1940 Ford Tudor Build Thread

[johnboy]

"One of them painted something in the garage and got over spray on my dash. I got it to buff out but what a pain in the rear....."

Aaagh!!

...and he's still alive?

...and breathing?

.

[40FordDeluxe]

Overspray? Cough Cough... choke..sputter!! On your fresh paint?? Let me guess.. you just shrugged it off! You really are superman! LOL..

"One of them painted something in the garage and got over spray on my dash. I got it to buff out but what a pain in the rear....."

Aaagh!!

...and he's still alive?

...and breathing?

.

Yeah, I couldn't believe it. It was Clint. He did have the dash covered with plastic, but I guarantee he sprayed something first, then saw the over spray and covered the dash. He hasn't admitted that is what happened but I know I didn't do it and his sister didn't do it. A little back story for those of you not on FB. 2 Mondays ago Illy our 3yr old grabbed the model spray paint off the black stone on the deck that Clint left out from painting his model. Illy proceeded to paint the side of our deck and also the LH side of her 2yr old brother. He was a true American poster baby. Red/blue hair, and white face, with blue LH half. There was also an incident of someone grabbing my clear coat off my bench, and dumping it in a mixing container and the person thought they were getting grease and wax remover to clean their model car body. They quickly realized it was not grease and wax remover and must have thought it was a great idea to leave it all. Including the stuff they spilled on the floor, down the bench, and on everything around it. They left the cap barely on the clear too. I was a hostile unit when I found the mess but more mad that said young man lied about it. He lost his garage privileges for a couple of weeks. I didn't even yell at him about the dash. I just sent pics to his mom and let her deal with it. I'm just glad buffing it worked and I didn't ruin it and have to repaint it all. I'm over doing things over and over.

[40FordDeluxe]

I was excited to get my dash painted and I was just going to throw it together and get it stuck in the car. Then I forgot my gauge bezel had grind marks on the bottom face where I had to modify it to fit the opening. Also, I had to trim the gauges to fit in this bezel. So I sanded out all the grind marks starting with 180 and ending with 2k. I then used a mini buffer and polished it.

[40FordDeluxe]

During all of this I forgot my steering wheel was cracked pretty bad and I couldn't just leave it alone. I really wanted to but I couldn't. I'm pretty certain this steering column and steering wheel came out of a 73 Eldorado that actually sat at my parent's place when I was a kid. The seats were from it too. I still am not sure how they fit in this narrow car. Uncle Jerry was definitely a use what you have type of guy.

I ground all the cracks with a carbide bit and then used some filler to fill them. I'm on round 1. Tomorrow I'll do round 2 and hopefully filler prime it.

[34_40]

Oh that dash is gonna look nice! That speedo is pure optimism I think.. LOL
Can't wait to see how the wheel comes out.

Let his momma deal with him! A real American hero you are! LOL.. I know, I know.. easy for me to say! My kids sleep in a crate! 8-)

[Hotrod46]

Dash and steering wheel are looking great. Always nice to have a good looking dash because you spend so much time looking at it while driving.

[40FordDeluxe]

Thanks guys. Yeah Mike, I couldn't see doing over 120mph in this car before. I'd have more faith in it now. I can tell you the one in the Camaro has been 5mph below the max of the same speedo. Ironically there is a max speed setting in the ecm on it and it is exactly 155. How do I know this? My brother is getting into tuning with HPtuner and he has been working on a file for it. It's crazy all the stuff that is wrong in the programming for that car but it still drives.

The gauges are installed now. Speaker grill installed, and the ash trays are installed, I think. I took not so good pics of these when I disassembled the dash and it took a bit to get them back in. I knew how they were supposed to mount, but the idea of how were they supposed to work was throwing me off. As it turns out, thee are early 1940 Fords and Late 1940 Fords. I have an early one. The early ash trays push in and lift up into the dash and the ash tray is actually in the lower corner of the dash. On the later ones the ash tray pulls out and down and the ash tray is inside the actual ash tray. The knob is on the bottom of the early ones and the top of the later ones. They'll never see ash but maybe I'll leave them to store stuff? Yeah great. Another hiding spot.

[40FordDeluxe]

I happened to see that beautiful work Robert did on the kid wagon on his thread. I thought I would show the kids' roadster stroller we have. It used to be yellow and had some waviness to it. My wife wanted to repaint it and Izzabelle actually used it for a 4H project. She got to learn about hammer and dollying, applying and removing body filler, how to identify high and low spots, what blocking is, and what color sanding is. We use this for good guys every year and we were almost out of time when we were doing it. It really could have used a few more block parties but it is a massive improvement from what it was. I fixed a bunch of broken mounts and sheet metal, and made the front pull double shear instead of single.

Allyson picked the color. It was actually spray paint. It has 3 good coats and Izzy helped with that. I then laid 3 coats of 4k clear with gold glitter and blue flake in it. Then topped that with clear alone. Believe it or not, I didn't put any runs in it. One bug got into the base but none in the clear and only about 4 dust nibs. It was a hit at Good guys and at 4H county fair.

On the day of judging the judge was not a car person and didn't understand the point of it. She pretty much told Izzy next time do a write up of everything you did and take more pictures so you can be considered for state fair. It got a blue ribbon and is scratch free so far.

[Mike P]

Nice work on the steering wheel, they can be a pain. I did the one on my 57 Plymouth 15 years ago and seems to be holding up great, even the paint (I used a single stage urethane car paint on it).

That roadster stroller is GREAT, the work that you and Robert did on your kids projects put the Tot Rod I built for the grandkids to shame.



.

[40FordDeluxe]

Thanks Mike! We're trying to come up with something for the boys to do for next year. I mentioned to them that I always wanted to build a Ford roadster from wood when I was a kid. I never got it done but there isn't any reason we couldn't do it now. I did make a very crude one I sat over a lawn mower chassis but it was a hack mess. I was probably 10 when I did that though. Another thing I've wanted to do since we started having kids was a half scale tractor. I wanted to do a 560 but who knows. Here is a guy that has been doing them along time and does awesome work.

The Little Tractor Co

We still haven't decided what we're going to do. I have a John Deere A for Izzy to restore but I think we might wait until she's a little older to do it. I'm pretty project loaded right now.

To add to this, another thing I have always wanted to build is a mini semi. I have always been a semi nerd. Probably because my Uncle Kenny was a truck driver and I always used to ride with him in his many different Peterbilts. When I was a kid there was a guy in my home town that had a miniature W900 KW. This thing was awesome! It had tandem axles, dual wheels, and even a sized refer trailer. Who ever built it did an amazing job and it looked exactly like a real semi. It had a Pinto 4cylinder and manual transmission. I often wonder where it went. I'll try to track down pics of it. The owner passed away many years ago and all his stuff is gone including the house he owned.

A mini semi would take so much time to build would be the biggest down fall.

[40FordDeluxe]

Back to regular programming of not scheduled slow progress. Which equates to 1 step forward and 3 back. But first, here's an awesome assembly pic I love of some 40 Ford Deluxes.

I decided I needed to have the floor done before I install my dash so I'm not buggering it up finishing the trans tunnel etc. Once I installed this American Shifters shifter, I knew my trans tunnel I made wasn't going to fit. I ended up having to cut the rear section almost off and I am going to have to rebuild it. I also cut the back of the shifter mounting plate off. I could envision it hitting the trans and being a weird noise so off it came. Please ignore my mess. I really need to clean it up in there but I have better luck with my stuff not disappearing when a certain little human can't get in the car to rob stuff.

[40FordDeluxe]

Yesterday I decided to go ahead and sweat it out after work and worked on the trans tunnel for the 40. (It was 97* and 250% humidity. If you don't believe me, strap a hundred pounds on your waist so we're even)

I acquired some heat shields that were scrapped because they were the wrong parts and can't be returned. They are probably 14ga stainless and have 2 90* curves bent in them already. I marked one out, cut it, and began shaping it with a hammer using the bench vice to help hold and shape it. Now, unfortunately, this doesn't look like Robert's work. At first I wasn't happy with the look of it. But you know what, it'll be covered in kill mat and the summer is going by awful damn fast. I have 3 shows I'd love to have this pain in the ass of a car at before it snows. The first one is August 26th so at least I have some time. But I've missed all these other dead lines too. It's time to change that! I'm going to try and get the rest of the tunnel done this weekend so I can get it bolted to the floor and be done with that portion.

[40FordDeluxe]

I was able to get the LH rear side panel made and welded on the tunnel cover. Now to make probably 10 more pieces and weld it up. Hopefully it doesn't take another week with all the other stuff I have to get done. I did get 2 out of the 3 remaining garnish moldings painted. Hopefully I'll get the 4th done tomorrow. I also ordered some material to cover some panels to get rid of the purple ones it had.

We went to a car show in Chelsea Iowa last weekend to hand out fliers for our show in September and there was only 1 39/40 Ford there out of 400 cars and trucks. I was surprised by that. It was pretty nice. I really like the over head console in it. I don't like the LT1 chrome letters on the hood, but like the solid panel where the hood latch is and very nice interior.

[34_40]

I like the color on the "Creamsicle" 39/40... Is the panel over the bumper irons stock? I don't remember that... I like the look.. just don't remember it.

[40FordDeluxe]

I like the color on the "Creamsicle" 39/40... Is the panel over the bumper irons stock? I don't remember that... I like the look.. just don't remember it.

No I'm pretty sure those were never a thing on these. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was, man my kids would be stepping on it to look in the engine bay or what ever.