33/3 window.

[redoxide]

A friend of mie bought this 1933 3 window Ford from the USA aound a year ago from a rod shop that had carried out some of the bodywork and painted the car "piss yella" ( or would that be puke green)

Anayway, the car wa duly shiped to Scotland and a more relaxed approach was taken to look over the car. Repent at leisure is the motto here as the car turned out to be a bit of a tub.

The paint wa stripped and he found a number of horrors below thick paint and dense filler.

It looks like the car has definatly had a roof fitted at some point which has been welded on with mig and not exactly at the best attachment points. The rear deck was toast as were the trunk drip rails, tailpan, rear fenders, doors, roof fill panel, Aposts Bposts and pretty much the rest of the panels even those which appeared to be new replacements on the rockers and lower quarters.. of which had been ground through where they had been migged on and covered in filler and the roof filler has sunk in the middle, the rest being flat....in places....

Basically the body is a mess ( sorry Brian)

I had the original rear wings brought to me and just about put my back out lifting them from the car.. I used a dril to bore the filler and gauge how thick t was, deepest point it was just shy of 1/2 inch...

It was decided that they were to far gone to bother about and new ones would be a better proposition.

I think I might have posted pics of thoe in another post.

I got the fenders made and delivered then to Brian who fitted them to the car... Unlike my austin effort latterly, these Huge Ford fenders actually fitted with just a couple of adjustments being required. I asked Brin to brig the whole body up to me so I could sort out one of the minor issues with the rear wings,

Once I got a good look at the body I discussed few significant problems with the body that could be sorted while it was with me... To cut a long story short the body is going to be reworked and restored with pretty much 60% of the original tin and bodged repairs being replaced.

The new custom floor could be doing with a refit too, but that would be purley for cosmetic reasons, perhaps just a tidy up with the grinder will dress it up enough...

Attached a picture of one of the wings I made fitted to the left rear... some times I surprise myself....must have been a fluke



I should be starting on this in ernest in about a weeks time.. so will post some build pics as i go, It might get scarry....

[Joe Hartson]

Your fender looks very nice, looking forward to seeing more updates and pictures as you make more progress. Thanks for posting your work.

[redoxide]

Okey dokey, just dragged the 33 back up to my wee garage to start the work that needs done.. I seem to have spent ages looking at it trying to work out what needs done and where to start.

I always think that deep shaped double curved parts are the most time consuming so decided to start there with the rear quarters.

By the time the bad areas are replaced there will be less than half of the original steel in the rear quarters.. It might have been better to make a complete new rear quarter but my skills dont run to that extent just yet.

I started with the top left corner of the rear quarter.

First off I made a patern from 2 inch masking tape, same principle as the flexible patern layup, not so resilient but it still works for a limited time, long enough to get the part shaped up and show where the metal needs stretched and shrunk.

I just shaped this in the wheel and used the shrinker to tighten some of the edge along the trunk opening.

I left spare material along this edge so that I can bend it over to form the return where the trunk drip rail wil wld to..

It took around 2 hours to work out this piece o the wheel. despite how flat it looks there is a fair bit or shape in it. I then flared the edge where it will weld to the roof panel.. I dd it this way as I feel it wil be the best way to loose the weld, the original body detail was a bit wooly so this will sort out two issues in one go..








I was originally intending to keep a small section of the lower part of the rear quarter, but having looked at it, it was more senible to make the whole area. The same principle was applied with the patern making, tape etc.

The lower parts needed a it more visible shape so having cut the blanks slightly oversize I shrunk the outer edge using the hollow in a stump and an egg shaped wooden bossing mallet.

As usual the patern let me know where the lions share of the shrinking should be located, how was that you ask ( well maybee you didnt but for thos that did, read on ) , The tape patern will retain the shape of the part it was lifted from, so when it layed on to a flat sheet, the patern wont lay flat. The solution is to cut slits along the edge of the patern alowing it to lay flat, where the slits are open, that indicates the ares that need shrunk and to what depth ito the panel the shrink needs to go..

Having shrunk the parts in his way I took to the wheel, smoothed the area worked ith the mallet and stretched the central are to suit the panel shape. 15minutes later and the part was pretty close to a decent fit .









the bits need a tweek before final fitting but there in the ball park for now.

[redoxide]

this small area at the front top section of the quater had been welded up.

It pretty obvious from other areas of the body that a roof had been fitted at some time in its past..

I decided to remake that area and weld it in so that the body line was a touch more defined.

Same idea with the paterns as before, good old 2 inch masking tape.

I marked the body line onto the patern and transferred the whole lot to some sheet steel.

Having cut the blank I set the body line in the panel with a swager.

I then wheeled the lower portion which raised the central area and defined the body line. I did hve to run it through the swager again to reinstat the bend and stretch the top rear area to increase the curvature.. a quick clean up with the grinder and it was done in 20 minutes .... Im surprised just how quick some of these parts you sweat over work out.. They all need a tweek and a pinch before welding though.

[HEATNBEAT]

looking good!

[redoxide]

The rear tub areas had been repaired previusly but they were way out of shape, curving in a the body line with a hump on the quarter panel where it had distorted with all the welding heat that had gone into it.

Bearing in mind how rare these bodies are the folk that did it previously were obviously just after a fast buck.. the work was pretty poor and heavily disguised with filler..








Fast forward, having looked over the body it was obvious that the old repairs needed ripped out and redone, unfortunately the swage line where they choose to weld th repair panel on was now wrecked..

I asked the owner to buy the repro repair panels that are presently avialable.

The prts were deliverd to me yesterday, they are pretty good but obviously straight out of the press without any dress up.. pretty interesting really as it showed the areas of distortion the sheet material takes when pressed.. all good info...








I fitted the panel to the body just for a test. It wasnt to bad, but didnt look at the body cotour..

A quick trim a little shrinking along the edge and a brief dress up with the hammer and dolly and the fit was greatly improved...

[redoxide]

The lower door repair sections were pretty good but again the fit was way out...

The fold on the skin edge was pulled over further using a swager and a little hand pressure then passed through the wheel using the edge of the top wheel in a similar way to the swager to pul the larg flat area closer to the inner door skin...













Fits a little better now but yet again will need some more work closer to the time, especially once the old stuff is chopped out.





Just a little application of filler then..........



Full new skins are to be wheeled up ( fingers crossed when it comes to that job) as it will be a first for me on such a large skin...

[redoxide]

here are some close ups of the nasties

[Kevinsrodshop]

Interesting project. Lots and lots of work. Looks good from what you have fixed so far.

[redoxide]

Okey dokey, back in the garage today to continue the battle plan for this 33.

There was no point in beating about the bush so decided to make a start.

It was on the cards to fit a new roof skin in place of the flat panel that had been fitted.

I chopped out the old roof panel with a cut off wheel pretty much following the weld line. Once the filler panel was out it was pretty obvious that the area around the hole was well out of shape having been flattened to suit the flat filler panel..

The streteched perimiter is something I will have to work out later.

I called a mate over to help with the wheeling. He has done very little wheeling, pretty much the same as myself, especially on large panels like this. However after a fair bit of arm ache we come up with this panel which fits the profiles that Brian ( the owner) provided.

The filler panel needs some more work out toward the ends to help blend into the roof panels and the roof panels need lifted up to bring them to there old ( original ) factory position.. so plenty work still to do before the panel is any where close to welding