Projects TWreckx-T Bucket Build

Not Long ago a Fellow Hamber named Koz was building a Modified. The Modified was put up for sale as a Roller. We stepped in and bought the Car.

It was a long snowy Drive out to Koz's shop in Eastern PA But we made it. Loaded up the Truck and made the 7 hr drive home.



Once we got home... you guessed it. It was Still Snowing! but Jim still found Time to drive the bucket body around the drive way for the first time.

(This was complete with the Vrooom,Vroom sounds one would expect!)

We were able to pick up some nice looking Steelies and Tires for a fair price locally.


We couldn't resist mocking things up at this point.



Some folks that have been following our 26 Model T build Have been concerned with the V8 Flat Head 8BA that has been sitting near that build for the last few weeks.


They Can relax The 8BA will be going in the T bucket not the 26.

Since we picked up the car we've been picking up some parts to dress her up and get her on the road.
We've found an edelbrock dual carb intake with Holley Carbs. A set of edelbrock Heads. A 39 Ford 3 speed, new drums, wheel adapters, studs and nuts.


With some of the bits in hand we've got the front end put on.


Progress on this build is going to be on and off. We'd like to have it done by this fall. With that said we have a model T that we've been working on for 3 years that we want to button up first.

This is the first T bucket we've built So if any of you Seasoned builders see something that is going to bite us in the butt later Let us know! We like doing it right the first time... but we'll go back and fix it if it ain't.

CBB

 

So glad to see you going at it! Can't wait to see it on the road. Give me a shout with anything you may need.

 

an awesome build , nice to see a flatty going into it , will follow this thread for sure

 

OK....I will put in my 2¢ as a co-builder of this hot rod.

We picked the name because we want to paint the block, tranny and wheels a nice medium green (much like the color that the bell housing is now). We will do a few pinstripes in complementary greens. The frame will be satin black and the body will be flat black. A few aluminum parts and very little "bling".

Our plan is to follow the build much like KOZ envisioned based on this picture:

Obviously there will be a few changes in some of the colors, our choice of rims, the shape of the fuel tank and our frame and body is Z'd and channeled. Wow....that sounds like a lot of changes. Hopefully we can keep the look and feel of that cool "T" in the picture.

One of our projects will be to build the rear radius rods. If anyone has suggestions that would be most welcome. We are wondering what the connection to the rear axle should look like.

 

Because of the banjo center section, you only need a very small pair of 'bones under the car and don't really need the side bars like Mr. Proulx car. If you like the appearance and want to run them, remember the pivot points will be in shear and as such make sure the radius point is directly in line with the center of the ball joint on the torque tube both length and horizontally to minimize stress on the torque tube. Otherwise you will be tearing either the brackets off the frame or the motor mounts if you whack something big, (like a PA. pothole?).

If you want to build these bars use the Model "A" rod ends and threaded balls from Macs and 7/8 x.156 DOM for the bars. No rocket science, just some careful measurements.

The alternative to solve all of the above and run the hairpins is to use a later truck tailshaft on the trans and convert the rear to open drive. This has been covered in many threads on here and is not difficult. My choice would be to just run the closed drive with the parts you have and if you like the hairpins on the rear set them up as a set of "sliders" and nobody will be the wiser. They will look the same but in reality, do nothing but look cool.

We went into a bit of a discussion on here one time about these bars and it never was really resolved. You can get away with a bit of strange geometry on the lakes that will be devastating on the street. If you need to yack you have my number.

 

Koz...that would work well and you could still run a short set of radius rods out of sight under the body to act as the required bracing for the torque tube/rearend!
Simple, strong and flexible!

 

Honestly, I know you have picked out the radius rods as an element of that car that you like, but part of the advantage of running a torque tube rear is that you can clean up the sides of the car by using very minimal stuff underneath rather than down the sides. Unless you did convert to an open drive as Koz suggested, I would skip the radius rods and concentrate on making some Ford 'bones fit the space beneath.

 

Thanks for all the ideas guys!
We're planning on going with the Closed drive line. What we didn't say is that we had picked up some 1" .120 thick DOM for the radius rods. Would this be strong enough to use as bones instead? Or is there something else that we should be looking for for this?

CBB

 

That will work perfectly for the 'bones!

As a note, not that it matters, My bet is those hairpins on the Proulx car are Model "A" tie rods welded up. They probably flexed enough to stay in one piece on the lakes, They measure just a hair over 5/8" depending on how hard they are rusted, so 1" would have looked a bit hefty IMHO. One thing to remember when trying to get the "feel" of a vintage modified is that proportion is everything. You can usually sort out most dimensions by imagining what they used in the first place. (I'm cheating though.... The Model "A" tie rods were a staple back in the day so my assumption is not totally fair!).

 

Interesting......subscribed!

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Hey guys... I found a pair of early B 'bones when I was cleaning up some loft space in my shop. I didn't know I had them. They would be absolutely perfect for making the rear radius rods, the under car style that I was planning, for this car. If you want 'em they're free. Give me a shout and cover the cost of shipping which won't be much.

 

look forward to seeing what you come up with. subscribed

 

Hi Everyone,

Nice to see the new people following the thread. Sorry it is slow right now we are pushing the "Lizzy" build and just gathering parts for this one. Once "Lizzy" gets buttoned up this will move much faster.

KOZ We will take the radius rods.
Free parts.....Are you kidding, SURE WE WILL TAKE THEM.
I sent you a PM with my info.

Thanks,
Jim

 

As Jim stated again, It will be a bit before we get to hitting this build hard. But we're still picking up parts for it as we go.
This week we got a F1 Steering box, Column, Wheel, set of Gauges and a question.


The Gauges are in good shape. A little Clean up and they are ready for the dash (which we still have to make )



The Steering Wheel isn't ford Stock for the F1 but it's a nice older style wheel.

At this point it looks good in the Car... We're keeping it!

A quick test fit of the column and the Box shows we will need to shorten it some.


Also looks like we'll have to adjust the Box mount bracket as well. If anyone has some do's and don't for properly shortening the F1 column or something we have to do to get the steering box to work properly Please let us know!
This is all uncharted territory for us.

Now we're to the Question. We were looking at the front end and realized we don't know what this tab welded to the frame is for.


Any Ideas?

We've got some mile stones coming in the next month with the other car so hopefully you'll see somethings start to pick up here after that... Or not.

CBB

 

The Tab might possibly be for the brake line clamp going from the hard line to the hose. Just my 2 cents

 

Correct! Brake tab to anchor the flex line to frame and transition to hard line. '46-'48 Ford passenger front lines. 1/4" line to the MC, not 3/16".

 

Yeah, gotta be brake line or possibly front turn signal. A lot of people mount them there.

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There is one on each side of the Frame in the same spot. The Brake line Idea sounds feasible.

 

Yo guys!!!! This is what they're for. I built the chassis, trust me on this one. LOL

 

Koz, you and I must have been posting at the same time, cause I difn't see your reply till now.

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I kinda figgered that. Just having some fun!!!!

 

Blownfuel and Koz your post times are the exact same....that is quite a coincidence.

Bruce, you just missed Koz's post.
And I know you were at work and had plenty of time to read it thoroughly.

Thank you all, for the information. We are sure what they are for now.

Jim

 

I hadn't refreshed the page till after the other two posts came in... I loaded the page then "someone" came into my office and Side tracked with "work" things for 3 whole minutes then I posted... Who know the thread would be so busy today. Especially since we Haven't really done any work on this car for weeks

Brake hard lines it is!
CBB

 

It's been sorta quite here for a bit. We're waiting for a few parts but started getting the rear spring and Shocks in place to work out some possible clearance issues with the rear bones before we settle on a design.



We'll have the last few things that we need to get this back to a roller here shortly.

CBB

 

So over the weekend we were able to get this thing back into shape as a roller.
The First step was to make a spring spreader to get the rear spring back into place. Thanks to the HAMB I was able to come up with this rig.


Once the spring was in place it was just a matter of putting the Brake drums and wheels on.



With that done the car's stance Looks like this.

 

Hi,
I had to rearrange the garage to get other cars on the lift for maintenance. So, Bruce worked last weekend to get this T set up as a roller. While I was moving vehicles I took a few pictures of the car as it sets now. This project is moving slowly but we are pushing to finish our Lizzy project first and then concentrate on T-Wreckx. Enjoy the pics.

 

Hi,
Just curious, why are you using leaf springs AND coil-overs?
Cheers,
Stewart.

 

Hi Limey Kid,

No real good reason for leaf and coil-overs other than very inexpensive for us. They were old VW (rear) and motorcycle (front) shocks and both adjustable. They happen to be the correct travel length. I thought they look cool. So, we added them to to project.

 

Kinda like.how my T has friction shocks and tube shocks on the front end. I assume that the friction shocks weren't enough for the hemi, so they just left them and added.tube shocks as well.

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As we're going through parts to get the drive-line laid out in the car we found that we're missing part of the U joint cover. Here's a picture of one (pulled from this thread here on the hamb).


Does anyone that has converted to an open drive-line have one of these kicking around and want to part with it?(missing both the top and bottom half).

Thanks,
Bruce