How's it going, everyone! I made an introduction thread already, but I felt like I might as well start a thread to chronicle the restoration/modifications as I go on this 1951 Ford Custom. Snapped a few extra pictures today, so let me start with that: First things first will be mechanical: Fixing some slight leaks. Getting the steering box rebuilt (probably exchange with Shoebox-Central) and whatever else is needed to tighten up the steering. Relatively minor electrical maintenance. First decent length drive was today. Everything seems to be functioning well. About 8.3 miles round trip. Baby steps. Cheers, Juice
My boy, I like what you’ve done so far. Good work. Fixing the mechanical problems is a great start. After that just drive the wheels off the thing. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Oh, I cannot take any credit. I came into possession of this car on Friday. It is a remarkable survivor that I hope to take care of, and, as you said, drive the wheels off of.
Cool ride - yep, making your ride safe and reliable main priority Sent from my SM-G930V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Before assuming your steering box is whipped make sure it is adjusted properly. Also make sure the two bolts that mount it are good and tight. The rivets that hold the bracket to the top of the frame are known to loosen up or pull through the frame in which case weld it back in place.
Seeing that it is still 6 Volt check your wiring very closely. Especially under the dash. Mine was so brittle that it almost caught the whole car on fire but I caught it in time. Rebel Wire who is an Alliance Member and vender here is where I got my new 6 Volt harness. You got a nice car to start with so check it very well as it is only 70 years old. A lot of heat and cold cycles in it's life time and who knows what has been spliced etc.
Also if you are thinking that there may be good chrome under that black paint you will probably be disappointed. The chrome has been referred to as Korean Chrome as it did not use nickel due to restrictions to support the war effort.
Welcome to the forum... Wow! A Fordomatic. These transmissions were air cooled. Make sure it's getting air. The vent system can stop up on these causing the transmission to overheat. Here is a little movie about them. That's a nice car. Keep inside it if you can. Check those brakes. My 51 Coupe had zero back brakes. Those battery Cables are not adequate. They may work OK right now but they will give you trouble. You need the right size, around 00 gauge to carry 6V. If you plan to run the original dash gauges, get the King Seely original senders. The modern reproduction senders are not the same design and are not accurate. Lately there has been a lot of 51 grille parts for sale on the FB Shoebox Group. There may be a good bit of chrome left under that all black. In my opinion rusty chrome or painted silver ( if the chrome is that bad) is a better look than black.
fourspd2quad just gave you some very good advice. These steering boxes are very easy to adjust if you know what your doing. Most of them never got touched after they left the Factory. A little attention to them goes a long ways. Times two on the top mount bracket. I've seen several torn clear out of the frame rail. No wonder they had to chase the Line to stay on the road. Like I said, A little attention there goes a long ways.
Awww shit. I thought by the thread title we were going to be helping you name your Shoebox. I was going suggest the..."Fabulous Friggin' Fifty One Flatty Ford Flyer"
My bumpers are painted silver until I can afford new aftermarket chrome ones and parts of my grille are OK but dull and does not have a brilliant deep shine. Yes the chrome or even silver paint will wake up the looks and make it more appealing to the eye. It also accentuates the lines and innovative design post WWII which Ford pretty much pioneered. It took GM until 1955 and they IMO missed the mark. Yes definitely change out those battery cables on second look. 6 Volt generally needs twice the size wire as 12Volt throughout the entire wiring systems in the car. It is the main reason why all vehicles went to 12 Volt, Bean Counters. Lower cost boost profits. Half of the copper for the same purchase price or more of a new car.
Thank you everyone for the advice! To recap a few: -I wasn't about to order a steering box immediately. Going through it this Sunday to see what exactly all is wrong. So that you very much for letting me know a few things to look for up front. -I knew there wouldn't be any good chrome under the paint. The original owner had sold the good chrome that was on it anyways to replace it with a pretty rough set that he painted flat black. (Or at least, I was told.) My plan is to find a local chrome plating joint (there are several near my house) and get them to redo everything in one batch. Interior and exterior bits alike. But yes, I very well might get the bumpers painted with something temporary to hold me over. I'm not a fan of the black on this style of car. -Will double check wiring everywhere! If I'm replacing the front harness to begin with, would it be better to change to 12v for any reason? -The gauges all seem to be visually in pretty good condition (and I love the style) so I'm probably going to keep them. I know I at least need a sending unit for the fuel gauge so thanks for the rec! -I'll double check to make sure the transmission is getting adequate airflow. Thank you everyone for the warm welcome and plethora of information!
My personal opinion is there is no necessary reason to do a 12 Volt up grade if all is well. If you find some wire that is in questionable condition check out . Rhode Island Wiring Service Inc. https://www.riwire.com They have O.E. style everything for your Car. You can repair or replace as needed out of there web sight.
Also, I have found 2 normal reasons the sending units fail in these cars. #1 Is rust and loose straps along with the external ground wire. Once the ground to the Tank is lost the gauge can't get the signal. #2 is the float on the sending unit cracks and fills with fuel. Next move is for it to sink making the signal stay at E. Dennis Carpenter has new floats for these sending units. To test and see if it's the sending unit causing the issue remove the wire at the sender and Ground it. Turn the key to On position and watch the gauge. If the needle sweeps your on the right track.
I had original wiring in my 51 when I got it twenty plus years ago. It was stiff, brittle, and a short fire waiting to happen. I would prioritize changing it all out, and going to 12 volts, if it was mine. Chrome will take $$s; so if you are planning custom modifications, pot metal items are particularly expensive to repair, and typically removed on customs to clean up the looks. Decide what you want to keep in the long term before you send a batch to the plater. I did mine over a couple decades and now have about a thousand plus in plated items I am not using anymore because I have slowly made the car more of a traditional custom.
A bit of advice on the chroming. It may not pay in time and money to strip what you have and re-chrome everything not to mention repair of dings, rust and such. Everything is available new and that may be the less expensive direction to go. Another route is you can still find driver quality stuff out there for way less.
Any of those pieces you're looking to part with? Perhaps we could help eachother out. I'm looking to keep most all of the chrome on mine.
That is a good response as I said it is 70+ years old. As Pist-n-Broke said 6V is fine as long as it is all working OK then leave it as that is what I am doing. 6V just likes GOOD grounds, clean them good when re-wiring and protect them with some dielectric grease to prevent corrosion and you will be good.
Juice1990, Even though I post photos of my coupe every chance I get, I'm not trying to hijack your thread. There's some things I want to point out. Untitled by Travis Brown, on Flickr ^^^ This is an example of "driver quality". It's just a nice old car. Of the old carts I have had, this one has the best chrome. The main factor is how a car is kept. Some pieces have been replaced like the windsplints and the some grille pieces but some are original. You don't have get all perfect chrome. Some decent to pieces can be mixed in with better to very good pieces and it's hard to notice. There is some so-so pieces of chrome in my 51's grille. Mixed in with some very good pieces. Some of these pieces are being reproduced like the windsplints. Notice the headlight doors/rings. Your car has 1949 or '50 headlight rings. 1951 rings were deeper. I actually like the 49-50 rings better. Those (49-50) look more Shoebox to me. Korea Chrome??? The Korean War started out of the blue on June 25,1950. By November of that year McArthur had them pushed back to the Yalu River then the Chinese jumped in with both feet. What I'm getting at is it took awhile to go into "war production" so some '51 chrome may not be Korea Chrome. Korean War shortages tend to really be evident in '52-'53 models of all makes, especially trucks. Untitled by Travis Brown, on Flickr ^^^ The "windsplints" or wings (not to be confused with windwing windows) are the quarter panel tail light trim pieces. These are reproduced. Again, If you keep and eye out and have a little cash in the cookie jar, you can find these chrome pieces. Sometimes NOS. Untitled by Travis Brown, on Flickr My seat bottom has had it. It looks the same on yours. With that said, I'm OK with my seat back. I'm going to run it. I will have to cover the seat bottom. I have already found a roll of similar material (it's a solid color but it is close enough to the seat back) from the local fabric shop. I'm simply going to use that material to cover the bottom cushions front and rear, leaving the seat backs in their old fabric. I may do some sewing but my present plan is just to hog ring the new overs over the bottom cushion and neatly fold them over on the edges. Padding? We'll see when I get the seat took down. It looks like your seat back may be better than mine. I see the original striped material through the vinyl so those backs may be presentable and you can just cover the bottoms. It's really simple to do and you get to enjoy the original stuff for as long as it lasts. Then you can do the tops. Once that Old stuff is gone, it's gone for good. When these cars were 20-30 years old that interior stuff would be ripped out. Now, Being 70 years old, my personal thing for my car it to keep that stuff and try to preserve it. The cost of new upholstery orbits the moon, so that's another motivation. If the bottom seat cushion springs are broken, they be repaired fairly easily. Most of the time all that's required is realigning and clamping the coils back into position. Broken spring frame (the heavy wire) can be repositioned and repaired by steel tubing and clamped. Your car is what's referred to as a Cream Puff. It's not quite Cherry but is definitely a little Cream Puff. It is very probable that that paint is original. If not it's a simple respray of the original color. Your car is very special and it's a shame that the PO took the grille and stuff off for another project.... He did not care for it enough, that's where you come in. Wiring... I love the sound of a 6V. Ford starter. When that engine is right and it's primed with gas, all you need to do is turn the key and barely bump that starter. As good of condition as your car is, the main (under the dash) harness "may" be OK. I stress "may". Now the under the hood harness( horn, brake lights, generator and headlight harness) I'm sure is cooked and weathered. That Old wire is rubber coated (like real rubber from the trees, not plastic) cloth jacket and finally that cloth jacket was lacquer coated. That old wire just crumbles after being exposed to 70 years weather and engine heat. You need to inspect under the dash the status of your wiring. I'm going to replace my under dash harness. I'll do that when I pull the seats to re-cover them. That dash harness includes half of the under hood harness. Some of the old harness I'm leaving, namely the interior lights and brake light through the body....so far that seems to be in good shape. If your old harness checks out OK you can replace the smaller off shoot harnesses. Shoebox Central has these. Those old gauges and sensors may be OK. There's a way to properly test them. Even the senders can be repaired. Tubman, a member here, has successfully repaired the old King Seely sending units.... The Ford Barn (A companion site the the HAMB) has lots of info on the original equipment on these. it's a good resource just like here, but different. I chose to use a reproduction original type harness. It's more expensive than a modern universal harness but in the long run I felt it was the best way to go. Brakes... You are in North Mississippi. It's not much different than here. You should have have no problem with that car and it's original brakes. With that said it is a single master system. A single master system requires diligent maintenance. You have to have a well functioning parking brake. You will need to periodically adjust the brakes. You need to inspect the whole system for leaks. You need to check the system for function. One thing that needs to be looked at if you are having brake trouble is the backing plate. The backing plates have pads that the shoes slide on. these pads should be greased periodically. Nobody did this so the shoes tend to cut grooves in the backing late. These grooves will catch the shoe causing uneven braking. I'm going through the brakes on mine. The backing plates has to be ground and smoothed to remove those grooves. If it's really bad, the grooves can be welded and pads ground smooth. I'm going through mine right now.... Untitled by Travis Brown, on Flickr
Thank you, @F-ONE! That's quite a lot of good information. Nice catch on the headlight rings. I hadn't even noticed. That's one I'll have to think on, personally. The more streamlined rings look better to me on a car that's being naturally streamlined and being given some hotrod treatments, but I think if I'm keeping all the other big audacious chrome, I might like to return to the protruding ones (though I do like the half-lids these come with). Driver's quality chrome is certainly something that I am fine with. I want this to be a weekend cruiser, not a museum piece. I just, perhaps incorrectly, assumed that the price to have all the straight metal on this re-chromed as opposed to finding all of the pieces in decent finish would be easier. Thanks for the head's up!
"Korea Chrome??? The Korean War started out of the blue on June 25,1950. By November of that year McArthur had them pushed back to the Yalu River then the Chinese jumped in with both feet. What I'm getting at is it took awhile to go into "war production" so some '51 chrome may not be Korea Chrome. Korean War shortages tend to really be evident in '52-'53 models of all makes, especially trucks." F-ONE thanks for the history lesson on the Korean War. I guess I read that enough about the '51 chrome to believe it but perhaps I'm wrong. One thing I will say is that even the NOS '51 chrome I have found has been far from pristine (yeah I know 70 years old) or not near as nice as other vintage chrome. I have some NOS stuff that even has surface rust on the back.
Shoebox Central list a complete grille assembly for $1595. That may sound expensive, but it's probably cheaper than having an original re-chromed, considering it includes the grill extensions (parking light housings). Chrome is expensive.
Don't I know it. I'm fine with taking my time on collecting the pieces if re-chroming isn't really an affordable option. I had no baseline for what something like that would cost. Also, as this will be a driver (not daily, but a driver), I might look into just a semi-convincing chrome paint. So, I'm looking at wiring harnesses, and I don't see a repro original style harness for under the hood. I see the dash one, but I'm not sure what else I'd be missing from it since you said it includes about half of what's there. What is the advantage of the original style harness? Is it just for the original look/feel or is there a safety/performance/ease of installation that comes with it? Sorry. I'm very new when it comes to electronics.
Instead of paint, because it will look like paint. Check out Vinyl Wraps. I plan to do my rear fender spears with it and It does look better than paint but still not chrome. It does have some of the deeper reflective qualities that paint does not have. Check out Rebel Wire. They are a vendor here and will give you a discount. Call them up and tell them what you want and they will accommodate you.
Go back to post #13 and check out that web sight I listed for ya. I just went there to double check. I see the web sight can be a little confusing but it's all there. When you click on the main menu then 49 - 59 Y-S A-K it opens at Dodge Truck and Furgeson Tractors. I can't explain that part but if you scroll down to the bottom and click next page you will get to 1951 Ford car then 6cyl and eventually V-8 cars. There you will find the different segments of under the hood. I can tell you there stuff is Plug and Play but you may be better off calling them to be sure you actually get what you need. There web sight could use a little help.
I'm not sure if I should be ashamed to say I actually kind of like the black paint on the chrome. It subdues it a little bit and makes the car look a little meaner. Not that I would necessarily paint my chrome black, but I'm not sure I'd knock it off if it came to me that way either. It works nicely with that car's paint and wheels.
Thanks for the suggestion on the vinyl wrap. I'd never heard of such. And I was about to pull the trigger on the Rebel Wire harness on shoebox-central but good to know I can call them and work it out instead. Ah, shoot, Pist-n-Broke! I completely forgot to check that one again. I'll compare with them too. Thank you. There are loads of cars that I like the blacked chrome on, but this one just doesn't feel right to me.
Maybe I worded that poorly. The dash harness comes through the firewall and terminates at the headlight junction the ignition connections and at the generator junction. The dash harness is the main harness. Everything plugs into it. Quality and Ease of installation. I wanted to avoid the bullshit. Universal Harness... "One size fits all" really means "One size fit nothing". I'm going back with the original gauges so I wanted something that is high quality but most importantly actually fits. I want to take the old stuff off. I want to put the new stuff on. Since I'll be working on my back under the dash I wanted the least pain in the ass. Oh I know it's still going to be a pain in the ass but the lesser the better.
https://www.rvinyl.com/Silver-Chrome-Vinyl-Film-Wraps.html I have not used it yet but plan to on the rear quarter spears. I do not know how well it will do curvy objects like the front grille bullets but for the longer fairly straight pieces it should be an improvement. + alot cheaper than real chrome but better looking than paint.
You will be in for a shock when you price the signal lights. Cheapest I have found are $1200 for a pair, have seen them priced at $1500
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