Hot Rods Bringing my 39 back to life

Got the whole car done with the cut compound and the roof wet sanded and cut. Not ashamed to say it’s turning out great. I got the trunk lid, pass side quarter and some of f the roof polished and ready for wax. Still need to do the entire drivers side and the pass door plus the front clip. The polish is really making it deep. I’ll have the whole thing polished up and waxed tomorrow.

 

Here is the pass side quarter behind the quarter window. This is after the polish.
This is the Pass side door that a touched up about 70000000 chips in it, then wet sanded and cut, still to be polished. Looks pretty good.

 

Once I get the rear and trans swapped out I’m going to pull the pass rear fender, strip it to bare metal, fight a proper 39 taillight to it and re paint it. It looks like it may have been very close to a fire at one time and the paint on that fender is pretty crispy and you can pull big sections of it off. No sense in doing any of this stuff to it.

 

NOT LOOKING GOOD its looking fantastic,well done

 

Still have a little more to do on the bottom front edges of the front fenders. And I haven’t totally decided what I’m going to do about the grille yet but this is where we are now. The rustoleum re spray on the roof was a complete success. The rest of the paint buffed and polished amazingly for beaten abused paint from 1939.

This one is the roof sprayed, most of the car wet sanded and cut with Meguiars 105 compound, finish polished with Meguiars 205 finishing compound and a coat of Meguiars gold class wax. It’s far from perfect but 1,000,000 times better than it was. More importantly I saved the majority of the original paint and it only took about two weeks.

 

The top blend looks pretty good. You have to be right up on it to really see it.

 

Good job! Just time, and a little bit of cash. Looks great.

 

I’ll be swapping the rear out soon with a Bronco 9 inch and swapping transmissions at the same time to a 1963 3 speed top loader with a Jeep shifter conversion. I like the banjo just fine but I know it’s a mater of time before I grenade the trans. My buddy Rob dropped off the top loader today for me. It was at another friends house in NC. Opened it up and dam it looks good inside.

 

Bye bye leaky banjo. Got some killer stuff from R Jays speed shop in the mail today. The banjo is coming out in favor of a 68 Bronco rear and the trans being swapped for a top loader 3 speed with a Jeep shifter. I waffled on weather or not to do this or parallel leafs. Leafs are probably easier to do but I just didn’t want the ride height to change. This way I can use my same Posies leaf in the back and it should be the exact same ride height. I just didn’t want to do leafs and then have to put lowering blocks in it to get it to sit right. Plus R Jays makes a killer set up that is bullet proof. It’s the same ones on the Gold Chainer 32 built by Dave Gray. And that thing yank the front wheels at will....and hard!!!

 

Those welds are a work of art!

 

Cory at R Jays does some killer work. If you are in need of chassis stuff for you hot rod go to him. His quality is top notch and you won’t find a better deal. I got all the ladder bar stuff , the cross member, the spring hanger kit and shock brackets shipped to my house for less than the price of Anyone else’s ladder bar kit. And none of them are made this stout. Looks him up. Support the guys that support us.

https://rjays.com/

 

Before I start doing the rear end and trans swap I needed to lower the radiator down a few inches to clear the hood. And relocate the alternator to the pass side so I can fit the hood side on.
For the alt bracket I used a 70 corvette smog pump bracket and made an adjustment arm out of 2 old ones I had. That’s why half of it is chrome, I painted the plain steel side!

 

I hope that is just a bad angled photo (the last one) because it looks like the belt pulleys aren’t lined up very well.
Looking at the picture it could be a belt thrower.

 

While doing this alternator and rad move it was a good time to go ahead and put the turn signals in the head lights and straighten out the headlight wiring that was rushed for Old North State and TROG.

for the turn signals I used some universal 1157 socket from amazon. Drilled a hole in the bottom of the bucket and tacked them in. I’ll seal the buckets with 3M strip caulk after I paint the inside of the buckets.

 

It’s just the angle they line up perfectly.

 

That’s good because if they’re off you’ll find out quickly at the higher rev range usually

What’s that racket? ( As the belt departs for places unknown )

 

Hey was wondering if you had already done the 3 speed top loader trans swap with the Jeep shifter and could give me the info on what it took to do it fixing to do this in my 1971 ford f100. thanks Steve

 

Got the stainless and all the paint (save for the pass rear fender ) shined up as best I could. Got the front sheet metal all aligned and the hood and hood sides all back on. Looks completely different and I’m loving it.

 

Looks great, Jason.

 

thanks Don!

 

Working on some bumper ideas too. I have a pretty rough stock front bumper that I was considering cutting up to make a bumper similar to a 40 Lincoln. But then I also had this 35 36 bumper that I’m kinda liking as well. The dip really follows the flow of the grille.

 

Always liked those '35/'36 bumpers. Never saw one on a '39, but it works. Looks good, like it was born there.........Don.

 

Yep bumper looks stock.

 

Your hard work has really paid off.
Agree, that front bumper looks at home on that car.

 

looking damn good man hoping I can make it up soon to see this beauty in person

 

Milestones...that's a 'Smilecracker' @Nailhead Jason...

 

Jason, the car looks great! Maybe Hanlon Plating could brighten that bumper up for you? Keep up the good work.

 

You might try some CLR on that bumper and be surprised at what's underneath all the crud, Just a few bucks at the super market or the hardware store.and some elbow grease!

 

I would if it had any chrome on it. I don’t know if truck numbers were painted or not but this one looks like it was never chromed. I got it with a 36 pickup I bought a few years ago.