Projects Introducing the midnight paint co ‘31

I inherited this car a few years ago and I finally sold all my stupid cars so I would be forced to focus on this one. I don’t really know how posts go as I’m new to forums but here it goes. The car was almost complete other than a few pretty serious cancer spots but I immediately pulled the body off the frame and sold the fenders and and all. I acquired a speedway T-bucket frame that I was going to extend and make work but I decided to keep the frame itself for a future project and continue to use the hairpins and 9 inch but buy some deuce rails. Other than that I haven’t done a whole hell of a lot yet aside from a buddy and I welded in structure braces the other night and chopped it 6.5” I’ll be posting pictures as I go on from here.


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here’s the body before I started cutting.


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Looks like you have a plan and evolving from the ground up. Should be killer. Cool pic of mascot.

 

I hope you aren't much more than 5ft tall! That's a wild chop

 

Good chop for a drag race at the track only race car,not good for a street driver,hope you kept the chopped out parts. At the point you deside too sell it or fix it,they will be real handy. Your workmenship looks good.

 

Gonna set the body on top of deuce rails and sink the floor down in between them for driver and passenger buckets. I’m only 5’9”


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Thank you! Cars staying with me forever and I’ll be doing some cowl modifications to give myself more windshield


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Thank you very much


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Might want to hang onto the model A frame to get the serial numbers. Most states require them to register and get a title for the car.

 

The car is cool, the dog, possibly even more so.

 

Like the chop and the dog....

 

Awesome start! Keep the updates coming.

 

KSE box I picked up for the car, gonna have to get it reduced and extended but that won’t be for a while.


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Instead of cowl modification, you can raise the header above windshield to gain about 2" of height.. You could also modify visor to help see the stop lights... **clic pic**

 

BAD idea,looks like your planning cowel steering. Don't !!!! Find out the engineering mess most all of that design is. Big bump steer prob. Beside looks like hell to every one that knows better,to have that crap sticking out the side of cowel. Take the time to read up ,about that offten repeted mistake,copyed from other that didn't know. You'll find a good number of post about it !
As for dropping the floor,good idea,it will help,putting between 1 & 2in. back in to top hight would help much more,but your not likely to find that out to be fact,tell after driving for a time. Trying to be helpfull,not ragging on you.

 

Congrats on getting to it, my first Model A was just a body.

 

Like Dana Barlow says , people see cowl steering at shows etc and say oh thats how you do it , and they blindly copy something they have seen , never thinking to ask the owner how the car actually handles.
There are very few rods that are unable to have a regular steering box located low inside the frame , along with the appropriate U joints. Frame mounting is by far the easiest route to take. Either cross steer or side steer.
But in the end its your ride ....

 

Read allllll about it, the car will be driven around a lot before final paint and bodywork happens so if I have to pull a bunch of shit apart when I realize I don’t like it then so be it. But I absolutely love the look of cowl steering and I’d have to really hate it before I decide to scrap the idea. Thanks for the forewarning though.


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I’m not building the car to drive on road trips. It’s gonna be nasty, loud, impractical and evil.


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Pete Eastwood has a great thread in regards to cowling your steerage ..... yep, THAT Pete Eastwood. Enjoy.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/cowl-steering-just-stop.1101046/

 

Dig your sign!
Especially the "I'll get you tons of work".
I always want to respond back with "great, will all my work get me tons of money".

 

Youth is nice,at about 22 your going to have fun finding out some things,but there will be others you'll look at,as wasting of your time,do too not learning from others that passed info your way. Some have been building rods an driving them much longer then you have lived. Merry Christmas from a hotrodder from the 1950s that likes your skills.

 

parts slowly stacking up.


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Fellow hamber uses '30-'31 visors on '28-'29's... sets them on top of the filler strip, flush with the roof's top and then tilts them back slightly... and a prizm ...

 

He said: "Chop it damn it! Hee hee"

 

6.5"...dang! I do like a radical chop on a Model A coupe. But I haven't seen one as rad as yours for a while...lol !
Concerning the cowl steering. Bump-steer? Yes...always, to some degree. But the word I get from guys who have it is that with limited suspension travel and good (level) drag-link geometry, bump-steer can be minimal to the point of not being noticeable.
Good luck with your project. Keep posting as you make progress. Don't hesitate to ask questions here BEFORE doing something you're not familiar with. There are no dumb questions.

 

You have a good eye for how much to chop a 31 coupe. Perfect! Please do not alter or modify the cowl or the visor. You would kill that classic chopped 31 look. I chopped my 34 Ford P/U six inches and I channeled the body six inches over the frame. I am 6' 4" tall and I only fit in the cab because I added five inches in behind the B pillar. If you mount your seat at a laid back angle you should be able to see out perfectly. In my cab I have about 4 or 5 inches of head room. Yes, my knees are bent quite a bit in order to drive in comfort. I have trained myself to depend on my cowl mounted prism to easily keep an eye on stop lights when I am sitting right in front of them. Never let a stop light slip out of your field of view before you notice it. My rod is very comfortable on long road trips. You will get some bump steer using cowl steering if your steering link is a different length than your split wishbone. Both must swing through identical arcs to avoid bump steer.

 

I appreciate it! I’m not altering the visor at all, or even the cowl really, all I’m gonna do is either drop the 31 dash down or put another dash in it out of a 50’s car (yet to be determined) and drop it down also. So the cowl will stay the same but Ill gain that 1 1/2” by dropping the dash down and probably losing the windshield kick-out.


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Thank you! And yeah I’ve read and talked to a lot of guys with lake style cars that say almost the same thing. I have quite a few articles and threads saved that I study for steering geometry and I think for what I aim to do I can get away with the cowl steering. I’ll be posting more sheetmetal progress here in the next few weeks.


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Cool dog!