That's where the 6.5" drop comes in.... just ran out of time this weekend. It's the next thing we're working on.
Gotta say CBB, that T is looking REALLY good! Once you get the rear end lowered, it will have a really awesome stance. That coupe body, especially in it's uncut configuration, has a killer look! Great work guys!
Wow! Love the shots with it outside. I agree a little too much on the rake. Tires look great, I am voting for no chop.....I have really liked reading about how you have been solvings issues as they arise. Sounds like you are really having fun with this build.
With all the Warm that we're having here, we haven't gotten much done since the big push. We did pick up a few parts. We found a Warford locally on Craig's list for a good Price... Then Talked him down when we opened the top and found this. (those teeth should be squareish on the ends not rounded!) Good thing is that's low gear. But if anyone has one of these in good shape Please PM Jim or myself we're looking to pick one up to replace this little guy. I did get a little work done on the new bones. We are reusing the original ends, a section of 1/4" walled 1 1/4" DOM tubing and a model A tie rod end. The Parts all get welded together like this. I've got one to this point. Still need to get some of the DOM bend for the bottom mount so that it doesn't interfere with the tie rod. I think this setup should be strong enough to handle the loads on the front axle, even if at some point she gets a set of front brakes added on (not in the current plan but ... you never can tell). SO What do you think? CBB
...and you probably won't find one that looks any better to be honest. Almost every single Warford, Muncie, Chicago, etc I have ever seen look just like this....heck, MY Chicago looks like that! Nice score on the Aluminum case warford too...those are less common of the two styles (Cast Iron case and Aluminum). That also might be an earlier Warford based off of the shift tower. From what I can see...that is a good runnable Warford....I have seen WAY worse. That is just how those gearboxes are...they do like to grind a bit, especially when you are learning. They are not synchronized and will "complain" a bit if you don't get them to mesh just right. After I got it down...I can fly through any gear with out chippin' teeth. That is part of the Warford "territory" I would of course check the bearings for play and damage...the center bearing (between the input shaft and the rest of the main cluster) especially. Those are a special pitch and I don't believe there is a modern cross over. I also like the radius rods too
Thanks guys. I enjoy following along. And I don't even get my hands dirty! I vote to not chop the top. These things are getting sort of rare and an original looks diffferent.
Well... now I feel like we got a deal We have not completed the tear down of the warford. Just started cleaning all the thick 80+ year old oil out of it (why must that old oil smell so foul? ) It looks like the output bearing is a little loose but there is an adjustment nut for it, so once it's all tore down and cleaned we'll make sure that the needles are not pitted and the race is still round. But the others (on first inspection) look good. I've also been told that you can get all new bearings for the aluminum warfords. It takes a good bearing house looking and measuring the bearings as the numbers have changed several times since the originals were made. We're lucky we have the Timken bearing plant near here so there are a few places that deal with bearings around, so hopefully we can find all of the ones we need. With the radius rods... I may have borrowed a few design queues from this other ModelT guy here on the HAMB But we've lowered the front so much that I have to work around the steering linkage and I think I can get a way with welding the ball right to the frame. But I'm planing on tucking a backing plate on the inside of the frame rail to spread the load out and to have an extra bit of metal to weld too. If nothing else it makes me feel safer. Model T1.... if your ever in Ohio and want to get your hands dirty.... We can arrange that too The Top's staying no need to worry on that one. It was sealed when we set the body on the frame for the last pics.... it's just too cool to chop! We've also water tested our Radiator. We've got a leak where the overflow tube passes through the reservoir and a broken tube (tube is missing a 1/8" section or so). We're looking for options on what to do. Anyone know what a radiator shop would charge to fix something like that or would they? Is it crazy to fix it your self? (got an Ox weld torch).... CBB
I will recommend against welding to the frame. Weld the ball to a plate, then bolt or rivet the plate to the frame. I did allot of research on this after a few seasoned T guys brought it to my attention... You really don't want to weld to those frames at all. Ford used Vanadium Steel for their construction which is REALLY hard (will dull a carbide bit after 1 hole), but very flexible much like spring steel. The Model T frame is actually designed to be a part of the suspension system..allowing it flex and twist over the bumps and ditches of the less then perfect roads of early America. Welding to or boxing these frames impedes this ability to flex...causing extra stress that can lead to cracks and breakage. Bolting or riveting (I recommend rivetting) the ball stud plates to the frame is just as strong, but still allows Henry's frame to do what it was designed to do. I learned about this after I welded to my frame, but was fortunate not to find out the hard way. If you want to see how much that frame actually flexes, C-clamp the front crossmember down and twist the rear crossmember... pretty cool
I didn't Realize that the metal was that hard. My original Plan was to rivet a plat to the frame similar to yours. Once we lower the front fully the Bones line up to the frame almost exactly in the middle of the frame. So I need to come up with a new plate design. Plus I'm having trouble finding an air rivet set (just the set not the hammer ) for the 3/8" rivets I ordered for this. Was planning on picking up a Sledge hammer shaped bucking bar as they are much easier to find then the fancy padded one you got to use and should do the same job....not let the rivet move while setting it. How thick is the plate that you used for your mount? from the picture's I would guess 1/4" or 5/16" thick. I think that we'll be doing the riveted plate if nothing else it looks cool and it will be a good test on how well we can rivet. As we're not sure yet; but we have talked about having to move the body back 2-4" once the rear is dropped to get the fender line to match. That would mean moving the body mounts on the frame... That is going to be alot of drilling and riveting. the idea was to plug the old holes and weld them up. I wonder if that will cause any issues with cracking when flexed? I could gas weld them closed. Them pack fiberglass or stone wool around it and let it cool slowly. Like you do when your braze cast iron or anneal case hardened stock before you work it. It should keep the flexibility as the vandium steel wasn't heat treated. Also means I need to order like a case of Carbide 1/4" and 3/8" drill bits Here I was thinking all the "fun" parts of this build may be done.... not quite.. CBB
You could also drop the bones down and keep the ball studs just below the frame rail....would have a good look to it. You just have to factor in the right castor angle which for a car like this should be about 6.5 to 7.5 degrees. I can't remember what thickness plate I used, but I can measure. Seems to me it was 5/16th". Since you have moved the rear axle back in relation to the frame about 2 to 2 - 3/4", you will have to move the body back on the frame to get the wheel well reliefs to line up. I did exactly the same thing on my roadster...except I did it when I was young (still no change there ) and dumb (...some change in that department ) and I welded them to the frame. I'm sorry that I did and eventually it will be corrected. A weld like that most likely wouldn't cause any issues in my life time...but out of principle, I will fix it. Over all, I think I stretched the wheel base 6 - 1/2" to 106.5" Filling holes by welding them up is okay. It really doesn't heat, warp or damage the frame (as long as you don't quench it with water of course) and will add back some of the lost strength from being drilled. Fixed a few on my frame the same way. I had one carbide bit when I drilled the 10 holes for ball stud plate rivets. I would have to sharpen it after every 1 - 1/2 holes.....took me 8 hours to drill all 10...and Chris had to spell me 'cause my shoulder was killing me! ...Those frames are HARD STUFF!
Mink, We have one Section of rust in the body. It's in the trunk. It's the panel below the trunk lid, at the very bottom where it meets the floor pan. At the end of it's first life our T was a farm car and they hauled coal in the trunk. There was a lot of sand and coal dust laying in this area. My only guess is that it held moisture and allowed the Panel to rust through while it sat in the barn all these years. The Plan for the repair is to remove the lower 3-4" of the panel (this will get us up into good old steel) It will also remove the spare tire mount. Some thing we're not planing on using any how. Then we're going to weld in some 18ga sheet steel to replace the section we removed. If all goes well you will not notice that it's there. If it all goes wrong .... well they sell repops of that section for about $75 so we can always replace it... But I really want to keep as much original steel as I can. We have some other body work, to complete like remove some dents and repair the gnarly trunk lock hole that looks like someone went at it with a screw driver and a vendetta at some point in the past. But over all the body is in excellent shape (we were very lucky!) so not a lot of time will be spent on rust repair. We'll get some pics of the area to be fixed soon. I want to hold off on the body till we get more of the chassis finished. I have really bad S.O.S.(Shiny Object Syndrome... I'm easily distracted) So if I start on the body I may never get back to the chassis One step at a time! It's hard to tell from the Pics but I cut the front of the DOM to 7 degrees. and the Mounts were ground so that the face that bolts to the axle and the End that is wielded to the DOM was 90deg to one and other. This should give us the 7degrees that we need. Before we mount the plates we'll through a gauge on the front axle and fine tune it. We're not looking to lengthen the car. Just move the body back a few inches. It will give us the leg room we desperately need (I'm 6'2" the Stock T was made for someone about 5' tall ) But it will also mean that we either run with no hood (not my 1st choice) or we'll need to find a model A hood. We could add 3" to the T hood ...but I'm not 100% sure that I have those skills yet but may be fun to try. More things to think about... and get me off Track! But If I don't think about them they may come up and bite us when we're not looking ... CBB
...I wonder who that could be? I'm just glad you guys could get some use out of the idea too....and that my notes were legible I know what you mean....there is NO ROOM to do anything in my roadster. I'm a small fry (5' 9") and I have a tough time in that car! They are really meant to be sat in more vertically...with a seat riser, springs and full upholstery. Dropping the seat, column and chopping the windshield doesn't help. I thought about stretching a T hood....but I don't have the sheet metal skills either. At that point, I found a '28 or '29 Model A hood....which was exactly the right length and almost the same curves for the cowl and radiator. The Model A hood sides are too long, but those could be cut down.
I was able to snap a couple of pics last night to show the damage to the radiator. Here is the Damaged tube. It looks like it happened after the car was in the barn for sometime. It's on the back side closest to the fan. Here is the over flow tube. It's leaking there where it meets the reservoir in that tight spot by the tubes. Any Ideas or suggestions? CBB
All fixable. You should be able to have any good radiator shop fix those problems, but to be honest you might think about just having it re-cored. They can re-use the original upper and lower tanks, but fit it with a modern flat tube core. I had this done for mine and I also had the expand it to a 4-core radiator...as opposed to a 2-core like your original unit. That way, even in hot summer weather she will stay nice and cool (with a T fan of course).
Since the Last round of updates our fearless heroes have been hard at work.... Oh wait, that was an update for that other thread... The Two slackers that post here have been busy screwing around... Fire ! Fire! But they have managed to fabricate these. With the Rear Spring drop Shackles this far you know we had to drop them into the car just to see how they looked. You can also see the only major section of cancer on this old girl in this shot too. Fixing the rust is up right after the chassis is squared away. So What do you think? Oh, you want more pictures from different angles? Ok, Here you go. Looks like the hood got dropped on....and the body is moved back 2 1/4". Lets loose the hood, as we're only going to run with the hood top, and then only when we have to. The next pic maybe a better view. That's Better! The Body is sitting where it will stay, 2 1/4" back. It was moved back so the radius of the rear tire is centered on the fender line stamped into the body. Most of the body mounts (or all) will need to be moved and at first glance we may have some pedal / firewall / floor board clearance issues but we're not there yet. We did a little math and measuring. We took Roughly 14" out of the front, and 6 - 7" out of the rear. What can't see it from this angle? Maybe you can see it from here. That's where we're at. We have to button up the rear spring setup. We have some bracing to make and some rod to thread. Then it will be on to getting the Warford in here... Shorting the torque tube, rear radius arms and building a rear support for the Warford. Please leave your comments... our Staff of slackers are standing by to answer them (when they get around to it ) CBB
Thanks BigCheese and Clayton. We were very happy with the stance, and Glad we went with the white walls, they just say 30's hotrod. CBB
If you are looking for parts for your project we have a great guy here in Gilbert Arizona who has a nice yard with parts you may be looking for worth calling let him know I told you to call him. His name is Sammy his # ( 480 )782-0266 Arizona Model A Frenchy
We have been making Progress on the Car over the last few weeks. We don't have any great pics to show. The Body is back off so that we can finish the rear end fab and shorten the radius rods to fit with the Warford. We had hoped to have the rear done this weekend...but ran out of gas mid way through the day on Saturday. No Really we emptied a tank of Acetylene. At 1PM on a Saturday there was no where open to fill it. So we'll have to get back on the rear later. We took Mr.modelT's advise and got the Radiator re-cored. Here's some pics of it to keep you happy Here's your challenge What's different with the Radiator? 50 points to the first correct answer! Some helpful hints... It's the same radiator (as much as can be with re-core). It's Clean and repainted. It holds water (which is a big plus, because before it didn't!) Post your Answers !! CBB
Ok, I'll give you 2 points for that because we went to flat tube instead of the original round....but it's not the "Correct" answer. Thanks, CBB
As stated Above. The new Core is a modern flat tube core....That's not the answer that we're looking. CBB
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