Landman

After bringing up the Model A I thought you may be interested in a quickie version of its story.It was my first old car. It had been started by a man in Sebright near Lake Simcoe and he got as far as the chassis then gave up. A Model A restorer in our area purchased it and offered it for sale as a "partial restoration". I bought it from him and had him complete it. Sometimes I'd drop by and check on the progress. That's me removing masking tape on one of those occasions. The interior was a kit from Dixie Upholstery in Southern Ontario. The polaroid photo shows how he delivered it to me. I didn't like black tires on black wheels so he replaced them with whitewalls on cream wheels that he happened to have. It didn't take long for the family to outgrow it and I ended up selling it. The girls are now in their thirties and have children older than they were then. I should retake that photo with the Chevy when its done. The day that photo was taken was +30C. No fur hat needed.

Roger, we did not repaint the firewall. He masked it where the cowl lacing goes. Bernie, you have piqued my curiosity. Does it mean Permanently Worried Foolish Person? Jim, oddly enough I also had a Manila Brown Model A at one time, and you are right, it is kinda close to that Light Chestnut I have on the Chevy. I must have a weakness for that color. By the way, are you a guitar player? Chuck, several of those treasured characters had a hand in the project. The one behind who everyone thought was driving is the retired bodyman who performed the metal shrinking operations on the trunklid, tailpan and a hood panel. The one standing closest to the passenger door in the second photo is the retired millwright who measured my engines when I was trying to figure out which one to rebuild. The one in the fur hat installed the new tires on my repainted wheels.

They have a lip that surrounds the two outside edges and tabs that fit in the hole. You bend those over to retain the rubber corner. The one who appears to be driving is actually pushing behind the car. You see his head through both the windshield opening and the back window. I thought we may as well get more than less pushers since none of us are getting any younger.

It was about -30C that day.

Pushed the car back home with the boys. Started the reassembly. Or is it restarted the assembly, or maybe more accurately restarted the reassembly as it is the third reassembly. Intalled the bracket in the cowl vent, mounted and adjusted the cowl vent to the body. Installed the dash light sockets onto the new harness. They actually work. Spent some time today with a helper, trying to install the windshield and the rear window. The windshield doesn't fit, it is too large. It was cut from a template made from an actual windshield. The opening hasn't been modified, therefore the repop rubber is different. The glassman made a house call, took all kinds of measurements, made marks on the glass and took off with the windshield. Says he can trim it without having to cut a new one. So to pacify myself, I installed the stainless trim and the rubber corners on a hood panel.

Please accept my sympathies for the loss of your dad.

Looks like you have two drivetrains there Mike You should have no problem selecting the good parts. It looks like quite the puzzle. If you're a newbie to the make, it could be quite challenging...and interesting.

Here it is, scuffed and ready to re-shoot along with the other parts that are ready for paint. All that's left to prep is the tailpan and the sidemount covers. I spent some time in there today showing them all the areas that will have to be taken down rather than just scuffed to avoid the levels of buildup which would cause interference in the assembly. I hope we didn't forget anything.

This level of fabrication is just fascinating. Great work!

Just plain wonderful. Now I hope you'll get to enjoy it before you go and sell it. Congratulations on a super, super restotation!

If you look closely at the photo with the cowl vent in place you'll see that the cowl vent is a little more brown. Can you imagine how the doors, hood and trunklid whould have stood out?

We only have to redo the body shell and the doors because his original batch was too small and not to code. I just came from there, by Sunday the whole shebang should be done with the correct color and all out of the same batch. The rest, hood, trunklid, fenders and running boards were still in primer.

Like I said, the invite to install my upholstery kit is still open. Nice work Chris.

Chris, is the circular "cover" under the brake pedal to access the master sylinder? My Hawk was like that.

Roger, I'm going to have to tell you that in a private message.

Jim, thanks for the kind words. While it is a compliment for me to be compared to Oldcar, he is miles ahead of me on all counts.

I think it was the renowned philosoper Unimog John who said on this forum not too long ago:"Three steps ahead, then one back." Well, what about 1/2 mile back. Due to an insurmountable snafu with the paint (see the photo with the cowl vent) it was decided to repaint the whole car. So off came all the stuff I had been putting on and away it went back to the paint shop. There are a couple of things I had thought of doing but hadn't gotten around to due to my haste with the reassembly. One was the grill. I thought there wasn't enough contrast between the bars and the background. US built cars have every second bar painted black while Canadian cars have all the bars shiny. So I just masked them all and sprayed metallic charcoal on the bottom of the fabric. It doesn't really show in the photos but is noticeable to the naked eye. The other thing was the dash. The instrument cluster wasn't a close enough match to the rest so I redid the woodgrain. While I was at it I put the toner to the garnish moldings and gave them some clearcoat.

I am not a member of AACA. How could I get a copy of that magazine?

Chris, there is a product called CLR that seems to work reasonably well in dissoving rust. I wunder if a rag soaked with that & wrapped around your steering column would help.

I have heard of crankshafts being built up with hard chrome. Almost bought one for my project.

When one looks at the ensemble of all modelers, there's Mr.Zimmermann and then there's the others.

I am doing a `34 Chevy which is very similar. It can be seen in the "Our cars and restorations" forum. It took me the better part of six months as well. The body was put over the wood frame in at least two pieces and then welded on the wood.

Chris, How would you like to come up here and install my uphoilstery kit when the time comes.

Thanks Mr.Keiser. Did you remember that it was in response to one of your postings that I started this thread?

That's nice. Thanks West!