Projects 1936 Ford Tudor Sedan - Build Log

Losing the day job has kind of hampered my progress on this one, but I'm forging ahead slowly anyway.

I've finished up my chassis design, and hope to begin fabrication some time around the first of next year, sooner if possible. It all depends on when I find the cash to buy the steel.

Anyway, to add some content, here are some pics of the solid model I've made of the chassis. The cage is not shown, because I can't figure out how big it's going to be until I get the body on the chassis and the top lowered.

She's gonna be a mean bitch when I get done with her.

Pictars:

Isometric view


Front


Back


Driver Side


Passenger side


Top


Bottom


Dimetric View


Weight as shown ~250 LBS.

The cage will tie into the front and rear spring pickups and tie everything together.

 

Great project and different too. I´ll be watching for updates.

 

Looks like a very cool project. Keep the pics comin. Anyway we can persuade you to put a SBF in her and not a SBC?? I would hate to see that great lookin Ford with a chevy mill in it!!! J/K Keep up the great work.

 

Well, considering that I have several hot Chevy motors setting around here on engine stands, and that the thought of tuning on a Ford motor makes my teeth itch, I think I'll stick with my 406 Chevy.

Or maybe I'll build a 434.

I dunno. Depends a lot on how much money I have in hand when the time comes.

 

Funny how progress on a project comes in jumps and jags.

Here's the thread on the spindles I designed and built for this car:
Fabricated Spindles

Here's the thread on the tube frame chassis that I designed and just recently finished building:
Tube Chassis

As you can see, some things changed on the design in the year or two between those solid model pics above and what ended up in steel last week.

I will take that thread through until the chassis is a roller, and then we'll be back over here for the body work et al.

Hopefully the next update won't be two years hence.

 

It wasn't two years hence, it was damned near THREE.

The update is this: I have not given up on this project. I have been hampered considerably by the crappy economy (and the concurrent lack of disposable income that causes).

Last month I was forced (rather suddenly) to move the contents of my shop and everything around it to a new (bigger ) building with more land around it. Good news, the new place is outside of this rat bastard little town I used to be inside of, and it's about fifty yards from my house (instead of a few miles). Bad news, it had to happen ASAFP, so I've spent all of August and September, and probably a good chunk of October working seven days a week at moving. We're damned near to sixty 30' gooseneck trailer loads, and it still ain't done yet (but we're getting close).

You never know exactly how much shit you have until you have to move it all. Now I know. A lot.

Anyway, this move has let me lay hands on every piece of this project and my motivation to get it at least rolling and driving has soared.

As soon as I get my shop squared away again, I will be getting back to this project to start the rust repair on the body shell. Lord knows there's enough of it to keep me busy for the winter.

That's cheap but time consuming work to do, which will give me time to save up my pennies to buy a motor and trans. I shant discuss the exact nature of said motive devices, except to say that nobody here will want to hear about it anyway. I wish I could swing something cooler, but running and driving with a less cool motor > setting with a tarp over it waiting on the best motor evar!!!!1!!

So, there we are, back to current as of Oct 1st, 2013.

 

Wow, sounds exacly like a couple of my projects, minus the move. Pics or it didn't happen! I love me some 35-36 Sedan.

 

Subscribed, just got my 36 sedan yesterday, looking forward to seeing progress on yours as it will no doubt help me with mine. One question, did you bother to brace before you lifted your body? I know it was suggested, but I didn't see any in your pics.

Chris

 

Hey, at least yours has doors.

I did not brace my body before I lifted it from the chassis, BUT, by the time I lifted it off, it was entirely bare and missing almost the entire floor. It weighs ~250-300 lbs without the floor, which is nowhere near enough to bend the top even with the roof bows missing.

My car (body, chassis, everything) had been picked up at some point in its life by just throwing a chain through the open doors and going, no bracing at all, and THAT semi-crushed the roof right where the A-pillars meet the roof proper. I will have to remove the interior bracing and work these two areas back to some semblance of shape before I can hang my doors (which aren't the doors that came with the car).

To prevent this from happening when I picked the body off the chassis, I used a very long boom attachment for my fork truck that let me sling the body both in front and the rear at the same time, and used 16' x 2" lifting slings.

Instead of just letting the sling run through the door openings, I wrapped it around each of the A-pillars as it went past, before going up to join the ends at the boom. With it tight in the center and the ends pulled tight as it lifted, the sling gripped the pillar very tightly, which prevented the roof from trying to crush inward. The sling ends wanted to pull the pillars apart, while the sling center wouldn't let them.

I did the same thing in the rear of the qtr windows just in front of the C-pillar. Worked like a champ. No damage to the body or the slings.

Bracing wouldn't hurt anything, but I didn't have any 2x4's long enough to do it at the time, and I refuse to cut virgin box tube to make temporary supports, so we went without.

You'll note that the tubing in the doors (put in place as bracing before I cut the rockers out) is salvaged tube that's been "repurposed".

Gotta squeeze every penny 'til it screams for mercy, and then squeeze it again.

 

thats going to be a fun build and have fun with it.

 

Hello coolhand. Looking for a photo of the cab to chassie mount just behind doors mine are gone and can fab it by a picture. Any help would be great.

 

Mine were gone too, rotted clean away. I didn't even have to remove any fasteners to pull the body off the frame, it just came off when lifted. Most of the floor had gone MIA in the years before I got it.

Apparently this is a "thing" with 36's.

 

Thank you for the reply