Thread: 40 ford gets a new mill!

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after many issues with my 429 bb, i have decided to get rid of it and go with a chevy smallblock. i want this car to be a reliable driver/cruiser so i went with a blueprint crate motor, 355 cui. backed by a new rebuilt 400 turbo. its at a garage now being worked on. it had alot of other issues like the firewall and inner fenders and steering column and wiring. but my buddy is correcting all those problems. we are just about ready to install the motor/trans and fab up motor mounts. im replacing the shocks, springs, brake , and fuel lines while we have the fenders off. the hardware holding everything {sheetmetal} was all mismatched or missing,{ thanks painters }so we are replacing all that to. the painters told me the frame was not perfectly straight, to explain why my hood didnt fit perfectly, but we can now see the frame is fine, they had the grill in incorrectly and the hood couldnt go down all the way. i will post some pics soon.

Major face lift you will be so pleased, that sounds like a new and improved that will actually be improved. Looking forward to the photogs.

your going to take out a bb ford for a chevy??????????????I'm surprised that you don't do the 350/350 deallie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kidding aside-----------whats the issues with the 429?????????

the 429 was in the car when i bought it,its cool to have a bb but its tired, its very heavy, its not a high performance 429, its probably out of a truck or station wagon. it was not installed very cleanly, in fact it was shoehorned in. it ran hot and i believe had a head problem. i was gonna put a smallblock ford in it, but the chevy is soooo much cheaper, and im on a budget with this car, anyway, its gone now, we got the new motor and trans in today. got more mods and fabing to do and hope to be able to start it up late next week. ordered headers today.

Perhaps you already know this, but the "trick" to getting the front sheet metal to line up well on a '39/40 is to hang the hood first and then bring the other pieces up to proper alignment around it.

It seems the way of all improvement projects, in order to do the original idea, you end up having to do a handful of other niggling things. My bride calls it "...the project, before the project, before the project....". In the end, if done well, it improves the whole experience, even with the occasional exasperation.

Bob is right, the '40 is very difficult to get right as the sheetmetal is kinda daisy-chained out from the cowl. The big problem with that is every time somebody stuffs a different engine in it they whack out more of the inner fender sheetmetal and that screws the core support location. By doing what Bob suggests the hood will locate the core support and you then work back to the cowl.

Thanks oj for the support.

The other thing to be aware of, again if you aren't, is the cross brace that ties the two inner fender panels together just behind the rad. It's sort of stretched V shape. They're often discarded by lazy assemblers, or for clearance reasons with engine swaps, but really go a long way toward keeping the front components squared up.

thanks for the info guys, i will remember it when we go to put the front end back together. all help is greatly appreciated!

[QUOTE=rifleman65;487057]thanks for the info guys, i will remember it when we go to put the front end back together. all help is greatly appreciated![/QUOT

Bob is a great source of info on '40 Fords, he worked the assembly line when they were built!!!!!!!

[QUOTE=Dave Severson;487067]

Originally Posted by rifleman65

thanks for the info guys, i will remember it when we go to put the front end back together. all help is greatly appreciated![/QUOT

Bob is a great source of info on '40 Fords, he worked the assembly line when they were built!!!!!!!

Too funny!

[QUOTE=Dave Severson;487067]

Originally Posted by rifleman65

thanks for the info guys, i will remember it when we go to put the front end back together. all help is greatly appreciated![/QUOT

Bob is a great source of info on '40 Fords, he worked the assembly line when they were built!!!!!!!

Not quite, these were originally built 5 years after I retired...................

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Perhaps you already know this, but the "trick" to getting the front sheet metal to line up well on a '39/40 is to hang the hood first and then bring the other pieces up to proper alignment around it.

It seems the way of all improvement projects, in order to do the original idea, you end up having to do a handful of other niggling things. My bride calls it "...the project, before the project, before the project....". In the end, if done well, it improves the whole experience, even with the occasional exasperation.

Thanks for the tip and info. My 40 is missing the v shaped cross bar, and the front end sheet metal was fitted very poor. I'm going to do my best to get it right. I hate to steer this thread off, but do you have any thoughts on why you see a lot of 39/40 sedan LH doors sticking out at the bottom?

Probably the lower hinge. Worn pin, bent/sprung, structure of cowl or lower door section compromised from rust (the bottom of the cowl design was a funnel effectively).

i heard the new motor run yesterday, it sounds awesome! it has dynaflow shorty mufflers up by the ram horn headers and a long straight shot out the back with stainless pipes for a really nice sound. we had it running in the garage for about 30 minutes and the temp never went over 190 so my cooling issues are over.last summer was rough as i had to worry about overheating everywhere i went! hope to have my new radio, gps speedo, and lokar shifter all done this week. and be ready to start hanging the front fenders, hood and grill. should have some finished pics in a week or 2.

Finished pics? Post them now!