My First Street Rod

by Jeff Smith

Hello again! The last time we talked we had scrapped the Nova for all of its drive train and cleaned up the tranny. Once we had gotten rid of the remaining pieces of the car we brought the truck inside the garage to continue its journey. First we pulled the "not so stock" Flathead out of the frame. The truck had two flatheads, the stock 1946 Ford Flatty apart in the box, and believe it or not a 1949 Ford Flatty. (And yes, I’m keeping them)

I couldn’t get a drill inside the frame to drill out that rivet so I got out the HOT wrench!

Once the engine was out and remaining wires and junk were gone we had to start taking out key pieces in the frame. Things such as: Flatty motor mounts, original boxing plates, and the tranny crossmember. We kept the original front end in so the truck would sit up. The rivets were drilled out and replaced with bolts in their place.

After all that there was nothing left to do but start building our boxing plates. We made them out of 3/16 thick steel.

Here we are Chalking out lines on the 3/16 sheets of steel where the frame runs.

The first set of plates for the truck we made ran all the way back to the firewall. (Later continuing them to the X member) Once we got them all cut out and ground down nice and even we tacked them into place to later be fully welded.

Here is a cut out, ground down, ready to tack in Boxing Plate.

Well that’s all there is, so until next time...

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5