Here is a few pictures of my parents taking us on vacation. My dad had two 57 so when I decided to build a car I picked the 57. So I bought one drove it for a year. Did not like the way it handled so put on power disc breaks drop spindles from drop'em & stop'em. Was the perfect set up an easy to install. Then it was time for the Rick Wurth power rack and pinion steering and new tilt steering column. Then you need a B&M floor shifter. Then the transmission started to slip so I took it out to get it fixed. See some holes in the floor so take out the interior and find lot of rust so order new floor panels and start disassemble of the car going for a full frame off restoration.
Well this is a great site to belong to for questions and finding parts if you need. Wish my car was that nice when I started mine.
My wife calls it the rust bucket. I hope it does not take me to long to get back on the road. Today I am going to make something to take body off. I was looking at Red Wings body lifts plans. I will take my material list to metal shop and see what it cost.
Jerry. Your car looks so good, I was surprised to see that it apparently had gotten just a cosmetic restoration. Very glad to see it fell in the right hands with the body off plans you've got for it. Looks like you've got plenty of working room also. Are you going to attempt to save the paint job, or will that be determined by what you find?
That's an awesome vintage shot with the family car.
Keep us updated with pics and info. Thanks for posting.....we all love to follow a build thread.
btw, those pics give a whole new meaning to the title of this thread. LOL
Great picture with the boat on top.
That's the way it was when you went on vacation back then. Everything went on top of the car and in the trunk and away you go. Fun times.
That's a great old photo. There is a lot of useful info on this site.
Jerry Box:
Welcome aboard, & I agree with the others about the great car + boat photo. Your floorboards look very similar to mine when I bought my 57. Just a suggestion, don't forget to replace the cause of your rusted floorboards, the 2 thin rubber cowl vent tubes that drains the cowl area, through the inside of the car and out to the inside of the fender well. That was one of the seemingly insignificant pieces of Ford engineering that led to lots of problems years later. Of course, no one expected we'd still be driving our 57's half a century after they rolled out of the factory.
Bob
57 AGIN
Got any pics of the tilt column install?
Here are some photos of the steering column before I took the car apart. When I put it back together I will take a lot of photos. Right now I am building something to put the body on so I can start the frame.
Just a thought...big wheels so you can roll around easier...like outside.
Nice rotisserie, I just need to build something to get the body off the frame and will let me roll it around. And get it on a trailer to take it to the body shop. Because I can not do body work good enough for me. I have a question about the 2 thin rubber cowl vent tubes, I have not look at them to much yet. Is this the round pieces thin rubber on the side of the fire wall and are they supposed to be hooked up to the tubes under the dash? I guess I need to find a book on this old car. Are just keep taking pics and hoping someone is checking the website to help people like me. This is my first old car and I really want to do a nice job. I really appreciate all the help.
That's the drains. They hook to the tubes inside. Without them the car fills with water. Car looks good. Like the old photo.
If I had it to do over on a modified car, I'd fix that problem once and for all. I think Rich and others have rebuilt those drains with a long lasting solution. I think I would fix it with steel.
That would be the best way. I just used a new drain tube..same as oem. I think Bob and Rick did an extention of the tube so it drained outside the wheelwell. Not sure what he did, if anything, for a different type of connection to the cowl though. If you were going to replace the rubber with steel, you'd have a tough time reaching the joint for welding, even with a temp. window cut in the firewall. I think my solution is going to be a rubber seal under the cowl vent to keep water out to begin with.
Rich
Steel tubes could be fabricated and instead of welding I would make the new tube slide over the original pipe and glue them with 3M panel bond adhesive. The 3M adhesive is an epoxy and has a corrosion inhibitor to prevent the seams from rusting.
I use the 3M panel bond as a seam sealer on all the seams of the car as well, because it never shrinks cracks and can go over both bare and painted metal.
Did you know that you cannot put regular automotive seam sealers over bare metal? Most all should be applied over primed(and not spray can etch, which is a huge no-no). Only 3M panel bond or 3M bare metal seam sealer should be used over unprimed metal.
I recommends the 3M 8115 Panel Bond adhesive in the drip rails and firewall seam of our cars too. The product originally designed for that application was called Drip-Check seam sealer, which was designed to shrink to make a u shaped sealer, but the problem is it always continues to shrink. Using the panel bond will never shrink.
I used small diameter radiator hose and clamps.
Rich & Jerry:
I've attached 4 photos of the cowl drain set up in my 57. I didn't take a photo of the cover plate for the drain tube looking at it from the outside of the car, but we used the stock cover plate to run the heavier duty drain tube down to connect to the fender well. Rick's 57 has fender well headers, so he didn't use the same method he used on my 57. The object of running the drain to the outside of the fender well is to prevent all the rain or wash water from draining down into the space at the bottom of the fender at the rocker panel that always collects road grime & dirt which turns into mud and collects down there to form a built in rust trap. By going through the fender well to the outside water just drains down to the road. Some water will get there if driven in the rain, but this way it isn't directed to the rust trap. Does that make sense??? Seemed like a good idea to me, but it sure isn't stock. You really have to be looking for it to spot it way back under the fender.
Bob
57 AGIN
Thanks for the help. I like the way it go out of the fender, I think I will do that. Nice looking car when I paint I was thinking of blue and silver but not written in stone yet. And the pictures make it so much easier to understand. Thank for the info on the 3m panel bond.
Great info Pat.