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Automotive Lifestyle
AUTOS: The Hot Rod Build, Part 2: Interior Fabrication
The second installment of a multi-part series about the construction of a custom Ford Deuce Coupe
Bob Golfen  |  Posted March 23, 2010   Phoenix, AZ
Metal craftsman Ron McCorkle shows two pieces of sheet-metal floor that will be formed into a transmission cover. (Photo: Bob Golfen)
This is the second part of a series focusing on the building of a 1932 Ford “Deuce Coupe” hot rod. The scratch-built car is being created at Hot Rods by Dean, an award-winning street-rod and custom shop based in Phoenix, for a Glendale, Az., customer.

The goal: to build a classic street rod from modern components, including a new all-steel body, that will be authentic and indistinguishable from one created from an original 78-year-old car.

Like a big sheet-metal jigsaw puzzle, the coupe’s structure is gradually coming together. It’s beginning to look more like a whole car instead of a collection of parts.

The '32 Ford coupe, with its new floor and radiator in place, is beginning to look more put together. (Photo: Bob Golfen)
This week, metal-crafter Ron McCorkle has focused on the interior, piecing together a floor and transmission tunnel, fitting the brake and steering column, building a seat frame and working on the complex installation of an air-conditioning system.

“I’m getting a steering column mocked up in here and I’m whittling the floor,” McCorkle said, his voice resonating inside the loosely assembled car. “I’m getting the seat in place so we can custom fit it to the driver.

“The air-conditioning unit is hung in here as well as the fuse pack.”

An expert fabricator, McCorkle is cutting, bending and welding the steel parts, not only so that they fit together seamlessly but so that they operate smoothly in the close confines of the small interior.

The steering column and brake assembly installed in the coupe. The banjo steering wheel, its rim protected by tape, is a reproduction of an original '32 Ford part. (Photo: Bob Golfen)
He showed how he bent and reshaped the long arm for the brake pedal to clear the steering column, and how he is building a narrow air box for the AC because there’s not enough room for the standard accordion hoses.

Much of the extra work is required so that the finished hot rod will look authentic, with a stock-looking interior despite all the modern bits. Obviously, cramming a full-scale AC unit behind the tiny dashboard of a ’32 Ford so that it’s hidden from view is no simple task.

“All this stuff has to clear the other components, of course,” McCorkle said. “I’m making the plenum (air box) for the AC so that the cowl vent can still open and close.”

The front seat posed something of a dilemma for the shop, which is owned and operated by 39-year-old Dean Livermore. They want the seat to look as close to original as possible, but they were unable to find the seat frame from a 78-year-old coupe; original parts for the popular ’32 Fords can be hard to come by.

What they did come up with was the rusted frame for a seat from a ’32 phaeton, which has the same bottom section but with a high steel back that’s unlike the coupe’s seat. The answer was for McCorkle to cut away the back and repair the age-battered bottom piece, then have it sand blasted to clean away the surface rust.

The new floor is laid over the frame inside the body shell, with the seat-frame bottom in position. (Photo: Bob Golfen)
“Whenever we can find original parts, we use them,” he said. “We cut off the stuff we don’t want and we’ll build a wooden frame for the back.

“When we get it all done, someone will look at it and say, ‘Wow, they found a nice original seat.’ Well, not really.”

The original-style floor comes in a kit to fit inside the steel body, which was made by Brookville Roadsters. But like most of the components, McCorkle pointed out, “one size fits all” so he has cut, bend and weld them together so that they join perfectly.

The transmission tunnel has been carefully built so that it clears the modern automatic while still looking authentic and leaving clearance for the shifter, which also will have an authentic appearance, as much as possible.

He hooked up a set of headers to the dummy V8 engine so that he could calculate the floor clearances. He also has to attach the forward part of the floor to the rebuilt firewall, an original-style part that he altered to accommodate the engine clearance.

A pair of Bilstein coil-over shock absorbers has been installed in the rear. (Photo: Bob Golfen)
If that’s not enough for a week’s work, McCorkle also has installed the rear suspension with specially fitted Bilstein coil-over shock absorbers, which he called “real state-of-the-art stuff.” These modern components are hidden behind the coupe’s broad fenders.

He’s getting ready to weld on the supports for the front shock absorbers, which will work along with the original-style transverse leaf spring and drop axle. But that requires taking the car off its jack stands and putting it on the floor so that he can determine the exact placement for the supports on the frame.

“I have to figure where to attach the bracket depending on where we want the ride height,” he said.

McCorkle will spend the rest of the week “massaging and whittling” the body structure, he said, while the shop waits for the expected arrival of the Ford V8 that’s being specially built at an engine shop.

“Sometime this week, the engine will be done,” he said. “Then we can see how well it all fits together.”

Next week, we’ll see the new engine going into the frame while work on the interior structure continues.

For Part 1 of The Hot Rod Build, see Deuce Coupe.

Bob Golfen, Automotive Editor for SPEEDtv.com, is a veteran auto writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, who has driven and evaluated essentially every new vehicle sold in the United States. A lifelong car enthusiast with a passion for collector cars, car culture and the automotive lifestyle, he annually attends and writes about Arizona's famous January collector-car auctions, focusing on Scottsdale’s monumental Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event. SPEEDtv.com fans email veteran Automotive Editor Bob Golfen at

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