Thread: 1948 Ford Coupe in pieces

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Hi, I just bought a 1948 ford coupe super deluxe and it is in 1000 pieces. Does anyone know where to get a manuel on how to build it?

All the pieces are there, just in boxes. The car is in primer. All the fenders are off, trunk off, hood off, radiator out. All the wires are in, on a rolling chasie with a body. Engine, trans, diff, rear end are in. It has a flat head V 8 with 65 thousand original miles. It has been stored for 40 years in a heated garage. There are no dents and it is rust free.

Help, where do I start?

I did just finish re-building a 1932 ford coupe, but it was done when I bought it. I just had to fix someone elses problems. I changed the vega steering box to a rack and pinion steering. I changed the rear end from a 3.25 to a 3.80 with a possy. I did the whole interior. I rewired the whole thing. I custom made a power rear window and a power trunk with a power window unit. Now that one is rocking and I think I am ready for a bigger project.

I was thinking of trying to get the engine running, then putting all the pieces back to gether just to make sure everything is there. Also just to make sure everything fits right. After that take it apart and get it painted. I don't have the funds to paint it right now, and I think I would scrach the paint if I was putting it together the first time. I think it would go alot smoother the second time, with the pratice. Well hopfully someone can relate and help me. Talk to you later.

Tim

Sounds wonderful to me! Since it is on a rolling chassis you are in pretty good shape. What do you want it to be? If you want a 100 point restoration you need to pay a lot of details to the original specs and one good book would be:

The V8 Affair by Ray Miller and Glenn Embree, Evergreen Press, Oceanside, Calif, 1972.

The restoration path can be expensive and challenging to find some special missing part(s) requiring a few treks to Hershey Pa. for parts and/or inspiration. Then there is the modern street rod approach with a modern driveline and it is possible to install a small block Ford (see articles by Frank Oddo in various rod magazines during the '80s-'90s) or the more common Chevy driveline. That could be a lot of work but end up with a powerful car. An intermediate path I might take in your place would be to keep the flathead driveline with a rebuilt transmission (they are fragile even with flathead power) and just put finned aluminum heads and maybe dual carbs and fenton headers on the existing flathead since it has low mileage. Don't worry if the oil pressure is low, the stock engines were notorius for low oil pressure. Once you get it assembled, painted and upholstered you will have plenty of time to plan for an engine upgrade. Although there were/are adapters for Chevy V8 installation in the stock Ford driveline and the engine fits easier than the small block Ford, the stock transmission will not last long with a modern V8 in front of it. To my car-sick way of thinking, if you have a rolling chassis you are half way there!

In edit I want to make a comment about ancient methods of lowering fat-fenderd-Fords. You can make a lot of changes to the drive line to get a lower car but I recall buying 5" lowering shackels for a '47 in 1954 for the grand sum of 55 cents from Pep Boys and replacing the stock spring shackels in an hour or so and getting quite a nice lowering effect. Six inch shackels were also available BUT without a rear sway bar the longer shackels will allow the chassis to shift in such a way that the shackels will rub the inside of the tires and cut the tires in a few miles, so the 5" shackels front and rear are a very easy way to lower that high stance quite cheaply, although I do not know where to get them today. The point of that note is that some "old tricks" will still work on fat-fendered-Fords whcih are a lot cheaper than replacing the whole drive line, but on the other hand a used TH350 and 350 SBC along with your choice of rear can't be all that expensive these days. It is just that you are free to decide what you want the car to be within your economic situation. I have a 4" stroker crank from a '50 Merc with good used rods if you later want to add a lot of torque to the flathead, but a SBC has a lot more torque as long as you build up the entire driveline for it. You can probably find a buyer for the 65K engine if you advertise it in Hemmings Motor News! The real question is whether the block is cracked or not or if it runs OK as is?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder