Projects Shoebox Frankenstein from swamps

Some time ago I've bought '49 Ford fordor in, lets say, "barn" shape. It had no engine (or rather It hade one- from Wolga M21 atached to the car with rope in the engine compartment) and hade some major lack of parts. My plan for it is simple- make a tradition custom. So, for start, I want to chop the top(about 2,5"), lower the susspension (about 3") and put a flathead in it.

 

As I started this project (about 3 years ago) I had a problem with fiding flathead drivetrain for it(its not easy to but such engine in Poland ), so I bought another '49 It was stored by the tree for almost 40 years but it had two gearboxes and 226 Ford flathead

 

By the way- we tryed to start the Wolga motor. That Russian sh*t started!

 

Interesting! Did you find those cars in Poland? No shoeboxes under trees here in Austria.

 

Some time went by and I started to rebuild that Flathead engine.
Rock it like it's 1949
Engine was in such good condition that we managde to fire it up!

But then I started to some serious bussines. I've cleaned it up, ordered some custom made rod and main bearings and started with some mods- full flow:
and..
.
...porting-I learn on internet and I've painted it (+5hp)

 

Yup! The black one was hidden in barn for 30+ years and that rust one was like that for 40 years:
two day earyler it had a roof of barn in which it was hidden. The barn collapsed

 

I'm trying to short the story to maximum, cause I want to write about the current status of the project- I've manged to have some time for it after I finished my other car (which broked again )

 

The brown one looks to be in pretty good shape! And with two you can chop it and stretch the roof. Leaves some headroom in the rear seat.

 

Ok- the current status! I've almost finished the engine and started the top chop (and now you can see why I've called this thread like that):
I've started with cutting the edge of the rear window (as You can see the rusty one has three pice window, bot don't worry- I have the original one from the black) and marked the way I'll cut the roof

 

And I started to cut it up. Rusty had his roof in not good shape (I've written about the barn roof on it earlyer) so it had to go! the black roof was waiting for it's turn when I took out the rear window from mr. brown I realized that it is in bad shape as well so I cutted it of and made same frame out of the black roof
than I started to moke up the black roof

 

And there was time to chop it of!! I know You'll like my style of work

 

Good stuff. But you tricked me, I thought you were building the black car.

 

Last saturday (that is on 10.31.2015) I've started to weld this monster together I had no idea how to put it together in nice way, but one sip of beer and all was clear! and the finishing touch- I know I'm a bad welder

 

But last wednesday (11.4.2015) was brought new pleasures. Rusty had some minor crash to it's left side but someone repaired it even worst, so now I'm trying to straight it up, but, as I like it hard- I've started from C pillar I needed to do some mesurments, so I welded back some of the pillar and cutted even more it's time for some funny welds and matching up the rails plus a bonus

 

Stay tuned for some more funny bussines

It would be too easy

 

And some goodies

 

I like where this is going. Good pictures. The motor looks great. Have you considered having the head milled while you're at it?

 

Believe it or not I understood it perfectly! I could follow right along, no problem

 

Nice to see you using the 226 engine.

 

I was thinking the same thing.

Any flexing with the roof off and the rockers cut out? At least there is some bracing that we can see.

 

I'd have to assume that the rusty one has the paperwork you need to register it in Poland while the black one is without proper papers.
I like what you are doing but think I would have rebuilt the car from the bottom up rather than the top down and had the floors done and solid rockers in before cutting the top off.

 

I'm thinkin' the same thing.

 

I thought he engine fire up was unique!

 

one thing to remember is if you want a flathead V-8 they were used in some German Fords till the mid 1970's mostly in fire engines or heavy trucks . a freind of mine in Europe has found several that way .

 

That's true

 

Far as I know Flathead V8 were used by French till late '60. There are some problems with those engines thou- they are converted to metrical (realy) and the cost more than buying engine in USA and shipping it to Poland. Also because of that there are some problems with parts- at least I had problems with finding them. From the upside- they usually are about 4.2L- just like the merc V8. More popular is the aquamarilion V8 or 60hp V8, but considering his lack of performance I stayed with 6 in a row. Next step will be 302 V8- I'm still considering this option, cause I have such engine, but Rusty will luse his personality...

 

as I wrote earlyer- it would be too easy. But you are 100% right.

 

Thanks. I've forgot to write about it- yes it's milled 2mm

 

The 2.3L Aquilon was used till the 60's in cars, they are metric and nearly impossible to get.
The 3.9L is getting scarce, we get the 4.2L more easily now, both from military trucks until the 80's, both are non metric if you except heads from the bolts. They're a mix of 221 and 239 or 255 only in 24 studs heads, everything interchange with the US version if you know what part from which engine you need. As price goes, the maximum I've seen is 5 G (I highly doubt it's gonna sell at this price) for a brand new one, but you can get a complete running one for not even half that. I just got a good 255 crank for 50 Euro. And with all the Polish that come to work in France I'm pretty sure you could get somebody to bring an engine back for dirt cheap.
Why not building the black one that seems in much better shape and swap paper work if that's the issue?