Projects Detailed Build Thread - 1937 Ford Pickup

Back in 2005, due to an misunderstanding of online auctions by my Dad, I ended up with a '37 Ford pickup. It seemed solid enough. So much so that Dad drove it back to Calgary, AB from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.


It was a real budget build by the previous builder. (Was one owner between me and builder.) Tried to make a fancy street rod on a student budget. 283 Chev, T350, Ford 8", and a not so well installed MII front suspension. Actually, nothing was well installed. Thank goodness I had a good friend look past a thing or two for the out-of-province inspection. I drove it that way for quite a while until things started to suck on a real level. Kicked off with a leaky, cracked, chipped "two-piece/no seam" windshield. I reinstalled a factory tilt-out....and that's when it started. Not many pics from back then. (I know of a couple...if I find them, I'll stick 'em in here.)

When doing the windsheild work I had started to discover how some of the previous metal repair was done. Fibreglass, filler, oversize metal patches and more filler to smooth....not cool. At this point I replaced the dash. Made my own from scratch:


At this point I also scuffed down the crappy white paint, used some more filler to smooth some chips and scratches (it was already full of it...what's a little more) and sprayed it with a NAPA grade high-solids primer. At that point I was thinking I would get a real color on it and carry on. Glad I didn't waste any money on that... Oh yeah, there was also a fiasco replacing the master cylinder at this point.

It ended up not looking half bad, for a while.

(Note...the coils and springs are out in this picture. Just imagine it up at an acceptable ride height.)

Here's where things went sideways.

I went to replace not just one, but both motor mounts and the trans mount. (Gravity was the only thing holding my driveline down.) The mounts didn't fit correctly...due to the frame tacoing itself together over the years. Turns out, the frame was pretty flimsy and probably shouldn't have ever been saved in the first place. Soon I'd tore it down completely and found a TON of bondo, fiberglass, and other scabby crap. Not good. This is just a little taste:


This brigns us up to winter of 2012/2013.

 

Being a Mechanical Engineering Technologist by education, I turned to what I know....solid modeling. Designed myself up a new frame with a Satchell link rear and a MustangII inspired, but still my own, front suspension. All air-ride.

I located a drawing of Ford frames for cars and trucks that fit my year, reverse engineered it, and started to turn it into a new design using laser-cut and NC formed parts. In Jan '13 I had gotten this far:

CAD continued, and in the meantime I had all the sheet metal blasted. I may have cried a little. I'm not proud.


So much holes. Oh, and best method for patching big ones. Take metal bigger than hole, weld it behind, cover with filler. Mmmm tasty. Rocker panels affixed with pop rivets, fibreglass cloth used to back up filler to cover rust holes...and on and on. And. On. I'm just going to scrap the bed completely. Lots of work to do on the cab. I want to run full fenders, so more work there yet too. This cab should have been melted into raw steel to make a body hammer or something. Shouldn't have been saved in the first place......but I'm stubborn and in WAY to deep now...so I'll carry on.

Here comes July of 2013. CAD completed on the frame:


I could have done WAY more detailed design, but at this point I thought I'd just keep it simple(ish). Fast forward to present day....I have some things to re-work, but that's fab life yo...

I went with a Mustang-II inspired front suspension for a few reasons. The geometry works well for my truck, I already had one and therefore had all the hard parts already, and it's kinda easy to tweak for my needs. I designed a Satchell-Link rear suspension for it as it made the best use of space under my bed, will be easy to tune, and won't need a lateral location device.

I prepared and sent my drawings off to my favorite laser shop (Thanks John, Chad, Clint) and a few days later I went and picked it up from the weekend shipping department (under the tree). I had to get another shop to do the final brake work on the main frame rails as the laser cutter didn't have segmented tooling for their brake. Each rail had 12 die changes. That was a case of beer hard earned. (Thanks Tilly, John...)



Got it home and started clamping things together:


That was September, 2013

 

So, frame building time.

I designed the parts with as many slots and tabs as I could, making it so I didn't have to measure as much but just needed to keep things square. Started by tacking together the inner framerails and cross members.

Stacks up pretty well with the old mess.

Steering rack brackets, lower control arm mounts...

Mounts for removeable trans cross member. Oh yeah, during the design phase I decided to go with a 700R4 transmission, so the trans xmember was located to account.

Some bracing for the rear suspension and also offers frame triangulation. Rear bag mounts. Lots of bracing for squareness...

 

Add the outer rails, front bag mounts, upper control arm mounts. Bracing gone.


I ground in a weld prep in all the butt joints. Somewhere I have a picture of the stuff all swept up into one pile. Respirators are good.

Add some temporary chunks at the front and back, get it up in the air for welding. I made up a temporary frame rotisserie so I could weld a section on the top, flip, and weld the bottom. Also, the way the frame was designed (full box by two 'C' sections butted together: [ ] ) the heat from welding was irrelevant. I had zero warping issues.

Here's some weld detail shots. (I don't DARE call it weld porn....I can do it, but not that well...)


I later royally effed up my front bag mounts, so those are going to be replaced. I also left the crossmember over the axle (the one with the rear bag mounts) un-welded because I'm not happy with the design. Will warp like crazy if welded as-is, and I didn't leave myself any fore-aft adjustment for my rear bags, which is kinda useful. Also I discovered much much later that the laser shop bent my front cross member inside-out, so that put the rack mounts offset to the wrong side...I can turn left like nobody's business, but rights are out of the question. None of these were a priority at the time, however, so work carried on.

With the frame pretty much welded up...it was time to make the control arms and rear links.

If anybody is keeping track, the frame was pretty much welded up by the end of November, 2013.

 

Ordered a bunch of suspension bushings...some patch panels to be eventually used on the cab also arrived...I gathered material to start making my end links, etc.

Made some chips, cut some threads.

And eventually ended up with a cart full of stuff.

Note...the threaded parts in the bottom right are for Chrysler 772 screw-in ball joints. I bought these already made from WelderSeries out in Ontario.

 

I started with the front lower control arms.


These needed a little help back into shape after welding. Wasn't severe at all.

 

Uppers.

These also pulled together just a little.

Look pretty good to me. I'm pretty proud of all of this so far. And it's all fitting together exactly like I hoped and designed in the computer. Like big boy lego.

 

Took a detour and made the motor mounts. I think I rushed in to these...my tig skills weren't where they should have been and I'm not happy with these. I'll re-make at a later date but they're fine for mock-up.

 

Rear links. And something to bolt them to.

 

Wow! Nice work.....
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This will be fun to follow