I'll start off with an introduction. I've never built a car from scratch, so this is my first attempt. I've been into old cars since I was a kid. I'm looking forward to getting this done so I can cruise next summer. My goal is to build a good chassis and drive train, then next season I'll pull the body for a chop and repairs. I will try to post up my progress as often as I can. So far I've got the 32 Amercian Stamping rails bent to my liking and tacked to the frame table. Currently working on a small channel for the body. I like pictures so I'll try and post as many as I can. Enjoy the show, this should be fun! The day I picked up the 30. Sitting in the shop. Time to take the body off the chassis. Unfortunately an old time hot rodder passed away with a whole bunch of parts he had been saving for a build. I was fortunate enough to pick up all the parts for this build. Some I will use and some I won't, but I was lucky to be able to buy all this at one time. There is also some parts not seen such as a nice guage cluster and a cherry original straight 32 grille and shell. Trusty old Toyota keeps putting the work in. That this has over 22k hours on it. Makes life much easier though. With the body off I can now get rolling on the frame and body. This frame is in super shape. The car had sat inside since the late 60's so it's in great shape.
Very cool! It's awesome to start with a solid car. What's the plan? 32 rails, small channel and what else?
Just a heads up and quite frankly it gets discussed here over and over but the VIN for that body is on the frame, on the engine and possibly not so I'm just mentioning when you sell that off in lieu of the Deuce rails be aware the numbers are not on them... Congrats on the new Man Toy...fun times...
I've checked the frame in all locations and can't find a VIN. Maybe I gotta sand the paint off? The title is already in my name for the new build as well. The basic plan for now is a set of 32 rails, about a 1" channel, T5z trans. Closed drive system with a 201 quick change, flathead ford that's already in the shop being machined. I scored a new block that had never been used which I assume is pretty darn rare. It's a 1948 59Y factory relived block. Were going to bore it about 0.030" over with 4-1/16 stroke merc crank. Custom pistons. SBC Hbeam rods, larger valves, port work, 8.5 compression give or take, edlebrock heads, Wieand 3 pot intake and either strombergs or 94's. Build my own set of headers. Should run healthy. Plan to run 7.50-16 rear tires and 5.50-16 fronts. Keeping the body the same till next winter where I plan to chop it. Basically looking for a decent old style Build. Hopefully that lays out the plan a bit better.
It's on the driver side rail, on top just under the cowl area I understand...it could be paint or rust...near 100 years can do a lot to these frames...I sure can't think of a stupider place for a VIN...sorry just ranting...F'n engineers
Before I even got to work on the frame I had to go on the hunt for a good flathead block. I ended up going through 3 before the 4th one was good. I also forgot to mention up above that the cam I have is being custom ground to be close to the Isky 400jr profile. The ignition will be a Petronix 1.5 ohm coil with a Stromberg Efire electronic distributor and Efire plug wires. Next item on the list was to get the frame table that I borrowed all set up. After getting it level and all the I-beam's in place I went ahead with locating the rails. That was a bit of a learning curve. I ended up ditching the Westcot drawings in favor of my own. The rails are dead on with a digital angle finder and the standard level. They fit the profile curve of the car dead on. Some work with the torch helped that out. Clamp and unclamp a thousand times. Then level, plumb and tack. After that I went with the heat to bend the back end of the rails. Here's shows the locations of the bends from the torch. Now begins the process of all the cutting of sheet metal, drilling and punching out of rivets, drilling spot welds and so on. It makes a heck of a mess but that's progress! So fortunate to have a forklift for this. Grabbed the extensions and put the body on the frame. Had to do this many many times to get the notching right and the frame bent correctly. Sits good and I like it. This pic doesn't show it sitting over the rails as it would though.
Found mystery items left from years ago in the parcel tray fold. No gold bars though so I guess I get to keep harvesting off the money tree. A shot of the front notch on the frame just for reference on the size of the mini channel. Made a template for both sides. I gotta make a trip to a friend's place to break this at a 90* in a couple spots. I don't have all them fancy tools. Some of the engine parts started arriving, heads are still on backorder so who knows when they will show up. Been learning a lot about this stuff, but I have a long way to go. I'm definitely enjoying the process.
I have to do some more research, leaning towards the strombergs. Had plans to run the FlatAttack injection system from Australia but they have stopped all production due to health reasons, and after talking with them it doesn't sound like they plan to be back.
Welcome to the HAMB .... nice Coupe you scored. Are you going to make this a daily driver? With or withour fenders?
The plan for the car will be a driver. Not daily but I want this car to be able to be driven any time and as often as I can. Washington is a fair weather state, which means we can drive open wheeled cars, but only if its not raining. I'm not sure what they would do if I was out and about in the rain with no fenders, time will tell. I had an opened wheeled rat rod Willys pickup that they never gave me grief about which was shocking.
Well, no work will be performed for about a week. Headed down to Monterey California to Leguna Seca Raceway. On my way down I'm stopping to see if I can buy some wheels, steering column and steering wheel, tail lights and carbs for the project. The real reason for going down is my other passion Cyclekarts. You guys would probably dig them. Here's a few pics of mine and a link to a very well made video on YouTube of us. Gives ya an idea of what it's about. If your really interested shoot me a message and I can chat more about it with ya. Or go to Cyclekartclub.com to visit the forum. My build page is 1928 DeSoto, out of the box build. Thanks guys for the warm welcome too!
Back home from a great trip to the track. Time to get back to work on the car. Went over to a buddies place to use his finger break to bend up a few pieces for the front body channels. Other then that since it's the holiday season I've been rather busy with family and putting up Christmas lights. I should be able to actually get out in the shop over the weekend.
Cool project, cool forklift. I part time work in a fireworks warehouse were we have a Toyota propane forklift. We used to have an old gasoline engine forklift with a three on the tree that I miss. When the forklift was low on gas, we would drive it half a block down the road to the Texaco station. One day I drove to the station and was filling up and a guy said, that's something I haven't seen before. I knew what he was talking about but I played dumb and said, what's that? He said driving a forklift to the gas station. So I asked him, how do you fill up your forklift? He said, I don't have a forklift. I said, you don't have a forklift?!? As if everyone has a lift.
Been busy on lots of things minus the car. I have managed to get a few things checked off the list now. After getting the frame where I liked it it was time to move on to setting it up at the degree for the rake I want. I put the body on and rolled the table outside. I've settled on a 4° rake for the overall frame. The front portion of the kick up where the engine sits is at 1.5°. Frame at the engine location. Center around the B pillar/door Jamb area. After that was to locate, cut, trim....trim....trim.....oh and more trimming to get a nice snug fit on the front crossmember. I set this up at 6°. I went with 6 for the simple reason that I can run 5 to 7. This puts me in the middle and gives me a tiny bit of room to be off a little if I change something. Side to side was 0.1 degree off of level so I left it there. More to come!
Next was to move to the rear of the chassis. Decided to go a different route with the rear portion. I wanted to keep the back body mount bolt. I opted to do a pie cut in the frame. This gives me the same 4° plane as the center of the frame. With the body on its barely seen. A little heating with the torch and some fine tuning. Got the gap correct and welded it up. The rear crossmember I sourced out had been cut out with a torch. Made a couple templates for each side and cut out some filler pieces. I ended up using the scraps from the pie cuts on the back of the frame since they had a bend in them already. Got them all welded up, smothed out and ready to go. I set them at the height for the 2° so that the crossmember sit flat on the frame. A quick shot for reference on the angle Went ahead and bolted the bells to the quick Halibrand 201center section. This is just for mock up for now. A little update on the engine. Found out the 4" merc crank had a super small fracture after the second mag check. Ended up grabbing a 4.25" Eagle crank. That's now at the machine shop along with a custom ground cam close to the Isky 400jr grind, but with a little more duration and a small amount more lift. Specs went with the cam so I'll have to post those later. Took the flywheel for them to check and surface. Going to be ordering the T5z, as well as the adapter parts to get that stuff coming. I need to get the table back to my buddy for his project so this will be cross braced and removed from the table. I'll have some material bent up for the K-member so I can get to work on that. Project keeps moving forward, not as quickly as planned but work and family come first.
Would anyone know why my rear leaf spring eye is narrower than the eye on the axle bell? Notice in the pic below that the shank for the bolt is exposed. I could make a spacer for that, but want to do it correctly. What would you guys recommend or do I need a different setup for this. Thanks! I'm getting more frustrated with this build, seems I make a step forward and do a few more back. I also have an issue with the spindles. Seems something is tweaked. If I rotate the spindle after the king pin is in it binds on full lock each direction. I've mixed and matched the parts till no end and I can't figure out what it is. I suppose I could toss the pins in the lathe and check to see if they are true. I guess the only positive is I've got my wheels and tires coming.
Shimming is acceptable with spacer washers under this circumstance? What year is the hanger off the rear...I thought T-springs fit A's as naturals...Is this perhaps a later hanger...
90% of these parts I picked up from a lady who's husband had passed. This is my first ever build so I'm not certain of years. I do my best to research but am learning a lot. I'll be honest, I should have done a little more due diligence on the purchase of these parts but now I'm trying to use what I can and will hold on or sell the rest when Im finished. I figured at this time I'm going to use the spring with this setup. This means I will have to make the spacer. It shouldn't affect anything in a negative way. I could even tig the shim to the shackle dog bone to stiffen it up some. I really just don't want to cobble something together to make it work. Thanks for the compliment on the build. I'm doing my best here, and love to check out other builds to help me with mine. Really hoping to get this thing on the road by June next year.
Since you are in the mock up stage, put a washer/spacer on both sides of the spring to center it up with the shackle mount on the rear end. That way, if you decide to change to a full width spring in the future, you won't be fighting a misalignment issue.
The Jalopy Journal
