Projects garagefind/ survivor 40 coupe build. FIRED IT UP!

Update. The paint is buffed all over with compound. I installed the door latches and am getting ready to do the glass. I am in the cue for upholstery, so I have been assembling the new wood to the seat frame. I want to be ready with the seat if the upholstery guy calls. I'm adding some machine screws and T nuts in place of wood screws in a few places.

Where the clamps are; brackets were fastened with wood screws. I think that's asking a lot of the screws.

You can see the Tnuts in the side pieces; that's the way Ford did it there. There is plenty to do.

 

Alright Joel! That is a big project out of the way. Should be fun stuff from now on.The seat frame looks nice a stout.

 

Yeah ,Sam, for the last couple of weeks I've been deciding what to do next. I've been cleaning some also. I finally picked prep for upholstery..... just in case he calls me early. Kind of like painters you know.

 

The new wood is all bolted down. I want to clean the metal frame and paint it yet. There’s a little tune up to do on the springs also


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I have always liked the hinged backrest seat. It looks like it provides better access to the storage area than the split back bench. That new wood sure looks nice.

 

Thanks, the seat ought to go better than new now.
I installed the rear windows today.
I ‘ve been working on the cowl vent alignment and the fit of the new wiper transmissions. I re-routed the wires on my Newport Engineering wiper motor also. Lots of time under the dash


Next is the windshield glass.


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It’s been almost a month since I posted. I’m getting older faster than than the car is getting put together. The seat is at the upholsterer, the insulation is about 1/3 done and the windshield is in. That last thing was a bitch.

I ran the dome light wire and tomorrow l’ll install the wiper transmissions.


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I hear you! If you put those front window panes in by yourself I can see why you would be complaining. It is hard enough with two people ( make that old guys). All of those little projects are time consuming but each one brings you closer to some road time!

 

I had my son helping but it was a job anyway. I was good to have him help. We don't get to do stuff together often.

 

W


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I installed the wiper system and tested it without the arms and I noticed that they parked facing each other. This means they would be parked at a 15-20 deg. angle. This is a Newport Engineering system that uses the stock transmissions and linkage, so I contacted them To see if the park position could be changed. They told me what to do and walked me through it on the phone. The wipers now park pointing away from each other. Great people.

I was going to take pix of each step, but I didn't want to waste the techs time. Basicly, you remove the rod at the top and rotate the plate with the holes in it 180 deg. by removing the gold Phillips head screws. This re-clocks the drive pins on the output of the motor. I'll have some pictures of the wipers installed when they arrive.

 

Everything is looking good. You did good choosing Newport wipers. They are not only the best wipers, they are some of the best all around people in the hotrod parts business.

 

That's some good tech right there Joel! Thanks. That reminds me I need to fix my wipers before spring. The set screws were not tight enough and are slipping on the drive shaft of the coupes wiper motor.

 

I finally got them positioned and here is the picture

Not perfect, but ok.
I'm not happy with my quarter window sealing. Did you use sealer between the seal and the body?
I think part of the problem could be the shape of the glass; I did shim under the bottom on the passenger side, but it's still not tight against the body. Any suggestions?

 

Notice that the pocketing on the cushion springs is not the classic burlap. I've been tempted to use a more durable or slippery cloth to pocket my '40 springs as well as the listings, front and back. Anything other than availability or having it in stock to make that choice? I really need to do pictures as I have so many other issues with the seat. Fred A

 

I didn't have to mess with the spring sacks; the original seat I used was so nice that adding a few hog rings will be all that is necessary. I don't think the material those sacks are made of matters for function. The sacks on my seat didn't appear to be burlap anyway; they were more like muslin(sp). The upholsterer said he was going to able to use all the original padding as is. If you're building one of these seats and need pictures, I may be able to help.

 

Lots of nice work there. Great info on the wipers as well. Windows are fun! Have done many and the backs can be much worse than the fronts-wife and I did a coupe a while back-took 15 minutes to do one side and an hour plus to fit the other one. Also only Drake rear seals seem to fit. I do seal the 1/4 windows with flexible sealer between the body lip and the rubber on the glass.

 

Thanks olscrounger, I think I may have a set of Drakes seals I can try.


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Since I have a lousy memory I went back to my book and copied a section for you. feel free to delete this post after reading it Joel so I don't mess up your thread. hope this answers your questions. BTW osrounger won't steer you wrong


The glass had initially been installed without any sealer so we took a step back yesterday and applied some sealer.

Don...." You are going to take a picture of this?" Yes... we put sealer on the inside of the 1/4 windows and along the inner edge as shown in the previous picture.

I was finishing up and decided I should take a picture of the preparations. I was glad I took the time to protect paint. Being a rookie at this stuff I made a mess.

I cut some shop paper towels into four pieces and soaked a little paint thinner on each piece before wiping up the excess caulk. That yellow trim tool came in handy for picking the seal flange off of the body before inserting the caulking tube tip.

I went down to the local car glass shop and asked the installer what he used to seal flat glass. He recommended this DOW BETA Seal U 418 Urethane sealer. He also recommended buying this heavy duty caulking gun from Lowes 9about $15.00. His second recommendation was to warm the stuff up before trying to use it. I warmed it up in my little toaster oven to around 100 degrees.

In retrospect I would probably take the car to the glass shop to get the windows sealed. That stuff was hard to get out of the tube and once unleashed was hard to clean up...... The glass guy has a $500 electric caulking gun to squeeze it out of the tube and would hopefully control the application resulting in less clean up. The job came out alright though. It says it takes about 13 hours for this stuff to cure well enough to drive the car.

I applied sealant between the overlapping center flaps on the front window and my wife helped me install the stainless divider. That was the easiest part of this project. I hope it all is watertight now as I seem to end up in downpours at least twice year going to and from shows across the Cascade Mountains.

 

Picture skills would help me be more specific when I am describing what I'm doing. Think I have most of the information I have on building the '40 seat. The wood frame for the swinging seat back seems to come in two flavors, one with a single vertical in the middle and one with two. Both of the ones' I have are in excellent shape. I have two bases and numerous sides. The nuts and bolts of the chassis assembly are now taking most of my time. My body work is near perfect with hyperextended doors being the worst issue and a nice extra set of doors to turn to if needed. Although this is my seventh '40 coupe, never before had to cope with such total disassembly. Keep up the heroic work: Fred A

 

I'm keeping this post, Sam, as I'm sure it is useful not just to me. I just talked to the guy that cut my glass and he confirmed the use of sealer. He also had some suggestions of things to look at.

 

Thanks, Fred. I'm finding that re-assembly is very time consuming and I thought bodywork was bad. If I was younger, I would enjoy this more.

 

I have been adding insulation to the car, finishing the battery hold down and installing the trunk mat.

It looks like the quarter window glass will have to be re-cut. I plan to do the vent windows while the car is at the upholsterer.


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The quarter window glass got tuned up and installed using Drakes seals that have a lip over the edge of the opening on the outside. Much better and I will have to add a little sealer later, but very little. I cleaned and painted pieces that get upholstery over them.

side glass installed

short pieces go on the inside of the A piller and get headliner material glued on. The long pieces go above the doors and trap the edges of the headliner.

Both of these were repaired, the top one was broken. I cut a section from one for a 2door sedan and welded it on. The bottom one had been bent ,so I welded it for reinforcement. These things are very fragile where those cutouts are.

 

Loads of good info again, gives me an idea of whats headed my way!!

 

Great looking. Keep going.

 

This might be useful to some. I bought a cheaper punch set from Advance auto figuring the steel might have some heat treat to it. I made a couple of rivet tools to do vent window re-assembly .

I used Carbide cutters in the lathe, but maybe you could use small files and a drill press if other equipment is not available. They machine easily with carbide and work pretty well. The anvil side was done with a carbide burr and a die grinder.

 

Well, it's 3 weeks gone by and I'm still working on the vent windows. I checked my new glass against the patterns that Drake sells. It was good and I installed it in the frames with 1/16 setting tape. No problem.
Then the work began. I had 2 sets of seals; one Drake and one from Carpenter. I used the Carpenter first and wasn't happy ,so I removed them and installed Drakes.

The top photo is the spring and washers assembled with the nut. I added a washer to raise the vent window frame so it engaged the seal better. Next is the rivet finished with my punch. The above photo shows how I started the seal install. Install the rivets at each end first' then work the seal into it's channel from each end with the last area being the tight curve at the bottom of the photo.

 

Looking good, keep at it.
What insulation did you put up on the roof? Use contact cement for that?

 

you can see where the molding crushed the whisker and it holds the molding out. I trimmed it back.

My setup for peening rivets.

Parts for the vent frame stem. I blasted the original stuff and ran them through Eastwoods tin-zinc plating to keep the rust off.