on the original frame build I had the factory 32 frame horns, later in the pictures I had them cut off. I don't see many 32s in real life so to me the frame horns looked really crappy as I'm not used to them. I preferred the look of the model A horn. So I installed the at this time and blended them to match the 32 frame. Originally I was just going to bend the headlight bar but didn't like the look, so I cut it in half and V'd it the opposite way to match the grille. Not sure how most do this but it looks pretty clean. Bought some old guide lights, they look cool but are a little rough. I also played around with the grill height to get it just right. The shock towers got mounted at the same time. I made a piece of flat stock with two holes and nuts welded to the that I could slip inside the frame to attach the bolts since I was already boxed and didn't want the hassle of trying to weld in threaded inserts.
Actually checking back on the date of those pictures that was January of this year, so I actually didn't do a single thing to the car for 9 months pretty well. I also had bought a new rad, it was custom made by Don Sorenson from Lethbridge AB. It got messed up in shipping so I had to get it tuned up but he made it right. Super guy to deal with.
This last year is easily going to be more detailed, I have more pictures and most of it is still in recent memory. I bought a flowmaster, u-build-it type kit. 2.5". I ordered some ramhorns as well. I managed to sneak a H-pipe between the bell housing and trans. I went with pypes race pros. They were a little big but I really liked the sound clips on youtube for them, so I abandoned the exhaust over the axle and out the back for dumps out the mufflers. If you look closely, (but not too closely please), you will see one of many failed firewall recesses. I found a tip about cake pans on the hamb, terrible idea. haha.. I've never done exhaust before, it was fun. Like everything on this build its not perfect. On the next car I rear would like stainless and tig welded. This joint coming out of the drivers side was pretty tough to get the angle correct on to go around the steering, oil filter, slave cylinder, etc..
Awesome build. Love the frame horn swap. Most A's you see with the 32 rails have the horrid horns sticking way out front and look rather ugly. Nice work.
Thanks, I agree. They didn't look right, especially with my pinch they looked like they were bending out the wrong way. It's funny, I'm not really a huge details guy but I hate stuff that's distracting from 10'. A car has the look or it doesn't, it needs to flow as a total package. I wasn't concerned on this build about period correct hose clamps or anything. I wanted the look, and a functional hot rod that wasn't too nice. Something you can drive hard, not worry about scratching or polishing, just a good old fashioned hot rod.
And a Hotrod it will be. Why oh why did GM not spin the flange on the rams 90 degree's. Would make fabbing the pipes a little easier.
I like everything you're doing, but this was my favorite. Awesome that you let your kids own a little part of the hot rod project! And 50 years from now when the build history is all lost, some dude is going to take the body off his Model A hot rod and laugh his ass off...
I'm skipping ahead a little here with the engine but I'll cover the in between stuff here next. To add a little info (that no one reads anyway), I want to give a little more thoughts on the direction of the car itself. I really got into hot rods in the early 2000s, back when traditional hot rod and "rat rods" were kind of the same. Before they split off and became to vastly different genres. To tell the truth I'm still stuck in those years, before clown cars and million dollar trad hot rods became the norm. I really can't afford to build a "real" traditional hot rod. I can make a million excuses why but the truth is I just would never get a build done if I had hard and fast rules. With that said, I really tried to stick with a pre-64 deadline. Its more of a guideline than a rule. I'm not pretending this is a traditional rod, what it is, is a bad ass home built hot rod, and I'm happy with that. I had a beauty virgin 350 waiting to build for this thing. I took it apart, cleaned it up and it was nice. The whole belly button thing got in my head, my pre-64 deadline crept in there so I started looking for 283s and 327s. (spend more money to make less power..smart).. I had picked up these heads from a machine shop locally when someone skipped out on the bill. They are no accessory hole camel bumps with 1.94 valves, fully built by a real good shop. Eventually I came across the 327 I posted previously and immediately picked it up. It was supposed to be a virgin pulled from a grain truck. It had the road draft hole in the back so it looked the part. I took it apart and was devastated when the inside of the pistons (marked .030) were right mangled. Being pretty embarrassed that I overpaid for the worthless engine I didn't even bother taking pictures. It was awful. I packed it up and sent it to the machine shop to see if it could be saved. They were standing there shaking their heads at what a fool I was when I uncovered it "you paid how much?". They had guessed that it was old valve seats hammered into the pistons somehow on the top edge (near the intake). They got to looking and figured somehow that the holes actually weren't as bad a suspected, and the crank was decent and forged. So they cleaned it up, got away boring it another .010 to .040 saved the crank and I was a happy man. Specs on the motor are as follows, 9.5:1 compression kb pistons Performer intake Lunati 10120702 (262/268) Holley classic 650 Pertronix as cast distrib Corvette repop covers Classic mushroom air cleaner, I think it was from chevs of the 40s. I had the machine shop mostly assemble it as my shop was just too dirty painting the frame and doing body work at this time.
A little more info that I haven't shared yet is the cam choice. I really wanted something nasty, a 11:1 327 crackling out of homebuilt headers, but sensibility crept in. I'm not a drag racer, light to light fun absolutely but bracket racing doesn't do it for me. I really wanted a driver. The transmission is a ST10, very similar to the regular T10 so kinda fits my deadline. It is out of a smogger late 70s camaro. It has a somewhat rare cast iron case and the 6 ring input which means its a really wide ratio. It actually has a 3.42 1st gear. Couple that with 31.5" you can get away with a very tame highway gear. I chose 3.00:1 gears for the 9" with a posi. What this allows me to do is virtually have the same 1st gear ratio as a th350 and 4:10s but keep it under 2000 rpms at 60 mph. It kind of ends up like a poor mans overdrive. This is why I went with this cam, it had a great power band, still sounds choppy and should give great city power and fantastic mileage on the highway. From what I can say 1st gear is awesome and the rpm drop on shifts aren't noticeable, though I've not driven it a ton so far. I haven't been on the highway yet either, but 1st lights the tires and the 2nd shift does as well.
Pretty quiet thread, must be too boring or homogenized haha. I bought a large old OTC engine stand that wasn't up to code at work. It made a great rotisserie for the frame and body. I just threw it together with leftover scrap iron I had laying around, to it looks pretty crappy but did the job. I was able to touch up any areas I couldn't get to earlier and made for easy painting. I thought the coil over mount could use some more beef so I made a change mid way through painting it. Assembling, making brakelines, etc. Love finally permanently mounting everything, such a good feeling. I wanted to keep it without bling, so basically everything black, not much for chrome.
don't overthink the lack of replies...many viewers here never say a peep. View count is going up, go by that if you must...or just run with it, which most people do. A long running build thread would have had a lot more replies by this stage, because it would be spread over a very long time spread. Those threads have people giving ideas along the way, but because your car is known to be sort of finished, so no ideas will be shared on here for that reason. .
Thanks, I know, I’m guilty of fly-by likes and not commenting. Treat it like Instagram. (@frycustoms btw if you like spoilers). I usually don’t put my work out there, too vulnerable. It’ll be worth it if a young would be hot rodder stumbles on this thread and realizes you don’t need all the tools and skills in the world to build your first car.
The Jalopy Journal
