Projects Project Mattitude: the Beginning

Looking good Matt! Cant wait to see you driving this thing. My car should be picking up some steam soon too

 

I knew that :-D


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Probably one of the coolest things you can run on an early SBC besides your intake and some badass valve covers. Those early Hedmans are a must have IMO. You would be surprised what a good soak in some Evaporust and a little chrome polish would do to those things. Just a suggestion but I'm sure you could bring them back. Worth a shot before painting them.

 

Not much has happened since the last update. I finished boxing the frame, been finding some stuff around here and flipping them to generate a little cash flow for the roadster, and working a lot. Then one day, something on the internet caught my eye and I headed out close by Austin last weekend to grab this sweet little roadster body. It came with an Model A frame that will be going under my T Touring body as well as a late '30's to '40's Ford front end. I originally bought the roadster to flip but of course, once I get to thinking, things happen. Before I knew it, I was cutting out rivets and making a plan of attack to get the roadster body onto my frame.






The problem with the roadster body is that it's rust-ridden. Bad. There are pinholes all over the wheel-wells, bullet holes through the quarters, rust-through on top of the quarters and a fair bit of thin metal. The subrails are all rotten and have stress cracks on a lot of the holes. The body is solid enough to work, but it's definitely a long ways from getting a nice paint job. It appears that someone in the past sand-blasted the body and painted or primed it this shade of green (ironically similar to the green I was planning on painting the coupster) and it sat since then, rotting away.










So, the plan is to build the subrails from the seat back onto the frame then transfer the roadster body panels onto the subrails of the coupster which are solid. The coupster will go into storage for a future project I've been kicking around in my head for a long while now that the roadster will replace it.





I'll be starting a new thread once I've made some progress from this point on out, but I'll be sure to include the link in this thread.

 

You developed a bunch of skills working on the coupster that should come in handy on the roadster. I'm glad you are keeping the coupster and have plans for it too. The roadster will take a lot of work but you are up to it!

 

The hedders look great on your roadster. Glad they went to a good new home and a new owner who appreciates them for what they are. I got them at the LA Roadster Show swapmeet a hundred years ago for a '27 T on Deuce rails that I was building at the time. That car - in pieces, mind you - got stolen out of the shop I was using to fabricate it and was never recovered. Only a few bits remained including these headers. I've dragged them around ever since. Glad I did.

The thin metal on your roadster is probably why the former owner stalled his project, but don't let it discourage you. I have seen a '32 Chevy roadster brought back from a cowl and a pile of panels no higher than your knee - and they were thin like yours. Knowing the panels would be somewhat fragile, that guy built a strong inner structure from square tubing instead of wood and attached the panels to the skeleton. It proved to be a whole lot of work, but was both inexpensive and effective.

Good luck with your project. I'm subscribed!

 

That was a friend of mines roadster body. I'm glad you bought it before I decided to.... Also glad to see it getting built...


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Happy for you Matt!

Hopefully I'm the next Matt in line for a roadster.

 

Looks great Matt , having a real roadster is worth the thin metal and cussing!


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Looks Sick! Keep it up, can't wait to see burnoutsssss...

 

Looking good Matt!


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Love it @TexasSpeed
So cool you found that body- I agree with @JJK

 

Thank you! I'm glad you felt the urge to buy those headers all those years ago. I'm sorry to hear about the T, but happy to see it's not keeping you down and out. I'm in love with your El Camino. I wish I had a cool parts-runner like that one. It's nice finally finding you on here.. I remembered "Miss.." but I couldn't remember the rest of your name. Keep in touch!

Were you there when I bought it? There were three guys there, but we didn't talk much. I think everyone there was focused on getting rid of the roadster and I was focused on getting the roadster. Haha. It definitely needs its fair share of loving.. I can't see the floor in the garage in between all the rust and dirt that were trapped in the body. Thank you.

There's going to be no shortage of ventilation with all the pinholes in that body. Thank you.

Thanks everyone!

 

I only get a couple of hours of free time three nights a week and all day Saturday to work on this thing in between when my neighbors are awake and when they're asleep. That's if I'm actually free then. I had tonight all to myself, so I did some comparing between the roadster subrails and the coupe subrails and learned that the roadster has these sill plates that sit between the bottom of the doors and the subrails that fill in the space. The seat pan on the roadster has a recess on the sides that let the sill plates clear them. The sill plates that were on the roadster were a little ways from being mint. Going to have to look for those, or make up my own since they aren't going on stock roadster subrails. It's crazy how much more solid the coupe subrails are compared to the roadster subrails.. I guess that's something you learn right away as a beginner. Because they were so rust ridden, I wasn't too worried about getting the parts off with minimal damage as I was making progress.



I got the seat pan off, the sill plates off, then detached the front cross-subrail from the body to use on the coupe subrails. I have an idea in my head reusing factory Ford parts to modify the subrails. I love repurposing factory parts. The rear half of the body is almost ready to come off, but they won't go on the frame until I get the subrails tacked up and clean up the rear of the frame a little.





I also scored these factory Ford 16x5 Kelsey-Hayes. In one of my lucky flips, I found five 16x5.5 KH wheels along with 7 KH 16x5s, but the funds from the 16x5.5s is what got me this roadster body. I want to reverse the 5s so the taper is on the outside but not until later. I also scored an Model A headlight bar. That one will be much easier to fit onto the frame than the '31 Chevy bar I cut up like an idiot.

 

hey you big sasquatch...I need a REALLY NICE 16x5 wheel to go with one I just found...hint, hint.

 

No sir I wasn't there... That car was another friend of mines before it was the fellow you got it from... Think he bought it at pate years before that. I helped sand blast the thing and watched it get primed in that terrible smelling green stuff. I can tell you this, that primer is one of those fancy rust converters and the sandblasting was thorough. Just sat at a cow barn after we were through... With a lot of sheet metal work it will be a great car...

I'll see if I can't dig up some more pictures...


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Lovin' every bit of this...
Looks like you have more room at your new place?

 

I'll look in my honey holes and see if there isn't any. I know where a real nice Lincoln 16x5 with the cap clips is if you'd like that.

Yes! I would love to hear more about how this came to be. I think I would rather smell that green rust converter stuff than the rat piss there is in the nooks and crannies..

Thank you. It's a little bit longer, but more narrow. Definitely less room than the other garage but I think it just looks bigger because it's less full. Having an one-car garage is teaching me how to manage what space I have.


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Don't want a Lincoln with clips...thought you said you had 7 KH. If you already sold them, then please keep an eye out for one.

 

Yup. I sold them all.. I only have my pair left. They sold pretty quick. I'll look for you and see what I can find. You could take the Lincoln wheel and exchange out the centers with a Ford wheel.


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Very cool that you ended up with the roadster body, Matt! I have some left over subrail sections from my roadster project that you can have if you need them... and just cover shipping. I will get a couple photos tonight if you might be interested.

 

I'd like to see the pictures of them. I may be interested in using them. Thanks!


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Any updates Matt?


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Sshhh..


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_

 

Ahh.. I guess I should at least mention some things. The couple of weeks leading up to New Year's were crazy-hectic for me. My daily driver's transmission went out and I was quoted a ridiculous price to repair it. I figured it would cost less money to get my C10 down here and on the road. So a good buddy of mine and I made a suicide trip up to Amarillo to bring down my C10 the weekend before NYE then I spent all my nights after work for a week and an entire day working on it getting it road-worthy. I think that was the most gratifying New Year's celebration I've ever had.



But after that episode, it's made me realize how nice it actually is having more than just one mode of transportation. That's been my motivation for working on the roadster lately. Before then, I was picking away at it with no pressure on getting it driving. I'm not going to say it will be at this show, or so-so. But I'm determined to get it driving as soon as I can. We'll see what happens.




Since my early 283 was seized up on the inside (lifters and cam are stuck to the block thanks to dried up assembly lube) - my gracious homeboy, @JJK, loaned me an engine that should be ready to run with minimal work. The loaner is much more gnarly than the 283 was going to be, so I hope the top-loader holds up..

Lately, I've been focused on finishing up the frame. I welded up the engine mounts today and will have to do some finish welding (does it ever end?) when I flip the frame over. I still need to make shock mounts then the frame is pretty much done.

I see I never put up a picture of the roadster mocked up on the frame. Some of you guys saw it on Instagram quite a while ago (@thenelsongarage) but I know some of you old geezers and young hipsters on here don't use Instagram - so, here you go.

 

Lookin good Matt!

 

That looks great, awesome seeing it get put together...


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Mockup looks great


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