first time hotrod build: ford model a pickup.

thanks for feedback everyone,

got my rear lights mounted up today, using solid rivets. really happy with how they look for scratch built items..









cheers

Great work, it's turning into something really special.

update for the week, been battling on with the doors, in the pics previous you can see a lower patch panel badly tacked on, its not square, straight or even meeting the original steelwork, quite frankly its embarrassing,

whats worse is that that patch panel has been fitted OVER perished inside corners of the original door,

off came the entire panel to properly repair the interior to start with..


the "better" side..



really thin here so got some steel back into the door, but not afraid of a tiny amount of top filler to tidy this up after, just to stop overworking the frail skin. completely rust free and steel now tho always a plus..




heres the worst side..



as i said, someone actually welded new repair panels to this! and left all this rotten..

anyway, after some folding, hammering, swearing and beer i made a front patch panel..





gave it a trim to square up, final fitment then welded in,



then the side profile,

made a cardboard template, transfered that to steel and got it welded in..











welded in and ground,





as with other side, tiny skim for tidy fully and were good to go. looks like a door again.


next came to the original patch panel, to say i spend ages on this was and understatement. it needed re-shaping, bending, trimming and squaring up.

got it back into the door and got rid of the huge gap, still a small one there to trying it on the car it sat the best where it is, got this tacked on SLOWLY.

next will be slow grinding and joining up the tacks in order to keep heat to a minimum, trusty copper backer helps loads as you can mig onto the copper to act as a bridge, to anyone doing stuff like this as a beginner like myself its a godsend. only some old pipe flattened off..








tried the door back on the car, might not look much to you guys but its came a long way from where it was. didnt even fit into the door gap when i got the car.


little acheivements along the way help loads when taking on a huge prjoect.


more soon..

ant

update time..

still on the doors, managed to get the bear claw latches fitted on the drivers door..

was given a mounting plate with the kit so got that somewhere near the correct size







no going back now lol













ive lost the photos but used a cistern arm and a wire arm to link the model a handle to the bear claw latch, when i come to do the other side ill include the photos. also fitting the striker onto the b post.

i decided to make a bolt on cover to hide the old door mechanism, it allows me access to the arms ect should i need to adjust or anything,

first off get the broken bolt out using the welded nut method..









then made a cardboard template ready to make from steel..






now that doors all sorted it was time for the next door, same kinda story but this one was even rougher..

























it ended up with the top section being completely removed, lined up, slit and stretched to get the pillars to meet and welding and ground to shape,











ill get the pics of the finished pillars soon..

had a week off the car to help a mate out with his harley too, he had picked up a hardtail sportster off a "builder" for a winter makeover, after some investigation digging out filler he had found the main gussets that holds the hardtail sections on ermmm not really up to scratch...









not really the thing you want to find on load bearing joints!

it was full of filler and powdercoat, probably the two hardest things to weld over, i dug out as best as i could and got some 8mm plates layed in, (it looks on the pi$$ in the picture but its actually square)



while he was here i tigged on some tank bungs for him..







was enjoying break from the hotrod so we kinda got carried away and i knocked up a pretty cool sissy bar to house his back light and give him something to strap his bits to on ride outs, fender mounts to the sissy bar via a tapped hole under the light mount..















anyway.. back to the hotrod now!

+1

Please do - look forward to it!

Wow!
Cant wait to see that update

right!.... time to throw an update on this, gotta be honest i didnt realise it was so easy to upload these days and the death of photobucket made it hard to keep up. apologies as this is going to be pic heavy, patchy and alot of stuff might get missed, but ill do my best!

well, rewind over 2 years ago for those that remember the thread, i had just finished getting the doors back together, next was to start on finishing the cab. i had started the tunnel and that was the next job, 
masking tape and cardboard helped me make the final piece, i really wanted to do this in one piece, but of fiddling and i was there..















then onto floor templates and you could see where i was heading..














it was roughly around this point where i started to decide on what paint, how to finish and the length i was going to take the car in, already a few years in and alot of work done i decided to go all in, within reason finishing the car as best as i possibly can, a good friend of mine has a workshop with blast facilities and a fully equipped paint shop, this was where the majority of the big parts of the car would come together, only problem was it was around 50 minutes drive from me. it was a long 2 years but worth it in the end.


once we got all the parts over there i blasted what was left of the shell and panels, curse word job but needed doing!
















during this, but still a long long way off i needed to start deciding on colours. a job i didnt fancy one bit, and anyone who has devoted so much of their life into one car will appreciate its HARD, i had a few ideas, grey and the classic hotrod black, but it just didnt grab me. i really wanted a statement colour and something different. as much as i hate traditional hotrods i wanted to still make the car look like the old car it is, and wanted a colour to represent that. i was thinking down the lines of old machinery of the time, classic engineering toolboxes and the like. i found an old piece of machinery online that was used to press parts for the classic american mustang fighter. it was spot on, pretty similar to the "makita" colour. i wanted it gloss, but 2 - pack gloss, not glass flat clearcoat it still had to look like an old hotrod, i took some images to the local paint shop, and i had my headlight test painted along with some harley tins.. i was sold :





while the body was at the workshop i started blasting and stripping the axles and brakes. as i got this car as a Frankenstein of parts i had no real idea what parts i had, only a few old bearings. i got recommended to give Steve @ us automotive a call. this man is pretty much responsible for all the ground work behind the scenes on tracking and supplying all the parts i needed. couldn't be more helpful and saved me so much work, i owe him alot!! sometimes just some measurements with a vernier on parts he would be coming back with info about 70 year old parts. 












once the body was blasted it was time to start floors and finalising  the chassis.

 















i don't have the pics but this was days and days of tacking, cooling , tacking , cooling, bit more tacking and a bit more cooling untill the floors were fully welded in, 99% warp free and fully sealed. 

few pics of it coming together..







thats a good place to stop for now and ill update in the next few days once ive got more time., stayed tuned for the next part where i make a momumental fark - up! 

thanks for looking.