Dad's Hiboy, Final Assembly

The front and rear four-bars were loosely bolted in place along with the front axle, spindles, spring, steering box and linkage and the rear axle housing. We got things underway by snugging up the suspension components and then turned our attention to the engine. The engine is an '50 8BA flathead, which had been rebuilt a few years prior by an old friend of Dad's, Ed Mills. Ed has since passed away, but while he was alive his little acreage in Kimberly was a real treasure trove of old fords and ford parts. Ed called his place "Meadow Brook Ford" and the engine was a Meadow Brook special, a zero over block completely rebuilt with NOS parts. It'd been freshly painted red in July and was sitting across the shop on the engine stand. Out came the "cherry picker" and into the chassis swung the engine, it settled in on the mounts pretty as you please. I looked at the pulleys on the water pumps, "Dad, what are we going to do about these?" You see, Dad liked the look of the mount on the old style pump and had put them in place before painting, but old style pump pulleys use a wide V belt and all our accessories were set up for narrow V belts. So the first side step was to put the newer pumps back on and fabricate adapters to connect them to the frame mounts, by the end of the evening everything looked comfortable. Next evening I arrived to find the heads and intake off the engine. I thought we were going to run with the engine stock for a couple weeks, but Dad was anxious to bolt on the shiny stuff. So on went the Edlebrock 11to1 Heads, the 3 Carb. manifold and its carbs. New problem, we had a fan for the old set-up, but none for this set-up, we'll worry about that later..and we did. We assembled the front rotors, brakes, hung the alternator..which would have to be changed the next evening when we realized it was an external Reg. Model, and we wanted an internal. In the meantime the body was painted, at least we got one early evening when Dean kicked us out of the shop so he could spray in peace.

After a few days drying, the body was ready to put in place. We had been quite anxious to fit the body but Dean had been threatening us with severe harm if we touched the paint before it was completely cured. Flat paint finishes are more prone to marking than regular finishes. We bided our time by plumbing brake lines, cylinders, installing the drive shaft and discovering that the rear axles were too short! Severe bummer, we spent an evening convincing ourselves that what we were seeing was true. Then some measurements to tell us what happened. Seems that several years before, (7 or more) when we had sent this rear end out to be narrowed by four inches, the machine shop, (now out of business BTW) had diligently taken 2 inches out of each axle tube and FOUR inches out of each axle! The axles would just reach the carrier but would not engage the splines. We hung on the edge of giving up on our target date for a moment before committing to finding two new axles and running them over to Ted Allan, at Allan Automotive, to be shortened while we continued assembling the car. Finally the body was cured enough to set in place, on it went and the firewall collided with the cylinder heads! We worried about never having test fit the body with the finned heads, worried about all the work that had gone into the firewall so far, and then realized that our adapters on the water pumps were not letting the front of the motor sit low enough. Remember those water pumps? The adapters were re-made, and the body moved into it's final position, to fit the doors. If you've never fit doors on a roadster, consider yourself lucky. The cowl section and the rear section of the body have to be shimmed separately to match height and angles in order to fit the doors, it's at least one evenings work!

We struggled onward, finding lots of little "fit" problems, seems the headers had never been test fit with ALL OF THE BOLTS in place, the steering column was uncomfortably close to the finned heads, we had roughly figured out how to mount the fan, but not how to run the belts, we had only 1 rear brake drum and less than a week left to go! During the final week we worked steadily fastening bits and pieces in place, pulling wire (thank heaven this was a simple old hiboy), filled the brake system, by Wednesday night we'd even got paint on the doors and deck lid! Thursday night was a big night, we fired the motor for the first time since it had left Ed's place four years earlier! Wow, did one of the water pumps ever piss water! We resigned ourselves to having the car all in one piece but not drive-able for the show. We installed the wind shield and called it a night. Friday dad tracked down a rebuild kit for the worst water pump and took it out to be rebuilt. We finished all our major assembly, headlights, wiring, installed the interior. By the end of the day the car was in one piece but the rebuilt pump leaked as badly as ever.

Friday night was opening night for the Fun Run, I filled in our pal Dave Ness on the trials and tribulations of the past few weeks. Dave had seen us at work the week before, when he'd dropped off an article for the club newsletter (which I also put together during this struggle). Dave had tipped us to the "two sided V-belt" trick for driving the left water pump and alternator during that evening. Tonight he grinned at me and said "I've got a set of those water pumps chromed and hanging on my shop wall, they're rebuilt and I'll lend 'em to you." I picked up Dave's pumps at 11:00 p.m. and took them home with me. Early Saturday morning I went over to Dad's and showed him the prize. He went to work changing the pumps while I finished off the brake and tail lights. By 11:30 we were ready to roll.

We fired up the roadster, opened up the garage door and Dad, with my son Robert in the co-pilots seat, hit the street. The first run around the block! I danced around the alley while I listened to the flathead growling in the distance. A fantastic feeling of relief swept over me as I realized WE HAD MADE IT! After what seemed like an eternity dad was back and it was my turn at the wheel. WOW this was better than dancing in the alley! Now I could really enjoy the weekend! Needless to say there were lots more little things to do, the clevis pin on the brake cylinder (It almost fell out on my trial drive!) was fixed right away , timing, alignment and such. The main thing was being able to drive the car at the Rod Run and for the remainder of the summer. Part of the season to enjoy and work the bugs out, and enjoy the roadster where it's suited best..under a sunny sky.

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