1940 Ford Deluxe 2 Door Sedan Rebuild

[Dieselwrencher]

57larry, not too much more. I made different engine mounts, put on the LH header and got the engine and trans setting where I wanted it. Then I started working on the triangulated 4 link. I have the RH bars tacked on but the LH side is going to take a little bit more work to get the upper done. This 8.8 is pretty ugly with rust. It came out of a typical Iowan Explorer. I'll blast it later. I plan to have a friend cut me a spacer so I can use the diff cover mounting to tie in my upper bars to try and add more strength.

I did buy a new gasket kit, polished valley cover, fuel pump, rebuild kits for my holleys, and some other stuff I'm forgetting about.

I've been busy with remodeling a couple rooms in our house, and I have 2 other pick up projects I've got to finish before I get back to this car unfortunately.

Here are some pics though.

[Dieselwrencher]

Here are a couple of the new LH header installed. I also decided I wanted a bat wing type air cleaner like the Chrysler 300's had. Too bad they're $1200-$1500 for one. I came up with a plan to build one. This is just tacked together and not a finished deal. I may not even use it with the next batch of parts I want to buy......

The last pic is what I plan to use for my battery box in the trunk. This way it will still look cool and it will be enclosed. Plus I can still keep some small spare parts in there.

[Advanced Design]

Nice updates. Wow, the Mustang II was an original wasn't it....tagging along for the rest.

[lilpanther]

Awesome thread. That's awesome that you were able to find the car and buy it back.

[Dieselwrencher]

Yeah, the mustang 2 hack job was sketch at best.

[Dieselwrencher]

I haven't done anything to the car lately. I'm trying to plan things out. I really want to get Fitech dual quad, but the $1795 price tag is killing me. I may just run the carbs and put the money into AC as the car never had that before. Time will tell.

[Advanced Design]

Ouch on that price. I did notice Holley has a product priced to compete with Fitech. Probably pretty spendy for the dual set up too.

[7dee2]

Wow, really great back story, very cool build Ryan, even some room for the fam in this one! AC would be real nice...

[57larry]

I have Vintage Air in my 40 sedan, very happy with it

[Dieselwrencher]

Larry, very nice. Do you have a Gen3 compaq or?

[Dieselwrencher]

Wow, I haven't updated this for a while. Not like it matters because the car still isn't done and is a huge project still. I may have side lined it for some other builds. Poor car.

These pics are from December of 2017. I put in a Ford 8.8 in the rear but I recently changed back to a Ford 9" because I wasn't thrilled with how I was going to have to do the upper mounts. Plus I would have had to cut the floor severely because the drive shaft was going to be into the floor instead of the tunnel.

This was also the first time the car sat on it's own 4 wheels for a long time. It only had 4 bolts from the body into the frame then as well.

[Dieselwrencher]

More pictures of it after I put C notches in the rear frame and some of when I pushed it outside to see how it looked.

[mongocanfly]

Dont know if I saw this before...its gonna be a cool ride when your done..

[Dieselwrencher]

A couple more before the engine mounts were made and tacked in. Then I changed my mind on an air cleaner lid and started making a lower. Next I started placing the engine and making the mounts.

[Dieselwrencher]

More work on making engine mounts and starting the trans mount and the center to the tubular X member I made years ago.

[Dieselwrencher]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

Dont know if I saw this before...its gonna be a cool ride when your done..

Thank you sir!

[Dieselwrencher]

Continuing work on the trans mount. Originally the X members on these cars were riveted in place and you couldn't remove the trans without removing the engine. I'm making my center removable so I can service a failed trans when the time comes.

Next was to work on getting a brake pedal and master cylinder mount made. I had purchased one that would bolt in the original X member previously so I have been modifying it to still go on the frame since I boxed it.

[Dieselwrencher]

I started running the exhaust and I also had to buy a different pair of headers because the car is so low now and the other china headers I had wouldn't even get past the oil pan. I was finally able to cut off my frame braces once I got the X member center finished. Those were on there to keep the frame from moving around when I was boxing the frame. The last pic is a pic of the car in 1973. I got it from a friend of my Uncle's and this man was in a car club with my Uncle back then.

[Dieselwrencher]

Now we're up to where I'm currently at with it. I put a 9" Ford back in it and I am working on getting the rear suspension brackets and mounts made.

[Dieselwrencher]

I decided I am going to run the exhaust out in under the rear end or in front of the tires. This car had Mr.Gasket side pipes under the running boards for ever before it was restored after Uncle Jerry passed away. I keep thinking it would be cool to make tips that look like the old side pipe outlets. I'm going to patina black paint the car and put some decals on the side glass to male the windows look cracked and old. I'd like to make the car look some what like it did in 1995 just updated a bit.

[gigamanx]

Still looking great! Might be time to take it for a drive and refuel those building juices!

[HAULIN' IT]

Ryan, Great back story on the car! There is a couple things I noticed in the last photos you posted that concern me so I thought Id take a few minutes to explain what I see. First, The in-board mounts on the axle should have the bolts parallel to the ground (like you had them on the 8.8 rear). The way the are now, all of the motion as the suspension travel happens, has to be in the front mounts...rotating the pinion toward the ground as the vehicle hits a bump & shoving it up/back on re-bound...defeating the benefit of the 4 link design of keeping the housing/pinion very close to level throughout the travel. Also the rod ends are going to try to rotate on the threads as the suspension goes through its travel in an effort to minimize the binding. If you loosen the jamb nuts, mark the tubes & ends, then move the suspension up & down...you will see this. The problem here is that it will be trying to loosen/tighten one end or the other on every bump. The bolts on the housing should be set up parallel with the front ones (from an aerial view & behind) so the bolts are "axles" for all of the rod ends.

Is that rear out of one of those early '60's stub-nose Econoline vans or something with the pinion a couple inches off to the Rt. when the wheel flanges are centered under the car? Lorne

[MP&C]

Nice progress Ryan!

[Dieselwrencher]

Originally Posted by gigamanx

Still looking great! Might be time to take it for a drive and refuel those building juices!

Yeah, I wish I could take it for a drive!

Originally Posted by HAULIN' IT

Ryan, Great back story on the car! There is a couple things I noticed in the last photos you posted that concern me so I thought Id take a few minutes to explain what I see. First, The in-board mounts on the axle should have the bolts parallel to the ground (like you had them on the 8.8 rear). The way the are now, all of the motion as the suspension travel happens, has to be in the front mounts...rotating the pinion toward the ground as the vehicle hits a bump & shoving it up/back on re-bound...defeating the benefit of the 4 link design of keeping the housing/pinion very close to level throughout the travel. Also the rod ends are going to try to rotate on the threads as the suspension goes through its travel in an effort to minimize the binding. If you loosen the jamb nuts, mark the tubes & ends, then move the suspension up & down...you will see this. The problem here is that it will be trying to loosen/tighten one end or the other on every bump. The bolts on the housing should be set up parallel with the front ones (from an aerial view & behind) so the bolts are "axles" for all of the rod ends.

Is that rear out of one of those early '60's stub-nose Econoline vans or something with the pinion a couple inches off to the Rt. when the wheel flanges are centered under the car? Lorne

Lorne, thanks for the input. I wondered about that when I put the tabs on this housing. I saw others done similar so I figured it would be alright. I will fix this soon. I believe the rear end is out of an early ford bronco. 69-77 era. I thought about having a housing modified for this car but I don't have a lot of budget for this car currently so I decided to just use it and get the car together.

Originally Posted by MP&C

Nice progress Ryan!

Thanks Robert.

[Dieselwrencher]

I've been making good progress on the rear suspension of this thing. It has been tough with everything going on. Land hurricanes and everything else. I sort of regret not buying a kit but then again no kits for this style of car are for an already boxed frame so you do what you have to do. I still have to add in bump stop mounts, gusset some places, and make upper shock mounts when the shocks arrive.