Art & Inspiration 40 Ford Convertable Deluxe Custom Trim

I was tasked with rebuilding this 40 Ford convertible that had been attached to a four door sedan floor pan. It was a total mess when I started it. The cowl was not even attached to the floor pan so when they went to put it on the new Fat Man frame the cowl fell back on the front seat. That is when it came to me. I ended up replacing the floor pan with a new Drake set along with the tail pan.

The quarters were badly repaired and had been mig welded to the wheel wells and filled with up to an inch of bondo. I saved the door posts and the area around the top to the trunk lid and used cut down coupe quarters to replace the bad ones. I also split and added a strip to the wheel wells to make them vertical and even with the frame for a bigger tire.

Unfortunately I can't find any pictures of this part of the build. But I do have some pictures of the trim and front end mods. I made most of the trim from 3/4" wide 1/4 round brass and then silver soldered the #8 studs to the back of it after drilling a relief in the back side for it to set in to.
Here is a bit of a teaser, I will post more pics later.

 

Nice work on the trim.
I cant imagine the effort to straighten up that body.
Must have been a challange.

 

The hardest part was keeping good door gaps while building the car in space with not much for reference.

 

Good looking trim. The smooth trim to the left of the hood is nicer than the original ribbed trim.
Would enjoy seeing a project progress thread.

 

The car is done. I will dig through my picture files on my computer and find all I can and post that.

 

Here are some more pics of the trim in the fitting process. The curves were bent by hand. Shaping them the flat way was fairly easy compared to bending it the wide way using a vise and a pair of welding gloves. The edges are very sharp. After they were shaped to fit the contours of the body they were marked for drilling an1/8"+ deep hole to fill with silver solder. I cut off 3/4" brass machine screws to use for studs, and wrapped a heavy rubber band around the handles of my needle nose pliers to work like a spring. I used the pliers to hold the studs till the solder solidified.
I also sectioned the grill and lower chin by about an inch, removing two lower grill bars

 

Nice work. Yes, those chins always find something to bang into.

 

Nice work. I have tried to find brass stock like that , any ideas?

 

Alaskan Copper and Brass in Seattle carries a wide range of shapes and sizes. I think Gardener Wescot does too.

 

A very nicety done modification to the trim and the chin pan!

 

Thanks for the leads

 

My neighbor has a Merc and was telling me how he made the trim himself using copper or brass rod(cant remember what he said). But it is neat to see it in the "build" stage. Cool pics.

He sent his off to be chromed, I thought it was pretty ingenious.

 

Brass takes chrome plating very well, I have also made steel moldings and had them chrome plated as well. On the skinny hood moldings I had to attach them by soldering them to a thin sheet of brass and used #4 flat head screws to the bottom of the hood. I wish I had taken more pictures.

 

Here are some more pics. The glove box opening was shortened and the hinge relocated so that it would clear the air conditioning sub panel and still have the door be full size. The ash tray holes were also filled and the sub panel was contoured to mimic the dash shape and not look out of place.
The switch cove was turned into one long cove instead of two and the radio was hidden behind the speaker grill that opens to access the functions. You can also see the wiring panel and the ecm for the fuel injected engine, the panel is under the full size glove box and hidden from sight by the A/C sub panel. The sub panel is closed in the back and acts like a duct to the outer vents

 

Gadzooks! That is nice work...

 

Thanks for the complement, I have started to document some of my work because my job at the hot rod shop will be coming to an end in a couple years when the owner retires. I figured that it would be good for the resume and to show what I can do for some ones car if they so desire. I hope to have my business (Highway 101 Rod and Custom) self sustaining by the time my job ends. I would like to be set up to do one car at a time in my shop at home as well. That's the plan anyway I pray it works.

 

Here is the widened wheel well. I was able to create enough space at the front to fit a 10" tire.
The next two pics are of the windshield after I leaned it back 1" at the top. I filled the cowl vent and had to add a 1/4" of material to the cowl under the windshield. I had to add to the cowl because I didn't want to modify the dash or lower it the 1/4" that I added. It is amazing what that 1" did for the look of the car and the amount of work it created when I had to modify the wing windows.

The last pic is of the trans tunnel and toe boards, all removable for ease of access to underneath stuff.

 

From what I see here , I think you will do just fine when the change comes. Good luck

 

I found another file of pics that needed resizing. More dash pics and a better shot of the wiring panel.

 

Great stuff! Please keep posting!

 

I looked at the first 4 pages of your build thread. You have done a great job. I know about hood and grill fit (or lack there of) on these cars.

 

Not sure whose idea it was to put the tail lights in from the back side of the fender in a semi frenched style with 3 individual bars. The customer didn't like it and I ended up grinding the back side of the bezels down to make them fit the fenders in the end.
Here is the tail pan and bumper filler. I moved the bumper in about 6" and narrowed it by taking a section out of the middle and also 3" off each end. The trunk opened and closed with a linier actuator but was problematic with the timing of the automatic electric latch so now it only has the latch that you close to the first position and it sucks itself closed.

Finished tail light fit

Bumper and filler with license set in. Turned out nice and clean.

 

Professional work for sure.

 

Very nice work, and well-thought-out modifications. I'd really be interested to see the completed car.

 

I am getting to that point and since the car came back for a minor repair I can get more pictures of it.
Specialty Plating in Mt Vernon,WA. does our plating and polishing. They filled the back side of the bull nose piece with solder and smoothed off the ribs out of the face of it before replating it.

The front bumper was also tucked in closer to the front and shortened on the ends.

 

Great stuff!

 

More nose trim
It is hard to see, but the narrow trim was too small to attach with studs soldered in the back. I soldered a thin sheet of brass to the bottom edge and used small flathead screws to attach it to the bottom side of the hood.

This may look like the door trim but it holds a hidden door handle. sorry about the blurry pic.

The handle opens this far before it contacts the opening mechanism.
In this last pic it is fully open. The customer had a set of Kindig-it Design flush door handles but they stuck too far into the door and the window had no place to go. I looked at the design of the door handles and created my own that was slim line and fit between the outside skin and the window.

The handle is a 3/4"x3/4" piece of steel bar stock that I whittled into shape that fit the trim contour along with the curvature of the body. I wish I had taken pictures of the mechanism before it was installed. The studs that hold the trim on do double duty and also hold the handle mechanism in from the back side. There are many hours in those one off door handles and latching mechanism.

 

Crisp clean details throughout. The door handles are perfect and a trend setter. Thank you for more details on your nice work.
Glenn

 

Really beautiful details. The door handles are the best I've ever seen.

 

Thanks for the complements guys. I do enjoy the work of being creative and building things like those door handles. Rust repair and piecing together a whole body not so much but it all pays.