Projects BChrismer's Beater '40 Ford Panel Project

Looking good!

 

Only one photo from this weekend's work. Brake lines are plumbed from the rear up to the master cylinder and from the master cylinder to the front 2lb residual valve. Unfortunately, the Fair Grove, MO O'Reilly store didn't have the necessary T fittings to add the brake light switch and to connect both front brake lines.

From the various assortment of '40 pedals and pedal mounts, I was able to put together some fairly snug fitting pedals, so I am happy with that.

Also, we test fit the driveshaft and it fits perfectly!

Next week we should be able to finish up the brake line plumbing, fill and test for leaks.



Actually...I remembered I had 1 more photo to share from earlier in the week. Ethan Vaughn scored this Hurst 55-57 4 speed shifter for me. Should help with clearance with the bench seat that I am planning on using.

Speaking of bench seats, I did a 300 mile round trip today to go look at a '39 bench seat that I was working a trade for. Unfortunately, it had been sitting in a field of "treasures" and the frame and springs were pretty much rotted. I did leave a message with the fellow who bought my old MorDor project, as he pulled the stock '40 seat out of it in favor of some leather covered buckets. Hopefully he still has the seat and is willing to part with it. Until I work out that deal, though, I'll probably make a stop by the pick & pull and grab another 3rd row Chrysler mini-van seat for a temporary solution. They are CHEAP and fit nicely.

 

Gotta be honest I’m thinking about a 40 truck lately and it seems like the quickest route to the road is just having you do it lol.

your putting 40’s on the road faster than I can rotate tires on the late model lol

 

Bret, I have had trouble with the pressure switches on past projects. I am told that a Harley Davidson switch requires less pressure. The lever arm type switch used on many early Chevrolet pickups is a reliable substitute and they are reliable. I just retrofitted my Model A with a lever switch. Enjoy following your progress. Sam

 

I have been using Harley switches for quite some time and haven't had any failures with them yet. I have a couple of those lever arm switches, but haven't ever figured out a good way to mount those with the stock pedals on a 40.

I did forget to mention that I got the clutch pedal hooked up but couldn't find my "new" clutch pedal return spring. I can't remember if I took it out to Meeker's or if it is hanging on the shelf in my garage. The other thing that I failed to find at the MFA farm store was a fine thread coupling nut and bolt to use to make an extended brake push rod. The spherical ended heim joint that I have from a Pete & Jakes kit is a bit too wide to fit in the slot on the brake pedal, so I normally just cut the end off a bolt and use the coupling nut to extend the stock push rod. The extended length is to make up for the additional inch added by the master cylinder adapter.

Swapping out the shifter should be a fun experience, due to the fact that the clearance in the frame is pretty limited. While I have the shifter off, I am going to go ahead and remove a little more off of the frame lip to allow room for a wrench to fit in there to remove the lower mounting bolt. To get it out, we will have to remove the transmission mount bolts from the crossmember and either raise it or wedge it over about 1/4".

 

I wouldn't be near this far along without all the work that Mike has been helping with. I was quite amazed that we had the rear end set into the truck within 1 day.

 

Anxious to see it on the road.

 

Is that master cylinder for an AMC? After I had plumbed the Mustang MC in my 40 and snaked the lines around the other side I found out there was a MC available with the ports on the other side.

 

Funny...in my collection of acquired stuff is a 1940/41 4cyl truck engine....that when I first saw it - thought it was a 2N-9N tractor motor - as I work/collect them - but it had that factory motor mounts still on the front it...sadly it's rusty crusty....still think the flywheel/bell housing will work on my Model A motor........

 

Me too.

As much as I hated doing it, since I have 2 original radiators that need repair, I went ahead and ordered an aluminum 4 row radiator for it today. Figured it would be the cheapest option to get it on the road. The local radiator shop quoted me much higher money to repair one of the two that I have.

I also ordered some additional brake fitting crap from Speedy Bill.

It came with the brake/clutch pedal kit from Pete & Jake's that I wound up not using. It is a Corvette style. It is a little longer than the Cordone 1907 that I normally use and interfered with the floorboard of the coupe, but the truck bodies sit on wood blocks so I had room to use "spare parts". The routing is nice with the ports on this side. Just had to remember to allow room for the exhaust.

 

Dan I’ve come across quite a few of the corvette style masters that are set up to run lines from either or both sides.

 

Placing orders and gathering odds and ends the last two days. I did track down the appropriate fine threaded coupling nut and a 4 1/2" bolt to serve as my extended brake pedal push rod.

Should have all the brake lines complete Friday, the shifter swapped out, driveshaft installed, and hopefully figure out a location for the electric fuel pump. I'll still be running the mechanical pump, but figured adding an electric pump on a toggle switch will help me prime the line for starting and be a backup if I have fuel delivery issues with the mechanical.

Once all the brake stuff is finished, we'll go back to finishing up the floorboards. I still need to find a transmission tunnel cover.

I did get a text message from Bill, the owner of my former MorDor, and he said that he has the seat in storage up near Sedalia, MO, but we didn't discuss a price. It had what was left of the old black vinyl tuck & roll upholstery on it, when I sold the car to him, but all the vinyl was split on the seams of the seat bottom, and it was filled with some foam under it, so it will need some work. My preference would be a 2 door/Coupe split back bench, but the MorDor seat would actually be cool to have, too, since my butt is already familiar with it. LOL

 

You should stop by when you come fetch the seat man

 

B., Your first picture upped my heartrate a little. When I was in highschool I knew an older (than me) guy that worked at a service station. He wanted me to go half on an old English Ford panel. (Looked like an overgrown Anglia). I thought his plan was to build it, but I found out he just wanted to "flip" it. He almost did. He put a nice grey primer job on it and I was riding with him to take it to Hot Rod Exchange in Dallas.
*stops typing to calm down*
It was on a trailer like yours, not chained down, and evidently not weight-distributed. The trailer started fishtailing. He was fighting his truck steering wheel while I was watching the van slide toward the edge of the trailer. The left rear tire was halfway off before he got it under control.
Anyway, congratulations on your project.
I had a buddy in school that had a dark metallic green 4-door and another had a stock black coupe.
PS: Didn't tell you this part. That was on a 6-lane freeway at 50+ probably.

 

Only one photo for today's update.

This morning, Mike had to run into Springfield to pick up a truck, so I was left on my own. I took the time to swap out the shifter to the 55-57 Chevy 4 speed version of the Hurst Competition Plus shifter, then I dropped the wishbones and shortened them up a little bit to solve a fitment issue the previous owner of them had, and replaced a missing spring slider.

I continued to work on lengthening the brake push rod, secured the pedals onto the axle shaft, adjusted the clutch pedal and brake pedals.

Mike finished plumbing the front brake lines and then we bled them.

The driveshaft caused me some heartache in that I could not get the U-Joint to fit back into the yolk that it came out of. For some reason, I was lacking about 1/16" and couldn't get the seats into the U-Joint caps, so it didn't get finished this week. Gonna take it over to a buddy that works in the driveline shop and see if he can figure out what I am doing wrong. Hopefully we can get that resolved and I can get it into the truck next week and fill the transmission with gear oil.

Then we will move on to the floor and I will work on getting the engine circuits wired so we can fire it up and have it move under its own power. ;-)

 

Bret, did you pull the caps back off to ensure that a pin did not end up dislodged across the end of the cap. That has happened to me. The pin would be equivalent to about 1/16 inch.

 

Chipping away at it, getting closer

 

Yup, sure did check that and they were all in cups where they should be. I thought I may had air trapped in it, so I wound up pulling out the grease zerk, but that didn't solve the riddle.

 

I have dealt with the frustration of a u-joint that wouldn't go together. Enjoying following your progress. If I can beat the rain, I'm going to take my sedan for a drive after church today.

 

well, I took the "easy" route and just ran the driveshaft and yolk over to the driveshaft shop and for $32, I have a complete driveshaft that I can install this weekend.

The new radiator showed up on Monday, and I was fortunate enough to intercept it before the missus saw it. I also made a stop to O'Reilly, last night, and picked up the alternator, a Pertronix Flame Thrower coil, and a new set of flathead exhaust manifold gaskets.

Tasks for this weekend will include:

• install driveshaft
• add gear oil
• Mike works on the floor
• bolt up my good exhaust manifolds
• bolt on the front exhaust pipes
• mount alternator
• bolt on the '42 style distributor with the Pertronix conversion in it
• and double check brake lines for leaks

Other than the floorboard replacement, there's really not a whole lot of stuff that should take much time, but as usual, there will be simple stuff that seems to take longer than anticipated.

 

Cleaning up that transmission didn't even cross your mind, did it?

 

It did, but then I thought to myself..."It's got a flathead in front of it. It'll be covered in oil before we know it, so it doesn't matter."

LOL

 

Well, it's been said that the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Such were the plans for today. Mike sent me a text yesterday afternoon letting me know that he was spending today with his daughters, so my best-laid plans gave way to his far superior opportunity to hang out with his girls.

Considering taking another personal day on Friday to knock out as much as we can and hopefully have a make up day for today's cancelled work day.

 

I made a run out to Meeker's "Hot Rod Night" last night. Took the stake truck out there with a bunch of parts that I had for the panel and moved them over into the back of the panel truck.

While the guys were inside getting food together, I popped the cap off the top of the master cylinder to check on the brake fluid levels. I was pleased to see they were still as full as I had left them over a week ago, and after several pumps of the brake pedal, the hose ends on the calipers were not leaking. (They have aluminum crush washers that leaked until I put some extra torque on them)

I hope to get all the stuff on my check list done on Friday, and will make my new list for Saturday at that time.

 

Happy to report that everything except the floors happened, including the simple things that take a long time.

Example...I took a set of flathead exhaust manifolds that were clean and freshly painted. They were on the "needs to rebuilt later" big bore flatty that I have, and I had used that copper spray on gasket stuff on some Felpro paper/metal exhaust manifold gaskets. The copper stuff stuck and yanked off a bunch of the paper, so I had to scrape the exhaust ports. That took a while. I bolted it up to the engine and went to install the Red's Headers exhaust extensions and the exhaust flange on the clean manifold was at a different angle than a '40 exhaust manifold. Back to scraping the exhaust manifold that I removed to put the new one on!

Got wifed for tomorrow, so looks like my weekend progress came to a screeching halt. Hope the brakes on the panel can do the same!

Mike shot some black paint on the fresh aluminum radiator so that it doesn't show up like a sore thumb through the grille. One thing that I learned is that the radiator that I got had smaller bottom ports than a stock radiator has. Instead of trying to find some new hoses, I ordered some Gates reducers to try. Some guys say that they have had good luck using those, so we'll see how mine goes. I'll probably mount the radiator on Sunday, before we move the panel truck back out to its resting place.

 

Good stuff

 

That trifive shifter is just too cool in that truck. I'm loving it !

 

Looks like the light @ the end of the tunnel is getting brighter !!!

 

Finally made it out to Mike's to work on the panel truck with plans to wire the engine bay and work on the front floorboard. We also installed the radiator and hoses today.

The yellow ignition wires were the ones that I ran on my coupe from 1995-2002, when I swapped the 283 out for a 350. I used them "temporarily" on the stake truck when I was running a '42 crab style distributor, which I will be running on the panel truck. I'll run them until I take the time to put some appropriate length black wires on it.


I had intended to use a later style coil mount, along with a GM 6 cyl coil mount, but quickly realized that I didn't have enough room. After a little discussion, Mike suggested I take a peek at some of his parts car stash, and I snagged this one off of an early 60's Ford truck. It's mounted to the firewall using one of the emergency brake handle mounting bolts. I need to make a long coil wire to reach to the front mounted distributor.


I bought the front floorboard section from a vendor on E-Bay for less than it costs for either side of the floorboard. It was supposedly for a '42-47 cab, but we went with it anyway, since the truck is a beater. Mike got it tacked in today, and made a door for master cylinder access. We'll use some seam sealer around the floor and paint it before I use some peel and seal to help kill some road noise and insulate the floors.


@gbrown had this old Enos Black Box panel in a stash of parts and made me a killer deal on it. I mounted it on the inside of the firewall on the passenger side, behind where the glovebox will go. This is the old style board that RacersRods.com has discontinued, but it will be more than what is required for this old beater.

I'm going to use a stock battery tray, but have pretty much decided to try a DynaBatt battery instead of the usual O'Reilly battery that I normally buy. By the time I buy a battery and pay their core charge, the DynaBatt is less expensive and takes up way less space. Need to order one of those so we have it next week.

Still waiting on my brother-in-law to let me know when we are swapping fuel tanks in his truck that he's putting a fuel injection setup on, and then we can stick Doug's current tank into the panel and run fuel lines. We may wing it and run fuel lines before that and use a rubber hose to a gas can just to make the truck somewhat mobile out at Mike's place.

Figure next weekend I'll continue with more wiring. I'm also hoping that if I order a transmission tunnel this week I can have it by next weekend. Still waiting to hear back on the front seat out of my old MorDor, but have pretty much decided that I'll probably buy another Chrysler 3rd row seat and throw it in in the meantime.

That's about all the progress I can report on for this weekend. We kinda had a slow day, but checking items off the "to do" list as we go.

 

Glad to see you getting some use out of that panel.


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