Projects Tony Miller's Custom 40 Ford Convertible

I do have a '40 Merc bumper for the rear, which will be used with an unusual tweak. The bumper I have for the front is a repop '40 Ford, but it's possible that I'd swap it for a Merc if one turns up.

 

I like the grey a lot.. I think it allows the curves to show and lighting seems to accentuate the sculpture..

 

Hahaha -- works well on your Jag; why wouldn't it work on a '40? Thanks, Ken.

 

Yep, the 40 Merc front bumper with it's little notch would frame the custom Merc-ish grille perfectly.

And I'd like to place another vote for the dark brown like on that chopped coupe.

 

I love the way this 40 is turning out, nice work

 

I was puzzled at first by your reference to the "notch", and you inspired me to do a little more study.

Because I do have a '40 Merc rear bumper, I was familiar with its differences from a Ford. It's a little wider and flatter in plan view, tapered toward the ends, and has a bit more V to the cross section. Here's one on a '40 Ford:



...so I assumed that the differences in the front were similar, and had never really noticed the notch. After reading your comment, I studied some more pictures, and finally found this:



Ah, there it is, between the bumper guards! I have looked at a zillion stock '40 Merc front ends, and had never actually noticed the notch. I do recall seeing that bumper -- without guards, so the notch was more easily seen -- on other cars in magazines over the years, but I never related it back to the Merc.

Here's mine with its current stock '40 Ford bumper:



And one other popular option back in the day was a '40 Lincoln with the "Biplane" center section:



I imagine that both the Merc and Lincoln variations may have been intended to slightly increase airflow to the grille, with a beneficial effect on cooling. Small increment, I'm sure.

Since I have so rarely seen -- or recognized -- the Merc bumper on anything recent, I'm guessing that it's a rare part. Now you've given me something else to think about and search for!

 

Heres a couple pictures of 40 Merc bumpers on 40 Fords. The front shot is of a coupe I once had, and the rear shot is of my current 40 standard coupe (picture circa 1955 or so). They bolt right on to Ford bumper braces, and you can see the graceful curve between the bumper guards.If you decide to use Merc bumpers, I may be able to help you- I know of at least 3 here in Calif. Steve

 

No offense meant to your car Stu, but these bumpers look so much sexier without bumper guards on them.

 

Don has been at work fabricating the rear of the cockpit on the convert, and it is now all roughed in -- coupe no more. He sent me this profile picture today; it's the first time I have seen the entire car in straight profile since the top & door surgery were done. I'm really encouraged. Even with its skin conditions and many surgical scars, it's actually starting to look a lot like the original rendering:

 

Do you have a picture (on or off the car) without the guards?

 

Still looking awesome!

 

Section the bumper guards.

 

I love the side profile shot. Will this car have a back seat or will the top take up that space?

 

Not a fan of the "why is it there?" "notch" on the Mercury or the Lincoln with the the "nerf bars" in the middle.
Why?
Because it interrupts the continuity of the relatively great mass of the bumper parts on each side.

It looks like just the rebar installed before the concrete was poured on a bridge.

 

I think some cars look best with bumper guards; I had them on my '36 and still have them on the shoebox. Others look fine without them, and I am not planning to use them on this car. Since my grille will be shorter in height than stock (roughly scaled to the amount of the hood section), chopped guards would make sense if I were going to use them, but so far I'm not.

Originally we thought that the cockpit would be too short, like a coupe, but then we discovered that the cockpit and doors are longer on the '40 convert than they are on the coupe. Accordingly, we have lengthened both. We think there's now enough length for a seat, although I am kinda intrigued by the thought of using coupe-type jump seats. There's no need for a top well, as we aren't building a folding top. It will have a Carson top shaped as if it had bows.

I feel much the same way about bumper guards, on this front end, at least. The simple and uncluttered look of the plain bumper works well with the grille and headlight details. I must say that I'm tempted by the slightly tapered ends of the Merc bumper, though. It looks a little less industrial than the stock '40 Ford bumper.

 

alot of work to get where you currently are at. Looks nice, I had a 40 convertible several years ago and had a lot of fun with that car.

 

This thing is looking really awesome, buddy!! Looking forward to more progress pics!

 

I don't know how I missed this the 1st time around, but damn glad I'm on it now. At 1st I thought it was a travesty to remove the coupe top, now, not at all. Awesome...

 

Thanks again, guys. When Don hung the fenders and boards on it after completing the channeling/sectioning/stretching of the lower part of the body, several people suggested that we stop right there. It was tempting, because it really did look very nice as a subtly channeled coupe:



...but the whole point of the project was to attempt a better looking top than that of the stock '40 convertible, so we kept going. It was little daunting at this point:



...and even more so when we realized that we needed longer doors and a shorter deck to match the proportions of the stock convert, but I'm comfortable now believing that we're on the right track.





It's going to rest for a month or so while I attempt to reload the bank account, and then Don will be getting serious about building the structure for the Carson top. Fingers are crossed that it'll turn out as well as the rest has so far.

 

I can't wait to see progress on the Carson style top! I gotta build one this winter for my '41.

 

All I can say is WOW!

 

Previously we did a top mock up exercise in two dimensions with cardboard to give us some
direction on the shape and angle of the windshield frame. Now we are going to revisit a mocked up top in three dimensions to aid in the design and fabrication of the rear of the cockpit as well as the curvature and placement of the top bows.
We accomplished this by making some simulated "windows" out of plywood and attaching some temporary brackets to the top of the wood to hold our mock up top bows. Once we were satisfied with the shape and placement of the bows we proceeded to cover the whole thing with masking tape to get a good visual on the overall shape of the top.
Some of the things we learned from this exercise were, that left as is, the top would end at the edge of the trunk. We need about a four inch cat walk between the trunk and the top so the trunk will have to be shortened that amount. While the bows have the curvature we want, they are about a half inch low. That amount will be taken up with upholstery and padding. The lower edge of the top will have a significantly different shape. The 3/4" rod that we were using for mock up bows didn't lend itself well to creating the correct shape.



The next step is to shorten the trunk lid four inches. We started by drilling 1/8" holes through the top and bottom panels every six inches or so around the edge. This will give us something to register the pieces back together with clecos when we get to re-assembly.

Next up we ground the edge with an angle grinder and then peeled off the strip of the outer skin that was folded over the inner panel.


This allowed us to separate the inner and outer panels

Shortening the outer, or top, panel will be easy enough. We'll just cut four inches right off the top where we've drawn that line. The inner, or bottom, panel will have to be cut in several pieces and "jig-sawed" back together to look right.

 

We used the outer panel and the clecos as a jig to tack the cut up inner panel pieces back together.



Once the inner panel pieces were all tacked together we installed it on the car to check for fit and final welding. At this point we had already started fabrication of the rear of the cockpit which we will get to in a minute.

With both pieces appropriately shortened, we sand blasted all the crud off of all four sides and coated the bottom of the top and the top of the bottom with Rust Bullet before tacking them back together. After checking for fit on the car again,we fabricated and welded on a strip of 18 gauge steel around the edge. this restored the thickness that we lost when we cut off the folded over outer piece in the first step and we made it a little wider so we have extra metal when we are fine tuning the trunk gap while doing bodywork later in the project.

 

Let's back up a minute. Shortening the trunk lid also means we have to shorten the trunk opening. We have to move the cat walk and hinges back the same amount we shortened the lid.




First we added some more braces so it wouldn't collapse when we started cutting things apart. since the car tapers toward the back, the cat walk had to be narrowed as it was moved back.

Bending .120" wall one inch tubing over my head didn't work so we actually used a roller to form the tubing to the shape of the cat walk.


The tubing will define the rear edge of the cockpit and give structural support to the trunk hinges when finished.

Somewhere along in there we rounded the trunk corners for a little added custom touch.

 

Here we have the tubing competed and tied in all the way to the door jambs.

Next up is filling in between the existing cat walk and the tubing with sheet metal.

Here you can see the rest of the permanent bracing that was added to strengthen the back of the cockpit.





More sheet metal. More tack welding.

 

More tack welding.



Finish welded and sanded smooth.

It has a pretty sleek profile now.
Next up will be the rear bumper and tail lights. Stay tuned.

 

Thanks, Don! Here are a couple more views:

 

I am truly amazed and bow to your incredible expertise. Now pack your stuff up and head over to my garage!

 

Whats not to like about this project? I admire your vision and the envy the talent of the builders! Keep up the good work.I am anxious to see how this turns out.

 

Looks great. Keep up the high quality work.