'30 model A coupe

[Mr. Metallic]

Very well done mods, but we've come to expect nothing less from your bench. Keep it rolling.

[Speedpro]

On 4/29/2025 at 3:52 AM, bill-e-boy said:

This move is very radical. May need some time to let it grow on me. Normally a chop will give the effect of longer doors but both is like I said radical especially with the wedge section.

Suicide doors?? blue tinted windows, white interior, loud colour like a bright bright metallic (or pearl) blue and an Ardun with modern injectors - lets start dreaming. I saw somewhere an Ardunised Lincoln V12 - will that fit?

Bill, you said a word I never thought I would hear in a comment about the mods that I am putting this '30 through. If you look up the word "Radical" one of the definitions say "Very different from the usual". And different is what I'm aiming for. At times I have to let things grow on me also. 

Thanks for the ideas! You just had to throw in the Suicide door thing didn't ya! It was never in the plans but plans change. I am getting closer to choosing colors though.

Thanks for following along

 

[Speedpro]

On 4/29/2025 at 6:05 AM, Kit Karson said:

Absolutely stunning, Brother! Once thought to be a very basic Model A body this has morphed into a custom coach works modified Town Coupé. When finished I wonder how many will be able to detail the true number changes that have been incorporated into this masterfully engineered hot rod!?. -KK

Thanks Brother! Without some of the very in depth conversations we have had, it would have never made it to this point. Thanks for the inspiration.

[Speedpro]

On 4/30/2025 at 5:32 AM, Zippi said:

I'm really liking this build.  Going to be a nice looking little Hot Rod.

Thanks Bob! 

21 hours ago, Mr. Metallic said:

Very well done mods, but we've come to expect nothing less from your bench. Keep it rolling.

Thank You Craig, Appreciate you checking out the build. 

[bill-e-boy]

On 5/2/2025 at 4:27 AM, Speedpro said:

ill, you said a word I never thought I would hear in a comment about the mods that I am putting this '30 through. If you look up the word "Radical" one of the definitions say "Very different from the usual". And different is what I'm aiming for. At times I have to let things grow on me also. 

Wel it is "radical" and I am glad that the meaning fits. Thought long and hard before I started with "suicide doors"😁

Look forward to seeing some colour

[Kit Karson]

On 5/1/2025 at 12:50 PM, Speedpro said:

Thanks Brother! Without some of the very in depth conversations we have had, it would have never made it to this point. Thanks for the inspiration.

Collaboration is the key that unlocks the hidden beauty found just below the skin of every potential kustom build, Brother! -KK

[Speedpro]

In this update, I did some more chopping on the '30. This time, it is in the suspension that needed to loose a couple inches. I figured that a 4-5 inch drop up front and lets say 3 inch in the rear would get it close to what my eye wants to see. The most important part that I want to keep its factory position is the radiator. There is no reason to mess with the way it mounts. Just need to shorten the grill shell. The rad and the shell were taped together and cut. The hight the radiator needed to be was determined, cut, sanded and everything glued back together. This will mount in the stock location with no other changes made.

 

 

With the radiator out of the way, I can do the front end drop. 

Here is how I dropped the front on the '30. In the first pic I wanted to pinpoint the rad mounts with the red arrows. We want to leave those alone. A line was drawn across the cross member. This is the cut line. You can see that the line is right at the radiator mounting notches. Everything behind the line is removed to make room for the new cross member. 

 

The new cross member is going to be mounted level with top of the frame. It's location will be determined by the width of the leaf spring. Need a nice snug fit between the rad mount and the new cross member. Made up the cross member with some evergreen sheet and installed it using the front axle as a helper.

 

 

One leaf was removed from the front axle. To get the leaf spring to touch the new cross member, notches had to be filed into the frame for a relief for the spring. A location pin was added back to the top of the spring. Might have got 5 inch drop out of this mod.

 

The front axle is getting striped of it's chrome as are the rest of the front end parts. Down the road, I get to shorten the shocks also. Happy with how the front came out. Still get to do the rear. Its super simple back there. More to come.

Thanks for looking and appreciate your comments.

[Speedpro]

While going through the interior parts, I noticed the trunk divider and thinking, pretty cool part. Directions show that you can see it behind the aluminum seats and also can see the gas tank and battery through it. But I think I have another way to see this part when using it. And it's from the other side.

Opening the trunk is the first. 

 

That was easy. Will be using a donor body for the new trunk lid. That will be later. 

The new trunk divider is next. My idea is to cover the back side of the divider with some sheet styrene and then turn it around so you are looking at the frame work from inside the trunk. Had to trim to fit and add a few scraps of evergreen to complete the now new divider.

 

Finished some small this and that's and think about what i'll do next.....................................

[Speedpro]

Still been working on this build. As you all know, life just seem's to get in the way this time of year, but I'm still getting alittle done here and there.

Got around to fitting the engine. I knew there was trouble going into this. Things are tight. So tight that the trans tunnel required some surgery. Probably could have built a new one, but I just wanted to use the oe one. This area will be covered with carpet that will hide the goofs that may be noticable. 

 

 

I built a hinge for the trunk and mounted it under the deck lid using a couple pieces of round rod drilled to the dia. of the wire and cut in half. Still more work to do there.

 

That's it for now. For the next update, I will be fixing the upside down wheelcylinders!

 

[NOBLNG]

Nice work on the trunk divider and trans tunnel.👍 I’m liking what I see so far!😎

[Mark W]

This is coming along nice Paul. Great detail work.

[Kit Karson]

When are you going to add some shades of grey? -KK

[Speedpro]

7 hours ago, Kit Karson said:

When are you going to add some shades of grey? -KK

Soon my friend, soon................

Time to work on the chassis some more. My list isn't too long, but the skill level is up there. First on the list is adding another crossmember for the rear suspension to mount to. Found this alittle tricky. After cutting away some of the existing tubing to make way for the new crossmember, the appropriate size round rod was fit and ca glued in place. After it dried, the rod was cut away where I wanted to put the drop for the driveshaft clearence. A piece of rod was shaped and attached between the two rods and welded in place using tamiya extra thin cement.  

 

Next was to shorten the shocks as the rear has been lowered a bit. Figured I had to take out about a full coil. One end of the coil was cut off, then cut away one coil and glued it back together using the molding lines to put things back together so the eyes would still line up. 

 

Added some needed structure to the frame

 

On the front, the shock mounts were installed to the frame. I cut the shock body off the shock rod. I then drilled the body so the rod slides in and out for adjustment. More on that at another time. I did not care for the hole in the shock mount, so it was drilled out and fit with a piece of rod to fill it in.

 

Here's a mockup of the rear suspension. With the coils cut and the rear end housing at the correct angle for what I'm doing, the ladder bars from the kit are being fitted to their new position. Gotta come up with some mounting points for sure.

 

Ah, fixing one of the biggest flaws of this kit, the upside down wheel cylinder trick! I'm sure everyone knows about this so here's a couple picks of what I did to correct this issue...........put a flat on other side, add material to original flat, sand to shape and you are now 180 degrees in the right direction and the wheel cylinders are doing the same.

 

 

Thanks for looking and any comments!

[BK9300]

Excellent fabrication, Paul - lots to learn here.

[NOBLNG]

Yes, great work Paul. Nice easy fix for the wheel cylinders.👍😎

[Speedpro]

5 hours ago, NOBLNG said:

Yes, great work Paul. Nice easy fix for the wheel cylinders.👍😎

Thanks Greg, really hope this helps others building this kit. 

[Speedpro]

The build has been moving along, but still I am coming up with idea's and being feed suggestions while talking to friends. Pretty late in the game for any big changes or additions, but some small ones can happen. Lately, its about paint because its getting so close to that stage. Added a thing or two that more than likely didn't need to be added, but just had to do it. 

Update time on the model A. When I left off last time, the rear suspension was being worked on. The ladder bars were next to be fit. But first had to build a couple mounting points for the ladder bars to mount to. With the box's in place, the ladder bars were be built. Short and sweet, the kit bars were modified by shortening them and using the parts that were cut off to build the new pair. Nothing fancy.

 

 

At this point, the only thing left to do is put a light coat of primer on the frame and see how much more work I get to do, Ya!

 

Not as bad as I expected. There are some areas that need to be addessed. Get things squared away and a couple more coats of primer and it'll look good. Maybe even good enough for paint!

This is what happens when you are digging through box's of kits. this came out of the AMT '33 Ford Sreet Rod kit. The kit has a real nice front bucket seat, but it was the back seat that grabbed my attension. I put it on the bench for further examination. 2 hrs later, I have the seat looking like its going into the car, but am not 100% sure on this yet. I'm still working on it.

 

That's it for now. Things will be getting some MrSurfacer 1000 primer next couple days so things might have a different look the next time you see them.

 

[Zippi]

Boy, that's just looking real good there Paul.

[espo]

Like the extent of your chassis and interior improvements. 

[Speedpro]

21 hours ago, Zippi said:

Boy, that's just looking real good there Paul.

Thanks Bob, some day I'll get her up on 4 wheels and really see what I'v been doing. 

 

34 minutes ago, espo said:

Like the extent of your chassis and interior improvements. 

Thanks David, I always like to build something a little different then what comes in the kit. I mean, who doesn't. But I use and modifing the parts that come in the kit for most of the build. And add some scratch building along the way.

[Speedpro]

I pulled these hood sides from a used up monogram '32 ford roadster kit. I thought about trying to use these as they are intended, but just came to the conclusion that they will not work. So what could I do with these hood sides? And they do have louvers! After thinking about this for a while, I have come up with a idea. 

The idea I came up with is to build a rear splash or belly pan (call it what you want). I figure with the louvers it will make a nice pan. But it is the louvers that will make it a challenge to make it look right. It's going to be close! First things first, I welded the two parts together with tamiya extra thin cement and let it dry overnight. Then the cutting and sanding got the part to fit in its location. The front leading edge was trimmed to conform too the differential. At the rear, the body lost some of it's thickness so the pan would sit down on the frame rails. I had to do it this way so the pan can use the louvers I had planned on using. Like I said, It's tight. In the end, eveything worked out. Got the frame and some misc parts primered. It was slow going on the pan when it came to cutting the holes for the coil overs. In the end, this was well worth doing! 

 

The pan will be painted body color. As always, things happen! And yes, there was a stumble along the way! Was doing the final sanding and broke the part in half. It was glue back together and a strip of evergreen added to the back so that won't be happening again. What I don't like is, it's covering some other work that was done, but it is what it is.

That's it for now, till next time..........................

 

 

 

 

 

[Kit Karson]

Absolutely the fitting end to the underside of your model A, Brother! -KK

[dino246gt]

Total coolness! I'm loving this step by step fabrication!

 

[NOBLNG]

Beautiful fab work!😎

[slusher]

Fabrication definitely keeps my interest…