Am I right in saying it's a 1929 roadster? it was channeled crudely in the past. and why do the doors have window glass channels but no holes at the top of the doors for glass to go through(looks factory)? stupid questions I know but just odd to me.
Is it a barn find if you knew it was there in your own barn? Nice to get it out and doing something with it
that is a '28-'29 sport coupe or coupe with its roof removed... someone rolled or bent the top 2.5" over to make the door top's cap,
Thanks for the help. defiantly looks modified sport coupe now that y'all point it out.the homemade body badge likely reveals no details. lol
Cool! Yep, it's a coupster, but don't let that stop you, go with it. Embrace the crude style, don't try to make an AMBR competitor with it, build it back as it likely was 70 years ago. Go for a late 40's to early 50's jalopy and enjoy the shit out of it.
Great place to start a project! Short windshield points to it having been a cabriolet, not a sports coupe (Ignore this part, not correct as pointed out by sloppyjalopy in the post below). Looks to have been a channeled hot rod or race car at some point. Mine started out very much the same - a butchered cabriolet that had been made into a dirt track racer - and turned out to be a really great hot rod IMHO! Lots of room inside and easy access thanks to longer doors. Since it's already "chopped", the straight-up windshield can be easily reworked to be quite attractive at very low cost. Good luck with your project. I'm subscribed!
. not a cabbie... '29 cabbies used '30-'31 beltlines and the murray style cowl... cabbie header ? cabbie quarters had the '30-'31 style reveal around the wheelwells... HIH...
My buddy just swapped his tudor body to his custom chassis, I bought his old (running and driving)banger chassis. The plan is to set this on it and drive it that way for now, on the cheap, while I finish up/finalize some things on my coupe this winter. But the subrails on this body have been butchered and the thing is wobbly flexible terribleness. I have a lot of work to do to sturdy this thing up to enable even that to happen.
nutha cheap fix is to bend an arch into about 6' of 1/2" steel conduit... bend it to match the rear wheelwell arch...SAND off the galvanize before you weld any conduit... no bead on your wheelwells, but on '30-'31s I cut 1/2 of the bead work off so it flowed out and then stopped... I welded it in with only 1/2 of the conduit showing ... it let the quarter roll under the wheelwell... it gave me something out of sight to weld a wheelwell panel vertical or panels horizontal to meet up with the trunk floor... about $2.00 for a 10' tube... pix on my frozen computer...
I did one million cuts into some rectangle tubing for my coupe and welded all the cuts up after I got the radius I needed. I know there was likely and easier way but its what I had at my disposal and what I came up with. it worked well and I may do a similar thing on this car.
Pix of the conduit wheelwell repair... used 2004 "Tore-ass" trunk lids as the vertical skins... nice little flare at the bottom and the correct compound curve...[2] for $25, they were in the to be crushed pile... .
No touch to it... the wheelwells were rusted off like serrated steak knives... conduit was cheap and bends easy... but this won't work with fenders as the stock WW's set in about 2.5" at the front and about 3/8" at the rear... the toarys panels set in about 1/2"... reducing the width of the tire that can clear the fender... fenderless it worked fine.
actually these are '28-9 Cabriolet 1/4's.... sloppy is correct about the wheel well beads but they are round not flattened like '30-'31 (that pic is a '30-1 coupester with separate gas tank) they are roughly the same length and shape as coupe 1/4's (so shorter than roadster 1/4's) but instead of the square bead leading from the doors they have a curved tab that lines up with the cabriolet folding top rof stanchion also the 1/4 bead on coupe 1/4's is squarish and flattened the roadster and cabby have a round bead....the coupester body you have is a '28 coupe most likely a leather back Sport or Doctors coupe I like the folded over door tops vs. some of the weird looking flat topped doors i've seen on other coupesters....don't listen to the guys saying too bad it's not a this or a that you'll run into those idiots at car shows too....what it is is a cool old school HOT ROD roadster! wonder what went through that hole in the cowl? whats the story on it? any old parts of it laying around anywhere? or any way to track them down? Hope you don't paint it!
My guess is that the round hole was for the cowl steering when the car was first built as either a hot rod or, more likely, a race car of some kind. The old books on "roaring roadsters" prove that this was not a rare feature as it allowed the engine to be set back much further than if the Ford steering box and steering column was retained. Cowl steering also got the pitman arm and drag link up higher to help keep them from being damaged during the racing action. I think this old body has some stories to tell...
yeh... coupester door tops... gonna do a "how to" on those coupester door "caps" if I ever get my coupe back on the road... [1] exhaust pipe heated along the base that bows the pipe when cooled, smooth bowed pipe can be cut in half to make [2] door caps... [2] a buddy hammerforms caps that are 1/4" wider but look just like '28 roadsters door tops... 1/2" bow L to R... same as coupe or tudor... posting when I get time to start cutting...
my uncle used to race dirt circle track as a teenager and in his early 20's. he recently got back his old 30 or 31 model a stock car after he tracked it down after it being gone a long time, still had his name on the door and it was in running condition and all(flathead powered). I think he bought the "stock car" coupe and this car together as a package deal way back when and built/used the coupe to race and stored this in the barn I grabbed it from. I have to verify this. I just asked him if I could do something with this body, and he said if I would do something with it, I could have it, as he will never get around to doing anything with it. I will poke his brain on the details of its origin next time I run into him.
The body on my coupester had also been relieved of most of the inner structure at one time. Here's a little trick that will help get your body sturdy enough to work with until you can get the new subrails and crossmembers installed. These braces are on one of my current projects, both of which are roadsters, but the principle is the same. Good luck! Subscribed.
not a lot of progress, but I got the subrails/car solid, doors fitting correctly, front body mounts done, and installed some door latches.
coupester door caps... the 2 door caps and a wooden straight edge... my doors are '30-'31, but should work on '28-'29s too..
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