Mounting the Body 1 |
Where did this body come from? This project
started out as a roadster!
My Dad & Mom have been running around in a '40 Ford Tudor since the
mid-'80's, when they had my brother and me to take with them. Now my
brother lives in Knoxville, 14 hours from them. I'm married and Sarah
and I have two daughters. We live a quarter mile from their business,
where they keep the '40. My Dad figured it made more sense to build a
coupe (instead of a roadster) for him and Mom, and then Sarah & I can
drive the '40. What a guy!! |
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Remember the '70s? Since
the body comes with only the front and rear holes
drilled (nice, because often the body and frame
holes don't line up anyway). Here we're just getting
an idea of approximately where the body mount holes
are.
Parts shown:
Body: B323, Bear Fiberglass
Center section: 13200, Horton |
Mounting the Body 2 |
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| That's better. Now we
will raise the body up, and put tape under the floor
along the inside of the rails. This will tell us
the location of the rails relative to the body.
Notice the Welder Series hiboy front 4-bar kit, which brings the bars
all the way back to the cowl line. It's
a little detail, but it makes a huge visual difference. |
Mounting the Body 3 |
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| Here we have the inside
of the frame rails marked on the bottom of the body.
We will lift the body up and put a few lines of tape
outside of this line, so that we'll be able to mark
the holes with a pen. |
Mounting the Body 4
(2 pictures) |
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| While the body is up, we
marked the inside of the frame rails with the location
of the holes. Put a straight edge along the centerline,
and use that to both measure the center-to-center
dimension, and mark the location on the tape. |
Mounting the Body 5 |
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| An action shot of marking
the hole center on the inside of the frame. Also at
this time, measure from the inside of the rail to
the center of the hole. Mark this on the tape. It
doesn't matter how far apart the holes are side-to-side-
we established that dimension by putting tape on the
bottom of the body along the rails. |
Mounting the Body 6 |
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| We put the body back on
the frame, and clamped it in place so that it didn't
move. |
Mounting the Body 7 |
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| We marked a line along
the bottom of the body where the inside of the rail
is, and marked the location of the hole. Now we can
take the body off again and measure out the same distance
as the center of the hole. Remember to mark this number
on the bottom of the body to make it easier. |
Mounting the Body 8 |
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| We put a chalkline from
mark-to-mark. Now we will measure out 1-3/8"
(for this hole) which SHOULD be the center of the
hole. |
Mounting the Body 9 |
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| Another action shot! We
are drilling pilot holes from the bottom, then we'll
drill the full-size holes from above. |
Mounting the Body 10 |
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| With the body clamped in
place once again, we can drill through the pilot holes.
We will go all the way through the body, and try to
mark the frame (hopefully right in the center of the
hole!) with the drill bit. "Officer, I couldn't
have been doing 95! My gauge never moved!" Pay
no attention to the paper instruments- something else
is planned... |
Mounting the Body 11 |
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| I think the Stones said
it best: "You can't always get what you want".
So we're a little off. It could have been that we
didn't drill through the body at a perfect perpendicular.
We'll hang the excuse sheet on the window. The rainbow
behind the clouds is the 3/8" plates we welded
behind the holes before we boxed the rails. That way,
it doesn't really matter if the hole in the body isn't
directly above the hole in the frame- I outlined about
where the plate is. |
Mounting the Body 12 |
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| Some filing had to be done after all
the body holes were drilled, so the bolts would go
in smoothly. |
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