Hot Rods Getting the bugs out -My T coupe build

I like the build, figuring it out as you go, getting advice is what its all about.
Build inspiration is a great ride.

Is this Colonel Sanders as a young man?

 

This is what I started with. I copied the frame from an article in the April 1990 issue of Street Rodder. Made with 2x6 rectangular tubing in the front and 2x3 tubing kickup in the rear with Model A crossmembers and frame horns. Got started when my buddy with the metal cutting bandsaw told me that he was moving to the Yukon. Seemed like it was time to make that long taper cut. I didn't like the look of the rear kickup and later replaced it with 90 degree frame curves from Welder Series which shall show up hopefully in later pictures. Paid $300 for the body and when I see what others here are starting with, realize that I did pretty good.

 

Ya you did good on the body alright. I hope you show how you built the hood. I would like to do one on my 27 to 32 grill.

 

Started the disassembly process and the problem is - where do you stash all this stuff so that you can work on it? There are a whole lot more pieces to this puzzle than the last time I took it apart. I have pieces stuffed inside the other car in the garage and the spare bedroom and I've only just begun. Check out this picture that I've scanned of a properly organized build. Somehow while this is the vision in my head, the reality is somewhat different.

 

The disassembly is coming along but I have so much junk in the shop that I'm constantly moving things around to get anything done. For the first time ever, I'm using generic snaploc bags to sort out all the little parts and am amazed at the difference it makes in organizing things.

 

I made up a support to lift the body off with my engine hoist that bolted above the quarter windows through two holes that Ford supplied for holding down the top wood. Hopefully, I can rearrange things to find room to work.

 

Finally got it down to the bare frame and onto my cherrypicker / frame rotisserie setup. Made the conversion with just scrap that I found. The rotating bits are rear hubs and wheels from FWD cars and the one on the front end has a scrap brake rotor that someone ground down to the cooling fins that acts as a stop to hold the frame in any position. The other end just bolts to the end of my work bench. The garage keeps on shrinking as the parts pile grows.

 

Hated doing it but I moved the Austin outside for more room to work. The " Sitting and Rotting" and "Building cars in a two car garage" threads come to mind. Too much work to stuff it in the front garage and there is more snow coming on the way.

 

Earlier I mentioned my rear suspension issues and now that everything is apart, I see that I ended up using 5 leaves with the other 5 cut down to use as a spacer on top. The bringing the Kookie Car back to 1958 thread shows that Norm used 9 leaves and old Rod & Custom article shows Jake's '34 with 8 leaves so the current plan is 8 leaves with 3 short ones as a spacer and see where it goes. When the car was still together, I mocked it up with the rear end sitting higher and my caster was still sufficient.
Now that the frame is on the rotisserie, I'm trying to get it down to bare metal and as much as I would like to get it sandblasted, poverty insists that I do it manually and it is a slow process. Back in the dark ages when I really didn't know what I was doing, I would slap on the bondo on bare metal, sand it down, leave whatever old paint was on elsewhere, and shoot it with lacquer primer that I would leave in an old paint gun. Now I see that I should paint the frame with etch primer, then epoxy primer, body filler, primer surfacer, and then paint; all of which can kill me. If I do the etch primer, I might as well prep my aluminum hood at the same time due to paint adhesion issues with aluminum. It is kind of daunting.
Now that I've ground down the frame, here is a picture of my rear frame kickup. The previous photo showed the frame with a 2x3 kickup welded inside the main rails like the Street Rodder article from 1990. While it worked, it was ugly, but since it was welded beside the main rails, it made making something better looking in line with the main rails easy. I purchased 90 degree curves from Welder Series and filled in the blanks with left over 2x3 tubing pieces. Now it looks somewhat more like an original frame.
The other picture shows my '36 radius rods with my fabricated spring hangers, all done with the take a wild guess as to the dimensions method. The mounts to the rear end housing are angled in which I determined with memories of high school trigonometry and a crude jig that I made.

 

Time to do another update. In trying to grind the frame back down to clean metal, I just couldn't get any tools to get into the tight spots so I finally gave up and set my body and frame out to be professionally blasted with a liquid shockblasting method. Sometimes I'm too cheap for my own good. When I made my rotisserie setup, I realized that it just wasn't that portable, and here's that word again - it was cheap. I can't do the epoxy primer without getting overspray all over the place. Now I have to make engine stand like supports for the rotating ends so that I can put the frame into the temporary spray booth in the front garage which I haven't made yet either. Also, I need to make a body dolly to move the body around since it is presently sitting on milk crates on top of those car roller skate things and isn't very stable. Now I have to check with the body and paint supply guys on what it is I need and I'm a total ignoramus on this stuff. Spending way too much and getting nowhere fast.

 

I had my 21 TT chassis blasted and epoxy primed far cheaper and quicker than I could have done it. I had the 27 tub done the same way. I thought it would end up like lace because of the amount of rust pebbling but those early Ford bodies were made of thick steel and the blaster knew what he was doing. We used uPol Fantastic filler over the epoxy primer and then brush painted it with Tekaloid commercial vehicle paint.

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I love what you are doing. Trial and error kind of stuff which I'll be using on my '32 one day. I like seeing the Princess Auto gear you have as well. But what I'm really curious about is where did you get the red and white wrap you have on your brake lines? I've been looking for that stuff for quite a long time.

 

Looking good, keep at it.
Getting all the clutter out of the garage helps immensely in making it easier to work on the car. With only a 2 car garage, I moved all the parts to the car that were not ready to be placed on the car (fenders, dash, hood, etc) up into the rafters and even under the house (crawlspace). Built a 10 x 12 shed in the yard to store wheel/tire sets and get all the non car related crap (yard equipment, bikes, camping gear, seasonal yard furniture, etc) out of the garage!

 

Body work time and I really don't know what I'm doing. However, I do have the tools to do it. Years ago, I bought body hammers, dollies, spoons, slappers, vixen files,lead paddles and various handmade body tools from an old retired bodyman. Also bought the shrinking discs,henrob torch, cheap TIG, and HF English wheel but when I pick this stuff up, the brain goes slack. Thankfully, there are guys on the internet willing to teach.
I made a support so that I could mount the dashboard onto a vise so that I could hammer on it without chasing it all over the place out of scrap. It mounts onto the steering column mount holes.
I am absolutely hopeless with a TIG so most everything is gas welded. I like it because it is a slow process. With the TIG, by the time I get the torch in position,the tungsten is stuck to the work.
On the door skins, initially, I installed the short patch panels but wasn't happy with my work and since the rest of the door skin was a bit wavy, I replaced them with the ones that go up to the middle hinge. I cut loose the inner panel so that I could get a dolly behind the weld but then made the mistake of welding the inner panel back on before getting the outer skin perfect. There is also the matter that the door glass is now in place and can't come out through the window opening with the metal channel attached to the glass. Now I am trying to get the door skin smooth and can't contort my body into place to hammer and dolly so I'm trying to do it all with the shrinking disc. Now that thing really works. Managed to shrink too much. Also, since the doors were blasted with the glass in place, even with trying to be careful, the glass is frosted in a few places. How do guys like Flop and Jim Sibley do it?

 

The only place that had body filler was the panel under the trunk lid. Someone before me remade the lower 3/4 of it poorly and after trying to make it work, gave up and ordered a repro piece. Problem with that is it sits behind those vertical strips that run all the way to the top and is impossible to install without unbolting a quarter panel which wasn't practical. Gave it a slice and slipped it in in two pieces. Been spending time reworking the rotisserie. Today I finally tried mounting the body and my calculations are way off. Now I'm going to support the back end of the body temporarily on milk crates and try again on that end of the rotisserie. Made the end supports with square tube telescoping into smaller square tube with pinch bolts to adjust the center of gravity when the body rotates. Didn't have to do that with mounting the frame. Made the whole thing out of real wimpy material since this body isn't that heavy. Hope I guessed right.

 

Keep at it! In no time it will be 2022 and you'll be motoringto Victoria for Deuce Days...

 

Finally mounted the body on the rotisserie. Had to think up how to mount the thing. At the front, I made up a support that bolts to what I think are body to frame holes - not sure since I've never seen the original frame and at the rear, the body mounting holes that I made. Your situation will probably be something else. The front support bends and touches the firewall with weight on it so I definitely can't do bodywork on the firewall on this rotisserie. Have to think on that some more when I get to it. Also, I need to raise the body some more to get the center of gravity right when I tilt it. The commercial units I see on the internet have a hydraulic jack mechanism to raise and lower but mine doesn't. Have to come up with a way to raise it without killing myself. I made this thing on the wimpy side and hope that doesn't come back to bite me either. Fun and games.

 

Do you have a title for this car? If not you better get that done before you have tons of money stuck it and find out you can't title it.

 

Tweak the pitman arm.

 

Now that is a good point and I can thank the H.A.M.B. for pointing me in the right direction. Just checked my paper trail and saw that I managed to get a made-up vin number for it from the Alberta government back in 2016. Back then, there was a build thread on a 'glass '32 Ford 3-window where the car got stolen and the owner got nothing from the insurance company and was accused of stealing his own car. With that in mind, I bought the bullet and got the government involved. Previously, I had been told to just look up the range of serial numbers of cars made for that year and pick one randomly and stamp my frame since there was little chance of that particular number being on a registered car. Well, if anything were to happen, I'm sure the insurance company would do whatever to avoid paying. I remember paying something over $500 to get this done.

 

Managed to raise the body on the rotisserie using a combination of plastic milk crates and scissors jacks. This makes working on the body so much nicer. Been doing lots of welding on the underside and made a patch panel for the right quarter panel. Previously I thought that it was good enough but with a trouble light I could see light leaking through. My worn out brake rotor/rotisserie lock works out slick. Also included a shot of my keep the torch lit stand.

 

Now onto the deck lid. This will be my third attempt at getting this thing to fit. My original deck lid was flattened way out of shape so I cut the old skin off the inner panel leaving only the leading edge at the top of the lid. I worked on getting the inner panel to fit the trunk opening with limited success. Without the support of the outer skin, the thing flops all over the place and was hard to get to fit proper. Mounted the new repro skin to the inner panel and it didn't fit. Peeled the outer skin off and tried again. Here is a picture of it last year after the second try. Looks better than it really was. The curve under the rear window is totally wrong. Look at the shadow

 

I made a template from wood of the curve along the side of the quarter panel and the curve along the top is a lot sharper than on my trunk lid so I made some relief cuts along the side to bend the lid to conform and tacked it together to see how it fits. Also have a picture of my one found trunk hinge with its made up one for the other side. Still have a long way to go. Looked up the price for Wescott's fiberglass deck lid - $800. When I convert that into Canadian funds, that is over $1000 and there is shipping involved too. Seems like a bit too much for poor impoverished me but for all the grief involved in doing it the "other" way, it might be a bargain.

 

I wound up cutting my deck lid into two pieces. I then cut the top half into two pieces and actually adding a piece to the middle to take some of the peek out of the shadow you mentioned. Part of my problem was the POS deck lid I got from Howells. You can go to my profile page and bring up my build thread to help understand what I did. Your going to have a great car .

 

I suggested the two piece approach to a friend who wanted to borrow my hinges to copy. He went your route and it turned out great. It's not like these cars are restored originals so anything goes.

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In my last installment, the picture taken from the inside of the cab shows that the panel with the rear window is curved upward in the middle where the trunk lid goes the opposite way. I tried fixing this by attaching a tie down strap at the hinge pivot holes and forcing the center of the trunk lid up with a scissors jack. Didn't work and the gaps at the top of the trunk lid just grew bigger. Here is the latest idea on what to do. Make a new trunk lid. I have fiberglass sheet left over from a teardrop trailer project. This comes in white 4X8 sheets from places like Home Depot. The only place I have ever seen it used is on the walls of the washrooms at campsites. It has a pebbled finish on the outside and the inside is smooth. It curves easily in one direction but a compound curve will be a bit problematic but since I already have it; it is worth a shot. The sides of the trunk lid have an "S" curve which I should be able to cut on my bandsaw out of fiberglass while the horizontal supports made out of wood, all glued together. If not, well onto plan C, whatever that will be. The idea of buying another steel outer skin does not appeal to me at this time. Here is a shot of the fiberglass sheet used for the bulkhead behind the seat.

 

A previous picture showed how poorly the top edge of the trunk lid fit. I tried tweeking it with tie down straps and a scissors jack, but that brought the sides in some more. In looking around the shop, I noticed scrap fiberglass sheet left over from my teardrop trailer project that was big enough to make a trunk lid from. I documented this previously on "Who's building a T?" so this is a rehash of that. Just thought that since more people look at that thread, I would post it there first. I used the template I made previously of the "S" curve on the side and cut 4 pieces on my bandsaw that I glued together to make 2 sides using kitty hair as glue. Made horizontal supports to span between the "S" sides and screwed them together, countersinking the heads. Went for an 1/8" gap along the sides. The top and bottom supports, I made templates of the curved shapes before making them.

 

When I felt that I had enough wood supports made, I made a pattern for the fiberglass sheet and attached the fiberglass with 3/4" wood screws. A bit tricky getting the fiberglass fitted properly on the wood support and I was off by a bit. The top reverse curve section had to be assisted with a few clamps. It looked pretty good at this point.

 

The top part fit really good, but the lower edge didn't fit. It just wouldn't curve in tight enough and overhung the lower panel. Since the lower wood cross bar was just screwed onto the framework, I took it out and made a new piece that I spent more time fitting besides making it wider so that it would support the curved edge better. To make the lid stronger, I bonded a layer of fiberglass matt to the top side of the lid, but it still was a lousy fit on the lower edge.