Technical Front Axle Options -- Fenderless Hot Rod on '40 Ford Frame

I would agree with Beaner. The rest of it looks pretty good to me. Maybe the grill needs to look the way you want it.

 

For what it is worth, the body is a '33 Plymouth PC, not a '34. PC's had no glove box on right side and no fake glove box on the left. Later '33 PD had both. '34 Plymouth (and Dodges) had the instrument cluster on the drivers side with a matching shaped glove box on the right. '34 cars had a lock cylinder under the passenger side outer door handle. '33's had a slide out windshield with arms on each side, '34's had a center crank out. Front of roof was taller on '34's and posts were at a little different angle. BTW, if it is titled as a '34 that really doesn't matter, at least not to me. Probably thought it was a '34 so that's what they did.
I am doing a '33 Plymouth coupe too, with a 331 Hemi. I'm using a '34 Dodge grille shell with a custom bar grille. The shell is cut to a point to eliminate the "Jay Leno" chin cuz they look funny with the chin and no fenders.
I agree, tilt the radiator shell a little and go to a spring over axle and lengthen the front frame horns a little and call it good! I still need to trim my horns just a touch. I love your car. Here are a few pics of my project.

Dave

 

Headlights would help a ton!! Something easy to start with too. Add lights then see what you want to do with the axle. I personally would leave it and drive it!!

 

great car but ,yea move the axle forward.Before you move anything,get a good side photo and either do some photo shop or even scissors and paste and see where it looks best-might as well only do it once!Sadly the grille out in front of the tires looks too much like the r** rods that have tried to stick an old body on a late model chassis [haven't got a clue cars]

 

I’m skipping to the end with our reading but I’m 90% sure it would look 100% better with some headlights on it.

Cool car, I wouldn’t fuck with it other than lights.

 

Paint the wishbones black, add some headlights and move a 4" dropped axle forward as stated above.

 

Weeeelllllll since you asked I would fix thr rear suspension, go to a spring over axle with reversed eyes as has already been suggested and cut the bottom of the grille off even with the bottom of the shell and lower the shell a few inches to cover up a little bit of the frame....and you have a cool car and a cool father in law!

 

Thank you for the feedback and inspiration. My first attempts will be moving the grille around and mocking up some headlights. I already have some lights, but just don't have any tasteful mounts for them. I'll work on that. The rear end does have a home made panhard bar to keep it centered but it needs some type of third link (torque arm) on the top of the housing to keep it from trying to wrap up on accel/decel. The rear suspension needs some major help and I have some ideas to get it right.

 

Interesting! I'm not too good at identifying Dodges and Plymouths from back then. Given the story of how my father in law ended up with the car, it probably didn't have a title or any type of paperwork, and they may have made a mistake at the clerk's office. My dad had a Henry J street/strip car in the '70s that was titled as a 1949...which isn't a thing. They didn't start making them until 1951.

Thanks for the info, and good luck on your project!

 

great video

 

Extremely fast sketch just to get you a visual start point.

I do agree that it is likely a game of proportions with lights and grill. The wheel base seems fine to me. I’ll slice and dice the photos later this week if I get a chance.

For now here’s some lights

 

Here it is with the front wheel moved forward, grille top lowered a little, and suspension rods painted black.

 

Heres a photoshop pikky that one of the clever folk over at the P/S thread did for me last year. The style points which I thought were important on a highboy 34 Chev were moving the front end forward about 4 inches, fitting a dropped forged Henry type axle and shortening up the front of the frame horns so the tyres were the furthest forward part of the car.

I also wanted the chassis sitting lower as I think they look better that way, tho I see that you are happy with your chassis height as it is.

Reality of our build was that
1) the front end didnt need 4 inches - I think it we stopped at 3
2) we used a repro 32 crossmember
3) we arent as far on with the project as we had hoped to be by this stage (so nothing photoworthy)

 

Looking better ....can you try one pushing it forward to centerline of radiator and then maybe one pushing it just forward another 4-6” and shortening grill bottom about 4”?

 

Put a spring in front axle and spring like a 40 Ford but put it in backwards so the spring is behind, swap the spindles side to side, fix the steering and wishbones and you'll have it. Messy but easy.

 

Cool that you got your Father-in-laws car. Since you're attached to the grill, I would section it and lose the bottom cow catcher part. It's just to big.

 

^^^^^^ This !

 

Hey that's looking pretty good! Thanks!

 

Great car! Love the video and the history! I wouldn’t change a thing? Maybe little rectangle headlights like were on it in the video!?

 

I still have the rectangle lights and aluminum stands....couldn't quite bring myself to put them on but I might give it a try.

 

Oh man you gotta! It’s a time capsule!

The car was is Hot Rod Deluxe wasn't it? Seems like I remember reading the article.

 

Ya'All want to keep the heritage of the car, but do all these changes, you can't have both....I'm a fan of preserving them the way they were built, especially this one with known history, minor tweaks, ok, but you might as well do a body off with all the changes some are suggesting..... Just my 2 cents........

 

Is there any room to move the radiator back? How about sliding the grill shell backwards over the radiator more?

 

Alright guys, I forgot that I had a side profile shot of the car. I'm a photographer by trade, so I typically try to take shots that "do the car justice". In other words, I chose the car's best angles...and that's always been tricky with this car. However, during one of my photo shoots on the car, I took this side profile shot, which allowed me to easily play around in Photoshop to move the axle forward approximately 4 inches (which is what it would move with the spring over axle setup). And I laid the grille back a couple of degrees and played with the grille height. Sorry for the crude photoshop work but this quickie tells me that spring-over setup and some grille tweaking will really help the car's attitude without taking away from its heritage.

As it sits now:



Axle forward, grille leaned back:

 

move it foward
section the grill

 

Love that black car, but that would take a major rebuild and a channel. That grille sticks out, but did you know that the Isky Roadster uses a '33 Pontiac grille. He used a second grille to form the bottom. Something to think about.

 

If you notice, all those great looking cars Thirtytwo posted have the front axle directly or very close to directly under the grille. To really get your coupe looking right you will have to do the same. You will probably have to move your front crossmember clear out to the front frame horns. It would most likely be best to use a Model A style front crossmember instead of reusing the 40 and then put the spring up on top of the axle.

 

I’d probably cut one side out of a 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 square tube and weld it right under the radiator and make a couple frame horns a little past that easy peasy...

Or if I didn’t want to disrupt anything maybe put some quarter elliptics on it , slide the front up done..