Gauages

Okay this part might seam a little crazy to some of you, but here we go. I wanted to keep the original cluster of gauges that came with the 1946-48 Ford dash, but with update gauges. I made a inquiry into having them done professionally, put it was more then I wanted to spend. We decided to tackle it our self and see what we could come up with. I had a old gauge that we dismantled to see what we could do with it and had test fitted it into the stock cluster. I wanted to do this before tearing into a new set of gauges. After playing around with the old gauge I was feeling pretty confident that we could make this work.

This is the stock cluster after taking the old gauges out and now have started to rebuild with the new gauges. Had to do some machine work to make the circle opening a little larger to accommodate the new gauges and made some bracket to hold them in place. We took the trim ring and glass off the new gauges and discarded them. There goes my warranty.  

Did some filing on the sides of the gauges to make a proper fit. 

The black rings had to be epoxy in place to hold the faces in. The original stainless ring and glass held the gauges together. Not picture is the stock glass and frame that protects and holds every thing together. 

The glass, frame, and trim piece all put together. 

Not the best picture, but this is the cluster installed into the dash. Looks pretty close to the stock gauges except you can see a little of the radius at the top. I'm very pleased on how it turned out and that we saved about two thousand dollars. Next we will fit the speedometer, tach, and clock. 

Small Stuff But Important

Working on some of the small stuff that needed to be worked out and finish up.

We will be using stainless tubing to run the coolant from the radiator to the motor that is located behind the cab. These are some of  the brackets that will hold the hard lines off the frame.  

Used 1-3/4 for the bottom outlet and 1-1/2 for the top inlet. Also have two bleeders at the two highest points to release air out of the lines.

We have flex hoses between the motor and the hard mounted tubing ,also at the radiator. This is where we will have one of the bleeders for any air trap in the lines. Still have a little more work to finish up but getting close.

 

Installed the emergency brake and ran the cable to the drive line brake drum. Also installed and mounted the electric kick down for the transmission. Have the cable for the shifter installed on the transmission side, but need to connect to the steering column to finish it up. 

Everything is a little more difficult when the motor is behind you. This is the bracket that Chris fabricated up for the accelerator cable to work properly.  

Here is the complete setup for the new accelerator linkage. Instead of pull it is now push and pull. More small stuff coming soon.

Interior Valance

We had two changes in mind for the top valance. First we needed to house the screen for the side and back up cameras, and second we wanted the ends to flow better into the headliner. 

The truck has all these amazing nice curves in it and we felt that the straight line on the valance didn't really fit the truck.

That being said Chris put a little curve into the part.

The two sides are done and Chris fabricated the parts to hold the screen. The opening will have a door to hide the screen when not in use. Most of today's technology will be out of sight to preserve the vintage feel and look. 

The old vacuum windshield wipers will be replaced with electric motors. Will fix the old opening to be smooth with the rest of the panel   

Test fitting the screen and holes all finished up.

Cover made for a nice clean look. Still have some adjustments to be made to the door skin.

Needed to make some adjustments to the support to house the screen.

Made the new brackets to hold the electric motors for the windshield wipers. Hope they work as good as they look. 

Every thing now fits nicely behind the valance. Next up is to trim the fiberglass headliner to fit to the changes that were made. 

The final test fit of the fiberglass 

Nice to be done with itchy, dusty, and messy. Leaving the skim coat and priming to the body man.

Custom Hood and Grill Part 2

It 's time to start working on the latching mechanism for the new hood.  A new structure needs to be fabricated to hold the new latch.  

Chris cleaned up the lip and straighten it 90 degrees to the hood. Add a nice recess and a support for the latch.

Latch installed. The bottom part of the latch will be incorporated to the top part of the grill shell.

Working on making a mock up of the grill shell out of wood to get a visual of size and spacing  of the bars. We are trying to achieve the look of the earlier 36 Ford grill but on a bigger scale.

Started out with the out side grill surround with 3/4" plywood and made the grill bars out of 3/8 " plywood.

Started with the center and work our way out. We did our math and figured out the spacing  for the grill bars. I ask Chris if he would make me some jigs for the spacing, but he informed me that jigs don't work well for this type of spacing. But he humored me and made me the jigs. So now I'm on a mission to make these jigs work. I'm taking my time laying out the grill bars on the bottom piece and it comes out right at this point I'm filling pretty good. I then start to layout the top and it turned out good too. Now I start to assemble the pieces together and it is looking really good till I get to the end and bottom one has space for two grill bars and the top has only one. So yes jigs do not work for making precision measurements.  

What does make precision measurements is a milling machine with a digital read out computer. Lucky I have a great friend that loves cars and had some time to help us out.  And yes he has a milling machine. Thank You Paul.

Here"s the finish grill. This turned out way better then I ever expected. Chris wants to use it as wall art for the shop after were done.

We only want to make one adjustment to the grill. instead of 3/4" surround we will be using 1/4".

All I can say is I can't wait to see it in metal and all shiny.

Custom Hood and Grill

If you have a custom visor you have to have a custom hood and grill. This is where it started with some foam insulation and a sharp knife. Wanted to get a good visual on how it was going to look before we started. 

This is the getting close to the shape. I started to use a file for the final shaping. 

We used blue tape to get the lines of the hood and green for the grill surround. Seems like most guys spend time removing the emblems from their rides where we are spending time trying to put one on. We have two emblems that we may use a 1934 Truck the one in the picture or the 1935 passenger car. The hood and grill will be two piece instead of the original one piece.   

No more foam its time for Chris to do his amazing metal work. No turning back now.

Took out about 4" to shorten up what is going to be the new hood.

Test fitted after Chris welded the parts back together. 

Chris made a stand for the hood for the next step. This is so the hood will hold it shape for the next cuts.

After the old metal has been removed. 

New sheet metal added. Will add a new piece that will have the new contour of the emblem.

We decided to go with the 35 passenger car emblem. It had less of a sharper curve than the truck emblem which fitted the lines of the COE better. Giving the new piece a test look before Chris welds it in.

A few more shots of the new sheet metal that Chris fabricated for the emblem. Next he will weld this part into the hood.