1942 Ford Fordor Revival by edhd58

6 minute(s) of a 46 minute read

Have an update, well kinda. This thing has taken so many turns for the worst. The paint when all was said and done, turned out to be 2 completely different shades of Blue. Good new there is that the paint supplier replaced the paint and chemicals I had purchased, a 1/2 gallon of color + stuff. I went ahead and had a full gallon of color made up so I can guarantee the whole thing, assembled, will be painted at the same time so it will all be the same color.

My stepson works for a NIssan dealership and talked to the collision center boss and he agreed to paint it since there will be no body work done. That WAS supposed to happen this next week.

NOW, more bad news, I drove it a little way down the road to a friends house, just cause it was a really nice day, I had JUST gotten the generator converted to 12 volts and it was charging correctly and wanted to drive it at speed a little. As I was leaving his house to return home I attempted to take off when something POPPED loud in the rear end, 2nd time for this. Turns out, again, I have broken pinion and ring gear teeth. The rear in it now is a used I got a couple years ago, because the original had the same issue. 

Now, kinda sorta good news, I never got rid of the original rear end, I am going to tear it down and see about having it rebuilt. If I have to much trouble finding someone I may attempt it myself. It doesn't look too hard and I do have access to a press with ability to make a specialty tool or two if I need to. I told my wife you never get rid of anything till the project is done. 

Thank you Bleach. Yeah, I bought a used one last time, and I just don't know if it was weak or what. Like you say I know after this it should be bullet proof. I just ordered everything, just over $600 of stuff. Gear set from Speedway, on sale and saved $50, everything else was in a kit from Mac's. I stepped up to a higher 3.55 gearing, I figure this will make it a little more cruise friendly. Plus as torquey (is that a word) as this engine is I think it will be fine even on the lower end. It had 3.78 gears so its not a huge jump I don't think. Crap, as I am writing this I realize I need to order the E-brake cable and misc stuff that goes with that. Oh well it's not like I didn't need other stuff too, I better go order that stuff while I am thinking about it. 

12-26-2015

Its been a while since I posted anything here. I've been working 55 and 60 hour weeks lately with not much time I felt like doing anything once I got home and ate supper. I will be getting this thing painted as soon as I get the rear end back end and the body shop says its ready, I now have 3 people lined up in case each one says they cant do it now.

 If you may have looked on a couple other forums you may have noticed I tore the teeth off the pinion gear in the rear end. It took two tries but I got the correct gears from Speedway and got all the other parts from Mac's Auto Parts. I also decided to go with 3.54/1 gears in the rear instead of the stock 3.78/1 gears. I have been told this will help a lot on cruising with modern traffic when I have to.

I couldn't find anyone local to overhaul the rear end so I had to do it myself. It really isn't hard, just time consuming with all the put togethers and take aparts.

I decided to leave the wishbone in the car and only swap rear axle assemblies. It took a while but I have the axle assemblies swapped but have yet to get the brake drums on, It seems asbestos brake linings WILL absorb moisture and cause them to swell a little, they were stored in a barn and not wrapped in any way. They are also the brake linings that were on the original axle, and look like at least 50 years old. The are still on the backing plates that were in the car when I took that rear end out because it had bad ring gear teeth.

I am now wondering if this is a weak point in the rear end, two out of two rear ends fail!! BUT i was attempting to bark the tires when I messed up the 2nd rear end. I have new brake shoes and will install them on both side, I also have new drums for the original hubs (under drum hubs) but found I have to get the studs out because they are the "swedged" bolts. I am going to look and see if I can update to new bolts that do NOT require the drums be "swedged" on the hubs. I think swedged is the correct term. Anyway, the bolts have shoulders that have to be swollen and hold the drum in place and takes a special tool to do that and another tool get the drum off the hub. 

One picture is the original 42 rear end which has zerk fittings to grease the hub bearings, the others are simply that same assembly disassembled and reassembled. The later rear axle assembly does not have those zerk fittings. That is one reason why i overhauled the earlier rear axle assembly