Technical 26T Coupe Of My Youth Gets A Re-do! (build)

So I've been putting this build thread off for a while because I didn't want the pressure of feeling like I had to get something done to post everyday so I feel like now I'm ready to share the (re) Build process. But....Before I start I'd like to share a little history of this car as far as it pertains to my life anyway. So here we go!

I am the youngest of three to two original hotrodders from back in the day. As a young boy I would always beg my Dad to take me for rides in his 35 pickup that he built in '59 and of course he still has it today. In the mid 70's we as whole family would go to Rod Runs in Williamsburg and in our home town of Waynesboro, VA. When my older brother was starting to drive my dad acquired on old 32 Sedan and they "fixed it up" a little and I would ride to the Rod Runs shotgun with my brother. (I now have the 32 myself)

Now when I started getting old enough to drive I started to get the bug REALLY BAD to have a Rod of my own so I would sit around and look through the adds in the back of StreetScene dreaming of having a Hot Rod of my own. (I joined the NSRA when I was 12) So there it was, this cool bright yellow 26T Coupe. Sell or trade for Mercury. Just so happens my Dad had just bought a 50 Merc for $500. Yes not a typo....$500!! So he called the guy and they traded straight up minus wheels off the Coupe. (wish I had the Merc) So a few days later sitting on a flatbed truck in front of the house was this Coupe. You could only imagine! What a luck kid I was! (Late 82 early 83)

I talked my folks in going to the NSRA Nationals in Columbus OH in 1984. I was 15 and my mother drove it 6 hours and I rode shotgun. Wow what a Mother! So this is where the story begins! I hope you enjoy my story and the resurrection of moTion III



Nats Columbus 1984

 

So just a little more history first.

This is me and my buddy Eric in 1985. We were 16 yrs. old at StreetScene in Covington, VA



This is me a few weeks before I graduated HS in May of 1987 at the Colonial Williamsburg Rod Run, VA This was the Third year in a row for me driving the Coupe there and sadly was the last year I attended the show.

 

So here is how the story goes. After High School I had to go to work so I was broke and the T coupe needed a little work so it sat in my folks garage from 1987 till 2006. I had gotten married and was having kids so any thoughts of the car were far from my mind at the time. UNTIL my second son was born. When my wife was in labor she sent me out for a magazine to look at so I picked one up for myself. It was a new copy of one of thos Rat Rod mags that actually then weren't too awful bad. I saw those old school rods and thought, MAN I got to get that Coupe out! So I started travelling the 50 miles back to my folks garage evry weekend and got the car back in shape and back on the road.

 

The first thing I did was a new dash with matching gauges. I kind of hated to make another wooden dash but but I was (and still am) on a tight budget and being a machinist it was easy to make, plus I kind of wanted to pay homage to whoever built this thing in the first place. I wish i knew the history of this car as it is evident that the yellow version was at least the third version of the car.

 

Next the seat and carpet and wheel. Interestingly enough, I got the same woman to cover my seat and door panels that did my Dad's truck in 1960. She was in her 80's

 

And last but not least was the rear panel and deck lid. Gotta love those 65 Mustang taillights right?

 

So I drove the car around to many shows for about 3 years or so but the structure of the car was sketchy at best so i kind of let the car sit for a while until my oldest son decided he wanted to drive the car the following year when he turned 16. So I told him "we need to get in this car a little deeper and fix a few things first" Well, once we got into it, it was clear that this car was in bad shape so a few repairs turned into three years of complete reconstruction from the ground up. So this is where the real work begins!

This is Sept 8th 2015 Just getting it open to see what needs to be done. This is my son learning to be poor the rest of his life!

 

Now before I really begin please remember! I have no clue what im doing. Im no pro coach builder. Just a guy with a love of Hot Rods. The only thing I have in my favor is that I am a damned good machinist that can make anything! So please be gentle on me! LOL!

 

OK I won't be able to post a lot at one time so i plan to add some each day, as I have 100's of rebuild photos and the work that I have done has been from appetite to asshole so it will take a while!

Once we got into the car it was clear that, 1) the body mounts were busted bent and broke! The frame had been patched and was as crooked as a politician!!

 

So off the body comes to see what I can do with the frame.

 

Cool coupe good luck!

 

Helluva story,and a family of hot rodders.

 

I'll be watching this. I am in the process of resurrecting a "T" bucket I built in 1965-1966. In the winter of '70 or '71, I had the car stored in a friend's neighbor's barn. When I went to get it in the spring, I discovered that it had been stripped, and most of the major components stolen. I mean, literally everything. Body, engine and trans, wheels, tires, fuel tank, lights, steering wheel; you get the idea. I have been dragging the rest of it around for the last 50 years, and about 10 years ago, finally got a decent shop to work in. I had a few other projects to clear up first, but I plan on getting on this next spring. One thing I did over all of those years was keep the registration up to date. I literally built it from scratch, so it is titled as a "1966 Homebuilt". I don't particularly like the "Homebuilt" part, but the 1966 is OK.

Good luck with your project; you are lucky you have a son to work with. I only had daughters, and my grandson just looked at me funny when I asked him if he had any interest and went back to his video game.

 

Thanks! Good luck with the Bucket. The whole garage thing was a big reason my car sat so long. My son is off at school now and my youngest is a lot like your Grandson it sounds like! Wrench on!

 

So you can maybe see in this top photo how they had taken 2x3 and placed it over the 1.5x3 and just welded them somewhat together, So I cut out everything between the blue tape lines and replaced it with new tubing.

 

I love old hot rods with history and a good story.
This will be a good one to watch.
I'd have kept the Mustang tail lights, but that's just me.

 

So here was another big problem with the frame and a main reason I quite driving the car. Looks like the original perch was cut off and on welded to the sides of the original. (fucking scary) Plus, it was bent and twisted. So I cut it out of the frame.

 

So I modeled up a new perch and machined them out and had a friend weld it together for me.

 

So as you can see the rear spring hangers were pretty much trash also! They didn't have any gussets and were twisted from years of abuse. So back to the milling machine I go! There was a lot of weld-cut and weld back to get these stretched out far enough to get a 45 degree on my shackles but I finally got it dialed in pretty good!

 

The next thing that I had to attack were these ladder bars. I thought long and hard about this, as I really wanted to trash them but I went ahead and saved them for two reasons. 1) They were cheaper and B) they were original to the car and even though I am completely redoing the car I didn't want to take away too much of it's original character.

They were welded fast to the rear so it took some doings to get them off and then i bought some connector plates from Speedway and cut the bars apart to spread them to fit. PLUS, I moved them from outside of the body to underneath it. I just hope the geometry for these will work ok pulling them in more towards the center and the way they hang. I guess someone will tell me. LO!L And yes they were welded like that by "them" not me.

 

In this photo you can see how the traction bars are outside of the body. I moved them in underneath. I actually dropped the rear of the body down about an 1.5" so they would have hit even worse against the body than they already were. Take notice of the long low slung wishbones up front. That's next!

 

So I really wasn't too fond of the long wishbones. Not sure really what is going on with them? Plus, i didn't trust them. They looked weak to me.

Maybe someone knows why they were that way. But fortunately I have a Brother in Law that is a bonefide car part hoarder and had an unsplit set of model A bones. I split them and welded bungs in them and also put new hangers on the frame and brought them up a couple inches. They still hang a little low but not near what they did. I think it makes for a much better look and flow with the car. (you will see later)

 

So now I have the front and rear back together and for the most part square and straight again! The box tubing on the rear kick up, i put in for the fuel cell. More on that later.

 

So now on to the steering. The car originally had a 64 econoline box that went pretty much straight down like they would have on the vans. The biggest problem was the long drag link arm. It hung WAY low and well...looked like shit. Plus by pulling the wishbones "up" the drag
arm did not match the same angle anymore and looked dumb. So........Back to my Brother in Laws for a late 40's F-1 box.






You can see how everything hung low in this car. I was not able to really pull it up above the frame line like most will say you should but I didn't really want to because it isn't original but I did try to clean it up.

 

So We put the body back on and engine/tranny back in to make sure the springs would sit correctly and everything seemed to be ok and the car sat straight so I've got that going for me! Plus wanted to make sure my son fit int he car ok.

 

Tony...LOVE the story! Your "machinists' brackets" are right uptown, very well thought out.
Love the Pontiac taillights. They emphasize 'simplicity', very clean...

 

So I had to come up with an idea to mount this steering box. As time goes on you will notice that I am a little funny about form and function. aesthetics is just as important as function to me. It must flow and "look right!" So I looked at some examples on here and on other sites and came up with this idea. So I sketched it out and then modeled it up and thankfully the machine shop that I used to work in still lets me come in and use their stuff whenever I need to, so i machined up this block and cut the end off the box and cut it down to fit. I like the way it works and looks.