Thread: Followed Me Home, '33 Build

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34-40, who made the body?

Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

34-40, who made the body?

Sorry for the long wait in a reply. We were on vacation and just got back last night. The body is an old Gibbons. I got it out of MI. After I picked it up I called over to "He who will not be named" and they estimated it was an 80 or 81,82 by my description of construction.

At that point in time, Gibbon was making a good body. That was when they were located in Nebraska. Things went downhill after the business moved to South Carolina.

Originally Posted by rumrumm

At that point in time, Gibbon was making a good body. That was when they were located in Nebraska. Things went downhill after the business moved to South Carolina.

I am happy with it so far. Most everything fits like you would want it to. The fenders and running boards, the hood, all fit well "right out of the box" as it were.

I thought it looked familiar. The wood reinforcement and the shape of the pocket for the drop-down rear window are obviously Gibbon. That time frame is back when Dwight was in charge, and they were building them in Gibbon, NE.

I bought some fenders for a '30 sedan from Dwight in the mid-80's, and they were top quality. That's why I bought my Gibbon body from SC. No further comment on that . . .

Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

I thought it looked familiar. The wood reinforcement and the shape of the pocket for the drop-down rear window are obviously Gibbon. That time frame is back when Dwight was in charge, and they were building them in Gibbon, NE.

I bought some fenders for a '30 sedan from Dwight in the mid-80's, and they were top quality. That's why I bought my Gibbon body from SC. No further comment on that . . .

Nuff Said!

At Springfield, talking to the guys from N&N and looking at the cars I decided that I really wanted to go back to a hood top for the '33. When I got home I called Duane, he put one in the queue for me, but had one already done so I made a run to AR Friday 6/4 to pick it up, and to attend a HS reunion on the way home Saturday. When I got home Sunday, having previously set the body, grille and splash aprons back in place I set the hood on and was dismayed to find it 3" short! I called Duane on Monday and we chatted about having to lay the grille back, which for me meant having to shift the bottom forward to stay out of the pulleys with the fan. Soooo, I set the engine back in place, and started the chase for clearance. Bottom line, the hood is going to work fine, and the grille will look a lot better laid back three inches at the top - a more aggressive line. In order to get the three inches at the top and stay out of the pulleys I trimmed 7/16" from the motor mounts and relieved the tranny mount a little to slide the engine back, slid the bottom of the radiator forward and let it lay back and inverted the fan shroud to drop the puller fan lower relative to the water pump pulley. I cut out the radiator mounts and made some new ones to kick down and out, welding them in place thinking I could use the splash apron to "adjust" the final resting position of the grille - a bad assumption. I kept fighting the hood, which was now playing a part in positioning the radiator/grille instead of simply setting in place on them, and things just were not right - every time I pressed down the back edge the front popped out and the radiator layed back into the pulleys. After messing with it for several days, including re-mounting doors to do another trim on the headers for door clearance I stepped back and started measuring alignments and taking a new tack on mounting the radiator, which is the top mount point for the grille.
A few mis-steps and re-do's but I think I about have the hood fitting licked in the big picture. Like I said, I made a mistake of trying to use the splash aprons to "adjust" the final radiator angle and that did not work - they are simply fillers to hold the grille shell, and need to be used that way. Unfortunately I did a bit of trimming on the aprons in the process, which I should not have done, but I would have been extending them more anyway as it turned out. I came to realize that my radiator mount angle was off with my new mounts, which was causing me some big headaches, but more of an issue was that it sat a bit off-square with the body by about 3/8" when aligned "as received" and I had maintained that mis-alignment with the new mounts. Once I got that figured out things started falling into place. I cut out the new radiator brackets, made another set and tacked them into place followed by the grille and hood - still off a little so I ground away the front tacks and angled them up a tad more and clamped a piece of angle beneath for final fitment. The hood layed in place nicely with no stress, and my fan to pulley clearance was a bit over 1/2" - cool beans!! I bolted the splash aprons to the frame, shifted the grille forward a bit for AC condenser connection clearance and found a nominal 1.5" gap between splash apron and grille. I took some thin aluminum siding flashing and pop riveted it in as a backer plate, waxed it and the grille shell, and glassed the gap using bondo gel resin and six or seven layers of woven cloth - should be plenty strong, but I may add a top and bottom metal brace inside where it is hidden just for grins. Here's the "look" with the radiator and grille layed back a bit, and the hood top in place, and a couple of the very rough gel resin fiberglass fill of the gap. Today I will take the splash aprons and grille loose to pop the extended aprons off of the grille to trim the front edge to the cut line on the back side, and will do a bit of conturing to see if I need another layer or two of cloth in the thick places. I think it will be a pretty good profile once it is done. Oh yeah, with the grill pushed forward the SS "V" spreader bar would not even come close to fitting, so I boxed the front of the rails, too. Still need to do the rounded cap on the front edge and weld the bottom side when I flip the chassis, but they will look better than the open rails. One more piece for the "..why did I order this??" shelf...

Nice angle on the grille shell now Rog! Looks like another case of one step forward, two steps back? Oh well, happens around here all the time!!!!

After getting the hood sitting in place with no stresses it was time to figure out the mounting hardware. For any who have not gone through the process, here are the basic steps I took, and a few pictures. I may have gone about this backwards, but it seemed right to me and it seems to have worked out OK because the hood latches in place and is secure, and I did not mess up the mounting hardware cutting it to length.
I bought the 42" Carolina Customs top only hood mount system (they offer 36" and 42" kits, both cut to length), since I don't ever plan to run hood sides, and I really don't like the look of a 2" filler piece ("dummy" side panel) to hide the hinge mechanism if you buy the three panel hinged system and elect to go sans sides. The top only system has everything tucked behind the hood top, out of sight. I figure if I ever decide I need hood sides I will buy a new CC hinged mounting kit and either a metal hood, or more likely metal sides for this hood top. The CC kit consists of two pieces per side - one piece to mount to the hood that has two sturdy latch pins 16" apart (can be cut to fit between hood braces), and one piece that mounts between body and grille that has the latch assemblies, all made from 1"H x 0.5"W aluminum bar stock. They also give you four generic 3/16" plate mounting brackets and a handful of bolts/nuts, but the instructions tell you that every installation is unique, and you need to adapt the brackets to your car. I used two of the brackets for parts to fabricate my rear firewall mounts, but needed custom plates for the pieces that bolted on the firewall, and they are unique for each side due to minor differences in the firewall projections.

I elected to trim the hood pin bar stock pieces to length and mount them to the hood flange first. Since the system is really made for a metal hood I found that I needed to make my glass hood bottom flange a bit wider to give me the needed area for through bolts. I clamped a piece of aluminum flat stock to the existing flange after grinding away the gel coat, waxed it for release and built up the flange with glass matt and resin, then trimmed it to the needed width. Once done I clamped the hood pin bars in place, drilled five mounting holes per bar, marking the bar for holes, and then drilled and tapped the ten 10-32 holes to mount the bars. With the hood in place I noted that the CC instructions called for the hood pin bar and the latch bar to maintain a 1/4" space between the two bars at the latch points for proper clearance of the pin mechanism. This spacing sets the mounting points on both the firewall and the radiator/grille for the latch bar, so my approach was to make two wooden bars that mimiced the latch bar dimensions, but with an extra 1/4" at the latch points for the needed clearance. Before starting any fitting I cut a 1x1 wood spacer bar to set the final position of the radiator/grille relative to the body, taking up the slack in the spring mounts that hold the radiator to the mounts - a stick wedged between the firewall and the top of the radiator cut to allow the hood to set in place with no interference. With the hood in position and taped to hold, those wood latch bar pieces let me set & mark the latch bar mounting locations at both ends, and then it was a matter of fabricating brackets for the firewall and the radiator out of 3/16" plate, using the keyhole mounts provided by PRC at the radiator end and through bolts at the firewall. On the firewall end I made a little mounting plate for the inside to spread the load and to allow adjustment(by enlarging the holes through the body a bit) - 1/4" plate with a couple of 1/4X20 tapped holes. The mounts on the front bolt to the radiator and angle out to align with the back. Adjustment is by using washers between the mounting plate and radiator or the mounting plate and latch bar.

Like I said, my approach may have been out of sequence for someone else, but it worked for me. As has been recommended here several times (Da34Guy for one) it is a big plus to fit the hood and do the bracket work with the engine out of the way - you can get inside, clamp bars in place, look at the fit from the inside out, and get it right so much easier.

Looks like yer making headway Rog. love the look of the laidback grille.
BTW ---Who's grille and shell ya usin?
Don

Originally Posted by DA34GUY

Looks like yer making headway Rog. love the look of the laidback grille.
BTW ---Who's grille and shell ya usin?
Don

Thanks, Don. The grill insert is Alumicraft and the shell is from N&N. I bought the radiator, shell, grill insert and splash aprons as part of the roller package.

Got the frame horn boxing finished, and fab'd a relief in a crossmember to clear the e-brake connections on the floor. The frame is now totally stripped and on a pair of engine stands, getting ready for paint. Today I'm segregating an end of the shop with plastic to serve as a paint booth. Looking forward to getting the frame painted so that I can put things on for what I hope is the last time for a long time...

Great progress and some excellent work Roger! Anxious to see the car start turning all shiny and pretty!!!!!!

Got my headers back from Jet Hot Coatings a few days back, coated inside & out with their "extreme sterling" good for 1700F+. I'm very happy with their result on my first timer headers.

Before pulling the body I pulled the engine and looked at the HVAC and battery bulkhead location. I'm using a XS Power AGM battery mounted up under the dash, so I was looking for a location that was close to the starter but somewhat hidden from view. The '33/'34 has an ideal place in the kickout adjacent to the kick panel area, right next to the bellhousing area. I got the 90 el bulkhead fittings from Vintage Air.

I made a set of reinforcement plates, 3x4x1/4" with Grade 8 bolts for the seats, to be bonded to the underside of the body. I also mounted the Lokar E-Brake handle, and noted that the cable connector was going to interfere at a frame crossmember unless I rebuilt the unit to extend the connecting arm, which would have totally changed the geometry and forces in the E-Brake linkage. I marked the frame to look at with the body removed.

I pulled the body, and decided that modifying the crossmember was the best approach, and I elected a bridge approach. I had a strong 3/16" clear between the floor and the crossmember, so I first tacked a 3/16" plate in place and cut the crossmember at 45's, for a nominal 4" bump up. I ended up with 3/8" across the top, and 3/16 end caps on the tubes. Here's a couple of shots of the process, plus one of the primed result.

I primed the chassis before doing the fill, to seal any pinholes in the welds and joints. It looked pretty good to see it all black. I got all of the low spots filled and shot another coat of primer, but messed up the gun and ended up with drips and sags I spent Friday fixing everything, and this morning went out to try again, having picked up the color and clear yesterday at the paint shop. I noticed some sanding residue, so I decided to wash down the chassis one more time. I used Dawn to cut any oils, rinsed it good and then blew it dry. Wiped everything with wax & grease remover, using a wet rag/dry rag approach, and mixed the primer. Shot the differential first, then hit the chassis - Fisheyes!! I went around the whole thing, then decided to go ahead and use the remainder of the paint I had mixed. Looks like I made two mistakes - 1) using Dawn, which has some additives for soft skin, and 2) using clean rags that had been through the laundry cycle, and had fabric softener residue. Now I get to wait a few hours, sand down an area and hit it with primer to see if the epoxy sealed the contaminants beneath the primer layer. I'm not calling "Uncle" yet, but I'm getting a bit frustrated with this paint process....

A few shots of the progress.