Well haven't got too much to show in pictures for progress, but alot of little stuff has been finished. I got the motor put back together, painted, then assembled the clutch and trans and put it in the car together. I finished up the frame in the front, and painted the inside of the frame rails before putting the motor in making things alot easier later. Probably seems backwards (does to me too) but I'm not sure how long I'll be able to have all my space because one of our family business' trucks has to stay in that garage during the winter. So I figured I could put all that in, and move my engine stand/lift and free up alot of room (plus its always satisfying to see the motor going back in a project car..).
My radiator turned into quite a project after the motor was in... I found an old Chevy radiator in a barn, took it to a radiator shop, but when the guy tested it the core was cracked along the middle. Fortunately the guy has an extra one just the same size, so he added the 2 water necks for the flattie and put on the side brackets that were on my radiator for $80. But one my motor was in, I found alot of fitment issues with the fan and hoses. So after some flipping the side brackets around, notching the frame a hair more then they originally did back in the day, and then making a bunch of brackets off of the the other brackets, I've finally got a radiator that fits perfect (now I just hope it'll cool well enough!).
Can't really tell much from these pictures, but this is how the radiator now sits, where most of the radiator is between the two side bars, where before most of the radiator was behind these two side bars, too close to the fan.
The front shocks have been another issue. Both of the shocks were too pitted to get any sort of numbers off of, and they were off of different cars so finding something exact would have been pretty hard, plus I wanted to have them both the same shock. So after talking to a buddy he suggest going to the local 4x4 shop that does alot of lifted Jeeps.. Sure enough he had a pair of old Jeep shocks out in the scrap bin he let me have. Worked great for the car, just had to make up some new mounts... Have to get some better pictures later.
The past couple days have been pretty big, but the camera was dead and I just remembered to bring it home tonight. Anyways, as you can see I cut off the old grille they had made to get the motor in better, but I've been working on a new one using the same mesh they had used (made out of stainless steel I think... Doesn't rust, non magnetic, but seems stronger/heavier then aluminum). Also made the drive shaft for the car today. Been searching for a Ford 16 spline yoke for this trans for a couple weeks and didn't turn up anything, but after some research found that Spicer makes them brand new for $80. Same as a 55-63 Chevy Powerglide trans yoke.
A guy that was big into racing back in the day (actually ran against this car, but he doesn't really remember it) gave us a bunch of old parts when he was cleaning out his barn including an old driveshaft. So he came down to the shop this morning and explained how to shortne a driveshaft for the car. Thought it'd be real hard, but really it was alot easier then I expected. So I've finally got a driveshaft for the car with new U-joints. Hopefully soon I can temporary rig up some equipment and actually move the car under it's own power for the first time in probably 40 years!
Anyways, thanks for looking!