1931 Ford Restoration Diary

Over the weekend, I took the two wooden blocks I had made, and stained them black so they would look original. The were originally mounted to the floorpans with 1-3/4″ bolts, so I had to take some 2″ bolts and cut them down to the correct size. I Parkerized them, and used them to mount the blocks in place.

I was out of town the last week, but the week before that it was fairly warm, so I was able to varnish the roof ribs and some other wood bits. I also installed a piece of wood that supports the dome lamp above the rear seat.

I cut a piece of 3/4″ plywood to serve as the base of the rear seat, and made up a couple of wooden blocks that screw to the rear floorpan to hold it in position. The original seat base was a wooden frame made up of several pieces with tongue-and-groove joints, but the plywood is simpler, and will be undetectable once the seat base is upholstered.

Spring has arrived, and soon it will be warm enough to resume body work and painting.

It never got warm enough to varnish the roof ribs.  Maybe it will this weekend. I did do some more fitting of the ribs to the rest of the roof wood, and I added some shims to get their height correct.  I also checked the fit of the wooden blocks that the sun visors mount to, which go between two of the ribs.

For the door latches, I got some  special stepped rivets from a parts vendor, but they turned out to be not quite the right size.  I guess I will try making some.

In the last week or so,  I repaired the worn slots in the rest of the door latches.  The next step is to repair some worn spots on the main latch bodies and put everything back together.  I still need to find or make the correct rivets that go through the slots.

I also fitted the wooden roof ribs.  They needed a bit of trimming to fit up nicely with the wood around the edge of the roof opening.  I also had to drill some holes for attaching the wood blocks that hold the sun visors.  When it is a bit warmer, I can put a coat of varnish on them and they will be ready for installation.

I did some welding and grinding, and got the slot in the latch mechanism back to its original shape.
Then I cleaned up and took apart the other three latch assemblies. They will all need the same repair.

I took the most-worn door latch mechanism and cleaned off all the dirt and grease with Easy-Off oven cleaner  (great stuff!)  The mechanism is in pretty good shape, except for one metal pin that slides in a slot.  The pin and slot badly worn, letting the whole sliding part of the latch flop around and get out of position.  I’ll fix it by using my welder to add more metal to the worn portion of the slot and grinding and filing it back to the correct shape.  I’ll also make a replacement for the pin with my mini-lathe.

I also put a coat of varnish on one of the 7 wooden ribs that will go across the roof.  The other 6 will need some fitting before they are ready for that.

I fixed the two broken studs on one of the seat tracks. These studs are 1/4-20 bolts with funny triangle-shaped heads that are spot-welded to the track. To make replacements, I took some 1/4-20 flat-headed bolts and ground the heads on opposite sides until they had the correct shape. Then I welded them in place on the track.

The tracks were originally cad-plated, and one of them had gotten rather rusty. So I bead-blasted it and painted it with silver spray paint. Fortunately the tracks are completely hidden under the seat, so nobody will ever notice my fake “plating”. The other track still had almost all of its plating intact, so I left it alone.

It’s been really cold this month, so no possibility of doing any filler work or painting on the body. Maybe I’ll start repairing a couple of the door latch mechanisms. The front ones have some rather worn bits.

I was able to take apart the rear bumpers. The bolts holding the sections together had gotten fused in place from rust, and tons of pressure from my press would not budge them. I heated each bolt with a blowtorch for about half an hour, and then plunged them into water. After this shock treatment, I was able to press out the bolts (along with piles of rust).

I also used my press to straighten a couple of the bumper brackets that were slightly bent.

My next project: replacing a couple of broken-off studs on the front seat tracks.

It’s been holiday season, and there’s lots of other things needing my attention.

I started taking apart the other side of the rear bumper, but the bolts holding the pieces together are really frozen in place- my 12-ton press will not budge them. I’ll need to drill them out. Normally the acetylene torch would be useful here, but the bumper bars are spring steel and I do not want to soften them.

I started taking apart the rear bumpers, so I can eventually blast and paint the parts that are painted rather than chromed. The bolts holding them together are frozen solid with rust, which is odd because they don’t look especially rusty from the outside. I got one side apart, but the other will need one or both bolts cut, and the stumps of the bolts will have to be pressed out of the bumper bars.