Projects *HELLONWHEELS 36 Ford 3W build* finally!!!

Been collecting parts for this project for the last few years and have been working on it on and off for a little over a year. Now its time to start posting what's been going on and get up to date!


THE DREAM:

I fell in love with Cole Foster's 36 back when I first saw it in Rodder's Journal, but I figured I would never be able to afford a 36 for myself. Until I saw the super-inspiring Chrisp 35 3w build thread and Norwegian Blacksmith's sedan to 3w conversion a few years ago, and decided maybe I could bite off a piece for myself, and boy have I!!

All my friends think I'm crazy, maybe they're right...


THE PLANS:

- 3 window body from a rusty-bottomed 36 sedan and a crunched 35 5w body
chopped 3 3/4"
- '46 59a flatty with Edmunds heads and Edmunds dual intake, Harmon Collins
dual-coil distributor
- T-5 5-speed with Cornhuskers adaptor and '39 clutch/brake pedals
- stock '35 frame with raised front crossmember and rear c-notch to go low,
boxing plates in the frame rails inside the x-member
- Chassis Engineering dropped front axle, split 37 wishbones, 48 spindles
- banjo rear, 3.78 gears, open-drive conversion, parallel-leaves
- '40 steering box and column
- wide fives with WW bias-plys
- juice brakes all around w/ Bendix conversion
- subtle body mods and other suprises!


THE VICTIMS:

'36 sedan from North Dakota, rotten frame and bottom 3" was wasted, but I lucked out on this thing because the rest of the body was PRISTINE! Not a dent anywhere.



'35 5-window coupe, drove to Colorado to pick this up. I know what you're thinking, "Oh my god he's gonna cut that too!! But, this thing spent the better part of it's life on it's crushed roof in a field in Wyoming. Someone spent some time beating it back out to look like a car again right before I paid too much for it.






THE BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS:

The 35 frame was savable, so I had it blasted and cleaned it up.





There was some rot that needed repair so I bought some repair sections from precisioncoachworks.com. Their stuff worked pretty well, although a little pricey for how much had to be replaced. Here's MR.FORD burning in a section (you can see his unfinished coupe behind him, as this was in '08).





Fixing the passenger-side kickup and x-member:







The rear crossmember was removed for the c-notches in the kickups:



Then I made the c-notch pieces out of c-channel I had bent up at a Crippen sheet metal here in Austin:





Once the notches were made, it was time to fit 'em and put 'em in!



Also made reenforcing plates to strengthen the joints:



Next, one-piece boxing plates were made for the notches. They also extend into the frame rails a little for strength:



Holes were cut in the rears for body-bolt access. This is the stuff ya gotta remember when you're on your fourth Modelo Especial!!



Located the four body-mount boxes from another frame, as mine were swiss cheese:



Made boxing plates from 12 guage, drilled 3 1/4" holes just like the ones in the x-member for a stock-ish look:



Installed the front parallel-leaf mounts. To make the springs level across the frame, I had to cut up the passenger side bracket and weld it back together since the repaired side wasn't exactly stock anymore:

 

Time to tackle the front crossmember and raise it up a tad. I didn't think a dropped axle and reverse-eye springs would get things quite as low as I wanted, so I had another piece of c-channel bent out of 3/16" steel, about the same thickness as the crossmember:





After cutting a piece out of the center, you can see that the c-channel was bent perfectly to the width of the middle section. Thanks Crippen!



The idea is to fit the piece so that it slides in tightly from the side for extra strength. The opening before fitting:





After lots of patient filing, it fits, tight as a frog's ass underwater!



Burn it in!



You can see the way it sits inside the crossmember that this is very strong!





The finished product, should be good for about another 1 3/8" drop. Totally worth it for all the fender rub and speed bumps that I'll have to avoid. Nobody said going low was easy! Haha!



Short boxing plates were welded in each side of the x-member, just behind the center section, and DOM tubing was welded across to join the two. This was to replace the center section's strength since that was getting removed for a scratch-made 1/4" steel trans/wishbone mount plate:



Fitted the brackets for the split-bones too. They were positioned as close together as possible:



MR. FORD tig welding:



The plate bolted in. You can also see the short DOM crossmember behind it:



On jackstands, with DOM tubing welded in through the frame across the back end. Another will go across the c-notch area for shock mounts:



It was finally time to get this sucker on the ground and make it a roller! You'll notice that the wheel and tire combo are 15" chrome steelies from wheelkid. This was the original plan but plans change, Right? Of course that costs money. Lots of money. Did I mention these beauties are for sale?

 

Here's the bitchin' flathead I got in trade for the '36 motor out of the sedan, thanks to my new friend John, a really nice guy. Its a '46 59a that came out of a 36 5-window that John acquired fom a widow who's husband passed away. Apparently he called the 5-window his "hot rod" and the best part is that it was last tagged in 1954, Texas plates!! Sat up on blocks in his "car barn" ever since. Can you believe it?!? More astounding still is that John wanted to put the 5-window back to stock so we traded motors, straight across!! Talk about my dumb luck!! It has a Harmon Collins dual coil distributor and headers too! Cracked open the intake and the valley is as clean as can be and has adjustable lifters, so no telling if the cam is stock or not, we'll see. Turns over smooth as butter. THANKS JOHN!!







Since the front crossmember came up, the motor mounts had to also since the pulleys are right over the crossmember, so this is what I came up with. Big washers, tigged to big tubing, tigged to the crossmember. Easy as pie!







Done!



Time to mount the flatty so I hooked up the T-5 using a Cornhuskers ay-dapter kit (for all you Johnny Cash fans) and dropped it in!





Here I am perching an Edmunds intake and a couple of 94s on top! Pretty frickin' cool!





Next was making the trans mounts since I knew where it wanted to sit. Had a great idea! Why not try to use the original brackets? Flipped 'em upside down, switched 'em, and sectioned 'em 1/4" to compensate for the plate below, and voila! Cool O.G. style brackets!









Had to make a piece that would span the brackets for the poly T-5 mount to bolt to. I liked the shape of the 3-speed clamshells, so I made a template from one half and cut some strong-ass 3/8" plate. Here's what I came up with:





Test fit:



On the drill press for some mounting holes:



Done, son!



More to come, Stay tuned!!

 

Nice job

 

Very ambitious project.

Nice work, you can tell things are well thought out.

I look forward to more progress reports and photos.

Good Luck

 

Nice......

 

You are doing one heck of a nice job. Please keep us posted !!! I want to see how this comes out.

 

Greet stuff Hellonwheels keep the pics coming.

 

Glad you finally posted this up! Stayed tuned...this car is gonna rule!

 

shit.....

i'm all excited already. more updates! looks like you're off to one hell of a start!

 

Im definitely gonna follow this one!!! Great work man, a lot of us will learn a lot from this thread!! Thanx for sharing!!

 

Awesome will be watching...

 

I absolutely can not wait for the body portion of this build!!!

 

I can't wait to see what happens to the body too, haha!!

Thanks for the kind words guys. Extra special thanks goes to Mark Ford, he did a ton of welding on the frame. Thanks brah.

Lots more to post!

 

Looks cool so far.

 

This next part is not for the faint of heart. Certain purists might get their pampers in a big bunch, so shield the children's eyes and cover grandma's ears! If you love the smell of factory paint burning, the sight of sparks of Detroit steel roostertailing across the shop and the sound of virgin, 70+ year old, Henry Ford steel getting severely wacked, then check it out!

'35 body, awaiting the hour of reprisal (couldn't resist the Slayer reference) haha!



If you look, the passenger side around the trunklid/roof area is smashed down pretty good, causing the bottom left side of the trunklid to pop up. The damage is spread over a pretty wide area, so in the interest of time, I have another passenger side quarter as a replacement. More on that later:



Here we go!



Sacrifice!



Carnage!



Rock horns of destruction!



What a rush!!!



Here it is on the frame, just for a look-see:



Floor cut for the notch:



Cutting the roof section, about an inch above the beltline:





You can see how the quarter is crimped about half way up, from the roof being pushed down:



Time to set the sedan body on the frame. Several friends helped out, and none could understand why I didn't run it this way. Oh you poor, shortsighted fools! I wouldn't get to whack the sedan if I did that! Haha!!

Too bad I don't want a humpback, it does look pretty cool!



Floor being cut out:



Start bracing:



No mo' flo':



No mo' do':



On to fixing the cowl bottoms. This took quite a bit of time, as the inner structural pieces on both sides were rotten, as was much of the outer sheet metal. Lucky I have a 35 cowl to scavenge the bottoms from!



Began the driver's side first. Got the outer sheetmetal skin away from the inner piece, blasted, clamped together to keep the sheetmetal from warping and began repairs:

 

more please

 

Way cool project,i like this carnage to a good end....yeah,we want more...yout vision will pay back BIG time,no doubt...

 

More patching:



Finished:



Put the inner brace in the cowl:

Started fitting the '35 skin to the '36 cowl around the inner brace. There are subtle differences in this area, and of course I opted for the '36 contours, 'cause I'm OCD like that:



You can see that there is still pitted metal here and there, but it's solid and I decided to leave it alone:





Bought EMS cowl patches and as you can imagine, they're practically worthless. The bead is way too wide and not the same shape. I want this bead to match the door bottom, so here's what I used:





From the inside, what a mess!



After some grinding and finesing:



Time to weld in the inner piece:



Here you can see that new subrails were welded in underneath the inner piece. Got a set from McPhersonauto.com. Very pricey and had to do alot to make them work, but with mostly only handtools in the shop, I had no chance of making them from scratch:



The back end of the inner piece is bolted down through the hinge bolts, so location of that was easy. Then started re-creating the a-pillar bottom:





Done:



Last was welding in the a-pillar foot. Eventually a body bolt goes through here. Inside painted with rust-encapulator, like new!

 

Looks reallys good! Looking forward to more!

 

Great build! You 5W let me remember mine at the beginning...

Before



Now



What's program for rear end?

Luca

 

Ambitious! I like it.

 

Like Django said, very ambitious!
Nice work, I'm diggin' it!

-Shiny

 

damn..... good work man

 

Wow that body has come along way!! Looks good, I'll be on Cloud 9 when I get that far!

Thanks again guys, more to post.

 

Wow. Impressive.

 

What an undertaking!!! I think it's going to turn out great from the progress that you have posted.

 

Nice work man! Looks like fun!

 

Passenger side cowl bottom, pretty wasted, same as before:





Scavenged the '35 cowl again:











Used a small piece of the other EMS patch panel:

















Put in the inside brace, painted, and done:

 

Glad your posting all this, its coming together really nice.