[Essex_29]

Thank you all once again! Yes, TFoch, it's always nice to get the wife involved.
In my experience she'll care more about the car later 
You're right, FATnLOW. The last time I built a hot rod, I had a bunch of
18-20 year olds who came to help me when I needed it. It has its perks to drive a school bus.
Oooff... Wow, sixball, better play it safe in your case! and yes, it's always better to
sacrifice some car parts and save one's own bodyparts!

When the body sat on the frame I noticed that the engine now sits quite a bit farther
back than I had originally planned. This is because the steering took up way more estate than
I had figured.

When viewed from the side, the problem is obvious. The aesthetical balance is way off, as the
engine sits so far from the grille shell and all the way into the fire wall.



On closer inspection, the problem seems pretty minor, but it gets worse. The body needs to
get moved forward another 1-1/2".



So now I decided to remove the whole firewall. It features a pretty big bead, that makes the
whole firewall protrude about an extra inch. I figure, if I turn the firewall backwards, I'll gain
two inches of space. To add to that, I'm going to move the firewall back another 5/8", filling
it out with some 5/8" U-profile.

Now the task at hand is to get the firewall out of the cowl.
Someone in Flint, Michigan, has seemingly liked the spotwelder a lot. So lots of drilling and
chiselling still ahead.



Some of the bad optical balance will be there still, but it will look better if the engine seems to at least fit properly. And the Grille shell will look thicker with a radiator, maybe a shroud and a fan too. Might be acceptable in the end

[sixball]

Will you run a hood? Is the length stock from the cowl to the radiator shell?

[sammons]

Essex, your body balance seems fine to me. But...I like an engine setback for a better balance in weight and a long nose. You do need more firewall clearence to the engine. Your on the right track with firewall only setback.

I really got creative on my firewall on my coupe. Was going for a 50/50 bias on weight, so pushed motor back and modified firewall to fit my needs. Made sure i could get to all the bolts easy and room to put a monster motor if i chose to in the future.  I try to think ahead for other mods i might want later, I'm weird that way. 😁

Great work you got going on there!

My goofy firewall.

[Essex_29]

Yes, sixball, I might run a hood top, no sides, as I plan on making the exhaust primaries go over
and outside the frame. The air cleaners probably won't fit under the hood, so there's a good chance I'll
never run a hood anyway. The hood length is supposed to be stock, but I haven't actually checked lately
how close I am.
Because the frame is bent up about 15" behind the firewall, the body sits almost 1/2" too high in the front.
This will be fixed as soon as the firewall gets welded back in and everything gets adjusted properly.

sammons, your firewall looks good to me. Nice bodywork and a uniform color does wonders too.
I'm not a fan of new, homemade simple firewalls with a couple bead rolls, that's why I desperately want
to use the stock firewall hoping it won't look too obviously altered and customized.
On my Essex I got 60% weight on the rear wheels. The little Rover3500/Buick215 aluminum engine and
Borg-Warner T35 transmission helped doing that. No way to do a burn out with that one, as the car just
wouldn't stay still when the brakes were applied, it just slid away with the front tires skidding. That little
engine was so underwhelming in the power department, though. Luckily it had a nice soundtrack, almost
like a nail head.
Building a (especially a non Ford) hot rod makes one plan a head anyway. and sometimes I too plan for
mods I might do in the future. Don't worry, we're probably all weird in all kinds of ways

[Essex_29]

After a lot of drilling, and a bit of work with both the air chisel and he manual one, the
firewall was out.



The ignition coil is a Mallory one. I assume it's stock and original to this car, at least it looks old. Mallory
sounds like speed parts to me, though.
Probably not a bad idea to have the coli inside the car. I think coils are a technical part that look good
showing in the engine bay, so I'll probably mount mine on the outide of the firewall or on the intake



Now I got to move the body forward to where it will sit. As I was afraid, just flipping the
firewall is not enough. A 13/16" U-profile between the front of the cowl and the firewall
will do the trick.



This is how the firewall looked before cutting it out. The black mark on the right side shows
how I plan to reshape the recessed "panel" which of course will be proud of the firewall
when it is flipped. This shape will leave more room at the valve cover and cylinder head.



Here's a pic of the first try at making a new corner for the protruding panel. three more corners to go.

[chopper526]

That's some nice work there, and well worth the time and trouble.

[TFoch]

Nice progress!

[Essex_29]

Thank youTFoch and chopper526. Yes, it's worth a bit of work to get the firewall to look
decent. It's going to show on a hoodless car, so a it's pretty important part of the overall look.

I continued with the second corner, to the left in the pic below, and then the straight part. It's
a bit of a jigsaw, but making a big panel and getting all the angles to match...



It's fun to work with thick sheetmetal, you can grind it till it look good. 14 and 16 ga sheet
 metal here.
With the firewall in place the angle matches the cylinder head reasonably well. The only problem
now is there's not enough room between the firewall and the cylinderhead yet. Still zero space.

[chopper526]

How about using square 1/2 tubing between the firewall and the body? It would push the firewall back 1/2" and give a 1/2" lip all the way around. You biggest problem would be getting the square tube to make the radius. the worst you would need to do is pie cut the corners.

[Essex_29]

That's almost what I meant chopper526,The U-profile I was talking about is like a
square tubing without one side. After some measuring and trying, though, I decided to
move the firewall an inch backward to get enough clearance between it and the cylinderheads.

The firewall looks much better now, and it still looks factory.



There's still a bunch of holes to fill, but I got ahead of myself, and started working on the
spacer. I cut some 1" tubing in half and started bending and working what now in effect is
a U-profile.



As the corners can't be bent just like that, I cut away part of the "side wall" of the U and
filled in with some sheetmetal. I left it a bit over size, to get good welds in the corners.
The firewall will be  rosette welded in using the 1/4" holes that were drilled through the
spot welds to get it out in the first place.

[sixball]

That looks good. You do good work.

[chopper526]

That's almost what I meant chopper526,The U-profile I was talking about is like a
square tubing without one side. After some measuring and trying, though, I decided to
move the firewall an inch backward to get enough clearance between it and the cylinderheads.

The firewall looks much better now, and it still looks factory.



There's still a bunch of holes to fill, but I got ahead of myself, and started working on the
spacer. I cut some 1" tubing in half and started bending and working what now in effect is
a U-profile.



As the corners can't be bent just like that, I cut away part of the "side wall" of the U and
filled in with some sheetmetal. I left it a bit over size, to get good welds in the corners.
The firewall will be  rosette welded in using the 1/4" holes that were drilled through the
spot welds to get it out in the first place.

I gotcha. That looks real good. It's gonna be nice.

[Essex_29]

Actually, chopper526, I had to scrap that square tube I cut in half. It's too
narrow, so I decided to make a new version, and this time I made it out of the
whole tube. I have a home made tube roller, so I can bend tubing slightly. I have
all three parts (top and sides) bent and ready, and think I might be able to
salvage the corner bends from the spacer that I already made.

Oh, the reason for it being too narrow, is because a lot of the holes from drilling
out the spot welds get beside the spacer thingy entirely, and in that case I wouldn't
be able to weld the rosette welds as planned. One step forward, and one step back....

[Essex_29]

A bit of a busy period, so not much time to spend in the garage.
The tubes I decided to make the spacer out of are bent and ready
to go, and last night I got the first corner bend fitted with just a
couple tacks.
Looks like this might work, so I'll continue with the other bend as
soon as I can.



The simple tubing bender I have has been of so much use on this
project. I would strongly recommend buidling one, before tackling
a wood removel project like this one. Maybe I should post a pic of
it some day.

[chopper526]

That is going to work perfectly! When I did my '32 I didn't have a tubing bender, it was a series of pie cuts and welds. Time consuming but it worked.