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This edition is going to focus on the two hiboy roadsters built by Paul Horton and Lloyd Stewart in the mid 80′s.
Chris Horton ready for a ride in the rumble seat. Looks like he got a bug in the teeth!
Pinched and bobbed frame rails with turn signals in the end, contour cut leaf spring liner… this is just a clean front end!
Hand formed 2×5 rails flow with the contour of the body, and also notice the front bars end at the hood line – the same way we still do our hiboy front four link kit.
Lloyd, Paul, and Dorothy with the ’29… probably at a show in SW Ontario.
The ’29 and ’32 in front of our old shop “up on the hill” in the same town we’re still in – Breslau, Ontario.
Paul and Lloyd, I think just after finishing the ’29. I say that because there’s still a tire sticker on the front tire, and the license plate isn’t “HORTON” yet.
Dorothy Horton driving in to Missouri with family friend Michelle. I bet the sticker is worn off the tire by now…
An unfortunate end for the ’29, but a fortunate (I use that term loosely) outcome for my brother and I. I think I mentioned this story in another post, but it’s worth repeating. We ALWAYS rode in the rumble seat on short trips as well as some longer ones. It was really fun – we could see the road wizzing by and feel the air through our hair. For this particular drive (a local poker run), my brother and I requested to ride with family friends in their ’48 Ford. It’s not too far of a stretch to wonder what you would be reading now if I had been in that rumble seat that day. You can barely see battery cable dangling out of the trunk in this picture; the battery was found way down the road. What you can’t see is the rumble seat lid (the seat back). Thankfully, Paul didn’t get hurt too badly…his leg got a bad bruise where it hit and bent the B&M shifter handle, and my mom only had a few broken ribs. The accident happened after a distracted driver in a late model T-boned the ‘29 on a highway.
Dear Welder Series…
I am building a custom full size truck, and the current series sway bars you offer are not going to be long enough for my application. I was wondering if it would be possible to purchase not the whole kit, but the sway bar shaft itself (3/4″-36 spline on one end, unsplined on the other) at around 4ft?
Look forward to hearing back from you ASAP, Thanks!
Dear Zac…
Zac, are you mounting the arms outside the frame rails?
Another way of “making” a longer sway bar is to use 2 of our standard bars with the splined ends touching each other near the center. Use a splined coupler (e.g. Borgeson 313434) to joint the two bars, yet allow them to be taken apart if they have to be removed. A short length of tubing can be welded or bolted to each of the frame rails and the couplers welded to the smooth ends of the bars and then the arms welded to the couplers.
We can supply, individually, the bars and any of the other components that you might need.
Thanks for considering Welder Series parts.
Paul Horton
[UPDATE] We now have sway bar kits with 46″ long bars: http://www.welderseries.com/blog/online-store/sway-bar-kit/
Dear Welder Series…
Bonjour,
J’ai un ami qui a un propblème avec son rod et j’aimerais vous le soumettre. Il a installé un nouveau moteur 350pc et la température se tient au-dessus des 220 degrés. Il a un shell de Ford 32 et le radiateur est récent, mais un peu petit. Je vois les rods américains avec des 350 pc (blower), air climatisé et ils ne semblent pas avoir de problème de surchauffe. Alors, existe-t-il des radiateurs plus performants pour fixer à l’intérieur d’un shell de Ford 32? Si oui, combien pour un tel rad?
J’ai déjà acheté des pièces chez Paul Horton et j’ai toujours été très satisfait. Je roule avec une Chevy 1940 depuis 1974… Je suis un vieux… roddeur.
Merci, j’attends votre réponse. Gervais
Gervais, merci pour cette note. Vous avez une belle Chevy.
Quelle fan est installee? Est-ce qu’il y’a une fan avec une “shroud”?
Est-ce que la temperature est elevee sur l’autoroute ou seulement en ville?
J’ai installee les radiateurs et fans de “Walker” et, si l’ai peut passe dans le core du rad, la temperature reste a la thermostat. http://www.walkerradiatorworks.com/
Et, en anglais…
Thanks for this note, Gervais. That’s a good looking Chev.
What fan is on your friend’s 32? Does it have a shroud?
Is the temperature hot on the autoroute or just in town?
I’ve always used Walker rads, fans, and shrouds and the temperature stays close to the thermostat.
I sold Horton’s in 2005 and now own Welder Series. http://www.welderseries.com/
Paul Horton
Sometimes the alternative is way more appealing… for me, grinding welds is about as pleasant as plucking leg hairs one by one, or trying to unfold Saran wrap after it has clung to itself. Grinding is dusty, loud, and unpleasant. I’d much rather spend time learning to weld better so I didn’t have to grind than taking the time grinding. It’s true, a nicely finished mig weld is a thing of beauty, but if you can reduce the amount of time you have to spend finished that weld, you’ll be further ahead.
I’ll list a few of the discs I’ve used in the past, as well as their advantages and disadvantages.
This is a hard disc on steroids. The disc is formed with little mountains all over the surface which prevent it from loading up too quickly. It’s also a bit more aggressive because the mountains are almost like little teeth, cutting into the material. This disc will remove material quickly, but it’s not very good at fine finishing. Around the perimeter, a harder material has been added which is almost like a cutting disc. An advantage is the convex face (it looks kind of like a contact lens…) because it means you can pinpoint the area you want to grind by rolling the disc left to right and forwards to backwards.
 
Here is a 7″ Scotchbrite type pad. It attaches to a Velcro backing disc. It is not for removing material – it will take off slight imperfections, but where it shines is smoothing transitions and taking out grinding scars. One disadvantage is the load-up time – it can get clogged rather quickly depending on the material you’re using it on. Every garage should have these. They’re available in many many sizes, from little 2″ discs for your angle grinder right up to these 7″ pizzas.
 
A flat hard disc is probably a common fixture in a lot of garages. Personally, I only use these if they’re sitting nearby and I feel sorry for them. They aren’t for fine sanding… it’s difficult to not leave grinding scars or to grind a flat surface, because the disc itself is flat. One advantage is their load-up rate – usually they will go quite a while without requiring a change due to cloggage.
 
The sun shines bright on the last disc in the list. These are called “flap discs”, and that’s a pretty accurate description. There are a bunch of sandpaper strips bonded together, overlapping each other. Advantages include, but are not limited to, the ability to fine grind with a 7″ disc (yes, it will!), the ability to hog away material quickly, and the longevity factor. As you grind, the exposed edges of the paper are gradually removed, uncovering more fresh sand paper. A disadvantage could be the price, but for a disc that lasts so long and is so versatile, I think it’s worth it. Kind of like buying a cheap step-drill… it will last for a few holes and then you’ll chuck it. In the garbage I mean… not the drill. Buy a quality step drill and it will be around for a long time.
If you have any comments about grinding or what disc you like, please add it!
Either stick, MIG or TIG can be used to assemble and install Welder Series parts. The machine has to have the capacity to weld the material thickness (most Welder Series brackets are 3/16” mild steel).
Stick welders don’t need a tank of shielding gas because the electrode is coated. This coating burns and keeps the air from the weld during the fusion process. Stick welders are more forgiving than TIG if the material being welded is dirty. A good weld made with a stick welder is… a good weld.
MIG welders are convenient because the wire feeds as long as the trigger is pulled (until the spool is emptied). It is easier to get the gun in position to weld because the arc will only be created when the trigger is pulled. MIG offers greater control than stick because the arc is closer to your hand, the arc is always the same distance from your hand (a new stick electrode starts out 12” to 14” long and burns down to the holder), and it’s easy to use two hands to steady the gun. MIG welders are more forgiving than TIG if the material being welded is dirty.
TIG welding gives the greatest power control of the three types being discussed. Often a foot pedal or thumb control is used to adjust the intensity of the arc while welding. TIG requires co-ordination between both hands and, with a foot control, one foot. TIG is not tolerant of dirty material. Rust or carbon scale will “jump” from the material to the tungsten electrode and change the arc pattern. Often it’s necessary to stop welding and replace or sharpen the tungsten when this happens. TIG does produce the dainty, “etched” pattern often seen in street rod and race car products. These are made by highly skilled welders.
A Welder Series tig weld.
Welder Series Mustang II upper towers, showing a mig bead (foreground) and tig bead (around the shock cone).
Here’s a great example of what it takes to install a Mustang II crossmember in frames where the rails are too high, too thick, or just not nice to work with. Lloyd (who has a lot of history with us – you’ll see his picture in many of the Horton History blogs) did a really clean job on this install. You can see that if he left the frame rails at their original height, they would interfere with the upper control arm cross shaft bolts.
John (president of the Central Florida Street Rod Association) sent me this picture of a Welder Series triangulated rear axle bracket he modified into a lower coil over bracket. I thought the job was so well done it needed to be shared!
If you have used our parts in a unique way, please let me know. John, there is $5 on your account for letting us use the picture.
Since John modified this axle bracket, we have introduced a shock/ coilover axle bracket: https://www.welderseries.com/blog/online-store/axle-bracket-kit-for-coil-overs/
A/C line clamp/headlight wire conduit/transmission cooler lines All-In-One
Well, it’s finally done! I’m quite proud of this little clamp that does so much more than clamp. A picture is worth a thousand words. Some people get paid by the word, right? Here are some pictures…
These hoses are running up the passenger side frame rail, into the body.
I think you’ll be able to tell what’s going on here… this is looking along the passenger frame rail towards the back of the car. The fittings in the bottom right corner of the picture connect braided lines to the transmission. The Alfred Hitchcock looking thing is just a way to keep the reduced diameter air conditioning lines tidy and secure. There are three of these double clamps along the length of the hard lines. The top hard line is a conduit for the headlight wires, which I wrapped in hockey tape to simulate the texture of the a/c hose. Click here for an earlier article on this clamp.
This is the front end of the top hard line. The bottom two lines curve in the bottom of the picture and connect to the radiator.
Here is a view of the passenger side of the radiator. I attached a junction block to both sides of the radiator for easy wire detachment if it’s ever necessary. The large weatherpak plug is for the electric fan, should it ever need to be removed. The other single plug goes over to the driver side turn signal, just because I didn’t have room on the junction block. The wires coming out of the 3/8″ hard line from the previous pictures are wrapped in heat shrink because they are visible outside the rad shell and I wanted them to blend in a bit. The four wires pointing to the right are the headlight wires, and you’ll see what I did with them in the next few pictures.
First I wrapped them in hockey tape. Not really necessary, but it will keep the group of wires parallel as I’m pulling them through the stainless tube…
…like this. This picture also shows a pinched frame rail. Notice how there is no gap between the rad shell and the frame rail? That’s done by narrowing the front frame rails by 3/4″ per side waaaaay back at the beginning. Here is an article on the fabrication of the headlight conduits. I used the tire to make the big sweeping radius in the tube.
These are from the Parr Automotive headlight conduit kit. I drilled the tapered end out to 3/8″ so the hard line would slip in, then I machined a small step so it would sit into the hole in the back of the headlight.
Slide it over the wires and onto the hard line.
And then attach it to the headlight! I had to remove the ’32 Ford wire bundle (sorry, I can’t even remember what it used to look like!) but the hole that was left was a great size for this little Parr piece.
I used another weatherpak plug so I’ll be able to take the headlight off if necessary.
Here’s the view from the back of the passenger side headlight.
I haven’t centered or aimed them yet, but I think they look pretty good!
As I’m reassembling the car, there are some things that I think I should have explained a little better at the time of the first article. The emergency brake handle mount is a neat little piece, but I don’t think I explained how it attaches to the floor.
See that little bung at the button end of the ‘canoe’? The bottom of that bung sits on the top surface of the bottom floor panel. Get that? I think you will. I used the Lokar ratchet mechanism and incorporated it into the canoe, which drops the handle into the floor.
The canoe was made from the outside section of a bent 1-5/8″ tube.
This is the hole where the canoe sits.
Below the 2″ thick floor, the linkage fits through a slot in the bottom floor panel. I bent up a linkage rod required to clear the center section tube and threaded it on both ends.
I drilled and tapped the Lokar brass block so it would work with my threaded linkage rod.
I used a 3/8″ heim joint (or “rod end”) to support the linkage rod and also to serve double duty as the upper bolt for the transmission mount.
A little out of place, but an update nonetheless. I put heat shrink on the wires as they exit from the frame rail and tuck in to the grille shell so they won’t stand out like… wires.
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