Creating a KREEP..
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Drove home from Calgary in a snow storm today looks like summer is coming to an end quickly.
Yech…
Dave
Jus' creepin' along..
Ian, white welting might tie in with other parts of your car, although that may be a bit more ’60s than what you are after. Black will always look correct even if it stands out a bit more than desired.. On my ’32 we just went without the rust inducing welting altogether! Best of luck with your choice – you’ve done right by your custom so far so I know whatever choice you make will work out fine!
Dave
Jus' creepin' along..
Ian, white welting might tie in with other parts of your car, although that may be a bit more ’60s than what you are after. Black will always look correct even if it stands out a bit more than desired.. On my ’32 we just went without the rust inducing welting altogether! Best of luck with your choice – you’ve done right by your custom so far so I know whatever choice you make will work out fine! Dave
Yeah I though about white as I have been trying to find some white ribbed rubber matting to put on the running boards like the Chuck Porter Truck but that seems to be an impossible idea unless I want to buy a 100 ft roll so I may end up using black rubber then the black welt might not be so bad. I also thought about running none with just some sort of rubber between the parts to keep the squeaking down but I have derailed your thread enough so more pictures please.
There are other colours than black and white. Or, make some with close colour vinyl around cord, same as making upholstery piping.
I converted mine to work with an auto also.
Hey Tony. Did you fab up your own system? I opted to use the LoCar linkage with the one shifter arm on the bottom of the column and it worked as slick as could be. Of course I have no “pr-ndl” indicator..
And, did I take a picture of the hook-up? It would appear ..no! Maybe one will show up later..
Dave
Jus' creepin' along..
While things were happening elsewhere on the car; Cam, who wired ambulances for a living, started his magic with the new Rebel wiring kit..
Organizing the wires into temporary looms:
These go to the rear:
Annnddd, these go to the? Yup, the front:
In the end all the wiring will be nicely loomed (we’ll come back to Cam later..):
Dave
Jus' creepin' along..
Mike offered to swing by and help(do) the install of the glass, so we tackled the windshield first. A tip: I had purchased all new rubber seals and of course had to cut them down for the chop. A breakfast buddy said he had to make custom O-rings at his company and they used O-ring adhesive. It works as well as vulcanizing. There is no way on earth the joins will ever come apart. Great stuff for repairing torn/cut rubber!
Was able to re-use the windshield glass!
Had new side glass cut as the glass that was in the car when I got it was scratched, cracked and tinted. Here’s the door glass and whiskers installed. The seal for the vent window goes up & down with this glass in ’41s just as in earlier cars. I believe this changed after the war?
Body stainless and other rubber seals/gaskets went on about this time as well.
These would prove to be an install challenge to say the least! I think they would be tough even were the car not chopped..
And for Pete’s sake don’t get these mixed up (they’re not the same)! How’d that happen?
Dave
Jus' creepin' along..
I do have pics of what I did with the column…I’ll find them.
How did your guy like the Rebel kit? A friend of mine distributes them and they are on my list.
Tony, Cam liked the kit so much he purchased one for his own project – pretty high praise I’d say. My brother used the smaller kit in his roadster as well so I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them.
Dave
Jus' creepin' along..
Slopping black Tremclad over the sealed door sills, inside the door bottoms and around the quarter windows before the garnishes can be installed..
New tires picked up while on a trip to sunny California:
While in L.A. we stopped in at the Early Ford Store and I picked up a pair of amber spots. I was getting fed up with soccer moms being somehow blind to the Harley signal lights on the front of the car (“birds” flipping every time I made a turn!?!), so I thought “I’ll show them”. These were mounted behind the grill as signal lights – no more “birds”..
Dave
Jus' creepin' along..
With hopes of minimizing work under/behind the dash, Cam had pre-wired all the gauges, switches and lamps before it went in:
At this point it was off to upholstery. I had done a very quick marker sketch to go along with material choices so the upholsterer would have a decent idea of what I was after. Of course I wanted a look that I thought would be appropriate to that late ’40s early ’50s time period so I wanted a 4″ pleat with contrasting bolsters – both in marine vinyls which should have a good long life being UV safe.
Geez.. my photography skills.. Anyway, after gathering a folder full of example photos, I passed this along to the shop for guidance:
I had saved the headliner and boughs in the hope that there was a template there.. All that tweed..!
Sometime in it’s life the Mercury had received a mid ’80s(?) T-Bird or Lincoln front seat. I opted to keep the seat as it was in great shape, comfortable and low enough that I sat just where I needed to. It was also fully power adjustable; but, there was one issue I wanted changed. The seat was actually two seats with folding arm rests in the centre which immediately gave it away as newer.. I wanted to remove those and have the seat back as wide as the base to better emulate the original fold-forward seat. Turned out to be far more difficult than I would have thought.. big surprise..
Driver’s seat before mods. You can see the hinge for the armrest on the left:
Neil needed to splice in about 8″ of metal.
and deal with the wider spring section as well as move the inner hinge over!
Dave
Jus' creepin' along..
I’m going to like the seat(s) even more now!
Having the old headliner as a template was helpful apparently. You can see in this shot that there is yet to be rear window glass. The headliner must be in place before the glass, seal and stainless is installed because there is no garnish for the rear opening. All you will see is the rubber seal inside when all is done.
I chose also to eliminate the rear seat. I did not want to start chopping up a perfect seat in order to make it useable. As it was there was no way to sit back there with the roof being so low. I opted for a business coupe appearance with the added feature of a thick foam on top of the carpeted seat riser so it is relatively comfortable in a pinch!
The original seat had upholstered fibreglass seat backs which no longer fit, so the upholsterer cut off the outer 4″ of one and used those on the outside edges of the seats to give a nice finished look to them. This also tied in with the lower panel which wrapped around the seat bottom. Nice!
Dave
Jus' creepin' along..
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