1929 Model A Sport Coupe to Cabriolet conversion

[markg]

Hi all. Been working on this one for a while.

Basket case 1929 Sport Coupe piecemeal body converted to a Coupester/Cabriolet. Except for paint, it's been entirely built here in my home shop. There are lots of subtle body mods done in an effort to try to wring the ugly out of this early Sport Coupe. Can you spot some of them?

Among other things, a windshield of unkown origin was adapted to the coupe cowl with fabricated steel lowers mated to cast aluminum upper orchard type stanchions.

We used ASC boxed 32 rails and the floor was dropped and perimeter welded to the bottom of frame rails ( I'm 6'2'') .

A short stroke 283 was salvaged from a 1967 Pontiac Parisienne station wagon and mated to an S10 pick up T5 trans and S10 rear axle that sits on Posies Super Slide quarter elliptics in a triangulated four link set up.

Coker Excelsiors on 16 inch gennie steelies. Chev dash with Autometer gauges, 17 inch '40 Vintiques steering wheel mated to an IDIDIT Old School Grant pattern steering column. Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite seats.

We're THAT close to having it out for some test drives before the snow flies in the next couple of weeks, looking forward to it. Wish us luck!

 

[ratrig]

very cool! Where is the snow flying ?

 

[markg]

A few more pics taken earlier in construction...

 

[ratrig]

I now see you are in Montreal. Nice work !

 

[markg]

very cool! Where is the snow flying ?

Montreal area. Thx

 

[markg]

So early on my fab guy Danny said 'You know, these quarter panels have had their door jambs cut off at some point, we have to fab everything anyway, lets do flush doors while we're at it.'

So we did... Door window frames removed, door jambs completely fab'd from scratch, and anti sectioned to raise them to the level of the doors.

The quarter panel bead is inverted at the door so it aligns with the TOP of the door bead, not the bottom.

A standard sport coupe door/quarter panel bead

 

[markg]

Fired up the cnc plasma table and fab'd the custom spring/shock mounts out of 3/16'' sheet as the S-10 tube diameter is non standard, also allowed me to fine tune the drop to the Posies quarter elliptic springs. Went with the deeper set in the end.

 

[Scotty]

Nice! Looks like everything is well thought out.
Welcome to the forum.

 

[markg]

Thanks Scott! I've been a member since 2011 but only posting now. Better late than never I guess LOL...

More odds and ends......

With the floor being lowered to the bottom of the frame rails, the pedal cluster used was a used Kugel 90 degree set sourced locally. Configured for an auto setup, I cut and fab'd all the parts for adding the clutch master and pedal. Spoon type gas pedal also fab'd from plasma cut parts. Pedal pads are MGB which are easily available.

 

[markg]

 

[PG409]

Wow…superior talent and workmanship.

 

[markg]

Model A guys will notice that we didn't use a Model A dash. We found a '33 Chev dash at the swap and sliced and diced it to fit. To access the master cylinders for service, it pivots on two pins after removing the five 10-32 screws across the top of the cowl.

We were very surprised to find that the top radius of the Chev dash matched the top radius of the Model A cowl very closely. Bonus!

The dash insert was cut out of 1/8'' stell sheet for the Autometer gauge set with the plasma table and then krinkle finish powder coated here in the workshop, see a short video on doing an early version of it here

 

[markg]

Also fab'd a sub panel for the ignition / lights switches. Same drill, draw in A'cad, cut on the plasma table, blast in the cabinet, weld a 3/4'' rim on it and powder coat black krinkle finish.

 

[markg]

How we grafted a roadster windshield onto a coupe/sedan Model A cowl.

Well you have to kind of work with what you have, right?

Cut the cowl posts flush, machined and fabricated lower posts that are a slide fit into the cowl door posts. A 1/4'' plate was welded inside the door post with a hole in it that accepts the 3/8'' stud that is threaded into the new fabricated lower windshield post, a nylock nut holds the new fab'd post to the cowl.

 

[markg]

The coupe / sedan cowl had its defroster ports plugged with .070'' machined plates welded in and the windshield post conversion was done.

 

[markg]

Windshield.

The windshield is a rectangular section three sided affair that was sourced at the Syracuse swap meet. We thought it is a Model T part but its origin is unknown. Anybody recognize it?

Anyway, the width just happened to be spot on so we decided to use it. The challenge was making the curved fourth side of it that runs along the cowl.....

With some string we estimated the radius of the now modified Model A cowl. We got some 1/16'' wall 1/2'' x 1'' rectangular tube and got to work.

A set of bending dies was plasma cut that replicated the radius and allowed for some springback. The tube was then carefully step bent in the hydraulic press.....

 

[1950specialdeluxe]

Impressive!

 

[markg]

OK, so now how to cut the slot for the glass in this new bottom windshield member?

Head scratching time for sure. In the end we made up a plasma cut fixture as a guide for the ginder to make two slots in the now radiused tube to accept the 6mm safety glass. Another thing ticked off the list.

 

[markg]

Making the hood and sides. 18 ga sheet . Danny cutting and the two of us the radius bending on a couple of different sized bending dies.

The hood sides are '33 Ford pickup sides that Danny cut down to just fit in the hole. The louvers taper in length back to front and follow the frame line perfecty. As Danny says, it's just one of those magic Ford things with their cars of this era that things from different years go together so well.

 

[JohnnyBgood]

Wow..great stuff..never seen a rear leaf set up like that…nice..