waywardgarage.com

Alright my dudes and dudettes out there in internet land, been dedicating what free time I have to fixin' this here little jalopy up. She's got good bones and never really had all the parts to make an AV8 happen until this little gem rolled into my life. I had been collecting flathead ford stuff for my 1932 Ford project and had quite a bit of extra good stuff so I thought maybe we can make it happen. But first there was the issue of getting it ready to recieve such a riotous cast iron heap! Follow along for a few brief moments....

Sitting where I dropped her off the trailer I had stuck some parts on it to make it look less awful. Note the wide bed, disassembled now, awaiting its time to go on this little scooter. Looking for '31 wide bed fenders if anyone's holding, BTW... Dooo dooo dooo lookin' out my garage door.... Frame at the end of the driveway was from the 1929 Ford Truck that I sold the cab from and had some good parts for this build.

Body and bed stripped off the frame, Model A engine and tranny gone...

The stock Model A Ford axle was bent something fierce, the picture doesn't show how badly whacked it was. I didn't have any good stock Model A axles, but I did have a spare stock '32 heavy so in it went, along with some '32 spindles, '40 Ford brakes and split Model A bones. Found those neat old hangers at the Stockton swapmeet years ago, time to put 'em to use! Of course, this combination of crap made solid objects want to occupy the same space so I shortened the steering arm a bit. Everything jives together now! I've never spread a Model A spring before. The stocker was easy to get out but this old school lowered one was a royal pain in the ass. Now that frame is looking like something! Lots of questions, what if's and what have you's remain, of course: Gotta swap the hydraulic brakes onto the rear Fender brackets need to come off with care, so I can reuse them later if desired. Will a flathead clear a Model A steering box? Is a Model A box even good enough for zipping around town? Frame mounted pedal box needs to go in Can I reuse parts of the original parking brake setup? I got this idea....

When I got it the body was partially bolted together and partly held together by gravity. It was a buddy Dan's parts car so no blame for that condition. He gave me a pretty good deal on it, I thought! That said, it was time to fire up the old hot glue gun and affix subframe Back Panel A to Subframe B. Here's a fun fact for you Model A en-thu-zee-ists: The subframe mount locations are different between the 1928-1930 and the 1931. In '31 Ford decided to slide them back a wee bit, just enough to warrant confusion from people 90 years later. In the photo below you can see this evidenced by the way the holes in the replacement Brookville subframe do not quite match my original '31 frame. The Brookville unit utilizes the more common 1928-1930 frame placement. Something Jed Clampett would be mighty happy with...

This door was caved in and necessitated hammering, heating and quenching. It's not perfect but waaaayy better than before. Forgot to take 'before' pictures unfortunately, of course. Put in an order to Snyder's Model A parts for latches and catches for both sides, as well as some other much needed parts so I can move forward on the 1929 Ford hot rod roadster. This front side door gap is awful! Might be the wrong hinges, another mystery to be solved!

Tossed a hood, radiator and grill on it and dang, if it isn't starting to look like something!