1940 Ford Deluxe 2 Door Sedan Rebuild

[Dieselwrencher]

This is my 1940 Ford. The car and I have a long history, but it has a longer history in our family. My great uncle owned this car for many, many, years. Here's a little history on it.

My uncle Jerry purchased it in the 60's from what I've been told. He drove it as it was until 1969 when he tore it down for upgrades. He put a 1958 ford 9" in the back and repainted the car black laquer with blue ghost flames. He got it done around 1973. At the time, his friend was building a 39 Standard. Uncle Jerry got his car done first so everyone called his car Sooner, and his friend, Gene, got his car done later, so his was Later. In the 80s the car got a small block chevy, TH400, and mustang 2 front suspension. This is where I came in. When I was a kiddo, uncle Jerry would take me to car shows, rod runs, and swap meets. The old 40 had no heat, no AC, faded paint, cracked original glass, flaking keystone classics, and Mr.gasket side pipes under the running boards. They were the cast or pot metal ones, not the chrome heat shield looking ones. The rear seat was still original as were the door panels, head liner, but it had a newer knob radio. It had a Cadillac tilt/tele column, with white bucket seats. Who knows how many tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of miles he put on this car. I remember he took me to a big swap meet in Minnesota so I could get parts for my 39 Chevy. We were driving through snow higher than the bumpers and had no heat or wipers. We brought back rear fenders for my 39 that trip. He actually sold me the 39 Chevy which was my first car at age 13.

My Dad helped my uncle do a lot of work to the car to make it better or just flat run. My uncle could turn wrenches, but he just got things done. I can't say they were done nice to put it nice. He wasn't really a fabrocator. Anyhow, my uncle wanted a stroker motor. He had one built and my Dad put it in. He also built a fan shroud and adjusted the toe on the car. This was in 1993 before my aunt and uncle took it to the NSRA nats in Springfield MO. They pulled a pop up camper with the car to all these rod runs. He was die hard to say the least. The winter of 1995 uncle Jerry passed away. He had a heart attack walking in a blizzard after his LTD broke down. (He was a cement truck driver and just passed a physical with flying colors the day before). There were some issues with the car after he passed away. It was supposed to be willed to my father but no one could find the will after Uncle Jerry was gone. My Dad didn't push the issue and basically wrote it off. The car sat for a few years and the car club Uncle Jerry belonged to restored the car. (Restored is a loose term for real)

I found out where the car was once when they were restoring it and it happened to be Uncle Jerry's good friend with Later. They let me do some work on it. Then the car went to a different shop and I hadn't heard anymore on it. My Aunt would come over and give us updates on it. It spent a good bit of time at the upholstery shop. Well, one day my Aunt stopped over to my parent's house with Sooner. My Dad and I were in disbelief. The car was now electric blue (purple) but it did have some nice flames on it. It now had steel wheels with baby moons, and stock seats front and rear. Totally not uncle Jerry's car. Then to top it off, she tells us she's selling it............... For $22k. Family price. We declined. I was just out of college and Dad was so mad he couldn't stand to look at the car. Uncle Jerry was my dad's father's brother. He had more memories with Uncle Jerry than with his own father from the sounds of it.

So there we were in disbelief. Life went on and I always looked for cheap 40 Fords to build. One day I was cruising craigslist and I saw a 40 Ford for sale. I looked at the pics and thought man that would be cool. Then it dawned on me that it was Uncle Jerry's car. I told my fiance about it and told her it was really too bad I couldn't get it. She asked why not? Go to the bank and get it. We were saving to pay for our wedding and I was shocked. I did just that. Went to the bank and purchased Sooner back! Here are some pics of when I first went to look at him from the previous owner. My youngest brother went with me. I was so excited to actually be able to get the car. At that point the banker was still on the fence about the whole deal. I had to pay $16k to get the car back and luckily my banker made it happen.

[Dieselwrencher]

The first picture is the night I got to take it home. On my way home I stopped to fill it up because the gas gauge didn't work. The previous owner also told me he didn't drive it much because the car would never restart. So while I'm filling it up it starts pouring gas all over. I found out later that gas was coming out from the sending unit. First thing I did was drive it to get the windows tinted. Haha Then I drove the car to work and found out why it wouldn't restart. No one ever wired up the voltage regulator after the "restoration". Luckily the PO installed a group 31 battery so you could drive some distance before you were on the foot and ankle express. I took it and put it on the hoist and this is when my heart sank.

The front suspension was a hack job to say the least. The mustang suspension was never rebuilt when they put it in this frame. It had the original coils with 4 coil spring spacers per side with original shocks. The center of the X member was hacked out to fit in the TH400. The rear suspension had massive leaf springs and the mounts were poorly home made. (These were actually early chassis engineering parts I later found out) The gas tank and master cylinder were original to the car. The gas tank had a lot of rust in it. Since the sending unit didn't work, I modified it and put a pick up tube through it and resealed it so it wouldn't leak gas. I replaced all the shocks, and tightened bolts that were loose etc. I had to reroute the gas line because it was touching the exhaust and hanging almost to the ground in places.

Here's another funny story.... After the 377 was put in the car my uncle told my Dad it was hard to start. My uncle had relocated the battery to the trunk and had some puny wire on it. My dad had my uncle go to town and get 2 heavy sets of jumper cables from Kmart. Those cables were still on the car before I picked it up. The previous owner ran 00 battery cable to the starter thinking that was the starting issues.

So, more of a recap. My uncle purchased parts for this car for many years and he won some too at car shows. The original engine had a holley and an aluminum intake. The 377 was still in the car but had a painted cast iron intake and a leaky quadrajet. A lot of the parts Uncle Jerry had for the car did make it on there. Who knows where the rest went.

I ripped the engine out and put a new cam, lifters, oil pump, and regasketed it. I also resealed the TH400, put a shift kit in it, stall converter, and a new filter. Added new valve covers and air cleaner to the engine, and I added some trim that was missing from the car. I used the car to drive away from our wedding. At that time I repainted the bumpers to black. A year later we had our daughter and at the end of the show season we took it to a car show about 2 and a half hours away. That was the last trip for the 40. I couldn't stand all the sketchy stuff in the front suspension. And, I picked up a 354 Hemi for it. More to come later......

[MP&C]

Ryan, good to see the 40 came back "in the family", will be nice to have the Hemi under the hood..

[Dieselwrencher]

In the winter of 2013 I started what I thought was going to be the Hemi install. I cut out the original fire wall and installed a recessed fire wall to have some extra room for the massive 354. Well, I knew my front suspension was installed poorly, and quite worn. It turns out it was hacked in there real bad. I started cutting and repairing the areas they left gaps, but soon realized the cross member was in crooked. Plus the transmission I chose would not fit through the X member. I had the new engine mounts tacked in for the Hemi but decided to pull the body and do it right. After all, the body had never been off the car even during the "restoration". My daughter was helping me work on the car a few times as well.

[Dieselwrencher]

I picked up a 56 New Yorker to get the 354 out of. It was a shame the car was so rusty. It was a really cool car. 4 door, but had rear AC and rear small tail fins. Just flat out cool styling. I parted as much of that car out as I could to not let it go to waste.

I built a stand to put the body on. My brothers and I used 2 engine hoists to lift the body off the frame. I couldn't believe how many bolts there were holding the 2 together.

[Dieselwrencher]

I looked at a few tubular x members made by a couple of different places but none of them looked like they'd allow a 46RH to fit in them. I purchased an Eastwood bender and built my own. But first I boxed the frame from front to rear.

[Dieselwrencher]

More boxing the frame pictures. For being 72 years old at the time it was in excellent shape.

[Dieselwrencher]

Now was the task of building the new X member. It was a real hassle trying to get it all the same angles, then trying to get the pieces fit to the frame. I had to work in the lower mounts for the triangulated 4 link I decided to go with too. I also decided the car would have air bags at all 4 corners now too.

[Dieselwrencher]

More pictures of the X member and trying to decide how I wanted to do the transmission cross member. (That still isn't done though) Then I went on to boxing the rest of the frame and removing the original rear suspension cross member.

[Dieselwrencher]

I boxed in the rear cross member and had to fit the gas tank. This is a new tank from tanksinc and is a 16 gallon one. Then I got to the point of realizing I had to do the front suspension. I needed to put the body back on the frame so I could place fenders on it and make sure my wheels are centered in the wheel openings. They weren't before. There are pics of how bad the install was on the first mustang 2 cross member.

[MP&C]

Looks like its a good thing you're cleaning things up there.. Nice progress!

[Dieselwrencher]

Here I was finish grinding the welds on the bottom of the frame. The last picture was where I stopped once I got to the point of trying to figure out how I was going to go about fixing the front suspension. The frame and body went back in storage because I had a lot of other stuff to work on.

[Dieselwrencher]

This January I was in between projects, and I decided I was bringing the 40 to my home garage and I would work on it to try to get it together for 2017. Well, unfortunately, that still hasn't happened.

I built a gantry crane and set the body back on the frame. I brought it home and unloaded the body and frame in the garage. This was real fun to do by myself. I used my engine hoist to pick the rear up after I drug the frame and body down to the end of my trailer. I was trying to get it inside because it was January 7th and starting to rain. I didn't want everything rusting on it.

I had purchased a 38 Ford frame that had rust in the rear up in Minnesota last summer. My plan was to cut the front of the frame off the 38, and put it on my 40 frame. That is what I did too. I marked everything out, measured several times, then cut my frame off. I used body mount holes from both frames to figure out where I needed to make cuts to put it back to stock configuration.

I was going to sand blast the frame pieces before I welded them on but my blaster was acting up due to it being severely cold outside. I opted to get them welded on and wait for warmer weather to blast them.

[Dieselwrencher]

I thought about building sleeves to put inside the frame but decided boxing it and fish plating the outsides would be strong enough. I didn't need to add extra weight to it if I didn't have to. I also made the boxing plates so the went over my original boxing plates to add strength at the joint. I also plug welded the 2 boxing plates to add more strength in the area.

[Dieselwrencher]

Once I got the boxing plates welded in, it was time to set the car to the ride height I thought I wanted, get the frame level, and start laying out the frame for the new cross member. I went with a Paul Horton welder's series mustang 2 cross member. I'd highly recommend them. Very high quality at a great price. Once I got the cross member fit to the frame, I welded it on. Then I had to weld the upper towers to the frame. I messed this up the first time and had to redo them. I had them too far out and I would have had too much camber and it would have ate tires I'm sure.

[Dieselwrencher]

This was mocking up/fitment the 2nd go around. It is correct now.

[Dieselwrencher]

I had to make mounts for my air bags because this cross member was set up for standard coil springs and shocks. I used some thick wall tubing and notched the tube to fit the upper towers so my air bags would fit and be at the correct operating angles. I also modified my lower control arms and made mounts for the air bags.

[Dieselwrencher]

In these first couple of pics that was doing the LH bag.

The next step was to finish weld the cross member to the frame, add the boxing plates to the top of the cross member. I also made boxing plates to fill the area where the stock control arms would go on the bottoms. I made gussets to go from the frame to the back of the lower control arm mount too keep the forces from cracking the cross member. I also had to weld in the boxing plates for the upper towers. Once I got it all welded up, I had to finish grind all the welds. i didn't have to, but I want it to look as nice as I can make it.

[Dieselwrencher]

Once I got the welding on the cross member completed, I put on my rack. Sure enough, the tie rods would hit the frame when I let the air out of the bags. I had to add C notches to the frame to make room for the bellows on the tie rods. I also plated the inside and outside of the frame around the notches to ensure strength in the frame and cross member.

[Dieselwrencher]

Now it was time for some fun. I put new tie rod ends on the rack, assembled the front suspension, and ran some lines to the air bags. It was time to see if it all works. The front cross member isn't on the ground, but it's as low as this thing is going to get.

[Dieselwrencher]

I was getting close to the point of putting the engine and trans back in to get it set in a new home. But before I could do that, I wanted to add some beautification to the firewall. A friend from another forum made me some old script Ford panels. I fit one in the top center of the fire wall and welded it in place.

Then I started working on how to get a shock on this thing. I made a new lower mount and welded it on my lower control arm. I too the easy way out and purchased the upper shock mounts. I finally got things situated where the shock would fit while not getting ate by the tire aired down and also at full up travel. The shock will serve as the bump stop also.

Next was engine fitment so I could hook up the steering column again.

[Dieselwrencher]

I put my steering shaft back in before I put the engine back in thinking I had all sorts of room. Nope. I thought I had it made and I could use the headers I picked up at a swap meet a few years back. No, no such luck. Those dumb things had the collectors aimed at the oil pan. You'd never get a pipe on the collector without cutting them in half. Plus, I had to oblong the mounting holes severely to get the studs to fit through them and I was not impressed.

I finally broke down and spent the money and got some Hot Heads block huggers. But of course, they were too long and my exhaust would have been hanging below my engine cross member. I decided to cut the headers, eliminate the collector and add V-bands. Then I used a tight 90* elbow, cut it as low in the transition as I could, and welded on the other half of the V-band. This gets the exhaust up without having to raise the engine up even higher eliminating the need to chop up more of the floor. Hopefully.

The last 2 pics, I was bolting the front sheet metal on to get my front axle centerline. The last pic is my youngest son, Colt. The kids love playing in the 40 and are not really happy they can't play in it now that I'm mocking up the rear suspension.

[Dieselwrencher]

Thanks Robert! Yeah, that front suspension sure had me sketched out. It's a good thing they had boxing plated in there because that had to be what saved the mess from cracking or ripping out years ago.

Here are some pictures of mock up when I was getting ready to do my front suspension install. At the time I didn't have my rear wheels. Also, in case you're wondering, the reason those rear fenders are white..... Is because they are fiberglass fenders that are 3" wider to allow for wider tires. I have 17x9s to go back there. I'll post more pics as I round them up off pb since they are still pulling their bs.

[LockDoc]

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Wow Ryan I didn't realize you were doing that much changing on it. Looking good though.

LockDoc

[57larry]

great build, anything new going on?