Another Glue Bomb 32 Ford Roadster

[gwolf]

This weekend I started working on another glue bomb 32 Ford roadster, and this one is a real dog. Body is cracked, it's filthy, there's possibly bleach spilled on it, there's glue burns; all that good stuff.

We know already that this is going to sit low, so we ditch the one piece fenders, cut out the long interior door pieces, then figure out how to give the body a nice wedge over the frame.

I cut one inch long pieces of 1/4" round dowels, then sanded two sides to make it fit into the recessed area of the frame. This will raise the read end of the body, creating the wedge. Scratch that, I don't like how it looks, they stick out too far in order to work, I don't like that the pieces fall out easy,etc; I just don't like it. 

An older 32 Ford model I'd bought had an ingenious way of achieving a deep channel over the body without the "read end sink" that AMT 32's get when built without the fenders. The builder has inserted these flat backed cylinders in the body, so that they raised the rear when sat onto the frame. Did they come from the kit? Did they come from another kit? Where did they come from?

A quick trip to a small, old school hardware store and I was able to acquire these; I forget what they're called, but they were 20 cents each, so I bought enough for a few builds.

I was able to trim these down with a hobby knife to just about the same size as the ones on the red 32 pictured above.

An almost perfect fit.

The firewall has to be cut out and lowered and a new drivetrain passage area created. Above is a untouched AMT 32 Ford firewall, below is my trimmed one.

Now I've got the stance I want. The engine is a donor from an AMT Proshop 32 Ford, a four cylinder like the kind that came in a 32 Ford. There wasn't enough room for the engine using the frame that came with this car. I thought maybe they made it different then (it's an older kit), it's a little shorter, something doesn't fit right. Turns out the floor piece that has the molded-in gas pedal was (heavily) glued slightly too far forward, so the engine wouldn't fit. So now that I know that I may end up using the original frame and removing the floor piece by force if I have to. Big and little whitewalls are from the parts box, wire spoke rims are from another donor 32 Ford. The radiator and shroud will be lowered to match the cowl height as I go on. I'll need to find a donor windscreen at some point, too.

Edited July 13, 2017 by gwolf
Update: July 12, 2017

[gwolf]

Here's the untouched original frame whose floor I had to remove with pliers.

Here's the same frame sanded, filed, and washed. I can make a new floor with 1/32" birch plywood or sheet styrene. I'll also need to make some points for the engine mounts out of thin dowel (not sure why those were cut off).

The body has been sanded, filed, and washed as well. There will be imperfections after I put a coat of primer on and I'm ok with that; in fact, I want those imperfections.

The firewall was sanded so that it will fit well against the body. The radiator shroud was sanded as well.

So I'm going to try to use as much of the original build as possible including the frame. A new engine, wheels and tires will be donors.

Edited July 13, 2017 by gwolf

[gwolf]

This evening I got the seat area, firewall, and radiator painted.

I got one coat of ruddy brown primer on the body tonight as well. Not as bad as I thought it would be. The really bad places are a few areas on the trunk, the area below the trunk, and the passenger side door. I'll salt those areas (thinking of using something finer, powdered sugar maybe) to get the ruddy brown to show through then apply rusting solution, then salt those areas again, then paint.

Probably old hat for some of you, but while playing with this extra frame and suspension I thought, wow, I could really get this front end low if I reversed the spring and cross-member. On this new frame I could just cut out the recessed area further, then drop in the tab on the suspension from the other side and voila, you're done. Also, do I need these parts in red on a channeled 32 without fenders?

Since the suspension on the glue bomb 32 was literally glue bombed to the frame, I couldn't drill the cross-member, so I tried something I'd never done before; I cut out the whole section of the crossmember containing the suspension and flipped it. 

While the adhesive on the glue bomb suspension dries, you can preview what it'll look like by using the extra frame and suspension. I'm not used to it yet, and it seems like a drastic change in stance.