Projects Building My First Roadster in San Francisco

Thanks everyone! So last night I was able to get the newly mounted and balanced wheels on the car. It was too dark out to take a decent photo, so I waited until this morning. After writing about wheel and tire combos for the past seven years, I gave these a ton of thought. I'm super excited with how they turned out. (The body will eventually be painted black to match the OP on the hood.)

 

This morning I went for a Sunday drive around the neighborhood. I tried it with only 1/4-ish tank and, as you can imagine, that didn't work when I started heading west (uphill) on Fulton. My neck of the woods is known as Lone Mountain, which is something you only really think of when you're attempting to drive a car with a gravity-feed fuel system. Anyways, I poured three more gallons in and we were good to go.

This was the longest I've driven the car. I made two laps around the block and everything went smoothly. Downshifting from second to first is tricky, but I know I'll get better with more seat time. Just like hockey, soft hands are key!
I'm feeling super grateful for everything right now. Thank you everyone for helping me so much thus far. I know I have a ways to go, but to be driving this thing on a sunny fall morning is what dreams are made of.
Tire detail, feat. my shadow.

 

Won't be long! I'm excited to be following along.

Thank you! On a car like this where there isn't anything super trick, I feel like it's important to try to make a statement with the pieces you have. In this case, the wheels gave me an opportunity to step out a little bit. I took a slight gamble on the color, and I'm very pleased with how they came out.

Thanks man, much appreciated. Having this thing move under its own power is a great reminder as to why I'm building it. Judging by how quickly you got your engine up and running, I know things are going to really start happening fast once you get the rest of the big pieces in place.

Thanks Rocky!

Thank you! Little by little, it's coming together.

Ryan, thank you for the kind words. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the thread. You hit the nail on the head with the whole "approachable" concept. Having any sort of large-scale early hot rod project is a major commitment—time, money, space, emotional energy, you name it. I often ask myself, "Who built these cars in the 1930s-'40s?" Based on my research, many of them were people like me who were brand new to all of this. They learned as they went along, and I am too. I won't get too off topic here, but I'll jump in on your thread a little later. My advice? Go for it!

Thank you! I agonized over what to run for way too long, but I'm glad I researched it as much as I did. When it's on flat ground, it has a little bit of rake to it. Now lets see if I can find any of that here in SF...

Too bad we can't see the rest of the car, but here's my roadster's cousin enjoying some time out on the street.

 

No major progress to report today. Other than ordering a small-but-exciting piece of speed equipment that I'll share later, all I did was dial-in the headlight bar location, sand the windshield frame and do a little bit of detail painting. After sleeping on the mocked-up headlight bar, I decided that it was too far forward for my liking. So, since nothing was set in stone, I tucked it back and precariously placed a headlight.

Ideally I'd run them about four inches higher, but I plan to make a second bar using 11/16ths rod and a straight '28/'29 headlight bar sometime the line. This one is for practice—and it's original to the car.

When everything's welded up, these will be getting carriage bolts and rubber mounts to cut down on vibration. Yes, they won't be aimed at Salesforce Tower height when I run them!

Note the jacket and wood placement. Those were my safety net in case the magnets and clamps quit on me. Luckily, it all went as planned.

In other news, I'm hoping that my brake parts will be here sometime this week.

 

Thank you! The A grille is staying for now, but no promises once I got A-V8...

Thank you, I couldn't agree more. I have woven/riveted brake shoes on the way, and my new brake springs and Flathead Ted components showed up today. Once I have all the pieces, it's going to be fun to set it up on jackstands and really give the system an overhaul. Hopefully I'll get to do that before Thanksgiving.

Thanks! I couldn't do it without you guys, that's for sure. Oh man, pretty much all the neighbors love it and are super supportive. They're excited to see the progress every time I roll it out in the driveway. I tell them that they're welcome to help me work on it at any time Not too many early Fords here anymore, that's for sure!

 

I love that picture of my car from Sunday's drive, but the one thing that bugs me is the color of the battery box. (It's a modern sealed 12V with a metal jacket.) Well, I finally got around to painting it last night. To help bring it back in time, I applied an old waterslide decal from Thunderbolt Engineering. I grew up building model kits, so I absolutely love little details like this.

Before.


After.


I figure it'll weather nicely with some road use.

 

It's stories like these that make me so happy to building a traditional hot rod. Thank you so much for sharing those great memories. You get exactly where I'm coming from as I put things together piecemeal. I'm glad to hear you're following along!

Thank you! And haha you're not the first person to tell me that. This photo below isn't mine, but certainly has a similar feel.

Good point. I will see if I can find a happy medium as I bolt it up as my Sunday activity.

Thank you! I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the build. I'm learning as I go, but let me know if there's anything I can do to help with your project!

Hell yeah, I'm working to learn and keep things as fun as possible. It seems like the more I work on it, the more enjoyable it gets.

Ooooh yeah. Thank you! You're too good to me. Those are going to be great.

 

Tonight's update will be in two parts. I had a super fun day hanging out with @SAVAGE in San Jose, driving around in hot rods and learning about all sorts of early Ford stuff. He also hooked me up with some more pieces for my mechanical brakes, so I'm going to get to work on those in the morning.

As some of you may have seen, I finally built my light bar on Thursday. I wrote about the actual process for my weekly Jalopy Journal column, which you can find here.

Some behind-the-scenes snapshots...
My high-tech jig helped me transfer the width of the bar to the piece of metal below. I used dabs of paint on both the supports to mark where exactly I should be welding. Note chamfered edges. You can tell it's fall because I had to break out my heavy duty Rodder's Journal jacket.



It's all primed and painted now. I'll be bolting it on in the morning, so I'll post more pictures then.

 

Thank you, I really appreciate that. I guess all those hours digging through old magazines for work is paying off.

 

As promised, I got the bar mounted today. I spent a little bit of time drilling holes and what seems like forever waiting for paint to dry. Lights are mounted with carriage bolts and custom rubber pads were added to help cut down vibration. Overall, I'm really happy with how these turned out. Definitely have that old-timey feel.


I wasn't as productive today as I would have liked, but I am glad to have this sub-project basically completed. I did also straighten up the garage a bit—and I hung up my Country Club Malt Liquor sign.

A snapshot of the garage scene. The unconventional wiring came with the place.

Finally, before it was time to turn in, I brought in a headlight to see how it looked on the inside. Judging by the internal condition, my pal in LA wasn't lying when he said that he was running these on his Model A RPU somewhat recently. Can't wait to wire 'em up!