Hi all. Thought I would create a thread dedicated to the coupe's build. I speak better with pictures, so there will be tons of progress photos, guaranteed. Thanks to everyone for being so gracious to me. And thanks to Malcolm for driving down from Omaha on the weekends to help on the car. Check back daily, literally, as we get something done on it every night after work. Guess, I'll start from the beginning. Well, sort of. In 2001, I didn't have a decent digital camera, so I'll have to do some scanning of the photos of when we pulled it out of the attic. So, here's an early photo. My dad bought this body the year I was born, with the idea that someday he and his kid would rebuild it together. I was lucky enough to be that kid. In 2001, we took it out of the attic, where it had been stored for close to twenty years and made plans for it to be done the year I graduated from college. Well, ya know how life gets in the way of the reeeeally important things? We worked on it when possible, but didn't show any real progress until the Spring of 2007. We did what many thought we shouldn't do.... we soda blasted the body: I should explain our actions.... We race at the Bonneville Salt Flats, and in doing so, have witnessed all the badness the salt is capable of. Countless push trucks have disintegrated in front of us, ruined tarps, tool boxes, brakes... I wanted to be absolutely sure that there was no rust on this body. We wanted a rat rod when we started this project in 2001, before the rat rod deal got popular. Now that it's totally out of hand, we backed off the idea and are going for a sort of 50's show car look. Cheap-ish cause we do the work ourselves, but a finished look because we're putting so much effort into it. I'm not knocking rat rods, by any stretch of the imagination, cause they are the type of car that will completely captivate me. Here's a jig my dad built to make double sure the body was straight while a few patch panels were being fit into place: This is how cool my dad is: He wanted to be sure that the body work was done well enough that one day we could just bolt on fenders, if we wanted a stock coupe in the future. Quite the forward thinker.
It was quite a long time ago, but I think the first thing we did after we got the body down from the attic, was to sand blast the splined brake drums and the dropped axle. Then he set up the Bridgeport and I drilled the holes in the axle. The red is called Red Baron. It's the same red we have on the streamliner, so it was an obvious choice.
Now that has the look of a very nice car indeed. Wish my Dad had bought me a 33 when I was born....... Good job I have got my kids a 29 then! Looking forward to the updates. P.
Here's an upside down 350 small block Chevy... yep, we're a Chevy family with a ford project. Love it. We dyno-ed the engine because... actually, I forget why we dyno-ed it. We might have been testing the dyno before Scott put his engine on it. It got 206 horsepower, so not a racing engine by any means, but it'll work for the highway. Transmission: Gas Tank:
Alright, Jess! Glad to see you decided to start a build-up thread. What a great project to do with your dad. Can't wait to see it on the road this spring/summer. I've enjoyed helping you guys, where I can, and I'm learning alot, too! Thanks! Malcolm
I know I'm skipping a bunch of time, but here are the recent updates... the interior: This was taken from the front seat. And by the way, I was making engine noises the whole time! At this point, it was close to riding height and actually resembled a real car. You could sense the vibe in the shop completely changed.
We were loaned a beautiful, original 1933 grille to make sure the radiator was sitting correctly. Isn't it magnifiscent? Oh, man. I loved that grille, but we had to give it back. Dang.
The gauges have been interesting. We have the original dash and the original gauges, but it'll cost waaay too much to get them restored right now, so we created an insert and will use some older Stewart Warner gauges. And installed in the coupe:
The windows were a major pain. I can't imagine installing the runners and glass on a finished paint job. We got better at it each time we had to take out the inards and start over again, but it was still frustrating. Turns out the re-popped piece that attached to the glass was too long. Makes ya want to cuss. Finally, we got one:
Our radius rods are really long and needed supports welded inside them. We've been tinkering with ideas for about two years. I was supposed to come up with some fancy design, but always blanked when I sat down to draw something out. Finally, we came up with this: They looked pretty sweet on the coupe... if you were laying on the ground, looking directly up at them, that is.
The latest challenge was figuring out the steering column and how/where it should mount in the coupe. We came up with this mount: And decided on this steering wheel:
I will definitely be following this thread! Awesome car, was it an old rod before, or did we miss a lot because of the lack of technology (as in digital photos)?
So here it was on Sunday morning: I was out sand blasting and when I came back in, it was all apart. We have to move some mounts on the frame. Some of you will recognize Malcolm. He's been really cool and will drive down from Omaha to lend a helping hand.
I'd only ever seen it as just the body in the attic. My dad said it had been a field for several years before he was able to buy it. I can imagine it was just a stock factory car. Well, now that I think about it, some one had drilled holes in it to upgrade to a radio antenna or something at some point. And parts of the firewall and dash had body putty hiding stock holes, like it was somebody's project a long time ago. I'll try to get some photos scanned over the holiday. Thanks!
And now for some reeeally great news. It looks like we'll be getting the top done way ahead of schedule. Hopefully, this next Saturday or at least the first couple weeks of 2008. While I scraped old sealer tar-looking crud off of the roof rails, my dad drilled out the pop rivets and spot welds. And now we're up to date. I'm sure with the holiday, I'll have more photos to post on Wednesday. Oh, dang, I forgot. Here's my intro if any of you are interested: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=228423 Thanks!
Yeah, everytime I hang out with my dad I learn something new. It's great. Thanks for all the support and help. I'll be driving it up to Omaha in no time.
I remember working with my dad on car projects...sometimes till past midnight. It was the best. Thanks for the posts.
Hi Jess, Nice work, I especially like all the custom home made one off pieces! Keep up the great work and Happy Holidays! Mo
That's a fine looking ride you are building. I'm gonna try to steal a little garage time tomorrow. Merry Christmas.
The Jalopy Journal
