1931 Ford Restoration Diary

Over the last couple of weekends I built a new wooden frame for the rear seat base. The old base was a lot like the old front seat base: It had been somewhat crudely rebuilt by a previous owner, with about half the original wood left. I used the same techniques (and special jig) that I used last year to make a new front seat base. The new base is made of oak, and has all the same joints and dimensions as an original.

I also got some of the correct spring wire and metal clips for fixing up the rear seat springs. They are mostly OK, but some of the wires have corroded or worn spots, and could break at any time.  After the springs are fixed up, I can upholster the seat base and repeat the process for the rear seat back.  Fortunately, the original rear seat back wood is in excellent condition.

I installed a nice electronic voltage regulator in the generator. It allows the battery to always get a proper charge rate without having to manually adjust the generator output current. It’s also totally invisible inside the generator.

For myself, I bought a fairly decent TIG welder from Harbor Freight, which will hopefully allow me to do a better job fixing up the fenders. So far, I’ve just been playing with it on scrap bits of metal.

I’ve done essentially nothing in the last month. Lots of other things to be done over the holidays, and it’s freezing in the garage. Maybe I will start upholstering the rear seat, which I can do inside the house.

Over the weekend I painted the shock arms, parkerized the mounting bolts, and installed the rebuilt front shocks. I went for a drive on some bumpy and potholed roads, and I was quite pleased with how the car no longer bounced around. Eventually I’ll have to get rear shocks, too.

I finished welding the mounting and reinforcing brackets to the replacement running board. I still need to finish de-warping the other board before I can sandblast and paint them.

I installed the kick panels on either side under the dashboard.  Now the front interior of the car looks more respectable.

I also made and installed a pair of brackets for attaching the rear seat shoulder harnesses. I cut them out of a piece of angle iron I had lying around, welded on nuts for the harness mounting bolts, painted them, and bolted them to the interior of the body just above the rear seat.

My rebuilt shock absorbers arrived today, and I bead-blasted the shock arms and mounting bolts. Tomorrow I will paint them, and I will be able to drive the car with working front shocks.

I decided to repair a rusted-out mounting bracket on the left-hand running board by transplanting a bracket (and the surrounding sheet metal) from the other board, which is too messed up to be worth restoring. I cut away the bad part, and trimmed the donor piece to fit perfectly in its place. Then I welded it in place. The welding caused the board to warp a bit, which I will have to fix by un-shrinking the weld beads.

To replace the unusable right-hand board, I am using an old repro board that is missing its mounting brackets.  I made a new pair of brackets from some U-shaped metal channel, and drilled and filed the keyhole-shaped holes for the bolts that attach them to the car’s frame.  In the next few days I will weld the new brackets to the board, and add some additional bracing to compensate for the fact that the repro board was made from thinner sheet metal than the originals.  Then I will be able to sandblast and paint both boards, mount the rubber sheeting to their top surfaces, and put them on the car.

I got the seat belts fully installed. Now I can drive with less fear of getting killed. I also figured out a good way to make shoulder harness mounting points for the front and rear seats. Those would have to be installed before the interior panels, even if the shoulder harnesses don’t get added until much later.   I also installed sound-deadening material on the insides of the cowl panels.
Somebody gave me an old set of repro running boards. They are missing the mounting brackets and some reinforcing strips, but I will probably use the right hand one, since the original right-hand running board is beyond repair.

I installed the cowl lights and hooked up the wiring, and they worked. They are repros that were on the car when I got it, and didn’t need any attention. I had to make the little wooden spacer blocks that go inside the cowl where the lights attach. That just took a little time with a piece of oak, my bandsaw, and my drill press.

The seat belts for the front seats arrived, so I started working on getting them mounted. I located and drilled some holes in the floorpan behind the front seat for the mounting bolts, and I cut some pieces of heavy steel plate to serve as reinforcements. I need to weld the nuts for the mounting bolts to the plates, paint them, and attach them beneath the floorpan. It would have made more sense to do this a couple of years ago, before I refinished the floorpan, but at that time it was simply not on my mind…

One of the front spindles was rather worn (from a long-ago spun bearing). I had restored and installed it a couple of years ago anyway, but I had been keeping my eyes out for a replacement. Last year at Hershey I had bought a couple of potential replacement spindles, and last week I decided to install one. So I chose the best one, cleaned, bead-blasted, and painted it, and installed the kingpin bushings. Then I took apart the right front axle, removed the old spindle, and installed the new one. This was a quick and easy job, since I was not dealing with 70-year-old filthy rusty parts.
I also installed most of the 40 or so cotter pins in various nuts and bolts in the chassis. I had not bothered with them when I originally assembled the chassis, since I figured I would probably end up having to remove and replace most of them before the car was finished. Since I had to remove the wheels to reach some of them, I also double-checked and adjusted the brakes. Dealing with the cotter pins was helped by the fact that there is a published list of the size and location of every single cotter pin in the car.
At this point, I felt brave enough to actually drive the car on the road, despite the lack of the fenders and hood. I took it on 3 or 4 trips of several miles each.  I even went to a gas station and got most of a tank of gas.  It ran reasonably well, and the brakes and steering were fine, but the lack of shocks made it pretty bouncy.  Hitting bumps while going around a corner on a narrow road could get sort of exciting. There was also more vibration than I expected around 40-45 MPH, and at one point the horn cover fell off and I had to go back later and search for it on the side of the road.  Fortunately I found it, and it did not get damaged.

I put a bit more epoxy filler on the steering wheel, in a few places I had previously managed to miss. Then I sanded it, buffed it with my power buffer, and gave it a coat of floor wax. It doesn’t look perfect- the color of the epoxy does not exactly match the original plastic- but it’s a lot nicer than when I got it.

I bolted the steering wheel in place and installed the headlight/horn switch, which has a long shaft that runs all the way down the center of the steering column. Then I bolted the headlight bar to the fender braces (without the fenders, which are back in the attic), and hooked up the headlights and horn.  The car is more drivable now, with working lights and horn. Those things are functional but unrestored, so eventually they will have to come off again.

I guess the next step is to start test-fitting the interior panels, and do any necessary trimming or adjustment.