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Some Miscellaneous Stuff
Here are a few random shots of what I’ve been up to lately. They don’t each require a separate posting, so I’ll just throw them all in here.
I made up these little spacers for the wiper posts, then painted them black.
Here you can see my heater lines. I decided not to run #10 heater hose just because of the size of the car. A #10 hose has a 1/2″ i.d., so by running 3/8″ hard line, I’m not losing all that much flow. I’m using the head as one connection, and the water pump for the other. The hose clamp on the hose going to the water pump will be replaced and eventually will look like the one just below it. Remember to flare the end of the hard line so it’s tight in the hose. I’m also trying to figure out where to run the spark plug wires.
I made up two 3/8″ double clamps to hold the e-brake cables.
Here you can see the Specialty Power Windows wiper motor that’s mounted to the steering column mounting plate.
I couldn’t exactly hide the A/C drain behind the upholstery (because what you see is the “upholstery”), so I had to come up with another way. I decided to use the leftover trunk weatherstrip I had. It’s hollow, flexible, and has an adhesive back. It’s not stuck to the firewall yet, but when I’m ready I can just peel off a few small sections of backing and hold it in place.
And here’s where we are, pretty much up to date.
(From the archives)
Well, the body is off and it’s time to start welding up brackets and tabs that were just tacked in place this whole time. The plan is to get the frame powder coated semi gloss black, and since it’s not healthy to weld over powder coat, I’m going to try to get all the brackets mounted before it’s sent out.
It’s a good idea to take a bunch of pictures of everything assembled before you tear it down, so you can see how it all went together.
Remember that e-brake bracket I made a long time ago? I just painted it with Zero Rust flat black paint, and I’m pretty tickled with how it came out. I can’t wait to see it installed! 
Since I didn’t mount the seat belts when the seat was mounted the first time, I had to make up some brackets to hold the retractors and the fixed end of the belts. If you’re like me and you have access to hundreds of different shapes of brackets, you tend to use something that’s already made instead of wasting time cutting out a shape (and trying to get the second one to look something like the first one), drilling holes, bending, etc. If you’re like me but don’t have access to hundreds of different brackets, here’s a solution: Welder Series’ Plate Page . Have a look around. I’m sure you’ll find something that will make your frame build a lot easier. These particular brackets are Model A rad mount tabs .
Friends come in to have a look and wonder how taking stuff off helps put it together. I tell them it’s like marriage. Anyways, I spent some time on something very small, but I’m happy with the result.
On the right, you can see the stock bolts that came with the brake kit. While functional, they didn’t do much to enhance the chrome spindles and steering arms and the polished calipers and caliper mounts. Since the caliper mounting bolts are 3/8″ button heads, I thought I’d see what I could do to match the other bolts.
The black bolt is the original one. It’s a flat head allen, with 1/2-20 threads. The stainless bolt is a 3/8-16 button head, but it’s obviously too small for the hole. I machined threaded spacers to sit tight in the 1/2″ hole in the spindle. The threaded cone mimics the taper on the original bolt, so it centers itself and sits flush with the outside of the caliper mounting plate. There’s not much clearance between the plate and the rotor!
I took this photo before I trimmed the excess off the bolt – it’s flush now.
Here’s how the tranny cooler lines/ air conditioning hose clamp came out. The top tube runs headlight wires from the body to the grille shell. 
For the ends of the stainless tube, I parted a -6 stainless joiner fitting in half, and tig welded them to the tubes. Leaving some hex on the fittings means I don’t have to twist the tube to tighten the fitting.
We had the one side fixed, and now it’s time to match the passenger side. Cam seems to be pretty happy we’re finally mounting the tail pipes! 
The emergency brake lines run right where the hangers would sit straight up. Instead of just moving it off to the side a little bit, we thought it would be better to go all the way. The hanger brackets and flanges are Welder Series parts, by the way. 
I think we’re going to keep the tips just as they are for now… milled perfectly square. We’ll see – maybe they will get some turn-downs later.
Greetings from Welder Series World Headquarters in the thriving metropolis of Breslau, Ontario, Canada! You’ve made your way to our blog – a collection of articles on tech information (“Dear Welder Series…“), how we got here (“Horton Hot Rod History“), company news (“news“), and a series of over 50 articles chronicling the build of a ’32 Ford coupe (“‘32 Build“).
Thanks very much for the time you’ve spent with us so far. I hope you’ll bookmark us and do some more “blogsploring”.
Looking forward to helping with your project,
DW Horton
Welder Series Inc.
1-888-648-2150
This is a great overview of the aluminum welding process. I need to work on my own aluminum welding – I don’t do it enough!
From Lincoln Electric
A Guide to Aluminum Welding
Reprinted courtesy of Welding Design and Fabrication magazine.
Equipment Selection, Material Prep, Welding Technique…
Dear Welder Series…
I am building a Model A style frame and I am going to use manual brakes on it. Which master cylinder bracket kit and pedal should I use?
Ryan
Dear Ryan…
If you are using an automatic transmission, the WS13704 kit was designed for the Model ‘A’.
It is available ready-to-weld or welded.
Is this the frame that you got the frame curves for?
Thanks for looking at Welder Series, Ryan.
Paul Horton
Dear Welder Series…
Great products, great videos and product info on YouTube.
Can you recommend which master mounting bracket and pedal to use for a
model A, and is there one available that has both the brake and clutch
pedals?
Thanks Alan
Dear Alan…
Thanks for looking at our parts, Alan. Check out 20281. Any clutch and brake is very crowded in a Model ‘A’. We can swap the offset brake pedal for one with no offset. Then you can bend both pedals symmetrically to go around the steering column.
I hope we can help you with your project.
Paul Horton
Rollie Guertin has been striping in Southwestern Ontario for a while. Actually, I learned some history while I was watching him- Rollie remembers seeing me being pushed around in a baby stroller. I’m pretty sure I haven’t been in one of those for a couple decades, so that means Rollie must be at least 23 years old. We asked Rollie to come by and paint the Welder Series logo on the doors of the ’32 we’re building. Follow along and see the magic of the stripe!
Rollie starts by blowing up the logo to actual size, then he transfers it to some parchment paper. Actually, I think it’s something like tissue paper. Or maybe it’s called transfer paper.
He tapes the transfer paper (if that’s really what it’s called) to the door, then uses a top secret type of another kind of paper and a top secret transfer tool to transfer the lines to the work surface.
I know, it looks like he used a scriber to etch the lines into the door, but I assure you he did not. The blue tape is to make sure the top and bottom of each letter is in line with its neighbor.
WEI…RD?
Phew, he spelled it right! Rollie painted a tig bead down the middle of the word!
If I painted it, the passenger door would probably say “REDLEW SEIRES”
Rocket Rollie stripes so fast someone should write a song about it!
I love the website font – Rollie said every striper has their own way of doing things, and even his kids can pick their dad’s letters out from other stripers.
Rollie added some lines to make the letters pop, as well as some orange and yellow highlights.
Thanks Rollie!
Dear Dave…
Just a quick email to make sure your parts arrived in good condition, and most of all to make sure you’re happy with them. I hope you’ll get a chance to go through the catalog that was with your order and let us know if there’s anything else we can help with. Remember… we also do custom work.
Thanks very much for your business.
DW Horton
Welder Series Inc.
Dear Welder Series…
I’m very satisfied with the entire process. As a matter of fact, I’ve got the cross member and spring pockets tack welded in place…..Looking to purchase more stuff to do my brake/clutch and rear-end installation.
Dave
Thanks Dave, I’m glad you’re happy with everything. I would like to see some pictures of your frame!
Talk to you soon
dw
dw
here’s a photo of my frame. Just an old ’52 Dodge, that I saved from the crusher. I’m concerned about the spring tower angle (from horizontal) It’s about 15 degrees. Is that correct?
Thanks, Dave
Dave, this is a very good picture of the installation. The upper towers look fine. The angle is correct.
Thanks for the picture and the positive feedback.
Paul Horton
We had a Lokar firewall mounted transmission fluid dipstick from a long time ago, but since there’s nothing else mounted on the firewall I decided to mount it low.
Starting with two stainless dished washers, I hammered them flat and welded them together around the perimeter. This made them about the same thickness as the bracket I wanted to pillage and use for its 3/8″ hole.
This is the bracket I started out with.
I trimmed the slot off and merged the washers with the 90 degree bracket.
It sits pretty much in line with the engine dipstick now…
I finished the front spreader bar the same way as the rear to mount the license plate.
So you’re getting a little more used to this whole blog thing… you’ve seen the categories on the right side of the screen, you know that you can see older posts by clicking on “archives”, and you may even know how to subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking on the little orange button in your address bar. You know- where it says “http://www.welderseries.com/blog”. But did you know there’s a place you can go, I said yo man, when you’re short on your dough, you can stay there… nevermind. Across the top of the page, there are a few buttons that say Home, Contact Us, Dealers/Builders, etc. I wanted to point those out just in case you haven’t seen them… and if you have a testimonial you’d like to give for the “Testimonials” page, that would be terrific.
I should have a few more ’32 updates this week – we’re hoping to get it started by Friday.
This is another idea born from necessity… we hadn’t decided/bought a license plate frame or holder, so the idea began to be tossed around. On a roadster, plate positioning is a bit easier because the section below the trunk lid is taller; most plates get mounted there. But since there really isn’t enough height there on a 3 window, we decided to put it somewhere else. Here’s what we came up with.
Masking tape makes it easy to mark dimensions with a pen.
This is the little fixture I came up with to draw a line parallel with the tube. I have the spreader bar clamped to my bench, nestled up against a section of 1.5″ x 1.5″ tubing which is just hanging over the edge of the bench. I used a square and set the ruler so that the mark on the tube (which I made while the spreader bar was still on the car) was at an inch line. Doesn’t matter what number. I could then move the square along the tube and make marks at the number, then connect the dots. Voila! (That’s french for “eh!”)
Here’s a picture of my setup.
I used a cutoff disc to slot the spreader bar.
I cut the bottom off a Bob Drake stainless license plate frame…
…and tig welded it to the stainless spreader bar.
You can see where this is going…
I sectioned the piece that I cut off the bottom of the Bob Drake frame, and welded it to the spreader bar at the bottom of the license plate.
Now I have a short license plate that doesn’t interrupt any body lines. I still have to make a final decision on a light…
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