Projects trying to save an oval track 1940 Ford Jalopy

So I got a text from the roll cage kids...went over after work on Saturday to explain what I would like to see as far as a new roll cage....I told him keep it just like it was back in the day...big gussets..black iron pipe...a point cage...tops a 6 point cage...no bends unless necessary....these kids build a ton of Hondas for the local dirt track...both of them ate extremely talented so for them to build a 1950's cave man roll cage...well...we will see...I still am grinding on the truck lid tho...
I am trying to keep all the lumpiness going along as it has been for the past 60 years....no sense making look like new again...this is a 1955 to 1965 era rebuild going on...

I think this car was a back marker back in the day...lots of lumps on the rear of the car...drivers side has got lots of dents too...nothing on the front of the car...so think about it...this car was in the way of the fast cars and was getting bumped out of the way all the time...

Since I decided not to really drive this car....it has become a almost fun project again....trying to drive this thing on the highways and byways in my neck of the woods would have been disastrous from the get go...

So I will continue to grind away on this old heap...
I even picked up another one just in the case one of the other two I currently have decides to take a dump on me...

Until we meet again...

Keep on Hot Rodding...

MikeC

 

So for you guys that are not on Facebook...I have been trying to get in touch with anybody in the New Jersey area of the country who might have any history on my old Jalopy..well a couple days ago I put up more pictures of the carcass and someone remembered it...and bingo...here it is as it was raced back in the day...I am waiting to hear back again from one of the builders who goes by the name of "JB Davis" who lives across the street from the old North Wilkesboro speedway...cant wait to hear back from him again...

As it sits now...I dropped it off at the roll cage fab shop in October and the guy is going thru a messy messy divorce but hope to have it back home before snow flies...

 

Great build, every thing you're doing is an improvement. Get the frame and suspension straightened out, install some lights and drive it on the street. Some tube bumpers and plenty of exhaust noise, you wont have to worry about any traffic coming near you.

 

Great picture!

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Last Sunday a friend with a flat bed went and picked up the old heap...the roll cage is done...the first shot is what it came with from the 1963 era...
currently working on getting inner fender wells back onto the body....

I found a pair on a facebook page...had them shipped I think from Michigan...the fellow told me they were off of a 4 door...

should have this side done this week...

the original owner builder / driver J B Davis sent me his original helmet from back in the 1960s..how cool is that??

 

So we have been slow going but we are still going....
Had a lot of extra stuff going on in the garage with this heap...so we burned a little sage to clear the elements out of the garage....I can still smell cigarettes when I am working on the car but everything seems to have settled down a little....
I found a set of inner fender panels off of a 1940 sedan...I thought would fit the bill...they did sorta...took several nights if cutting and bangin to get them to even look like they would fit...they came from a fellow on a "Fordy Ford" facebook page...

Then I found out the part of the quarter panel where the fender mounts...well it needed work too...

I am planning when I put the rear fenders back on I will blow new holes out to bolt them to...
The back of the body was sorta swaying in the breeze...so I had some left over black pipe...I thought I should try and radius the pipes before I mounted them up....the last time I did it I did it with a hot wrench...I used my trusty Makita angle grinder...
The welds turned out ok...nothing to write home about but it looks like it is from that era...sorta...
The rear floor was gone too...so I had some 1x1 left over and some diamond plate...did some cutting and fitting...used 2 of the body mounts I got from Bob Drake in 2019...actually came out ok...
Had to come up with a rear push bumper too...I talked to the old driver of this jalopy and he could not remember what was back there...the car came with 5" C-channel tack welded and hodge podged bolted to the rear frame rails...but no bumper...I had some 4x4 steel that I had cut in half lengthwise from a old Willys Jeep project....a little cutting and chopping and look mom...we gotta a rear push bumper...
Side note:
As I toil away on this old car...I am in awe at the fellow race car drivers from back in the day when this thing raced...they we so unsafe...I wouldn't put my worst enemy in this thing...the driver told me he ran a 312 Y-block in it..."it would run like hell down the straightaways but it wouldn't turn"...those were is exact words...this thing is a deaf trap...it is no wonder so many guys got killed in them...

Next on the docket I gotta spend some money on some steel wheels for it and some tires...from the pictures that I have seen of this car...it had some sort of pie-crusts on 3 of the 4 wheels...not looking forward to buying them but we will see...

 

What wheels and what pattern? I have 2 Bart standard black 15x8 stock car wheels, in 4.5x5" pattern.

 

So we have been busy making lots of metal dust...metal chips too...killed a couple of grinding wheels as well...


I know you guys think I am killing this old heap...and I am probably killing it...but here is the original seat frame mounting arrangement...some old channel iron and steel I-beam too...

I had to do something so...I did...
I had some 1x2 I think it was...a little cuttin and fittin later...and look mom...we gotta seat frame...
Found these at my part time job at yea ole Home Depot...
Had to do some more grindin and drillin...and we now have 3/8" threaded holes in the seat frame...I was proud at this point....

Look mom...we have a brand new rusty seat frame base...
From what I can tell it looks like an old early to mid 1960s MGB style seat that was in it...I asked the fellow that originally built it and he thought it was from an old school bus...maybe the kids that got it from him switched to this seat...
Added a little extra support to help sturdy things up a little...

I am in awe that these young guys back in the day would strap them selves into these old cars...put the pedal the metal and hang on for dear life...these seats have no support either...how they kept from sliding out of the seat is beyond me...my first roundy round had a stock bucket seat too and remember that feeling of my butt trying to leave the seat on every corner....

Still grinding we are here...almost time for more argon for the welder too...probably gonna be cuttin some more gussets just like they did back in the day...

MikeC

 

So it has been a cold winter but I kept trying to go out and get stuff done on the old man...

Scary stuff right here...went and spent a weeks pay on a pair of towel city piecrust and brandy new Vintiques 8" wide wheels for the car....I have a picture of the car from when it ran and from what I can tell it had these on the back of it....

Someone after JB Davis ran the car....some one got the car and it appears as tho they were trying to do some upgrades on it...they hacked the firewall and screwed a piece of 16 gauge steel across the front and welded these pieces on each side....
Thankfully when I bought the car in 2019 the previous had some extra parts he threw in to sweeten the deal...

A lot of chin scratching on this one...borrowed some of the wifes painters tape...more skin scratching....
Break out the angle grinders again....

Holey family...everything sorta kinda fits...

time to break out yea old wire feed welder...
tac tac tac....tac tac tac...hmm.....tac tac tac again...

Grind grind grind ....tac tac tac.....grind grind grind...chin scratching again...
hmm....I think this will fit...

I have to say...working on an old race car is taking me back to when I was a kid with my first roundy round in 1980...it only had to look good from the stands...and this one will be the same...from 50 feet the old man is gonna be cherry...

But in reality this car is lumpy as a bag of walnuts...

MikeC

 

I am learning with this project for sure...the last Ford I owned of this era was probably in the late 1970s' early 1980's...I was really young dumb kid...still not too bright but I try harder now...
The car came with a front end set up that was not what was stock...someone on here told me it was out of a 1948 ish Ford car...well the shock mounts are all different...I had not a clue...I went to the Pete and Jakes catalog and bought shock mounts for aa 1940 Ford and one of their front springs too...

I even roughed it up a little bit in hopes it would age and looked like is belonged there...they dont so....
I did not throw out the old brackets that came with it...thank God for that one...well I thought shoot...buggy spring mounts should all be the same...wrong...I had bought a pair of tube shocks from Rock Auto for a 1948 Ford car...I figured all this stuff should just bolt up....wrong again...


I did finally with the help of my trusty angle grinder...cut the original 1948 Ford car mounts apart I rigged up this set up...it does look a little better than the Pete and Jakes stuff...

Almost looks like a belongs on an old stock car too...sorta...

MikeC

 

Love it! Carry on.

 

I have been trying to keep going out to the shop at least 3-4 nights a week...even if it is only for a hour at a rip... when the car came to me it had this state of the art keg gas tank...well it is getting to the time in the rebuild that I wanted to remount the tank again...I have never bent 3/8" threaded rod but the guys that build it back in 1963 used it so I just went and got a couple of lengths of rod and did the bend it around the keg...I had to add some metal to the original angle iron cross piece to get it all to fit... I had to show these tires...love them a lot...car actually looks like an old Jalopy again...
dug up some old hinges...working on remounting the old trunk lid again...
the rear panel was so beat up...I found one from a Facebook ground and he shipped it to me...I was hoping for something a little rougher but it will tighten things up a bit on the rear end of this Jalopy...

Still not finished but it looks better than it did before...

Working on the hood now...thought it was gonna be a quick trim and mount deal but it is turning into much more...the hood is off of something else...still not sure what it is...
gotta love painters tape....
we had some fence panels that I cut apart and I am using them to stiffen up the edges of this hood...

the coolest thing about this old heap is it was a crude and rude build back in the day...it is still gonna be a crude and rude build when it gets done...

MikeC

 

MAN , and most of you guy's think it's to hard to remove a little wood from an early chev !!!
I admire you taking on the elephant !!

 

You are the very first person on the HAMB I ever heard wishing the part he found was in WORSE SHAPE LOL.

 

OK so I have to ask. If you don't mind sharing what kind of stuff was going on in the garage that necessitated the sage? I find that stuff very interesting.

 

Fourspdquad....

My house sits in a very active non living other dimension area...the stuff I see and hear is very out of this world to say the least...I even have heard and audible voice inside the car once...some nights I can smell cigarette smoke when I am near the car...
My house is worse than the garage...I have had several different folks around trying to clear the spirits...sometimes they go away for a while and sometimes they dont...as of right now...things are kinda quiet...

...bringing an old heap like this into this area I was not sure what was gonna happen..I have not gone totally crazy yet so onward we go...

Thanks for asking...

 

cant seem to able to get the hood lines to line up...nothing like trying a fit a GM hood on 1940 Ford...
after much chin scratching and head banging....I cut it...cut it too far...couldn't get anything to line up...

then it came to me...this is a race car that last raced in 1966...what would they have done then???


I cut pieces of the drop from the old GM hood...cut cut cut...tack tack tack...grind grind grind...
repeat...
This hood is so flimsy from age and weather...crossing my fingers it will work out...

MikeC

 

Did not have a clue how to mount a 1940 Ford radiator on this old heap...
Hodge Podge garage to the rescue...and a old bed frame...gotta keep that old Jalopy flavor going along...


Frame rail on one side...supposedly a radiator mount here too...have no fear...
Some used 1/4" plate to rescue...
and some old bedframe too...


got keep it from falling over backwards...so...more bed frame to the cut up...

Next on the docket...I think more grinding and fitting the rear deck lid...

I think I found a 312 for it...gotta get it shipped from 200 miles away on a pallet...comes with a tranny too...

I have never owned anything with a V8 in it...this should be interesting...

Keep on cuttin...tacking...welding and grinding....

MikeC

 

Wow! Yikes! no wonder you chose a basket case '40 to keep you in the garage!
I get annoyed by my dogs barking when I am trying to work. I couldn't imagine having ghosts
looking over my shoulder.

 

I was wondering what the D-A sticker was on the car in the period photo. Some digital sleuthing resulted in this.

 

I worked nights in a machine shop, usually alone. The original owner passed away, I used to work for him doing cylindrical grinding. His son took over the business and I was there for 30 years.

In the old shop, I started to see things out of the corner of my eye, a glimpse of someone. I'd check the place all over... nobody. Over a couple of years, I realized it was George, the OG owner. When I'd see the spirit, I'd call his name and it would stop for a few seconds and listen. I'd talk to him some nights.

I had maybe less than 10 sightings, I never said a word to his son. Then around 2000, he moved the shop to another town, 10 miles away. We were unpacking in the new shop and another employee mentioned maybe the ghost would stay in the old shop... he saw it too! The son was like what... Then I fessed up, told him I thought it was his dad's spirit. He never saw it himself.

 

Nice save!!!

 

Ghosts don’t bother me, it’s the live people that scare the Hell out of me.

 

I remember when I built my first roundy round back in the late 1970s the officials told us teenage car builders we had to have hood pins for a safety reason...just in case there was fire or something the firemen could quick pull the hood pins and put out the fire...


So I asked what the old timers before my time used to keep hood shut and trunks too...the trunk has a bent piece of threaded rod to keep the trucnk shut...so I tried to think like it was 1964-66 era...had some 3/8" bolts....and nuts too...

I even used old bolts...
Hodge podge garage was in full force...

 

I ain’t afraid of no ghost. I think this is an interesting project. I have thought about doing something similar for the street. That will never happen, so I’ll follow your thread.

 

That was very cool of him to send you the helmet. Gotta love people like that!

 

A little rear fender action going on...

tac tac tac....tac tac tac...

grind grind grind...

love the old paint from 1963...

Love the old lumpy sheet metal too....if this old man could only talk...

 

The famous Mike Bowling sold me a pair of original 1940 Ford fenders...
One thing I had a really really hard time with...taking an angle grinder to fenders from 1940...

I was sweating it for sure....

holey family...look what I did...

Looks like Trenton NJ 1963....sorta...

I remember as a kid in 1978 building my first oval track car....don't forget to fold the edges over so you wont cut a tire...that is what I was told by one of the older kids back in the day...

A little rattle can to make the old man smile again....

 

This fender cutting it up I was not worried...it was already cut...just trying to make it look like the passenger side...

All hacked up and no place to go...
used my old grinder sander again...than a little vinegar and water to make things age a little and look what we found....
you can just see the edge of the old numbers from 1963...

this stuff I love...

how cool is this???

 

It is a sad day in the Mechanicville NY hood...
I was looking for a motor and trans to make this thing start and stop...so I did some networking and talked to a couple a guys about and I was figuring I would not hear from any of them but I did...
So I get a call from a number I didn't know and I picked it up and had a great chat with an old timer Ford guy who knew a lot of the some guys I knew back in my street rodding days...

I was still tinkering on it the night before he came to take it home...I didn't really want to sell but I told him if or when he goes to sell it please give me first refusal...he knows flat heads and vintage oval track stuff way better then me....I grew up in the vintage Mercedes Benz and vintage VW world...so I was not well versed in these older Fords....I did have a blast to save it from its resting place on the guys lawn in PA back in the May of 2019....

I am gonna miss it a lot...

Currently looking for m next project...still not sure what I am looking for but my garage is a little empty with nothing in it but my daily driver...

Thanks for following along...I am hoping Dick (new care taker) will add to this thread as he progresses along with it...

MikeC

from the May 2019 Craigslist ad...