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Weatherstripping
All gaps are not created equal. Having said that, once I decided which weatherstrip profile to use, the job itself was rather simple. |
You’ll have to start with your doors hung and latched. To determine the size of the gap, I used what I’ve been telling people to use for years, but never had the opportunity to do it myself: playdough. Do I have to put a letter C in a circle after that word? Actually, I didn’t use playdough. I used Sticky Tack. Man, what’s the generic word for stuff that’s pliable and somewhat sticky and holds posters to the wall? From now on, it shall be called “Silly Putty”. Oh, never mind. |
Roll the Nameless Wonder-Goop Door Gap Replicator (don’t worry, I don’t require a Registered Trademark symbol) into a ball, and set it in the place you want to measure. |
Close the door all the way. |
When you open the door, you’ll be left with a positive mold of the door gap that you can use to see which weatherstrip profile will work best. |
I got one of Soffseal’s sample packs and compared each sample with my Nameless Wonder-Goop Door Gap Replicator. |
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It turns out I was able to use one of their smallest profiles on both the door and the body. I like this, because I have weatherstrip sealing against weatherstrip. This profile fit the edge around the door opening perfectly. |
In this picture, you’re also able to see the courtesy light I installed in the bottom of the door. At night, it will illuminate the ground as you’re getting out of the car. You never know what will be waiting in the hotel parking lot. |
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…
There are many products on the market for brake pedal grommets, but a) I didn’t have one last night, and b) I guess I don’t have a b). Here’s how I made the brake pedal seal:
I rummaged around the shop, sure I had some rubber sheets or something to use as a seal for the pedal to slide through. After I was all rummaged out, I grabbed the liner out of the bottom of one of the toolbox drawers and decided to sacrifice a corner. It’s not rubber – more like a closed-cell foam, but it will do.
For the outer ring, I’m using our part #3018W. Originally, this is the washer that we include in our Mustang II strut rod bracket kits. We have found a bunch of uses for them though.
I want to drill four holes at 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00. I’d trump fixtures over measuring any day of the week, and this is no exception. I dropped the washer in a hole template which has perpendicular reference marks and marked my holes.
To attach the ring to the firewall, I’m using 8-32 knife inserts. These are really handy because they let you use a machine screw into fiberglass.
I’ve painted the washer now, and should have it all ready to install soon. The drawer liner seal will be sandwiched between the washer and the firewall.
This is another article from the ’32 build archive.
Odds and Ends / Powderific
Since the last “miscellaneous stuff” email, there hasn’t been a whole lot going on with the ’32, let alone much more miscellany. In highway terms, it’s “driving on the shoulder”. There are some items on the excuse sheet we’ve hung in the window, however.
First, the space we use to work on the car has been seized by hundreds of odds and ends, all with pallets as magic carpets. The people who were renting the building where we were storing this “stuff” moved, so we had to take it all out. It’s invaded our car building space; thus a chunk of the delay can be blamed away. Second, the powder coaters had some electrical issues while they were trying to set up their oven. The story is a bit longer than that, but all that’s important to me is I can’t be help responsible 
In any case, we did get our powder coated parts and they look really great. We are doing most of the removable frame parts (bars, batwings, adjusters, brake pedal, etc.) in flat black. I have a thing for flat black. I would take a punch for flat black. So, with these parts in hand, I’m able to start reassembling the frame! Now if it wasn’t for all these odds and ends… I think I’m going to have an egarage sale. If you like, sign up for our newsletter and you’ll be able to see what edds and onds we’ve got and how cheap you can get them.
Now the next step is to make the frame black too so we can start putting the pieces together. I can’t believe the clarity of the parts even after the powder coating. The welds aren’t muddy looking, and the finish is very consistent. I hope it’s as durable as it is good looking. I’ll keep you posted on the frame painting process.
Remember these little guys? In case you missed the post, check it out.
I enlarged the holes in the floor to 7/8″…
…then machined these tubes or “slugs” to drop in the holes. The purpose of the slugs is to prevent the head of the bolt from crushing the top layer of fiberglass as the bolt is tightened. I machined them so that they sit on top of the bottom layer of the floor and just under the top layer, so that when the bolt is tightened it will compress the floor just a bit before bottoming out on the slug.
Here is the finished product – we were wondering whether to paint them, but I think they look pretty sharp the way they are. They are only about 1/8″ off the floor, so they shouldn’t catch feet.
What do you think?
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.
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 the car goes back together, we’re finding little things that we’ve wanted to get done which have made their way to the bottom of the proverbial pile. We had talked a long time ago about making some sleeves so we could put 3/8″ button head bolts in the spreader bar holes instead of the 1/2″ bolts that came with the spreader bar. The thought was brought up again during reassembly, and instead of trying to machine some spacer/ washers so the 3/8″ bolt wouldn’t be sloppy in the 1/2″ hole, I made a pilgrimage to the lathe and removed some metal. Here’s the result – a smaller, thinner head. This is a before/after shot, with the before bolt in hole on the right.
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