Johnny was 10 year old in '52. An older kid across the street had a T-Bucket...most likely a flatty-powered-built-from-the-local-wrecking-yard jewel that started young Johnny down the Hot Rod road that we're all on today. His first ride was a '56 Chevy convertible. As a freshman at Auburn, he talked (coerced?) my grandfather into buying him one of, if not THE first Impala Super Sports in the area from Valley Chevrolet...a 348, 3x2, four speed, coupe. They traded the '56 in on it. My grandfather said "...you could drop the clutch in fourth gear and spin the tires all the way up the street. The bag boys at the grocery store would fight to carry the groceries out for your grandmother just to see the car with the stick in the floor…" During his time in the Air Force in the '60s, Johnny owned a string of big-block Corvettes that began with a '65 396 and included a '68 427/400 and ended with two '72s that were stolen in a week's time. Later on had a Gen3 IROC and a C4. But his love of that first ol' T-Bucket started it all. That first love came back into his life in the mid '90s... he happened upon a well-built turtle deck kit that was for sale. "Guy won it in a poker game" he told me. It was a repop frame/glass bucket outfitted with a chrome, dropped axle and 18” spokes up front. Out back it had 14x10 slotted "mags" sporting L-60-14 rubber. Power was from a "late" Chevy six banger that was hopped up with some compression, a hot cam, roller rockers, and dual valve springs. Induction is through dual Holley two barrels. A six into two header/sidepipe setup uses two glasspacks and turnouts in front of the left rear tire. An aluminum flywheel/clutch fed the power through a close-ratio Muncie driving a '55 Chevy rear axle outfitted with wheelie bars. The fiberglass body features the turtle deck rear and a cut down windshield that leans back just a hair. The saddle interior features Stewart Warner gages in the dash and a Hurst Competition Plus shifter with bench seat style stick. He loved the little car and drove it whenever he could...he probably spent more time cleaning it than driving it! He said "he loved it most because it was like driving a one car parade! Everyone looks and smiles, waves, gives you a thumbs up... it draws a crowd wherever you stop." Johnny passed away four years ago and, after an ugly court battle over his stuff, I got the T-Bucket. She's been sitting in a garage in his suburban Maryland home since early 2016. My son and I fetched it home to Tennessee in April of this year beginning our journey of putting Dad's T back on the road. I'm a muscle car / sports car kind of guy so this is new to me. Stay tuned for progress and help as we go along? Thanks!
That’s a stand out little rig, especially with the 6! Do the maintenance, make her stop and go, Enjoy. Oh, and share your progress for the rest of us.
Is that last pic a current pic of the car? There are several T-Bucket threads here on the HAMB, definitely worth your time to search them out and read the hundreds of pages, the information contained in them is very valuable. To get you started, this one here is probably THE definitive thread on T-Buckets: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-bucket-of-ugly-a-de-uglifying-thread.824491/
If you get a chance you can check out the NTBA (National T Bucket Assn.) site. Lots of great info on there, also.
Had two vehicles to bring back from Dads house...The T and a Yukon SUV. Rented a UHaul pickup and trailered it up. The Bucket had it's own custom trailer. A single axle modified to hold the T's footprint. The lower half of the trailer is enclosed with aluminum treadplate and the upper half was rigged like a covered wagon with hoops of steel and a custom cover. The allowed hauling the little car to shows and such without covering it in road debris. The cover has gone missing so we blue tarped it home for now.
Got it home, unloaded, and cleaned up. Popped in a new battery but she wouldn't start. Fuel pump was dead (Carter electric). Pump replaced and she started....leaking fuel at the carbs. New kits ordered and carbs were rebuilt.
Hi guys! Sorry its been quite a while since an update. Lots of work done to make here go and stop safely. We've been enjoying driving her around locally and taking her to shows. The first thing she needed was new shoes. The original L-60-14 rubber was dry rotted and hard as a rock...jumping on the throttle induced massive wheelspin. Not to mention the fear of tire failure. Needless to say, L-60-14 rubber has not been available for quite a while, so I started by measuring overall tire dimensions of the 14" rubber and began searching for a suitable replacement. The closest size I could find N-50-15 from M&H. These are essentially slicks with tread. These new tires required some new rims to match and I chose some Rocket five spokes in 15x10 size.
Returning home from getting the new tires mounted, installing them on the car revealed the need to modify the exhaust. The larger tires were too close to the turnouts. The solution was stainless turndowns. Now the exhaust goes under the car and we added some bling to the formerly all black exhaust. A quick test drive with these new gumballs resulted in my first wheels up launch!!!!
With the tire situation resolved, I next chose to replace the radiator. The brass/copper unit had shown signs of leaking and while driving the car the radiator seemed to "wobble" which had to be hard on the header/tube joints. How it survived this long I'll never guess. I took measurements of the core and started searching for a replacement. It turns out there are plenty of T Bucket radiators out there and they're all essentially the same with the exception of Ford and Chevy style intlet and outlet locations. I placed my order and waited for the unit to arrive. The old one was solid mounted to tabs on the framerails and I knew this had to have been a contributing factor to the failure. I began thinking about how to resolve this and learned that Model Ts had spring "suspension" on the radiator mounts. Looking further I found polished stainless spring mount kits from Speedway and got them coming. The new radiator mounted easily and the fiberglass shroud fit nicely on the new radiator.
The steering wheel was a tiny 10" job with a deep dish and a black foam rim. I replaced it with a 13" red metalflake piece and added a quick release to ease entry and exit
I designed a trailer for dad to haul the car that doubled as storage (the trailer fit into one bay of his garage). He had a local trailer dealer modify a single axle utility trailer to fit the bill. They enclosed the side with aluminum tread plate and added hoops of 1/8"x2" steel covered with material to keep the car clean and protected while transporting. The tailgate flips down to support the rear of the trailer while loading/unloading. There are ratchet straps at the front and solid binders at the rear. The trailer has electric brakes too.
Start up and walk around...nice little chop. Was originally built with much larger cam...has roller rockers and dual springs w/lightweight retainers. Aluminum flyhweel. IMG_0033 by TBucket6 posted Sep 19, 2022 at 8:54 PM
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