picked up a 26 essex the other day. its a neat car but needs a few changes, such as the mad max grill lol. not sure what to do for the grill yet, but it has to go. feel free to chime in with ideas on that. it has a 460,c6, 9 in and disk brakes, and this dude drives great. its a hoot to run round in
i think im going to cut and lengthen the frame horns a bit and do some thing like the grills in the pics above. the 460 takes up a ton of space so i cant move the rad back. so ill just make the frame a bit longer i guess.
Absolutely none of my business, but stretching the frame on your car will give it a very strong "rat rod" flavor which you might not want. Consider this: cut the firewall and move the engine back to give yourself room to mount a Model A radiator in the normal position on the frame. You'll have to make a lot of changes to pull this off but it might be a whole lot better than ending up with an awkward-looking car. Just my humble opinion. Good luck!
Proper proportions are everything. Mock it up then look at it from every angle. A inch here or there can drastically change the look. Those old Essex cars trace their origins to mopar. Cool cars.
Hey, Brian; "Those old Essex cars trace their origins to mopar." Please elaborate, as my reference material n studying (so far) = a sub-company owned by Hudson. Since I have a 29 Essex business coupe(exceptionally long-term project), & am one of those really odd guys that believes in "keeping it in the family" if at all possible, because of the back-story-plausable-deniabilities... , this could be the semi-justifiable reason that I *need* an early hemi, instead a 308 Hudson or a 374cid Packard-disguised-as-a-320-cid-Hudson. . Or hop-up the oem six-banger.. ;( . Marcus...
Hey, 69ranger; A lot of early Essex rad shells would look good, from, say, ~24 up to ~32 or so. Other orphan-makes too. Model a or Duece would work, but that's the easy way out, & unfortunately you'll look like 200,000 other hotrods from the front. It really is worth the effort to search out the correct-brand shell. Befuddle the wuff-foh's n wear it w/pride. . Marcus...
Replace the 460 anchor/C6 with a SBC/700R4 and use a grille from a '28 to '32 Ford. Love the Model T squareness of the body.
I'm not sure about the grill, but I kinda dig the old school circle track vibe of the hood and air cleaner through it. There are tons af cool grills, track noses and even tractor grill shells out there. You will find something cool. The car is pretty neat.
i got a nice maxwell grill im going to use one it. if i could find an essex grill i would use that, but they are hard to come by.as far as moving the engine back i would have to cut the firewall and im not going to rip apart a perfect running driving car. im going to mock up the grill and see how it looks, and maybe do some minor mods to the frame to make it look rite......i think lol. as far as the ''rat rod'' thing goes there is not a single car on this board that hasnt been cut up to customize it in one way or the other so im not to worried about that. rat rod is a very loose term these days. but i am digging all the input guys, thank you!
my car will never see a chevy engine as long as i own them. im a die hard ford guy. plus all the hard work is done. it runs drives and stops well. but thanks for the input my friend
X2!!!! Except I will use a Mopar Engine.... Cool car, I really like things that are rare and different. Sent from my Moto Z (2) using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Hey, Brian; I'll be damned... That I didn't know. All my documentation (so far) says Hudson created n owned Hudson, Essex n Terraplane; & they eventually shut down the lines, after merging Essex n Terraplane, keeping the Terraplane name for a little while. Never saw anything about Chrysler buying them. ???? Somehow it wouldn't surprise me all that much. Chrysler did a lot of acquiring. I've got a book on Studebaker, Hudson, n Chrysler; but I must have blanked on that part. Oddly enough, the interchangeability also doesn't surprise me much, other than finding out about what stuff actually works. Certainly keeps the hobby interesting. . Would you mind PM'ing me some docs on that, or at least some links/leads on the info? I really like following/learning history of certain things. I especially like to do the "trace-the-family-history" deal, at least in automotive applications. There's that "plausible-deniability" deal again... . TIA. Marcus...
Hey, 69ranger; Depending on what you want, I may have an extra 29 Essex rad shell. Possibly a 24-26 Hudson shell(maybe). Try PM. Most of it isn't accessible right now, due the copious amt of Miserable White Sh*t from Hell that has descended upon the land around here... ;( . At least you don't/won't see many Essex's around. Do it proud. Marcus...
Post it for me too! I wanna learn more for myself. Sent from my Moto Z (2) using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
That's my old 29 Hudson in my avatar. I used a 28 or 29 Chevy grill shell, and cut the bump for the Chevy badge off. This makes it look real close to a Hudson, or Essex grill. Essex was the smaller version of a Hudson. I too know of no connection with Mopar, but Nash and Kelvinator were Hudson's future. I have much info, so I'll look it up when I get a chance.
i don't have any thing to post. I was in bakersfield for the march meet with my coupe a few years back. the guy pitted next to me had a 31 Essex coupe. it was very similar to my 31 Chrysler. I always thought do to a extra body line on my doors that I had the wrong ones on the car. there was no matching line on the body. I examined another Chrysler coupe and it had the same ones I did. so where did they come from. the Essex parked next to me had that extra body line stamped into it. at the height of the depression they were stamping parts to fit multiple bodies. several car manufacturers merged during the depression. Chrysler bought up several companies during that time.
There was alot of body manufacturers such as Briggs, Murray, Buds, Fisher that produced bodies for multiple manufacturers not surprising there are similarities. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I'd keep an eye out for Dodge Brothers grille shells. This was on a 1917 touring car I moved along a while back:
"as far as moving the engine back i would have to cut the firewall and im not going to rip apart a perfect running driving car. im going to mock up the grill and see how it looks, and maybe do some minor mods to the frame to make it look rite......i think lol. as far as the ''rat rod'' thing goes there is not a single car on this board that hasnt been cut up to customize it in one way or the other so im not to worried about that. rat rod is a very loose term these days." I think you may have misinterpreted my comment. Modifying a car does not necessarily turn it into a rat rod, but intentionally modifying it in such a way as to make it awkward-looking does. Sticking the radiator even further forward isn't going to help the aesthetics of your car, nor will stretching the wheelbase forward. These will only add to the proportion problems it already has. As has already been suggested, stand back and look at the car from all angles once you've got it mocked up in whatever way you have in mind. If it still looks like Pinocchio you may have changed it but you haven't really improved it. What you've inherited is very common to Ford-powered Model A's: pushing the radiator forward to get water pump clearance and ruining the proportions in the process. The only real solution is to lose as much bulk on the front of the motor as possible and then relocating it rearward on the frame so that the radiator can sit in the original location. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you're going to have to "rip apart a perfect running driving car" in order to correct the proportional problems. I just don't see any other way to do it right. .
Ill tell ya a spring over axle setup instead of the spring forward front suspension would gain you some wheelbase. I personally would do damn near anything to not lengthen the frame between the cowl and grill shell. It often really sticks out to me when I see that done. The pictures may be deceiving but man it looks like that radiator is way out in front of the engine. Maybe the water pump sticks way out and there is a more compact setup for the pulleys? I dunno. I'd try real hard to get that radiator over the remember with leaving the frame rails. With the spring over axle sitting more forward the radiator won't have to move back as far. Stock model A relationship between axle, crossmember and radiator would be the goal for me. Good luck
Instead of editing my last post I'm just gonna post again but here's another thought. Its basically spring. Car season. You obviously liked the car enough to buy it and you already said its fun to drive. So just drive it and have fun instead of trying to make it something its not. It'll be easier and cheaper. Then if you decide you still need a more "traditionally" proportioned car sell that one and buy or build one. Easy peasy.
im not going to take it apart, its just not going to happen. the 460 is as far back as it can go without cutting. im not going to trash the paint and floors and fire wall. ill figure out a cool grill for it. i have got some great ideas from here so far. taking the car apart to gain a few inches is just not one of them. but , i do thank you for your input
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