The Camera Lady's Car is Running, Elle's Coupe Windshield frame, dash and tunnel cover

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Hi, welcome back to another episode of Cole-Stream Rod Shop. I'm Derek Fraser.

[00:00:03]In this week's episode, we're going to keep on working on Ally's five-window coupe. Last week, we worked on a lot of the floor panels around the transmission. We got quite a bit done.

[00:00:13]The one last piece that I had to work on was around the brake pedal. But, what we also have to do is cut a hole for the steering column. And as I said at the end of last week's video, I've got to kind of play with that because the intention the owner plans to put Lakester style headers, which kind of come straight out. So, I have to try and position where the steering column comes out underneath that, and as well not too close to the brake pedal. So, anyway, follow along as we do that.

[00:00:41]And then, I'm told that the chassis is coming in for the '35 pickup bed, and we'll put that on it hopefully tomorrow or the next day. So, we'll be able to show you some of that stuff. And then, whatever we can get done in the camera lady's upholstery for '32 roadster, then we'll show you that as well. So, anyway, follow along. We're got some more work to do in the shop.

[00:01:01]So, I'm going to pick up where I left off on last week's episode. I was still working on Ally's coupe. Um the five-window floor. Uh we did a bunch of the panels last week. This one, or well, actually we did all of them across uh the top of the transmission, so the forward section of the transmission tunnel, and the two foot pads. I made this panel up, but I didn't weld it in.

[00:01:23]I needed to do the final fit. Had to make a little bit more clearance for the brake pedal. And then, I had to decide where the hole was going to go for the steering column.

[00:01:33]Now, that's kind of difficult on this one because we wanted the steering column to be out of the way of the brake pedal.

[00:01:41]Um so, what my rule of thumb is is to try and keep this column between an inch and an inch and a half away from the brake pedal.

[00:01:49]Uh because ultimately, I don't necessarily have to put the brake pedal square on the top of this arm. I can actually put the brake pedal off to the left of it, but I just need some clearance between uh the brake pedal arm and steering column. So, that was the first element in trying to figure out where to put the hole in. And then, the second element was that I think I mentioned it last week, but I'll tell you now, we are planning on putting Lakester style headers on this. So, there's going to be a a header pipe come straight out this way. So, what we want the column to come down underneath it.

[00:02:27]Um so, I'm going to try and do this without dropping the phone. So, I think there is I think I'm showing you Yeah, there is the hole.

[00:02:40]Um when I take a piece of ABS pipe that I've used for dummying up steering columns, right there, and then stick it down through that hole, it looks like we're going to clear the exhaust manifold of where hypothetically it's going to be. So, right now, we're going to stick with that hole. Um that hole kind of aligns already, more or less, where we've got it on the '32 roadster, the '32 pickup, and the Model A. So, again, you know, having other vehicles you can double-check against certainly helps.

[00:03:09]Um we know we can make that work. So, next up, what I'm going to do, I think I'm going to either work on the transmission tunnel, the removable tunnel. Um we're not going to be able to put the shifter hole into it. So, I'm just basically going to make it up. Um drill some holes, and then later on, when the owner gets the shifter, we'll have to cut the hole later. I tried to leave enough clearance here for this hole so that the shifter linkage, at least the Lokar one, should clear um and not come in contact with this. And again, you know, we do have other cars that we can go double-check against it, but right now, I'm I'm very confident that we've got a lot of clearance here.

[00:03:47]Um so, we'll go ahead and make that transmission tunnel. And then, probably after that, I will most likely put the dash in. We're going to reinforce the bottom of the dash. There's a couple defects in the dash I've got to fix up some little dents and whatnot. And then we're going to carry on here with Ellie's coupe. So, next up like I said, we're going to do the transmission cover.

[00:04:12]I went around with the mini grinder. I ground off the top of all the plug welds just to kind of make it easier for the transmission tunnel to fit flat on the floor. Just kind of dress the other stuff up a little bit. I didn't go crazy on it.

[00:04:26]Like I said, ultimately all those seams are going to get some seam sealer on them anyways, so not too worried about that, but I'm just checking for any kind of super porosity in that in some of the plug welds, in which case I would have gone back over and welded them and reground them again. But, anyways, everything looks good on that.

[00:04:43]I've taken some measurements for the transmission cover. And the back section is going to be flat, so it's going to transition up to a curved section. Done this a few times before.

[00:04:55]But, essentially we're going to start with a piece of flat sheet metal.

[00:04:59]I laid it out, so the forward section is going to have a curve to it. The back is going to be flat. We've got a We've got to tip these edges up here.

[00:05:08]And more than likely we'll have to when we tip the back up or flatten the back, we'll probably have to do a little bit of shrinking here once I get a little bit of a shape into it cuz that shape at the front will carry to the back.

[00:05:21]Now, in order to get the shape in the front, we're going to go on the English wheel, but we're going to use this rubber portion here.

[00:05:29]Um we we want to use the English wheel and the shape of the bottom dies to impart small curves in the front of this, but we don't want to stretch the metal because if we stretch the metal, we'll make this measurement off, and And exactly 16 in from here to here. If I do stretches here, I'm going to actually going to increase that and we don't want to do that. We just want to get a curve to the front.

[00:05:55]Um so, I'm going to cut that up.

[00:05:57]We're going to go on the English wheel here. Um I'm not sure [snorts] if I'm going to use that crown that's on there, but I might pick some I'll try this one first. Um and see what kind of shape I get into it and I may go with a a heavier crown depending on um how quickly it starts to shape.

[00:06:16]So, anyways, follow along. I'm going to show you the next step in a couple of minutes.

[00:06:34]>> [music] [music] >> There's a semi-finished tunnel. Um hopefully you can see from the time lapse I used the English wheel to basically form the shape in the top here. Get the round section to it. I put it on the brake and I crease these edges. I actually had to crease the back edge, too, because what happens is all the Although you only shape the front, >> [music] >> it's going to make the metal want to bend in the back. Um so, when I bent the metal up in the back, this this tended to to shrink in some, so I had to actually shrink the flange here on the shrinker on this edge.

[00:08:04]Um the other thing I found is because this um the the section it's sitting on um comes It doesn't come on this angle. It comes out a little bit. I found that I actually had to go ahead and and stretch this edge so it fits over the curve now.

[00:08:22]Um I still have a little bit more work to do cuz it isn't sitting as perfectly flat as I want it to. I know that if I probably put some screws into it, it'll hold it down, but I kind of want it I'm I'm going to trim it a little bit more cuz I got a little bit interference here.

[00:08:37]Um we'll do that tomorrow night. I'll trim the edges a little bit. I might stretch this edge a little bit more so that it it covers the hump more than what I measured it. I measured it at 16 in, but um I actually need a little bit more than that to make it fit. So, we're really close here.

[00:08:54]Um got a nice shape to it and um it's it's just got to push up the other 10% to to get it done.

[00:09:02]So, here's a little bit of an update on the Camaro ladies roadster. We did pick up the ceramic coated headers from Hi-Tech Coatings. Uh we'll show you a card at the end. I really want to thank them for doing a wonderful job.

[00:09:16]The heat hit the headers and absolutely no issues, but I kind of had The reputation also said that that was going to be the case.

[00:09:25]Um super super nice job.

[00:09:28]Um Put a brand new 390 CFM carburetor on this, gave her a shot of gas, started it up, and she's just purring here.

[00:09:37]Couple little glitches um as far as I thought the tach was bad. I got a new tach. This one doesn't work, so there's some other issue going on. I don't know if the wire going from the tach to the oil is bad. I'm not sure.

[00:10:00]Tach doesn't work.

[00:10:01]And then also for whatever reason the front blinkers, when I turn them on, they don't work.

[00:10:07]Those are the only two things so far that we're going to have to troubleshoot.

[00:10:11]But the little 272 Y-block, rebuilt Y-block, she's uh dropping a little bit of water out of the exhaust, which is perfect.

[00:10:20]Means she's burning nice and clean. No smoke, no oil.

[00:10:25]Um we're approaching I guess 120° on the radiator. There's no hoses leaking so far.

[00:10:35]Um Timing is okay. We'll probably have to set that later, but um right now we're we're also charging at 14 V, so right now the only two things I think I have to troubleshoot at the moment are the blinkers and the tach.

[00:10:53]Um still a huge win.

[00:10:59]All the other lights work. The blinkers work in the back.

[00:11:04]So, I'm really happy so far. Camera lady's not home right now, but when she does come home, we're going to show her that the car is alive. So, a little update on the camera lady's roadster. Um as I just said, the front blinker lights did not work. I was very suspicious of a bad ground.

[00:11:24]Um and I that was exactly the problem. More often than not when something doesn't work as far as a light goes, uh it's usually a bad ground or lack of power, but in most cases if you hooked up the power wire, it's because something got painted um, and everything else that, uh, you know, the ground doesn't go through. So, ultimately what I wound up doing with the the blinker lights here on the front is that the LED lights here, they had three wires going to it. There was the parking light or the I guess yeah, we call it a parking light or driving light and then the blinker. Um, but there was a third ground wire.

[00:12:04]Um, the ground wire was grounding out to the housing, but the housing wasn't grounding out to this one and this one wasn't grounding out. So, ultimately what I did I just, um, hooked up a wire on the inside.

[00:12:17]There's a a little receptacle for the bulb on the inside, so I grounded that to one of the bolts, um, at the bottom.

[00:12:28]Um, I don't know if I can show them or not, but I grounded to one of the bolts on the inside, which then grounded to the frame and everything blinks really good now, so we're good on that. Now, the tachometer was a but quite a bit more elusive and I think I've kind of got it sorted out. I had another tachometer that originally came with the um, with the gauge package and my assumption was the tachometer was bad because I actually had that happen about 12 years ago to me. Um, so I just bought another one because it was so long since I had bought the gauge kit, I couldn't really go back and claim warranty on it.

[00:13:02]Uh, but nevertheless, um, put a brand new tach into it, it still didn't work.

[00:13:07]Uh, so I took the first tach that I had uh, this one there and then I hooked up some wires to it and I hooked up to the I hooked it up to the Model A over here.

[00:13:17]Um, and it worked just fine. Um, so I said, well, okay, that's kind of really odd.

[00:13:24]Um, but anyways, so then I took this tach, which was the first one, and I just ran separate wires, as you can see here, up to the coil, and it doesn't work.

[00:13:35]Um the one thing that I was kind of a little bit suspicious of is that this is a very, very low resistance uh coil that's in this one, cuz that's what the Pertronix uh replacement distributor was calling for. So, I did a little bit of uh research on Google, and it seems as though I might need a relay or a tachometer filter or something to make a really low voltage um really low resistance coil work. So, although it's not fixed just yet, um I can now conclude that the tachometer is good. I think we have some sort of a filtering issue. Now, whether a simple resistor will work, cuz one of the things with the Model A here, over time, um I did have to actually put a resistor in line right there in order for my tachometer not to have uh spasms or whatever, and it's worked just fine.

[00:14:37]Now, the '32 pickup has a very similar setup. Um I think it's the same coil.

[00:14:43]Um I typically use the same MSD Power Blaster or something or other coils.

[00:14:48]They they work flawlessly for me. Um has the same gauges in two of us. This is no problem, but I'm not 100% sure of what ohms are on that, but '32 pickup was working good.

[00:15:02]The Model A tach is working good with that coil with a resistor, but I know that these two coils are different than the one that we have over here on the Y block. So, anyways, I'm going to research that a little bit more.

[00:15:15]Hopefully, I'll sort it out by the end of this episode, and we're going to have the tach working in here. I know I have a working tach. I just can't get it compatible with that coil at the moment.

[00:15:24]So, here's a small another small modification that we're doing to the dash on a '32 uh five-window coupe. Um what we did on the roadster because we welded the dash in place, we also um well, we put this 3/4 inch uh square tubing along the bottom of the dash here. Just tack welded it in place.

[00:15:46]Um on the roadster, we actually welded this to the A-pillars, but this dash is going to come in and out, so we just don't want a little bit more rigidity.

[00:15:55]Uh mainly for where the uh steering column which is going to attach up through here through these little bolts.

[00:16:01]Um just wanted a little bit more stiffness in it. We also don't want this to interfere with the original um uh gauge tunnel that's going to go into this. So, there's still there's still enough clearance left to fit in there, no problem.

[00:16:15]Uh so, anyways, uh well, and did a couple repairs here. There was a couple holes to weld up, a couple cracks in each corner. Got that fixed up. We're just going to bolt this in place. I do not have the steering drop, so I can't um put that in just yet, so I'll I'll ask uh if we're going to have that or not, but in the meantime uh I've gone and I've re-tapped all the holes in the dash. I drilled one of the studs out, but the holes there that hold the dash in place, of course, are 12-24s, but luckily I've got a box of those, and I have the taps to clean it up, so we'll be putting them back in with 12-24 screws.

[00:16:56]Now, we've got the transmission tunnel all screwed down. I just used some number six self-tapping screws to put that in place.

[00:17:03]Like I said, the intention of the transmission tunnel there is that you can take it in and out um in the future once um once the owner gets a shifter, uh well, he or we will put the shifter in place, cut a hole there for it. The intention is probably to buy one of the local shifters or one of the clones and have a shifter on the floor. The dash fit in just fine.

[00:17:28]The bottom piece there cleared the brackets and we've got a really rigid bottom of the dash for a nice strong connection for a steering column. Once we have the steering column and steering column drop.

[00:17:44]I think that's all I have to do with the floor so far in the dash. Next up, I think I'll be working on the windshield frame.

[00:17:53]So I'm going to try to do my best to describe how I chopped the windshield frame.

[00:17:58]This is an original windshield frame.

[00:18:00]The bottom was almost perfect. There's a little surface rust on it and everything else. One of the things with this particular chop is that it wasn't evenly done all the way around and we didn't redo it. It's inch and 5/8 inch and 9/16 chop or something in that magnitude. So what I did in order to chop it, I removed this bottom piece. There's There's two screws that come in the sides. Both all of the screws even with the heat and wax which almost always works for me, it did not work. I had to drill the screws out.

[00:18:38]One screw hole on each side was already previously stripped anyways. So we're trying to recover at least one good screw. I'll take it out here in a couple seconds to show. But ultimately what I did is I crept in on the the measurement here. So that was my first cut. So what I did, I took a woodworking tool right there and I measured the angle.

[00:19:09]After I took the bottom piece out, I I used this to mark an and then I took this much out the first time.

[00:19:16]Went back in.

[00:19:18]Took another sliver out.

[00:19:20]Took another sliver out and then basically progressively kind of filed the corner till we came up on both sides to where we have it right now. Now that windshield frame fits in there the way that I think it should. There is a rubber gasket goes all the way around.

[00:19:35]I'll pull it out here in a second and I'll show you the screw holes.

[00:19:39]Um So the screw holes on the sides are Hopefully the camera can focus. So right now the bottom screw hole is stripped. I may very well try and repair that, but I've got at least one screw with a makeshift screw into it. It's an 8-32 threaded screw. So I took this Allen key screw for the time being, ground it down, and that's what's holding it in place. We'll look for something else. Now most of the time with these windshields, the aftermarket most of the guys around here don't use setting tape. Um the vast majority of them set it in with the uh urethane glue.

[00:20:25]So more than likely when when this one gets a windshield, it's going to get that. So I'm thinking that only one of these screws is really only necessary to hold it in place cuz the urethane's going to do it. And then on the other side hopefully I can show you the the the bottom hole was good and the top hole in the bottom section was stripped out. I can probably tap those to 12-24.

[00:20:52]But what I'm thinking right now um is more like I said, more than likely because the windshield frame will be put in with urethane glue in the grooves and not setting tape that just one of these screws will be necessary just to kind of hold it in place until um that glue solves, but anyways, the windshield frame um as you can see there, it's it's not a bad job.

[00:21:15]Um the windshield frame is now chopped for Ellie's coupe.

[00:21:22]Um hopefully this glue was a good enough take for it and I didn't bounce the camera around and you can see what we did to pull this off.

[00:21:30]Um but that's it.

[00:21:34]Well, that's it for another episode of Cold Stream Rod Shop. We got quite a bit done on the '32 5-window coupe. We got the transmission tunnel all fixed or made and put in place. We've got the dash reinforced and fixed and put in place. And then we've got the front windshield frame topped. Um still needs to be bolted in place, but the holes lined up. I'm not really worried about that right now, so that's done. Um and then the camera lady's roadster, we got the headers back, engine is running. Uh hopefully you can hear it running well on the video earlier on there.

[00:22:05]Um everything is going good. Solved the problem with the blinker lights and everything on it. The only thing I haven't solved, and I think I've got it solved, is to make the tach work. If anybody out there has had the same issue with their tach not working with a Pertronix distributor or Pertronix um conversion of a distributor, uh weigh in, let me know, tell me what you think. Right now, I've bought the MSD tach driver. It's a little board. Uh ordered it. Hopefully it'll be in be in next week and fingers crossed that solves the problem, that's what I think it is.

[00:22:40]But if you can let me know before then, if you think it's something else, I'm game for trying that as well.

[00:22:46]Uh so anyways, that's it for this week of Cold Stream Rod Shop. Please like, share, tag, and subscribe. Come on back next week and see what we're up to on '32 Fords.

[00:23:11]>> Mhm.