The weight bars are primed on one side and one edge. The first two bars are welded to a piece of angle iron. Then they are set in place and welded to the inside of the trunk. The trunk floor had been primed beforehand except for the bare metal strips where the bars will be welded in place. These are then primed before the next pair of bars are set on top of them. All of the bars have been stacked up with each pair being welded in place and primed. The tail lights are mounted down under the edge of the rear fenders. A hole is drilled into the floor in between the weight bars and a rubber grommet is put into it. A piece of steel with two threaded holes is welded in place in front of the bars. This is so the stop and turn signal light can be bolted in place from underneath without having to hold the nuts in place on the inside. .... I apologize for the shoddy looking welds. My 40 year old Lincoln MIG welder started giving me fits and it eventually quit feeding the wire. I finally figured out that the welding wire was froze up inside cable housing and I ended up buying a new cable housing. ... The stop and turn signal light is bolted on and the wires are brought up thru the rubber grommet. Tail lights. And stop lights. I can't show you the turn signals yet because the steering column is still out of the car.
A cardboard pattern is made up to fit at the end of the weight bars. NOTE : the edge of the second row of bars extends out past the bars that they are sitting on. The pattern is notched to fit down under this extended edge. The pattern is traced onto a piece of treated deck board. Two pieces are cut out and they are set in place on each end of the weight bars. The blocks are cut into two pieces. The bottom piece is slipped in under the weight bar and then the top piece is fastened to it with screws to clamp the block tightly around the edge of the weight bar. The two pieces of the blocks are glued together and the are also glued to the weight bars with construction glue. A 1- inch diameter hole is drilled thru the lower part of the blocks for the wires to go thru. A third block is cut out with a notch in it to clear the indentation in the back of the trunk for the license plate. This is fastened in the center. The rear panel is set in place and a piece of flat steel is used to make sure that there is enough clearance for the indented license plate panel. Then a cardboard pattern is made up for the floor . This is also checked for clearance in the center cutout. The floor piece is cut from 1/2 inch plywood. This will be screwed down to the wood blocks to hold it in place. A notch is cut into it at the outer ends for the electrical cables to fit down thru. There is also a smaller notch in the center for the single wire for the license plate light. Again, checking for clearance. While checking to be sure that the floor piece can be removed after the rear sheet metal is welded in place, I found that it is going to have to be in two pieces to be able to remove it.
I've cut the sheet metal for forming the indented license plate panel. The four sides are bent to form a box shape. This is welded to the inside of the rear trunk panel and then the seams are coated with construction adhesive to make it water tight. The rear panel is set back in place and is ready to be welded.
The license plate frame arrived yesterday in the mail so I got it mounted this morning. I like that the lamp housing doesn't stick out past the surface of the trunk. I welded the metal into the holes in the two rear corners. The first coat of body fill is applied.
I appreciated reading your story, and was especially intrigued by this car destined for Bonneville, any idea what happened to it?
I have mounted an emergency / parking brake lever off a Honda CRV in between the seats. I picked this because type of handle because it has a nice formed shroud that fits around it instead of a fabric boot. It came with the little plugs that fit into the two holes in the front to cover the mounting screws. The seat frame is made out of 1-inch square steel tubes with the wood attached to to it. In the center, where the E-brake handle is mounted, there is a piece of 2x5x1/8 thick U-channel welded to the square steel tubes. I used that so both the E-brake and the seat belts will have a good strong mount. This red light glows on the dash when the handle is pulled up. Getting ready to attach the emergency brake cable to the rear brakes. The cables are attached and the brakes re-installed. Note the three long 1/2-20 grade-8 Allen bolts threaded thru the axle flange. The brake drums and the wheel adapters are put back on. Only two of the lugs holding the wheels on are in the adapter plate. The other three lugs are the long Allen bolts that go all the back thru the axle flange. Just my personal choice. I have never liked relying on just the lugs in the adapters to hold the wheels on.
Spent some time out at my son's place today and was able to bring these back with me. Chevy 350 transmission with starter and flex plate. 49 - 53 flathead. Chevy automatic transmission to flathead adapter kits run from $1050 to $1300. Searching thru ebay I found this old adapter to mate a Chevy engine to a 49 to 53 flathead transmission for $160. ( see photo ) I figure that if it will bolt a Chevy engine to a Ford transmission then it can be made to bolt a Chevy transmission to a Ford engine. I can machine the aluminum plate to bolt the Chevy flexplate to the flathead crank. With tax and shipping it cost me $203.30
I got this flathead engine in the late 70's and this is the first time that I have looked inside it. I am very surprised at how clean it is. The cylinder walls have absolutely no ridge or even any scratches on any of them and there is no carbon buildup on top of the valves. This engine defiantly doesn't have many hours of run time on it. There is a little surface rust on some of the cylinder walls but not much. I'll run a hone thru the cylinders just enough to clean them up, put in new rings, rod barrings and gaskets and she'll be ready to run. This has an old Ford Motor Co dual point distributor. These little metal covers are something that I've never seen before. They fit down over the points. I have no idea what the advantage of having them would be but they are interesting.
Very very nice workmanship! There is quite a contrast between our two Model T's. Keep up the excellent work.
Retired, my hat is off to you regarding the really cool stuff you are doing for this T project. I have to admit that I was never really interested in “Ts” but boy you area really starting to stir the pot! With all the T stuff out there going for cheap, you may be starting a new trend for those just starting out in the hobby. I know you have commented on a couple of my threads and I can certainly love and appreciate what you are doing showing what us retired guys can do although you are certainly in a different league than I am! Like the old Mott’s applesauce commercial used say (and I am dating myself here ….), you got the Motts! Again, hats off to the build and I hope to catch up with you down the road one day ….
Now that I have the engine, I can finish up the intake manifold. The intake is bolted down to the block and I'm pre-heating both the intake and the front of the block before I even start the welding. First thing is to weld a plug into the hole in the front of the intake where the oil fill tube was. Then the front section from the 60 HP intake is bolted down on top of twin carb intake and welded in place. This is as far as I got today before the welding gas ran out. Taking into consideration how old these two manifolds are and that they are both well used, the welds are turning out to be much cleaner than I had expected. Hopefully, I have been able to keep the contaminates flowing up to the top so that when I start to sand the welds down, there will be clean metal exposed.
Picked up a new tank of Argon gas this morning and finished welding the generator mount to the front of the manifold.
Looking thru Ebay today and found this interesting item that just got listed. It's an old Navarro flathead V8 intake that is very similar in design to what I'm building. The listing price is $1,999.99 OBO. It has a separate top unit.
Searching the internet, I ran across an article on flathead intake manifolds that was in a 2011 issue of Hot Rod magazine: This is the information about the Navarro " Dog Bone " intake. When World War II ended, anticipating a career as a civilian, Navarro realized he knew more about machine work and hot rods than anything else. Before he was discharged from the Army Air Force, he designed his own dual manifold, loosely based on the stocker on his '42 Ford, a car he'd bought seven days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Barney's first 2x2, a low-rise affair with a "dog bone" shaped removable heat riser, resulted from an experience he'd had crossing the mountains in New Mexico in winter, using the tall, high-rise prewar Weiand manifold. Both carburetors had iced up and his car slowed to 35 mph, painfully strangling itself. Navarro decided to improve on that design. "Remember," he told me, "the firing order on a Flathead alters from bank to bank, except for cylinders one and two, which fire sequentially. Every time it fires you have exhaust on one side or the other, so it (my design) kept the carburetors warm. For summer use, you simply took out the long center stud and replaced the dog bone with a little finned cover. Unfortunately for Navarro, it wasn't very popular (though it's a $750-plus collectors' item today if you're lucky enough to find one, especially if the original "dog bone" attachment is intact).
The adapter for mating a Chevy engine to a 49-53 flathead transmission arrived today. This is the transmission side and you can tell that this is designed to bolt to a Chevy engine by the location of the countersunk holes. The two top center holes and the two bottom side holes for the Chevy bolt pattern are counter bored on this side. The two top side holes are drilled out so longer bolts can go thru them and thread into the Chevy block. It was very simple to make this so it bolted onto the back of the flathead engine. I just countersunk four of the Ford transmission mounting holes. Then I welded up the countersunk holes for the top two Chevy bolt pattern. These two holes are drilled out and Helicoil threads were installed. The adapter is bolted to the engine with flathead Allen bolts. A small block of aluminum is welded onto each side of the transmission, just above the two bottom mounting holes. With the transmission bolted up to the engine, I drilled thru the two lower transmission mounting holes on the engine and on thru the aluminum blocks that were welded onto the Chevy transmission. These two holes on the transmission have Helicoil threads installed in them. The original Chevy mounting holes under the two new threaded holes each have an aluminum plug pressed into them. The Chevy transmission is bolted onto the the flathead engine. I used longer bolts on the two top side Chevy mounting holes so the smooth part of the bolts got thru the transmission and the adapter plate. These bolts are fasten with a nut on the front side and I cut the excess thread off the bolts. The two bottom side mounting holes each have an Allen bolt going thru the engine block from the front and threaded into the transmission. These two bolts go all the way thru the Helicoil threads on both sides. This makes the two lower mounting points very strong.
The welds are smoothed down on the intake manifold. Then I lightly sand blasted it with only 40 pounds air pressure and coated it with four coats of Rust-Oleum clear.
No. I'm doing the exact same thing that you do with the purchased adapter kits. The engine, the flexplate and the torque converter are all already balanced individually.
These are the cowl lamps that I'm going to use. I believe they are off a 1920's or 30's Chrysler. I have removed the curved trim piece from the mounting studs, cleaned them up and put new stainless wire conduit on them. They are now wired for 12 volt and have LED bulbs in them. Mounted on the car. Once the car is painted, the rubber grommets will be fit into the holes. The lights are designed so they angle down so they will not be shining straight into oncoming traffic. View of the back of the lights. I'm going to have these operate as full time running lights so they will be on when the key is turned on. The left is brightness of the running light and the right is the brightness of the turn signal.
Set some parts up on the block just to get an idea of how it's going to look. I'm going to polish the finned heads up some before it all goes together.
Started working on getting the wood fitted inside to build it up to where the upholstery level is. The top, middle and bottom curved pieces of wood are fastened in place. Working on the upright pieces. The ones on the passengers side are going to be the hardest to do because of the cable for the windshield wipers going up that side. so naturally, I'm working on that side first. The piece of wood going up along side the rear window needs to have a notch cut into it at and angle for the cable to fit into. I'm using the small mill in my train room to mill out the notch because it is easier to reach both control handles for cutting at an angle on the small mill than it is on the bigger mill out in the garage. the upright pieces of wood are in place on the passengers side. You can see the red wiper control cable behind them. The upright pieces are placed where the flat area of the cab meets the curved area. View from the side. View from the front.
I'm putting seat belts with the shoulder straps in the car. For the mount for the upper attachment of the shoulder strap, I first use a 1 inch hole saw to cut thru the sheet metal of the body. Then I use a 3/4 inch hole saw to cut thru the square steel tube that the framework of the body is built from and the wood filler strip on the inside of it. This leaves the cut edge of the square tube fully exposed for welding. A 7/16-20 hole is threaded into a piece of 3/4 inch steel rod. This is fit into the hole so the back side of the steel rod is countersunk past the sheet metal. Then it is welded in place. The weld is ground down and the area is primed. The upper mount for the shoulder strap can now bolt to the steel rod. This end of the rod extends 1/4 inch in past the wood filler strip. I am planning on putting a wood interior in this car using the .190 inch thick sanded birch plywood so the shoulder strap mount will stick out a little past the plywood.
the window regulators are very stiff so I'm working on freeing them up. They are a very unique design. You need to click on the " Watch on Youtube " link to get it to work.
The edge of the doors and the door jambs are painted a matte black finish. The seat base is painted charcoal gray.
These Ford cars from the 20's were often called " Tall T's " and sometimes they were called " phone booths ". I remember back in the 60's, some guy took a phone booth and built a model-T car out of it. You know you're working on a tall car when you have to build scaffolding around it to work on the roof. The top boards are screwed down to the two wood riser blocks and the everything is tied together with ratchet straps so nothing moves while I'm standing on them.
The Jalopy Journal
