Projects Tim's (aka anothercarguy) 1938 Ford Club Cabriolet Build Thread

Lets take another look at that Beauty! Nice progress!

 

I wish mine looked like that!

 

Excellent progress, nice tip on the perch bolts, something else to find

 

Is this the correct one? If it is the pictures are great!
I added a couple.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/124511838851

 

That's it! Thanks a bunch! Glad I didn't just hammer on it until it was flat.

 

From the description in the Ebay listing for that panel:

"Often Missing, this shield goes under the radiator between the Radiator and the Front of the engine. Helps protect the front of the engine from road slush."

I had perhaps mistakenly presumed that this panel went in front of the radiator to direct wind into the rad. The panel was just one of the parts in the trunk (the engine and trans were long gone) so I never saw it installed. If the Ebay description is correct, this will go into the spare parts pile. Does anyone know for sure? TIA

 

I believe you are correct, the front of the radiator pan has the crank hole doesn't it?

 

Yes part #81A8240-B from your picture (I have that item as well) has the crank hole. I was struggling to see how and where the 2 panels would tie together so the description in the Ebay listing makes sense. Thanks again for your help.

 

Yours is kinda like the my brothers 37 so it seems familiar. Keep up the good work it's looking great!

 

Thanks guys. After spending a couple days lifting, pushing, prying, hanging and adjusting the front fenders and grille, I think I've finally got them close to where they need to be. The one thought I had while wrestling with this mess, sure glad they aren't painted yet! And, make sure there is help available for the install once painted. I used the front fender bumper cut outs and their relationship to the front frame horns as a guide. I still need to figure out the best order for the final installation, at the moment I'm thinking about assembling the fenders, grille and aprons together and then installing that as a unit (this time, I assembled it one piece at a time). Any advice or comments?

Now that it was in place, I can repair the passenger front fender. There are 3 previously welded tears/stress cracks in the wheel well beading. On the surface, they don't look too bad, but the repairs could be done better. Starting with the worst one, I need to duplicate a patch with this shape before cutting it out. It's probably cut deeper into the fender than necessary but it seemed like a natural area to cut as there were a couple deep dings (metal stretched) as well as a bit of surface rust and pitting. After rough cutting an 18 gauge piece of steel for the patch, I marked the shape I needed at the wheel well and used this combination of dies on the bead roller to start to round over the wheel well bead.

Once the starting point of the bead was rounded over, I used the flat wheels on the English wheel to help the edge over further. I didn't take any pictures of this, but basically I rolled the rounded over edge right next to the corner of the flat wheels while applying downward pressure on the outside of the patch. A couple passes doing this and the wheel well bead was pretty close to a 90 degree flange. I then took the patch to the shrinker to help the patch to conform to the desired shape.
I started comparing the patch panel to the fender area.
Next step was to introduce some stretch in the middle and a little shrinking around the edges to replicate the roundness of the fender. I used the little HF planishing hammer for the stretching, and a bit more time very gently shrinking around the edge (again, no pictures...I really need to remember!). I then slowly brought the wheel well bead around a little bit at a time with a pair of pliers until it closely matched the original shape of the bead.
After trimming the patch close to the finished size, I cut out the original section of the fender. From the back side, the previously brazed crack repair is obvious.

The new patch is tacked into place and a little more hammer and dolly work brought the patch to the final shape. When this picture was taken, I still had to bring the fender and patch into alignment at the bottom to flatten the transition from fender to patch.

A bit of time with the tig welder, grinder, hammer and dolly and this is the finished patch in place.
On to the next repair...same fender.

 

Glad to see this. I'm working on the same fender at the moment and it has multiple old repairs and out of shape issues. Also interested in your assembly/fit up process.

 

Nice work on that patch Tim! It is hard to stop and take pictures when you are in the middle of fabrication, especially when you are working alone and need two hands to do the work. You described the process well. As to the fitment of the sheet metal , in my younger years I would remove my entire front clip as a unit from my 40 to work on the engine. But that was after it had been assembled one piece at a time and left left slightly loose at most every bolt to allow for adjustments before tightening them all up. After you are happy with the alignment you can tighten all of those apron,fender and grill pieces tightly together.

You know you will have to totally disassemble this sheet metal for body work and paint eventually. You will have plenty of practice with it by then and the process will reveal itself. But you knew that already...

Sam

 

I'm making up the assembly process as I go...pretty much one piece at a time. Though the fender, inner fender and 1/2 grille were put together as sub-assemblies and then hung into place. The driver side fender is tending to pull outward more than it should (not surprising given how much work the driver side inner fender required to repair previous damage). So with the both front fenders and grill bolted together it's still pulling the whole front end about 1/4" off center, towards the driver side. I currently have a strap pulling it back and holding the front end centered (based on measurements and the location of the bumper bracket reliefs and the frame horns. I hope to address this as the additional braces get added. If the braces don't hold it centered, I'll add additional brackets as required. I don't want to finalize the location though until the 4 hood pieces are on.

Thanks Sam.

So I got another few hours in the shop today and made more progress on the passenger front fender. Just inside of the last patch on the lower front of the fender was another previously repair stress crack. I marked the area of concern and started to make another small patch panel.

I took a small piece of 18 gauge from the scrap bin, ran the HF planishing hammer over it to give it some shape, folded a soft flange on the bottom with the brake, and then shrunk the edge of the flange to help "bring it around". After a number of test fits, I managed to sneak up on the desired shape.

After trimming the damaged area out, tacking the new panel in with the mig and then tig welding the patch into place, this is what I ended up. I should add that this is not my prettiest tig work, but the pieces are stuck together as one.

And then a little time with the grinders, sanders and hitting it with hammers to get to this.
This is the backside of the piece that was cut out. While still rusty and dirty on the backside, the old chunk of bar stock was brazed into place.
Next up will be the bottom edge of the fender behind the wheel well. The previous craftsman repaired the damage by caving the area with a hammer, drilling through the fender and inserting a carriage bolt, grinding the head somewhat flat and then filling in the caved portions with brass and bondo. Yeah...no, that's not how we're going to leave it!

All for now.

 

Thanks for sharing your work..nicely done.

 

Nice work Looks good Thank you for posting the build & progress

 

Gee I wonder if your car was worked on by the same guy that did the previous work on mine. Nice patch Tim ! I understand how frustrating it can be to get a decent weld on the 80 year old rusty Ford metal.

 

Ah-ha! I've just finished making that same piece! taking a break while welds cool. (the tab for the fender brace on the inside.)

It's amazing how all your damage and old repairs mirror mine. Including the patch in the lower front you just showed.

 

Could be the same craftsman or maybe trained by the same guy...lol. I clean both the front and backside of the steel before tig welding so I don't think the weld quality was related to the steel. I chalk it up to me being rusty, welding position (vertical and near upside down), in an uncomfortable position with a shoulder that was barking at me...oh yeah, I got lots of excuses.

 

I'm interested in/curious about how you made your patch? I'm debating in my mind how to make it, how many pieces and where to make the joints.

 

My corner is like this, with rust holes, misshapen and a steel rod welded the whole fender lip.




For material, I used what I cut out of the rear fender when I put in the filler door. I figured it's the same thickness, same metal.

I formed the corner over a quickly made hammer form, bent the corner radius half way as I was going to form the inside tab section the other half. I used a T dolly to round the lip and ground a piece of bar into the corner radius to tweak that. Welded it together and dressed it like this:




Basic hammer form I used to get me started. Sorry, I didn't take any more pictures

 

Good approach. Thanks for posting,. I'm going to use your method.

 

Thanks guys....and special thanks to @X38. Tony your method worked perfectly. Starting with the wood buck cut and rounded from some scrap I had in the pile, I then trimmed a small piece of 18 gauge scrap from under the foot shear, I got to this.
After a couple minutes with the hammer one piece was shaped, I then grabbed another small piece to make the inside fender brace attachment...once shaped, the two were welded together and metal finished.

Cut the old repair out, tack, weld, grind and metal finish to new part in.

The next repair will be at the bottom of the same fender, this time where it attached to the running board. More old brass and previously repaired stress cracks. Either the fender or the running board will need to be removed to get proper access and not damage the rubber (feels like 2 steps forward, another temporary step back).

And, as I was sitting on my stool feeling good about being able to make progress again, I took this picture of the front end slowly coming together. I thought it was looking pretty cool.

 

That's it exactly, glad to have been of some help!

You're ahead of me now because I have not installed mine. I have to do the whole fender opening so am contemplating my next move.

I have to laugh, I did that last week! I've been saving some ammo for my own thread.

 

Holy Crap!!!! I am totally impressed and,....intimidated!
I'm signed up and anxiously awaiting the next installment.

 

Thanks Bill, been a bit side tracked lately working on non-HAMB things that float.

 

Dang! You’re good! Great car.

 

Thanks, I appreciate the kind words.

Might be time for a minor update. By chipping at it a little at a time, I finally managed to get the last repair to the front passenger fender completed. Again, evidence of previous repairs completed in brass less than ideal steel welding. Using masking tape, I marked out a couple straight(ish) lines and then measured and marked out the distance to the edges. This gave me a target to aim for with my patch panel.

After making a cardboard template, I made a couple flanges on the brake for the bottom and back edge, a little time hammering the bottom over a round bar gave me the rounded edge, then a couple mintes with the planishing hammer to give the flat part of the patch just a hint of shape. The process of making and installing sheet metal patches may seem a bit repetitive, I've often said that building a hot rod is easy...you just shape, cut, weld, grind, repeat.

And, again some less than perfect (though fully penetrated) tig welding and it's permanently installed.

And more time with the grinders, sanders, hammer and dolly etc. and then re-install the running board. One thing that this helped me to realize, while I had access holes cut on the inside of the boxed frame for access to the running board nuts and washers, it was still a pain in the arse (with dropping nuts and washers into the boxed frame, fishing them out with magnets and apparently my fingers are not as nimble as I once thought they were!). So, while the running board was off, I drilled out the holes in the frame for the running boards and welded nuts in place. I will do the same on the driver side. After the second running board nuts are welded in, next up will be the hood components.

 

Thanks for sharing the process of the fender repair. My mind is always trying to make a repair like that from one piece of metal.... To see it made from two makes sense and less intimidating . Thanks for the lesson you two.
Sam

 

/\/\/\ Thanks Sam.

The sun was shining today which hasn't happened a lot in our area this spring, so I decided to work on making old grungy pieces shiny (or shinier anyway). With aid from the $10 Harbour freight disposable grinder and a 3M purple strip-it disc, I spent some time on the 3 piece hood. The sides had primer over black paint. Once removed the sheet metal is in pretty good shape though there is some pitting under the stainless trim and the recesses where they attach to the inner fenders have been messed up.
The hood top must have been from a different car as the underside had original maroon paint while the outside had 2 shades of green over the maroon in the few spots where there was paint remaining. The only color I've been able to find on the rest of the body or parts has been black. The hood top had a lot of surface rust which even after going over with the strip-it disc is still not 100%. I'm going to try and scare up a kiddie's pool and mix up a batch of citric acid. I'll let the hood panels soak for a couple days to try and clean up the residual rust.

 

I managed to find a free kids wading pool, but it was too small...so instead, I screwed a few 2x6's together and draped them with what I hope to be a waterproof tarp. My calculations show that there is about 50 gallons of water in my make shift tank, I added a 10lb bag of citric acid and the hood. I filled it as full as I dare and will let it soak for a day or more to see how this works. I've used citric acid for small parts in the past and have been pleased with the results. I've never tried it for body parts before so I'm hoping for success.