THE 1946 FORD COUPE
Our newest acquisition to the fleet has touched down in a state like many of the vehicles around here which is obviously in a state of incompletion or disassembly. This new acquisition is a 1946 Ford Coupe that was in the process of being swapped onto an S10 frame. This was one of the biggest selling points of this car when I initially targeted it on facebook marketplace. So anyway, this car is a simple body that was being swapped out onto an S10 frame and being chopped a little. The owner did what amounted to pie cuts at the back of the roof in order to drop the back half of the roof down as well as on the A-pillars to do the same at the front while leaving the center alone. Since it takes some skill and nerve to take on a chop job, doing it this way allowed him to drop the roof some without having to really do a lot of adding and subtracting of metal from the top half of the roof. Of course this body/frame will still need a powertrain and interior as well as all of the other aspects of a complete car.
So we picked up the car during the trip that had us bringing back the 51 Chevy Suburban. After returning from that run, we also had a vacation to the east coast which was part of a 2 week vacation I took off from the job. Because of this length of time I took off from the job and the week on the east coast, I had planned on making the run to Texas to get this car a couple weeks after returning from the east coast. Despite the weather having other plans, conditions worked to our advantage, allowing the grounds at the guy's house to be solid enough to allow us to be able to get in to retrieve the car.
Fast forward to that point in time and we went ahead and rented another big truck, the same truck that we rented to get the 51 Chevy, to make the run back to Texas to pick up the 46 Ford. Instead of using our neighbor's huge trailer to pick up this little car, I decided to press our newly acquired tow dolly into service. Since the car is on an S10 frame, the tires should all turn, especially on the rear end, which should also be in decent enough shape to spin freely, for the several hundred miles back home. I had to do some work on the dolly since it was in rough shape when we bought it. The ramps needed to be reinforced with new welds and new flex plates on top that instead of being made of the original plastic were made of a pretty rigid plate metal. The tires on the dolly were brand new so I didn't have any worries about those, even though I did take one of the tires off the boat trailer we have as a spare.
Just like before, but in reverse, we drove out to Texas in the morning on a Friday, but instead of retrieving the car on Friday, we went to Ft Worth and spent the night at the same hotel we used on the Chevy run. That Saturday, after checking out a local aviation museum, we drove to the guy's house to pick up the car. In the process of loading up the car, we found out the body wasn't fully secured to the frame so we had to use some ratchet straps to help secure the body to the frame. I even used the come-along that I used to pull the car onto the dolly to strap down the rear of the body to the frame. The dolly's wheel straps obviously held the wheels to the dolly's cradle.
Now the good thing is the car came with all of the body parts, including the one piece front clip. We had to secure all of this stuff in the bed of the truck. In order to do this we did a selective placement of the parts into the truck where everything is in there solid and not hanging over the sides or up against one another where anything could be damaged. Of course it took two of us to move some of these parts into the truck since this is some heavy metal. This isn't some 2012 Honda Civic sheet metal, this is old school heavy metal here. So with the body parts in the bed and tied down with more ratchet straps we hit the road. But not quite. The rear tires on this car weren't exactly in the best shape. One of them the side walls were showing visible cracks. I wasn't about to chance this with the distance and speeds we would have to travel. Luckily we found a local used tire shop that we was able to get a couple of tires installed on the rear rims so we can at least be confident enough in riding down the road without the concern of a blowout.
Even though I tried to be conservative with the speeds I drove, I still found myself going faster than I originally wanted to for a good distance. I did have to be careful on the bumps because it would have the whole body shimmy and bounce around, which made me super nervous since the body isn't bolted to the frame. Despite multiple spook moments we did make it back home in one piece without incident.
Now since the tow dolly is a self steering model where the cradle pivots on a central mounting point to aid in tighter turning, backing this thing up was next to impossible (don't ask me how I know), so I ended up driving the whole rig around the other side of the yard and parked the truck and trailer in a staging area next to the spot where I wanted to park the car. We went ahead and undone all of the straps and tie downs and rolled the car off the dolly, steering the wheels to allow the body to roll part way into the line of fire of the parking spot. From there I took the S10 and hooked a chain to the body to pull it back more to have it lined up straight with the parking spot, which is behind the El Camino, next to the garden fence, across from the storage trailer.
From there we were able to push the car the rest of the way into the parking spot. It's right behind the El Camino, with enough spacing to allow for me to work on the front of the car if need be, especially when it comes to installing the front clip. We unloaded the body parts and staged them behind the car for the time being but more than likely either cover the parts up with a tarp or move the panels up to the garage.
Now what I would want to do is try to get the body fully secured to the frame then do some body prep work so I can start remounting the fenders and trunk lid. I would do the front clip and hood but I decided it would be better to wait to install the powertrain before putting the front clip on. It would make the work around the engine bay be a lot easier without fenders in the way. Now I might go ahead and do some prep work to the hood and front clip, quite possibly in the garage but I might go ahead and set up something temporarily to hold the panels off the ground where I could paint them and have them ready so when I do finish the powerplant install I will have the front panels already set to go on.
Now as far as the plans for this car, since this is an S10 frame and I'm not really trying to make something super hot, but really more of a cruiser/daily driver, I planned on just installing a 4.3L V6 and a 5 spd manual, the same powertrain that would've been in the S10. I would modify the V6 with a 4 bbl carb intake and HEI distributor, essentially turning the engine into a smaller version of the standard old school SBC powerplant that most would've put in an old car. Now for anyone who's worked with these engines, they would already know that the 4.3L is the same as a SBC all the way down to the bolt patterns for the accessories in the front and the flywheel and transmission bell housing in the back. Because of this, the options are very similar for this little engine as they are with the SBC V8. I still would rather keep the 5spd manual transmission since I feel that a manual transmission will take away the variable of having transmission issues that are normally experienced with automatic transmissions. Other than the clutch, a manual transmission rarely gives its user any problems. Since I want to make this car be something that I could comfortably hop in and drive it long distances on road trips, having a manual tranny on board would better facilitate this goal.
Now for the body parts. Since the roof underwent a chop job, the doors would have to be chopped as well. The driver's door had already started being cut, with part of the window frame having been cut free and in need of being trimmed to match the new roof lines before being welded back up. The passenger side door will need a complete rework as it remains untouched. Also I will have to more than likely overhaul or replace the window regulators and reassemble the doors in their entirety, including replacement windows, before writing off the doors as complete. This also includes the lock/latch mechanisms.
Getting the body panels back on the car will go a long way towards completing the project since once the body is reassembled, even if not a drop of paint touches the car, all that's really left (and I use this phrase loosely) is adding the powerplant. Since this is a simple car for all intents, wiring the car would be rather simple compared to a "newer" muscle car that has different devices that need to be wired in. Now I do have the dash panel with the gauges, but this shouldn't be much of a problem since I can only imagine that there's aftermarket gauges available specifically for this car and the similar models that might share the same gauges. If not, I will more than likely try to find universal gauges that I can construct frames with which to mount them into the holes on the dash to create a new assembly that will hold some appearance of originality while utilizing modern hardware. As for HVAC, I will more than likely source an aftermarket system that bolts under the dash. I don't know if there's an all in one system out there but I know there's standalone AC systems that are pretty streamlined for mounting under existing older car dashes and heater/blower boxes that are pretty low profile for mounting inside dashes as well, all of which are viable options since there really isn't much of a dash and really the only vents I would be concerned with are the defrost vent and an chest level vent.
That is really what intrigues me about this car, the simplicity of everything. Because the interior and everything is pretty spartan, even by stock standards, it makes for an easy build compared to something newer. That is why these cars tended to glorify the idea of the "rat rod", their simplicity. I can really build this car with very little and still have everything I want in it without going too crazy with the build and if I hold on to the concept of building a "Roadkill" car (those who know the show know what I'm talking about), then I will be able to build this car with very little. And in the end that's what I'm aiming for, being able to put out a finished product without spending a long time doing so since I want to be able to enjoy this car more sooner than later. So with that, the work begins.