39 Ford Project

[Belair-o]

Brian,
I couldn't imagine you ever wanting to sell your creation! Who could ever imagine the inventiveness and work that went into the steering wheel alone! Wow!
Thanks, Doug

[Custer55]

Brian,
I couldn't imagine you ever wanting to sell your creation! Who could ever imagine the inventiveness and work that went into the steering wheel alone! Wow!
Thanks, Doug

Thanks,
Won't be in a hurry to sell the but if the price is right we will. The plan was to just fix a few things to get our money out of it but I guess I have gone way past that point.
Good thing my wife is very patient and understanding!!

[Custer55]

Finally finished the steering wheel this week.
1000001747.jpg
Here I have the center hub painted satin black to match the dashboard and what the steering column will eventually be painted. I didn't get a picture with it masked off to paint the hub but needless to say that it wasn't fun masking around all the individual rods in each spoke.
1000001850.jpgAfter letting the paint on the hub cure over the weekend I started on installing the leather wheel wrap last night. Here it is pulled over the wheel ready to start sewing it on.
1000001851.jpgAnd here it is all sewed in place. It took me almost 3 hours to sew it on but it turned out pretty good. There are several stitch styles you can use but I decided to do what is called a baseball stitch which amounts to using a needle on each end of the thread and basically sewing it the same way as you would lace up a pair of shoes. Sore fingers today as you have to pull each stitch really tight as you go.
1000001853.jpgAnd finally with the horn button in place. I might add some kind of emblem or logo on the horn button eventually but for now it is just fine. I have the steering column out right now so I will get a picture of it in the car down the road as this will be stored in the house where it will stay clean for now as well. The little flat spots below the upper spokes are thumb indents that the Corvette wheel had. I couldn't think of any good way to fill them in so I just left them the way they were.
1000001740.jpgSo on the days I was letting paint and clear coat cure I got some other things done. Here I have the steering shaft mocked up with just a universal at the column and the steering rack.
It connects the 2 fine but the clearance to the header collector is way to tight so I ordered another universal joint and a support bearing (which is just a 3/4" heim joint).
1000001742.jpgWith the 3rd universal everything clears much better and no binding at all steering from lock to lock. Just needed a simple bracket welded to the frame to make it work which is fully welded in place now.
1000001743.jpgView from the front where the shaft connects to the rack has good clearance as well. A bit tight at the motor mount bolt but I don't have that fully tightened at this point so it will be fine as well.
Mostly it is just the set screws in the universal joint that come close but they are way longer than they need to be so I can just shorten them a bit or get some shorter ones.
1000001739.jpgOn one of the days waiting for paint to cure I messed around with the turn signal lever knob at the top in the picture. The tilt lever knob at the bottom is what the Camaro column had.
Looks kind of out of place on an older car so I ground the knob on the turn signal lever to what I think will be a better shape. They are a hard rubber so it was pretty easy to sand down on the belt sander. Now I just need to do the same on the tilt lever knob.
1000001852.jpgAnd finally started making a cover for the column drop bracket I had made earlier. I started trying to make this with the column still in the car which didn't go real well. Finally decided to just take the column out and work on the covers on the work bench. Much easier that way. I have the upper cover fit pretty close at this point held in place with 1/8" clecos so next I will need to drill and tap the holes in the bracket for 10-32 screws and drill the holes in the cover for the same. So the next project will be to fab up the lower cover and maybe a cover for the bottom half of the column lower tube to hide where the ignition switch and neutral safety switch mount as well as the all the wiring to the column.
Brian

[Belair-o]

Brian,
Great work, great progress! The wheel came out fantastic - agree that something on the horn button would be a nice touch. The engine compartment and steering linkage look great - what a great hot rod look! Very sano.
Thanks for sharing! Doug

[Custer55]

Brian,
Great work, great progress! The wheel came out fantastic - agree that something on the horn button would be a nice touch. The engine compartment and steering linkage look great - what a great hot rod look! Very sano.
Thanks for sharing! Doug

Thanks Doug,

[Custer55]

With the steering wheel done I moved on to finishing up on the steering column. With the upper column drop cover looking good I started on the lower cover.
20241025_143447.jpgTo make the lower cover I made a hammer form and then cut and shaped a piece of 18 gauge to fit in the hammer form.
20241025_145947.jpgHere I have it clamped up ready to hammer it over on the edge.
20241025_151832.jpgAfter hammering the edge over. As you can see it did not work the best as the wood was to soft and just dented in instead of making the metal shrink on the edge as intended.
The next time I do something like this I think I will add a steel plate on top of the wood and grind the shape of the edge into the steel, which should work better than this did.
Luckily I was able to salvage the piece as I had extra metal on the edge so once I trimmed off the excess metal I was able to make it work.
20241025_162603.jpgHere I have it looking much better. on the top right was the cardboard pattern of the shape I wanted and on the top left is the 1/8" wire which will get welded to the inside as I did on the upper cover to give it a nicer look around the steering column.
20241026_152427.jpgAt this point it is pretty close to fitting the way I want it to, and the flange bead rolled in where I will attach another cover to be made to cover the lower part of the column.
20241026_200002.jpgHere I have the wire tack welded in place. At this point I had also built a mounting tab for this cover which is what the cleco is going into to hold it in place.
20241026_200043.jpgIn this shot you can see the mount tab welded onto the column and to the right is the cover upside down. I added an alignment tab to the cover so It will just need the 1 screw to hold it in place and not be able to twist out of alignment.
20241027_104119.jpgHere the wire is all welded in and finished out and the mount drilled and tapped for a 10-32 screw. At this point I am just using screws that I have. Eventually I will get some nicer looking button head screws.
20241027_123452.jpgNext will be to make a cover for the lower part of the column that will hide all the wiring and the ignition and neutral safety switch. With this column in a 78 Camaro none of this would show at all but in an old car like my 39 Ford is is very visible and would not look very nice.
20241027_123114.jpgAnd finally here is a cardboard mock up of the cover. I installed the column back in the car to check to make sure it cleared everything ok and would look good. It looked good to me so time to cut and shape one out of metal as it hides all the switches and wiring well. Probably will have to buy some lighter gauge metal (20 or 22 gauge) as all I have on hand is 18 and 16 gauge which are both way thicker than this will need to be.
Brian

[Belair-o]

Brian,
Thanks for the post. Liked the ideas of the wire welded on to cleanup the look of the cover edge, and especially, the alignment pin to keep the cover aligned without needing a second screw!
Thanks, Doug

[Custer55]

Brian,
Thanks for the post. Liked the ideas of the wire welded on to cleanup the look of the cover edge, and especially, the alignment pin to keep the cover aligned without needing a second screw!
Thanks, Doug

Thanks Doug, and your welcome!

[chevynut]

It only took me three tries to get to your latest post, but I'm impressed with your metalworking skills. I tried to make a hammer form a couple weeks ago and it turned into trash. I could not get the metal to bend around it. I think I was trying to make too big of a flange, but I needed it to be 1/2" or more.

[Custer55]

It only took me three tries to get to your latest post, but I'm impressed with your metalworking skills. I tried to make a hammer form a couple weeks ago and it turned into trash. I could not get the metal to bend around it. I think I was trying to make too big of a flange, but I needed it to be 1/2" or more.

Thanks, i have the same problems at times with trying to do hammer forming. I think if the piece needs the metal to shrink a lot it is better to make the form out of steel or in the case of the last one I did for the lower column cover at least a steel plate bolted or screwed to the wood block. That way you can heat the metal on the edge which helps to shrink it as well. I have seen guys on You-tube use heat on a wooden form but the wood burns up quite a bit when you do that. Also some use the medium density fiber board, not sure if that works any better or not.
Brian

[Custer55]

This past week or so I finished up on the steering column and got the steering wheel installed.
20241029_125508.jpgHere is the lower column cover formed up and ready for a bit of body filler, then primer and paint. I ended up making it out of 22 gauge as that was what I could get in town. The steel supplier that would have had 20 gauge is 40 to 50 miles from my house so I didn't want to take the time to make that trip. I'm sure the 22 gauge will be fine for what it is.
20241029_125617.jpgAnother view shows how it will hide the switches and most of the wiring that will connect to the column.
20241029_194356.jpgAfter some prep and primer everything got a couple of coats of satin black on all the parts to match what I used on the dashboard.
20241031_140056.jpgUpper and lower column drop covers with a couple of coats of paint. You can't tell in this picture but I save the hangers off of the hanging flower pots my wife buys every year as they work well for hanging small parts like this for painting.
20241031_140106.jpgAnd the lower column cover all ready to go.
20241103_123638.jpgPutting the column back together to get It ready to install in the car. Here I have the turn signal switch back in place and the wires re-pinned back in the original wire connector. I also reused the plastic wire cover that protects the turn signal wires. I decided not to use the neutral safety / back up light switch as the lower cover would have had to be way wider at the bottom to clear it, which would have made it way to close to the brake pedal. I will have to incorporate that into the floor shifter instead.
20241104_110352.jpgMy next issue was trying to mount the steering wheel over the horn contact ring, and column lock plate. Not shown in this picture is the spring that goes under the horn ring and lock plate. It was impossible to push the steering wheel in place over these so I did some research online. What I found out is there is a retainer ring that holds all this on the steering shaft and you need a special tool to remove and install the lock plate. The retainer ring was missing on this column so I made the one you see here out of some 1/16" welding rod. To the right of that is a simple tool I made to install everything. The plate just bolts on the steering shaft where the steering wheel bolts on then I used the bolts to push the lock plate down enough to install the retainer ring.
20241104_112552.jpgHere it is with everything in place. If you look close you can see where the retainer ring I made which sits in a groove in the steering shaft and a little recess in the lock plate. The plastic cover I think is cosmetic to fill the gap between the steering wheel and the column and maybe to insulate the horn button contact parts.
20241104_143535.jpgHere is the view of all the covers in place. I think it all turned out pretty good. Not perfect by any means but 100% good enough for me. I still need to get some nicer looking screws to hold the covers in place though. I am thinking some button head allen bolts will look good.
20241104_143447.jpgAnd here it is with the steering wheel in place looking pretty good to me. I did have one last issue once I got the wheel bolted on though. The original Camaro wheel had a 4" dish and I built this one with a bit less than a 3" dish so the turn signal lever ended up way to close to the wheel ring. It wasn't to bad to fix it though as I just had to take the wheel back off and luckily just the plastic cover on the lock plate to get the turn signal lever off to bend it for proper clearance then put it all back together.
Brian

[Belair-o]

Hi Brian,
Great progress - that worked out really well! You will soon(?) be looking out the windshield with your hands on the wheel, steering your hot rod down the roads!
Thanks, Doug

[Custer55]

Hi Brian,
Great progress - that worked out really well! You will soon(?) be looking out the windshield with your hands on the wheel, steering your hot rod down the roads!
Thanks, Doug

Thanks Doug,
I wish driving it was in the near future but still a lot of work to get done before that happens.

[Custer55]

So with the steering wheel and column project done I wasn't sure what I wanted to work on next. One thing I have been putting off is cleaning up the underside of the car and frame. The floor areas I didn't replace and the frame are mostly solid but have a fair amount of surface rust. I am not at a point that I want to spend the time to separate the body and frame so for now I will be just cleaning up the surface rust areas with a wire brush to get rid of the loose stuff and then just use a rust convertor coating, then spray can paint and under coating to make it all look halfway decent. If I ever remove the body from the frame It can all be media blasted to bare metal and repainted at that point.
image.pngTo get things ready I removed the engine, transmission, and rear end and springs. When I was taking out the rear end I knew the wheelbase probably wasn't quite right because of how the rear leaf spring hanger brackets were positioned. When I originally installed them I was in a hurry to get the car a roller and didn't take as accurate of measurements as I should have.
When looking at how the rear tires fit in the wheel wells it looked to me like the rear end should move about a 1/2" forward. With the car level on jack stands and using a plumb bob confirmed that the wheel base was a half inch longer than is was supposed to be.
image.pngWhen I said mostly solid it was because the frame did have a couple of spots that needed rust repair. Just a small spot on the drivers side of the car needed a patch. This spot is prone to rust on the 35 to 40 Ford frames as it is where the outer frame channel and the X center section come together but there is just enough space between them at this point for dirt to accumulate and cause a bit of rust.
image.pngThe passenger side had a bigger section that needed to be replaced as the bottom edge of the frame had some cracks and thin metal. Since the front leaf spring hangers bolt on in this area it needed to be fixed.
image.pngHere I have a new bottom edge of the frame welded in and finished out.
image.pngThen I made an inner piece to match the new lower and drilled holes to hold it in place with clecos. Then I tacked in patch pieces for the upright section of the inner frame. At this point the repair section was not tack welded to any of the original frame so I was able to remove it to weld the patch pieces to each other off the car. The less welding I need to do under the car the better as it was not fun welding under the car with limited space.
image.pngHere the patch is all welded in place. Lousy lighting when I took this picture for some reason and crappy looking welds but I did make sure they were burned in good so it is all nice and solid now.
image.pngThe next step was to re-install the spring hanger brackets in the correct location this time. To give me something solid the measure off of I clamped a piece of flat bar to the frame.
At the floor which you can't see in the picture I had a 90 degree bend so I could duct tape it to the floor on my plumb bob mark. That way I could hook my tape measure to the flat bar and get a good measurement to the center of the bolt on the hanger bracket.
image.pngHere the hanger bracket is clamped in place on the frame in the correct location. I tried to drill the new holes in the frame with the same size drill bit as the holes in the bracket but that didn't work very well as I expected. To drill reasonably accurate pilot holes I made the jig clamped in place to drill 1/8" pilot holes. The brackets originally had holes for 5/16" bolts, but after drilling the pilot holes I drilled the bracket and the frame out to 3/8" at the same time so everything lines up much better now. Also note on the bolt head I used my dial caliper to get the center point of the bolt head as accurate as I could as well.
image.pngThis shot shows a couple of modifications I made to the hanger brackets. The inner section of the frame needed 7/8" holes inline with the outer frame bolt holes for socket wrench clearance so the bolts only attach to the outside frame rail. I added holes in the brackets that line up with the back holes to make installation and removal much easier. The front holes were ok as is.
At the top of the brackets where you are supposed to bolt it into the upper edge of the frame the brackets didn't fit to well. The instructions said this tab could go over or under the frame rail and mine were under but not tight to the frame. I ended up taking the bend out of the top end then cutting it off just below the frame rail, then drilling a hole in the frame rail, bolting the cut off tab to the frame rail and then bending the top end of the bracket in so I could tack weld them back together with everything in the correct position.
image.pngHere are the finished brackets which I can remove and install with confidence they will end up in the correct location each time. After tack welding the upper tabs in place on the car I removed them, added gussets and welded it all up solid so they are done and ready for some paint at this point. So before I tackle the bottom of the car I will be removing some parts that are just bolted in place like these, the rear shock brackets, transmission crossmember etc. that will fit in my sandblasting cabinet to get them ready to paint up. My knees are killing me from crawling under there for to many days now so I need a bit of a break from that.
Brian

[Belair-o]

Hi Brian,
Thanks for providing the explanations on your logic for taking the steps you do in your build. You mentioned instructions for installing the hanger brackets. Are there guides out there somewhere that document assembly on the 40 Fords, like there are for trifive Chevys? The websites and how-to books have been a great help for me in building my 57 Chevy.
Thanks, Doug