My new baby, 48 ford coupe super delux

Hey everyone, I hope I'm posting this in the right area. I found this coupe under a carport with about 2 inches of dirt on it. made the guy an offer and after some arm twisting it ended up in my drive way. This is my second project, but the first that is as old as this. My intension is to modernize the chassis, but retain the original basic shape, (no chop). Obviously needs paint and interior. Since there are no pictures on the web, I can't post any for you, but the cars in good shape cuz its an arizona car (no rust) but cosmeticly its pretty trashed. Someone had put a Dodge motor and fashoned the Dodge front end into the original frame. It was pretty much a butcher job and they cut into the frame in several places to fit the power steering and tranny in. I read about putting an S10 frame under it. I had heard that guys were doing it with old pick-ups and it sounded cheaper and more straight forward than buying upgrades for all the components. I then would still have the cut up frame to deal with. After searching around on the web for parts, I found the H.A.M.B. network. I posted my intentions and got pretty well hammered for the sacrilage of swapping out the frame because that would not be traditional. They all tried to steer me towards "restoring" the vehicle as Henry Ford had originally made it.

Now I have a lot of respect for the guys who do restores, but I'm just not one of them. I found it kind of funny that the group that advocates front and rear clips and chops, but somehow the steel tubing between the front and rear suspension is sacred... Anyhow I have kind of moved to replacing the chassis with a 95-97 ford explorer frame. It looks like it would fit best with a few minor pan channels and can be had with a V-8

So there you go. I guess this makes me a darksider outlaw

joelocke wrote:
Now I have a lot of respect for the guys who do restores, but I'm just not one of them. I found it kind of funny that the group that advocates front and rear clips and chops, but somehow the steel tubing between the front and rear suspension is sacred... Anyhow I have kind of moved to replacing the chassis with a 95-97 ford explorer frame. It looks like it would fit best with a few minor pan channels and can be had with a V-8

So there you go. I guess this makes me a darksider outlaw

Hey Joe,
First let me say welcome to our little corner of the web. Just remember, we're not crazy, the rest of them are. I love your idea for your car. If you look at my build thread, https://darksidersrealm.forumotion.com/t204-first-53-build-thread , you will see that I am working with an Explorer rolling chassis with my '53. I have found that there are an abundance of those Explorers out there. Most likely you are going with a 2WD for the car but a 4WD would be unique if you could work it out. I have videos in my thread about the chassis mods I did. One thing though, I strongly recommend you do not try to modify a 4WD chassis into a 2WD setup. There's a big difference.

Later Man...

Thanks for the positive comments. Yes, I'm going with a 2wd setup. I think that I would have trouble getting the front to sit as low as I want it too with w/ a 4wd. Because I want to use it as a daily driver, I like the idea of all modern equipment underneath. I've seen too many jalopys out there with their hood up.
Joe

Hmmm...Mark VII huh? Haddent thought of that. Much harder to come by here just because of the shear number of 4 door explorers. I plan to buy a wreck at auction. But now that I think of it, they might be as plentiful as explorers with V8's in them. Do you know how the chassis might compare to the 95-97 explorer chassis? I measured one in a parking lot once (my kids think I'm nuts) and the explorer seemed close enough to fabricate in. The rear kick-up would seem to be the kink, but the explorer has the same problem. The bed on a mark VII is pretty short though. Now you got me thinking. See...just when I think I have made the best choice I get a tip on what might work out better. If you know of a site that might have dimensions on frames I would be greatfull.
Thanks!
Joe

joelocke wrote:Hmmm...Mark VII huh? Haddent thought of that. Much harder to come by here just because of the shear number of 4 door explorers. I plan to buy a wreck at auction. But now that I think of it, they might be as plentiful as explorers with V8's in them. Do you know how the chassis might compare to the 95-97 explorer chassis? I measured one in a parking lot once (my kids think I'm nuts) and the explorer seemed close enough to fabricate in. The rear kick-up would seem to be the kink, but the explorer has the same problem. The bed on a mark VII is pretty short though. Now you got me thinking. See...just when I think I have made the best choice I get a tip on what might work out better. If you know of a site that might have dimensions on frames I would be greatfull.
Thanks!
Joe

The Mark VII is a unibody with no frame. If you look at koth's rat rod build thread you can see how he built a frame and mounted the components from the suspension system. The Explorer chassis are pretty much identical from '95 to '99. Up here you very seldom ever see one with 2WD. I go to the Pull-A-Part yards a lot and they always seem to have an ample supply of Explorers. Someplace in my eight page build thread I have some shots of the bare rolling chassis. The 2WD and the 4WD are a lot alike except for the fixed front diff and the half shafts. Mine is a '99 believe it or not. We had a '95 sincde it was new and we just sold it but it was pretty much identical. The FTE board has an Explorer forum but there are forums dedicated strictly to Explorers. I'd do a Google search. I'm sure if you look hard enough on Google you will find the info. I'll take a look when I get a chance and see if I can help. Don't be too concerned with re-thinking things on a regular basis. I do it constantly. For me it's just part of the fun. If the build wasn't fun I'd never do it. I'd suggest chaneling the body for the frame or just fabbing a new rear floor section to match the frame. You can also kick the frame back down after the read axel. There are a lot of ways to go with this so don't be afraid to think out all the possibilities.

Later Man...

Dave