Projects 308_rod_shop 29 Roadster Build Thread

I've been waiting to start this thread until we actually started making some progress. I guess you could say that this project started in March of 2016 when I bought my first flathead engine. From that point, I was then looking for something to put it in. I had always wanted a roadster, but eventually settled on a '29 Five Window Coupe. While getting that car ready to build, I stumbled across a '29 roadster for sale in Oklahoma. I quickly jumped on it and ended up selling the coupe. So here we are. I have been collecting parts and pieces for a couple of years now and have finally started to make progress on the build. My plan has always been to build as close to a 50's period correct hot rod that I can. This is what my build will consist of.

- Original Henry Ford Steel 1929 Roadster Body (Currently Rumble Seat. Will change to trunk)
- Original Henry Ford 1932 Grill Shell
- Deuce Rails by American Stamping
- 40 Ford X Member
- Original Model A Front Axle that was dropped by Okie Joe
- Model A Front Cross Member w/ Model A, Reverse Eye, Posies Spring
- 37-41 Round Back Spindles
- Finned Buick Brake Drums and Finned Backing Plates
- Split Wishbones
- 40 Ford Rear Cross Member (Flattened)
- 40 Ford Banjo Rear Axle w/ Juice Brakes
- 40s Ford Steelies w/ Black Wall Bias Ply Tires
- 53 8BA Flathead, Bored .060, 4" Merc Crank, Isky 1007B Ground Cam, Stock EAB Heads,
Edelbrock Slingshot, Dual 94 Holley Carbs
- 39 Ford 3-Speed Top Loader
- F1 Steering Box
- 47 Pontiac Dash
- 52 Buick Wheel

I'm super excited about this build and can't wait to drive this thing. I certainly welcome any comments and constructive criticism along the way. Please note that this is my FIRST ever build. I have a buddy that has built many cars in the past helping me out. At the end of the day, I just want to build something cool that I can be proud of. So, here we go!

 

So, this is what I started with as far as the body goes. Original 1929 Ford Roadster. The story I got was that the fuel tank was leaking at some point. During the process of trying to repair the tank, the gentleman decided to take the car down and do a restoration. He added juice brakes and had the wheels powder coated. That's about as far as he got. When I picked the car up, it had been covered up in the garage for the last 23 years. Pics are when I went to pick it up and when I unloaded it at home.

 

Very Cool!
It's nice to see you start with something that looks so nice body wise.
Subscribed!

 

The plan all along has been to run no hood and no fenders. So, all I really wanted was the body and the top. So, my son and I got to work on removing the body from the chassis. I ended up selling the rolling chassis to a guy local to me who restores Model A's. It worked out great because it freed up some cash to put toward other parts, and freed up space in my shop! I actually ended up storing the body in my car hauler with the other parts, just because I did not know when I would be able to start on the build. Here are some more pics.

 

As I mentioned initially, I have a buddy that is helping me with this build. He actually has the frame table that we will be setting the chassis up on. However, his table has had his 32 Woody on it for some time. He also had some other projects that he had to finish before we could start on the roadster. In the mean time, trying to find things that I could do on my own, I decided to get the body up on some saw horses to see exactly what I was working with. I also decided to go ahead and put the tail lights in. The tail lights are NOS 47 Kaiser. I think they look pretty good!!

 

The fuel tank was leaking, as per the guy that I bough it from. It didn't matter to me, as I was not going to use the stock fuel tank any way. So, I removed the fuel tank and got everything cleaned up. This was something that I could do while waiting on the frame table to open up.

 

Fast forward 17 months from when we loaded the rails at the 50th Annual Street Rod Nationals in Louisville (first pic below), to when were finally ready to put them on the frame table. It was an exciting day for me in the fact that this was really starting to happen.

 

Next, we placed the body on a piece of plywood to trace the base shape. Because the body is in my shop, and the frame table is at my buddy's shop, we thought this would be a good way to get a rough idea of how the body would sit on the rails, and also help us determine exactly how much we needed to pinch the front of the frame. This was really just for initial measurements. During the tracing of the base, I also marked the front body mount holes. This helped us put the plywood in the correct position on the rails. Since the 32 frame kicks up in the rear, we couldn't sit the plywood flat on the rails. We did make marks, however, and I later cut the plywood so that it would fit inside the rear rails and lay flat.

 

We had to make a couple of extra fixtures for the table and get them set in place. We then set the front cross member in. Needing to make sure that the plum bob was exactly in the middle of the cross member, we took a bolt that just fit in the hole and drilled a hole in the middle of it for the string to fit in. We were then able to get the exact center line marked on the table. This would be our point of reference for the rest of the frame. We then tacked in the front cross member.

 

Getting everything straight, level, and true takes a lot of clamps!! I brought the plywood back to my buddy's shop and set it back on the rails. Everything is looking good.

 

We had a little bit of down time because of other projects that were being worked on. I was able to find a 40 Ford frame not too far from home that had a decent X member. I made the 3 hour round trip to pick it up. Once I got it home, I started to remove it from the frame. I drilled the rivets, used a cold chisel to knock the heads off, and a punch to knock the rivets out. It's only right that you shed a little blood on your project, I think. I was able to get the X member out and power wash it. It appears that it was buried in the mud at one time. I'm glad that I was able to find an original piece to use in this build. My buddy has a partial 39 truck frame we can use pieces from if need be (which is likely).

 

Next up, time to pinch the rails! After some discussion, we decided to heat and bend as opposed to pie cutting and re-welding. We went ahead and put tacked the rear cross member in place to keep that part of the frame true. We took our measurements and using a come-a-long, we pulled rails in enough to insert our spacers. Obviously, this also moved the rear section rear, mid section of the rails in as well. Thus, we put clamps at that position and slowly pulled the rails back out to the fixture while heating the front section where the "pinch" would take place. We then moved toward the rear section and heated it, in order to pull the rails out to the rear fixture. This actually worked out very well. The top of the frame rails did kink a little, but we were able to use a hammer and dolly to make them flat again.

 

After we finished one side, we took measurements. It was determined that we needed a little more pinch. So, we added a 1/4" spacer up front and repeated the process. This meant that there would be more gap to close on the other side. But, it all worked out. We then laid the plywood back on the rails to check our progress. We were pleased with the results.

 

At this point, we were ready to narrow the rear frame rails. After talking over the options, the decision was made to completely cut the rear section of the rails and step them in. We removed the rear cross member because it was going to have to be trimmed. We made sure we leveled the rear most frame rails and tacked them to the rear fixture, as we did not want them to move. We took measurements, made our marks, tacked the rear, mid sections to the fixtures, cut the frame rails, stepped them in, and tacked them in place. Since we will not be putting the gas tank in the stock 32 location, we took another measurement and cut the rear frame horns off.

 

This will bring us to where we are currently. We had to trim the rear cross member. Because it was about to go into the frame for the final time, we went ahead and sand blasted it before welding it in place. We made filler pieces to put where we narrowed the rear section of the frame and got them tacked in. Our goal is to run a really nice TIG bead down the outside seam which will have a nice appearance and also strengthen that part of the frame. We also started to tack in the boxing plates. We had to trim and fit before they went in like we wanted. I will post more hopefully early next week. We are currently at a stopping point until I can get some measurements on the engine. Our next step is to locate the front engine mounts. Thanks for looking thus far! Have a great weekend.

 

Am I getting ahead of myself?

 

What did you do to fill the frame to body gap. Some used wood long ago. Others had special frame tops the were flat.

 

I am not to that point yet. But, my plan is to use welting and wood shims.

 

It's been a while since I posted, so I wanted to get back on track here. I'm going to try and stay in order as best as I can. The '40 X member that I am using had a little cancer on the left front. So, I cut this off and will scab a piece on in its place.

 

Meanwhile, my buddy Frank was already in the process of mocking up the engine, transmission, and radiator so that we could get a feel where the mounts were going to go.

 

Cool

 

I took the X member down to Frank's shop before I left town on business. When I returned, I was happy with the progress that had been made. He was able to "roughly" fit the X member in the frame and had also temporarily mounted the pedals. A few of the pics look a little distorted because of the angle in which I took them. Remember, nothing is welded in place at this point.

 

In the mean time, I am trying to do a few things to stay ahead of the curve. This is my first hot rod build, so I am not taking part in any of the fabrication at this time. But, there are things that I am capable of. So, I decided to get the transmission checked out and ready to mount to the engine. The internals looked pretty good, so I decided to drain the case and get it ready for paint. I also needed to change out the rear mount. The transmission had a mount for a 32 K member. Since I am using a 40 X member, it needed to be changed. I also built a little transmission stand out an old bed frame!!

 

I also took some time to start splitting the wishbones so that they would be ready when it came time to mock up the front suspension. The ends had to be opened up a little to fit over my original Model A axle.

 

Well, I got a call from Frank telling me that it was time to bring the body down and set it on the frame. This was super exciting for me. Once we set the body on the rails, we were able to determine what section of the rear floor would need to be cut out. It would also give us an idea as to where the final engine and transmission mounts would be placed. I was glad to see that we were going be able to leave a small bit of the rear floor structure in place. This will definitely help out when it comes time to fab the new floor. Also, the pinching of the rails was almost spot on. The front cowl sat really nice on the rails.

 

Now it was time to start removing the rear floor structure. We took our time and took out as little as we had to. We realized that we needed to bob a little more off of the rear of the frame rails. No worries - it will be hidden once the body is on for good.

 

Finally, the body is on the frame and sitting where we want it!!

 

We pulled the body off and I took it back to my shop. Frank was able to then weld the engine mounts in place and set the transmission mount. We had to raise the transmission mount to keep everything in line. Instead of welding it back in place, we decided to bolt it in. This will make it easier to remove in the future, if we ever need to. He welded in the front cross member and finished welding in the X member. He also dressed up the rear frame notches that we had to make to get the body to sit right. I wanted to have some part in this frame build, so I asked if I could weld in the boxing plates. Frank tacked them where they need to go and I will end up finishing the welds. We finally have a complete perimeter frame!

 

I brought the frame back to my shop so that I could finish welding the boxing plates. AGAIN, I have very limited welding experience. This is really the first time that I have welded on anything substantial. I watched a few YouTube videos because I wanted the welds to look presentable. I also practiced a few passes on some left over boxing plate material just so I could get the frequency and wire speed set correctly. I flipped the frame over and started at the top of the boxing plates. I figured no one would really ever see these and it would give me an opportunity to get a feel for how the welds were going to turn out. I was pretty happy with the results. I did have a couple of small hiccups, but nothing that can't be overlooked. Please excuse my filthy shop!!

 

I'm trying to use as many period correct parts on this build as possible. I was able to score an original Model A front spring from a local shop. I knew that I wanted the front of the car to be lower, so I decided to have Sid reverse the eyes on the main leaf. He did an awesome job. It was apparent after getting the spring back together, that the second leaf would have to be trimmed back so that it didn't hit the eyes. I tried to keep with the same shape as the other leafs. When it was all said and done, it came out really well.