Nice work!
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What he said! ^^Comment
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And now for the real reason we got the trailer hitch all squared away. A friend of mine has a 35 Ford PU that he bought out of OH, where it had been sitting inside a building for a number of years. He had just started the disassembly for starting on the frame mods, and there was a benefit car show locally last weekend that I thought WE should attend. I tried twisting his arm into bolting things back together so we could take it to the show, but it really helped that his wife agreed with me. He and his wife have a local horse farm, and when I stopped after loading up to grab a picture, he says to wait a couple minutes as the horse in the adjacent pasture was nosy and would walk over. Sure enough, and it really made the picture..
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Thanks for posting the GREAT pic! I have looked for a Ford PU of that gen for years - love the looks.
Thanks, DougComment
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Thanks!!
Wiring... hard to show all the details, but hope some of this is of interest...
Our rear sub uses those spring loaded connectors, which aren't very friendly to stranded wire. We've got these pin contacts (McMaster) so we eliminated the insulation to be able to use a W crimp, and added some glue lined heat shrink for strain relief.
We have a bundle coming up the passenger side of the block, mainly power to alternator and fuse block, and didn't want this resting on the front edge of the intake. We were leaning toward an adel clamp but wanted to isolate it a bit from the engine heat. We opted for a standoff, machined out of phenolic and uses a heli-coil for the internal threaded hole.
Next, the length of our pre-made spark plug wires limited the routing path. They needed to cross over the valve cover but keeping them there was a challenge. None of the available loom guides worked, so let's make our own out of 16 gauge stainless.
We also had a temperature feed for the fuel injection that needed to follow the spark plug wires, so the wire separators were modified to secure this as well.
for the oil and temperature sending units for the gauges, the stud with a terminal lug doesn't look clean, so we used these barrel connectors (McMaster) with some glue lined heat shrink to provide strain relief.
the FI Tech has some downright fugly fuse holders as part of its harness, so we used some lacing cord to dress that mess up the best we could. The barrel connector at the front is for our AC compressor.
Next, we'll get started on buttoning up all the under-dash wiring.
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Thanks for sharing! Very elegant, no shortcuts there!Comment
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Getting some of the wiring done behind the dash and adding the interconnect ducts between the defrost vents. This made it glaringly obvious that the speaker grille that covers this hole would show the unsightly mess behind.
We had picked up some pre-painted aluminum sheet from the local stock car supply, and here we cut out a poster-board template.
which was used as a pattern to cut out the aluminum sheet.
We found the finish a bit too shiny for what was intended to mimic a shadow, so a DA and a 1000 grit Sunmight foam pad toned things down a bit.
This should do the trick..
On our shop truck, we had picked up an air cleaner for the 410 replacement engine. Looking at the snout opening, it was 2” diameter, or 3.14 square inches.
The 4bbl carburetor I have for the engine has 1.19 diameter Venturi (x4) or 4.44 square inches. So our factory breather has a built in choke, let’s see if we can open it up a bit
A hammer form was made out of some MDF to match the ends of the opening in the housing, a ball end hammer was used to move the flanged opening outward to match the new snout.
Mocked up….
With the additional width, the snout opening is now 6.14 square inches, should be plenty.
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Very nice fix on the speaker grill! The airliner snout looks like it should have been like that from the beginning - great work!Comment
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Nice work as usual!!
Brian,
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We're still plugging along with the wiring on the wagon, a couple minor details to finish that part up. I was at a local body shop to order some paint matching the state of Maryland's 1955 license plates for the one we're restoring for the wagon. The owner asked if I could make some patches for a step van that is in his shop for repairs.
At some point in its life someone had made previous repairs, adding an aluminum cover to mask the rust beneath. He wanted some weld-in versions in steel.
Some dies were made for the Lennox, using the same upper die but two different flavors for the bottom. One would have straight flanges top and bottom for the "rocker", and the other would have one 90* flange for a wheel arch and the outer door steps.
Note in the above picture the lower die with flat flanges has the support wings cut about 3 degrees upward. With the forming that takes place a flat die would tend to have the flanges dropped slightly from a spring back effect. These upward supports help to counter any spring back effect and ensure the flanges are perfectly flat.. sample:
Enough practice, here's a Video of the process:
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Next on the list for the Metro, as can be seen in the above pictures, is the patches for the wheel arches. We started with a paper pattern to capture the bead details and transferred that to the sheet metal using the trusty ice pick.
Once cut out, the lower flange was hammered over by hand and then stretched using the linear stretch dies in the Lennox.
Then run through the shaping dies, the folded flange acts as the guide for the dies.
Video (sped up to shorten the time span) :
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Awesome work! Nice to be able to custom make parts you can't buy. Thanks for posting the process.
Brian
Brian,Comment
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The radius at the bottom of either end of the wheel arches was a bit too tight for the dies in their standard form, I had to add a relief and neglected to get pictures..
To make room, the die was modified using a portaband to cut an X pattern, then a small screwdriver to bend the center tang back and forth until it broke free.
After the wheel arches, we had one more area to fabricate, the step going into the side doors.
Time to modify the bottom die again...
Then we started with an 8" wide piece with a 90 folded down the middle, using a .25R die. The fold was held in snug against the back of the die to act as our guide. Cut off piece was saved in case we need to weld it back on for another set of wheel arches..
These will be trimmed on the bottom to match the adjacent patches, somewhere along the sharpie mark.
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