Makin a 32 ford ally roof.

For 10 years Ive been building my own 32 Ford Nostalgic Roadster. Most of the time Ive gone out of my way to make something special.
If I couldn't afford to buy the part then I would make them myself,with good hands on experience as a Tradesman,Panel Maker/ Panel beater.
With a back ground in Hot Rods and Restorations for 20 odd years.

I finally stopped doing Customers cars Closed business moved interstate and started on buiding my own Hot Rod.

I have added a link to my car here to see the progress of the Ally Roof that I have hand made.I started off with a few good ideas of what I would like it to look like.
It had too have a Peeked brow over the front of my Windscreen,It had to have a Chopped Back window,4" ,it had to have good head height,it had to have a return sweep on the back,(like the back of a 39 FORD long back coupe),wired edges all round,Old Skool,Cool.

I started of with a 3mm fecing wire buck all cross hatched at 150 mm intervals accross the roof.This makes it easy to change the shape as required,fencing wire is easy to roll over your leg or just bend with you hands to get the reqired shape.
When I had finallized all the shapes I MIG TACKED the intersecting points to make the buck,( Template shape of roof to be made) , firm ad it is suprising how solid it beacame.
Also much easier to use than a Christmas tree Buck made out of wooden ply sheets all cross hatched.Bandsawed to shape and sanded,much more work in this wooden type frames to be thrown away after you have built your outer Skin of your roof.
Fencing wire is cheap to 50 Metre roll did the whole roof easy.Not 12 Sheets of 7 ply.


Once all the Roof Buck was finallized I checked all shapes to be sometrical by cutting a whole Wheel Barrow full of carbourd templates,also sticky taping a fencing wire stiffener to the back of the cardbourd to ensure that the cardbourd did not change shape,(little tricks).

Studying the roofs shape all the 1.6mm 5005 Half hard Aluminium sheet was cut roughly into shape.(Slightly larger than required)Keeping all the welds to be in the centre of the radius in each panel.Nine pieces come together to make the roof section.

Blocking out the Ally onto a sand bag to round up the section,followed by running it into a WHEELING MACHINE for many hours to make the shapes as required,checking them on the WIRE ROOF BUCK constantly.

The fun begins.

 

I had a hard time concentrating on the roof after seeing all the cool early Olds stuff on your car Nice car..

 

I used to have a 1957 Oldsmobile Super 88 4 door Holiday Sedan,I tried to save the body for years.When we moved interstate it was time to junk it and only kept all the Shinny bits for the Roadster.

The 371 Olds motor,dash,steering wheel and coloum,ally seat sides.All these bits now made their way into makin it a pretty cool OLDSTER.
With all the 57 OLDS parts in my 32 Roadster.I'm really happy with how the car is comin together.

 

Olds in a 32 is dead cool, Nice work and look forward to the updates

 

Everything on that car looks great!

 

Hey,

Some great metal work, there!
Alot of blocking and wheeling to shape that roof!
Why did you go with the 5005 and not 3003, just what you usually use?

Thanx

" Spending a nation into generational debt is not an act of compassion "

 

Yeah love makin all the custom bits,thats what appeales to me about Hot Rodding.Do what ever you want to a car as long as it is not to low and to loud,but still has to be strong ,so over build everything then polish the crap out of it and make it shine.Cool hobby.

The roof has taken around 120 hours so far thats just in the Alley work.Not including making the first Wire Buck.

I started off at the back of the roof,with the return sweeps.To date one of the hardest and most time consuming shape I have ever made.
I used a mate Rays neumatic blocking machine he made.Like a yeilder hammer except it ran of a cam type shaft off an air drill,that lifted a shaft and then like dropped it off the lobe of the peak of a cam.It was extended out around 1metre to a rubber hammer suspended above a large rubber pad.
Put the 1.6 alley under this press the pedal like on a sewing machine and hang on as the panel gets smashed with a large dull large blunt radius hammer.(showing alittle control along the way).KEEPING ALL THE BLOCKING HAMMER MARKS TO BE VERY LOCAL TO EACH OTHER.

This enables the panel to be stretched evenly and graduarly.About 30mm apart or inline right next to each other dont leave a space inbetween them.
To start the DUCK TAIL on the back of the roof,I used a technique called back blocking.You turn the panel over and hit all the way along the inside edge onto the sand bag,3, 2, 1,Hit 3 times along the edge 2 times one inch in from the edge and then 1 row all the way along two inches in this will allow the edge to be stretched 3 times as much as the middle so it gets longer which enables it to lift up gradulary.
This process is very manual and time consuming.Getting a quick shape is easy,smacking the crap out of it gets it into a shape.Making it fit the buck and getting it into the RIGHT SHAPE, is a different thing.
Smoothing it off in the wheeling machine as required.When doing a RETURN SWEEP,It is 3 times more work than making a ball.

You have to set the Wheeling machine to the thickness of material,1.6mm was the Alley sheet I used.A slightly roundr bottom wheel than the shape you whant to end up with.Instead of pulling the material down slightly the panel is pulled up slightly.This pushes the Flat top wheel onto the bottom material and wheel so turns it into a Duck Tail.
The return sweep on the back of my roof is where most of the hours went into the roof.When you bend a return sweep around a corner it flatens out.
On my roof it had to bend around the top of the quarter panel ontop of the roadster,which is only a 2"Radius approx.So it flattened out quite abit.
Needed so serious pounding,followed by lots of back wheeling.

Back Wheeling is when you pull up in the wheeling machine.This also microscopically brings material from the middle of the panel out to the edges that have been hugely stretched.When you stretchit as much as I had to to get that back up the material spreads out alot longer,therfore gets thinner.Back wheeling smoothes the hammer marks out and helps bring material out to the edge more material more lift.

To Rays amazement I ended up standing on top of two Milk cretes wheeling thes two back Duck Tails up.Because they were so deep and so big I had to pull it up around my head. So I just jacked my self up a bit which made it easier on my back and arms.It worked a treat.
I could see the wheel easier and it made it easier on me to wheel for many hours on these parts alone.

Pimpin Paint I have not heard of 3003.Yes 5005 is what I'm used to,but also I wanted all the roof to be made of the same material,even cut out my own 1.6 mm welding wire so that it was all of the same parent metal.So if I get carried away later and fully polish it .It will all come up the same colour.
If you use a silicon welding wire in your Alley work, when you go to polish the body later it will come out with like a whiter ,milkier line where the weld is.And you can't get it out.

 

Having smoothed off the two Return sweeps on the roof.I fitted them up to the lower back window section.

I made a wooden buck of the shape of the back window that I wanted.The Buck was used to hammer the ally around into the correct shape.The back window was made in two pieces top and bottom.With the finished window size to be 4". Cool Hot Rod have to have chopped windows.

The bottom was left long half way through the window and formed over the buck.Tapping away and stretching the corners as reqiured to drop in the back window without welding on little bits in the corners.
The top section of the roof above the back window around 8" wide was also made in the same way leaving a joint in the middle of the back window.Rolling in the edges took quite a bit to do using the buck and wooden malletts,so as not to bruise the Ally sheet to much.

The back window pieces and the two return sweeps were all fitted up together.When I was happy with the shaping I preped all the panel to weld the joints were scribed cut and filed to fit perfectly joining all panels in the centre of the radius so each shape holds it own shape.

Its much easier to weld it up and plannish it in the middle of a ball.The edged of the 1.6mm Ally sheet were filed smooth with a slight chamfer.This allows a liitle weld prep to the materal as all welds will be hammered and filed off smooth.So it is critical to have a WELD PREP.
The depth of this should be half the thickness of the material.Also to allow alittle bit of filler wire to fill it during the welding process.

I was going to Alley OXY weld it all together,as I did years ago.
But decided to TIG weld it all up as it is alot of work getting all the flux off with Oxy Alley welding.

So with the Alley tig weld ,Weld preped I tacked it all together every 40mm or so.Gave it a bit of a slap around to make sure the surfaces to be welded were all ready flush to be BUTT WELDED.
Tig welding only adding enough wire periodically just enough to fill the Weld Prep only.I didn't want it to have the normal bulkiness of Ally Welding.So Basically alot of it was Fuse welded with an occasssional dab of wire.

The welding now finihed I tapped it around into shape.Hammering the weld line,quite hard to RELEASE,any weld contraction which is the most part of the distortion of the panel.The molten metal expands and in the cooling it contract and causes an inward pressure towards the weld line.

By plannishing the weld line quite hard,punnishing the weld will release that pressure and Normalise the metal back into its pre welded state.

Dont water it down,cool it with an air line,quench it with a wet rag.No further cooling required than natural.

Otherwise all you do is make the weld pull even more as it contracts even faster ,pulling and distorting the panel even more than if naturally left to cool.This applys even more to MIG welding.Mig welding you are already adding a high tensile wire so you can't really plannish it,to release it.This is why I chose TIG,and used a parrent metal.Guilontine strips off the sheet I am about to weld.

Also as I have said earlier it also comes out the same colour if you polish it.

I used a 4" flap disc to take of a little penetration of the weld on the underside.This also makes it easier to hammer up as you plannish a standardised thickness of material.

 

WOW, Tony!

That's fantastic!

Whata ya figger, about 150+ hours to date, to get the top into metal?
It's sad that most who will look at that roof won't have any idea of what it took to build, but you, and those who know metal will!

The 3003 aluminum is a half hard alloy that can be shaped very easily and gas welded, as well. It's not as soft as "floppy" 1100 series, but is used by most of the metalshapers in these parts when forming parts by hand in aluminum.

The "Back Wheeling" you spoke of, is that the same as "shrinking" on the wheel?

" Do not be too quick to drink the Kool-Aid "

 

Very neat work. A great addition to a very cool hot rod.

 

Yeah it takes a while.I know there is a Full Soft Alley but I wanted it all out of the same sheet,so I could polish it up later.No good for the full soft in the middle of the roof.!
Great to do little cycle guards,or real shapely panels.

Most of the work was done all by myself.I used a mates Rays workshop well equiped with lots of Body Building equipment.Wheeling Machine,
Power Hammer(blocking Hammer),Ekold Picollo(large Air operated Shrinker and Stretcher)etc.

A few hours two man wheeling was done on the centre roof skin,also a couple of guys gave me a hand along the way.Clamping and tacking up the difficult parts.Thanks Danny ,Ray and Luke.

The best thing about working with the Wire Buck was that you can clamp to it and around it.Having the wire spaced out at 150mm centres strategically placed.
So that where I wanted to Butt weld the panels together there was a gap of 75mm each side of the wire.Plenty of room to clamp and hammer, weld along.

The PEEKED BROW was next in line.I blocked out the front corners and wheeled them up,returning to the wire buck many times for fittment of the shape.
I used my little Baby Wheel to do the very front corners as the Big wheeling Machines wheels are to bigger diameter.
The BABY WHEELING MACHINE is a very old like large cast G- Clamp looking thing with only 2" Diameter top wheel and about 1 1/2" bottom wheel making it perfect to do small radiuses as on the front of my roof, or grill work or wheel arches.

I found the Baby Wheel at a Trash and Treasure market,I spotted it afare way back in the crowd.The Old block saw me approaching wit a Twinkle in my eye.
The first thing he said was,"you and I are the only ones here that know what this is don't we.I had to say Yeah I do.
I said how much for the old girl. $20.00 he said.SOLD.
Reckon you"ll make some fine stuff with this one mate.

Couldn't get the money out fast enough.That made my arm a bit longer for the rest of the morning walking the market but I wasn't going to put it down.

 

One of my customers just sent me this photo of his 32 CARTER STYLE WINDSCREEN fitted to his car.

This is the type of winscreen that I have based this roof around.Looks cool with a rag top on too.

 

One of the main things I wanted was that the roof cam out over the sides of the doors.So if it rained ,the water didn't just run off the roof into the car.

Yeah I wanted to fix this old car problem.The Windscreen that I designed is wider,fits on the outside of the Cowl.Sits further back on the cowl over the Original windscreen Staunchin positions.With a lesser V.Also not as laid back as a Duvall.
You have to shave the swage line off ontop of the cowl.(used for the flat windscreen)With the V-screen no swage or cowl vent required.


Making the sides of the roof ended up with more shape in it than I started with.I had a fair bit of shape in the sides,just smoothing it off.Then I thought I would like to have like a small drip rail on the side.

I put to flat wheel in the Wheeling Machine and kicked up the bottom wheel so that it is closer to the outside of the top wheel.Then I strethed the crap out of the side of the roof this makes it longer and it lifts out.
I then marked a line of the shape that I was happy with of the Door Opening.
Returned to the wheel and ran it through leaning down on the outside of the wheel.This Dropped the line into the side of the roof.

Later to be increased to 90 Degrees for the 3mm Fencing wire to be shaped around the edge of the roof.
The outside of the roof all the way round will have a wired edge.Making it stiffer and more appealing to the eye.OLD SKOOL COOL.

 

The centre of the roof had to be two man wheeled as it was to large to handle by myself.My son Danny gave me a hand with that.Thanks Dan.

The roof is deffinately not flat,the back of the roof has a fair bit of shape and gradually going down to a flatter shape at the front.



The wire buck underneath was a great tool to fit up on and only when the roof skin was to the right shape it fitted the wire and the surrounds of the roof to perfection.

I used a special technique to fit the roof skin without allowing it to fall in through the hole.

Its called CASTLE CUTTING,I mark the cut off line all around the roof in the position that it is so be cut off,allowing a further 25mm all the way round.
The cut line is 25mm in from the edge and the Castle parts like the brickwork ontop of a castle stick out above the rest.
Marking out say 100 weld line,40 mm Castle top,25mm in the wider section being the Castle top.Doing this all the way around the roof. Leaving the corners with a large Radius to have curved corners makes the weld not pull so much in the corners.

Having all the Castle shape marked out all around the roof,cut out in between the weld line all the 100mm X 25mm sections all the way round the roof.Still leaving overlap on the the roof panels to be welded to.
Place the now CASTLE CUT roof skin over the roof.Position it equal distance around and use Panel clips to secure the roof in position.Making sure to drill holes into,and along the weld line this minimizes welding up screw holes later.All holes are to be drilled in Casltle Tops along the weld line.25mm in from the outer edge.

I hope this coming accross clear for you too.

With the roof screwed or cliped in position.You could use Cleakos,or a small self tapper if you don't have Panel Clips.

With the roof secured down all the way round.Next is to scribe along the edge of the 100mm side inbetween the Castle tops.Cutting the roof to be Butt Welded in all the way round.With the roof Castle Cut out now the roof skin can not fall in as the Castle Tags will still allow it to be fitted over the outer edges of the roof top and still be secured.

(1) Trick now is to before fitting the roof for the last time prior to tack welding it in.

(2) With a scriber mark out the Casle tags now sticking out all the way round the roof inner skin,cut the underneath side with a thin 1.6mm cut off wheel on a grinder(accurately) .Cut nearly half way through the underside of the 1.6mm material.

(3) When fitting the roof from the top this will enable you to cut the Outer Castle Tags off as you progress around the roof.Tacking twice on every 100mm section.All the way around the roof.

(4)Cut off a Castle tag,carefully then tack in where the Castle Top was,progressly cut off and tack all of the other tags all the way round.

This CASTLE CUTTING TECHNIQUE is a bit more work but it stops the roof getting out of shape and with you being accurate to a scribe line cut ,you can but weld it up nicely with minimal filler wire.

Also as always a slight weld prep to each surface of 45 Degreees through to half the thickness of the material,still applies.
This will enable the weld to have a small amount of filler wire to be added as required.Producing a fully penetrated weld line that can be flushed off later.

Try this yourself it works like a treat.
Stops the struggling of Flush welding in large panels,when doing ROOF CHOPS,LARGE PANEL FORMING,BUTT WELDING is the best for car panels.






I also kept the weld line purposely in from the edge about 200mm so that I could comfortably hammer the weld within my arms reach.Never weld right through the middle of a roof,you just can't reach to Panel Beat the weld line properly.

 

Excellent thread. Thanks for showing us another way to look at and make a top.

Frank

 

After getting it all clamped up,I took the car outside for a final walk around to check the shape and alignment.



Prior to final tacking up.I didn't want it to look like a PANCAKED ROOF.
These old cars have big round shapes in them and I wanted mine to just flow through nicely.

The panels were fitted up as best as possible with the shapes blending in to the others.Making the clamping and welding process with as little pressure as possible.Fitting them up well also makes it easier to panel beat the Weld.No pressure no distortion.
I always join the panels in the centre of the radius.In the most shapely part of the panel.
The repair area outside the weld can be limited to only 4 inches,,100 mm.



In this photo you can see the weld line has been filed off.With the small repair area being limited to only 50mm, 2".The very shapely side of the roof enabled me to have the weld in a comfortable spot to weld and finish off.

With a 60 grit Flap disc was used to very carefully take down the occassional bulky weld.Also a DREADNORT,or BODY FILE.Much care was taken before during and after the weld to not BRUISE the Alley.Making polishing later easier.A Stainless Wire Brush was used before during and after the weld to clean the area perfectly.

Also POLISHED hammer faces are much easier to see the impact spot on Alley.Even block down the hammer face with 800 grit wet and dry sandpaper.
With the stainless brush used on the weld area and 25mm each side of the weld a clean Dolley and a Polished PLANISHING HAMMER,strike the weld fairly hard this will punish the weld and slightly stretch it which will take out the shrinkage and distortion from the cooling and contraction in the welding process.
All the hammer strikes come up shinny,one telling you ,you have good hammer to Dolley contact,two ,you also can see where you have worked.After a fair few hits the panel will begin to shine again.

Trick if you cant see where you have hit,,,get some GREEN SCOTCH BRITE,scrub area to be Panel Beated,then start hammering again.Then all the shinny impact points will show you where you are hitting again.Cool.

 

When I still lived in Australia I enquired about getting 3003. The supplier said it was a "special order only" grade of material. This means they have to get it made by the aluminium company, and the minimum order was 5000kg (11000 pounds!!) which was a little more than I needed to make a cold air scoop. I went with 5005 cos that's what they keep on the shelf...

 

All I can say is THATS COOL

 

Whoa! Old thread I know ,,,
Seems most of the pictures are gone?

 

Nice! Any updates, anyone?