Dan's 31 Ford arrives for the car to be completed. We will start be making the car mechanically and electricly sound. Next we will fire the car up. We need to install a gas tank in the trunk (behind the seat) and run all of the fuel lines.
Dan started the car a few years back and did a very nice job so far.
The gauges and dash panel will be replaced.
The engine is a 383 stroker with polished aluminum heads, an Edelbrock Endurashine dual carb setup and a billet specialties surpentine system.
The brake lines needed to be replaced as they were the wrong size and as you can see, they hung down below the frame. There were no residual valves installed to hold pressure to the wheel cylinders. If you read our brake tip section on this site you would know that we always install residual valves when the master cylinder is below the calipers.
The new 3/16" lines were bent and installed along with new residual valves.
We will be installing a gas tank in the back area of the trunk. A Hagan filler door was installed earlier and we will install the tank close to the filler neck. The framework you see pictured here was moved back in the cab so that we could bolt the tank to it.
Once the framework was installed, we fabricated 16ga panels that are welded to the framework for the interior firewall. All seams were seam sealed prior to being painted.
The framework and firewall are now painted and ready for the tank to be installed.
The tank is in and ready for plumbing
This is a shot of the interior firewall after it was welded and seam sealed.
This is a shot of the firewall after we welded in the fabricated filler panels, bodyworked and primed.
We need to C-Notch the frame to allow more clearance for the rear to ensure we give this car the desired stance.
The body is removed and placed on a body cart to make it easier to work on.
There are a number of ways to notch the frame, but we decided to start with welding boxed steel to the top of the frame rail due to space constraints.
This is the floor before we cut it out. We need to raise the floor for pumpkin clearance.
Here I am hanging out in the trunk.
We fabricated caps to cover the frame rail bumps.
This is a shot of the new trunk floor after we welded in the new sheetmetal.
Dan stopped by with the new wheels and tires. This car looks great on the new wheels and tires.
The stance that we were planning for.
The frame "C" notches are completed and the frame was sanded and painted with POR15
The floorpans were welded, seam sealed and also painted with POR15
The trunk floor was raised to allow clearance for the rear. This shot is after all of the welding, seam sealing and painting was complete.
The front of the cowl has this edge for the hood. It tends to take away from the lines of the car and no matter what else is done to the car, your eyes seem to be drawn to this lip. Dan decided it had to be modified.

Here is a better look at that lip. See, I told you your eyes would be drawn to it!

Two cuts will be made. The first cut will remove the hood lip (left side of the blue tape) that will be reused. The second cut will be close to the firewall which will remove the excess metal. We will then cut a slot between the firewall and cowl so we can insert the hood lip.
Here is the hood lip inserted into the slot that we cut between the firewall and cowl. Doing it this way ensures that we will have the lip at the proper height if a hood is ever added. Now we need to weld it all together, bodywork and prime.
Here is the firewall after the bodyword was completed and the firewall primed.
This is a side view of the finished lip placement.
Both wheelwells were stripped, bodyworked and primed. The body is now ready to go back on the frame.
The top rails of the frame were lightly sanded and body to frame webbing adhered. Once this sets, we can put the body back on.
The body is installed for the last time. Today we will weld into place the rear body mount tabs so that we can bolt the rear of the body to the frame. We also need to weld the rear bump stop tabs and then the rear can be reinstalled.
We assembled the "Wise Guys" seat and set it in the car with the seat risers. Even at the lowest setting, the risers made the seat too high for this chopped 31. We made new risers that only lifts the seat 2", but is necessary so the seat can glide on the runners. Once upholstered, the seat will drop a few inches that will allow more head room.
We reinstalled the rear and raised the rear with a floor jack to see how the c-notch worked out. There is now plenty of room for rearend travel.
Remember the rusted grille shell . . . we decided today to take care of that rust and get some good primer on it!
Here is a shot of the shell with half of the rust removed.
Now that all of the rust has been removed, we will now throughly clean the shell and prep for primer.
Here is a shot of the shell with two coats of primer on it.
Since we had the grille shell out, we decided to remove the radiator, drop the front end and get those frame rails painted. Tomorrow it will all go back together.
The front end, radiator, grille and shell were reinstalled. We had to put the headlights on to see what they would look like.
Here is a side view of the freshly painted grille shell, frame rails and new headlights.
The doors needed some work done around the perimeter of the door, the latch and all three hinges. There is a number of layers of paint that has to be removed.
This is the passenger door with the hinges removed. The original rivets had to be drilled out to remove the hinges. We will make threaded plates that we will use to reinstall the hinges.
This is the door side after the paint was removed.
Freshly primed and ready to go!
This is the latch side of the door. We decided to remove the latch to properly remove all of the old paint and to clean and grease the latch assembly.
This is the latch side after being primed.
Since the doors are removed, it was a perfect time to remove all of the paint from the door opening and put some fresh primer on it.
 
The passanger door was scuffed and a fresh coat of primer applied.
The hinges are reinstalled in the a-piller. We will need to order new screws and washers to complete this installation.
The hinges are removed from the driver door. These hinges are in pretty good shape, but will need paint removal, sanding, fresh primer and new hinge pins.
The hinge pins had to be drilled out to get them apart.
The driver side inside door knob and latch assembly needed a little work. Notice that the return spring on the latch release rod is broken.
These are the latch components.
This is a shot of the latch assembly reinstalled after paint removal, cleaning and repainting.
The door glass was wedged against the door skin and the window stop. As it turns out, the window track is missing on one side of the door which allowed the glass slide all of the way down.
Instead of forcing the glass back up, the best way to attack this is to drill the two rivets holding the window stop. This will allow us to remove the stop and easily slide the glass out.
The new front end came in today . . . I guess I know what we will be doing!
We installed the new axle and now Craig is installing the drum brake simulators.
How sweet are these . . . wait until it is all together and the wheels go on . . .
How sweet does this look?
Here is a shot where you can see the drilled axle and sweet drum brake simulators.
This is a shot of the new Autometer American Muscle gauges and the beautiful turned gauge panel.
Dan decided to get the column out of the way by having us install the "Steer-Clear" system in his car.
This is a shot of the "Steer-Clear" system mocked up in the car.
In this shot you can see where the fuse box and AC evaporator are mounted.
This front end looks very cool!
The firewall is modified to enclosed the "Steer-Clear" unit.
Here is a shot from the inside.