After taking numerous measurements I decided to set the motor mounts back 21” from the center of the radiator mounting holes. I used a Posie’s 1001 front spring and wanted to check my ride height so I figured I would weld the mounts in place and then set the motor in the frame. So we slid the frame out from under the body… And with the help of some C clamps a piece of angle I clamped them in place and tacked them in… Then I welded just the tops for now.. (I’ll flip the frame upside down to weld the bottoms as well as the frame mounts for the bones…) After everything cooled we slide the frame back, bolted the front tires on and set the motor in the frame… So right now things are looking good! But I think I may go with a different Posie’s front spring to get the frame a little lower. I would like the center of the spindle centered on the frame. But for now here are some other pics… I used Pete & Jakes dropped steering arms from Joe Casto. These are a mild drop that just clears the bottom of the ‘35 bones… And here is a quick overall pic… Well that’s it for now…
Cool project, always nice to see a T getting some hot rodding love. I've got a 26-27 coupe waiting for some attention behind my 36 5W project. She'll have a 265 with tri-power I've had laying around the garage.
I am so glad to see this. it will hopefully give me impedus to get off my butt and get on my touring project. Around here it seems as though I am the only one doing a T project around here.
Thanks for everyone’s comments! Last week we set the body directly on the frame to see what had to be done to channel it… And here is the front of the firewall I need to cut as well… I searched the HAMB high and low and didn’t really a definitive method or way on channeling A or a T, except that every channel job is unique. So I figured if I stared at it long enough I would figure something out. One thing I had to do regardless was remove the front floor angle braces that tied into the firewall… So after drilling out a handful of rivets I had the brackets removed… More to follow…
I usually take the week between Christmas and New Year’s so I have a whole week to work on the T… So yesterday I started working on channeling the body. I wanted to channel the body 4” to just go over the frame so I decided to go 4 1/2" which should give me some wiggle room even to add some body mounts, etc… So I marked the fire wall… And then cut both sides… When I was done with that I decided to start on the front sub structure. I know a handful of posts I read said ‘cut the floor out, raise the floor, weld it in place…” but I didn’t think that would work for me. So I wanted to keep the existing structure in place since the doors shut well and the sheet metal is tied into it. So I had to narrow the from substructure and started by marking it out… And then with the help of a 3” cutoff wheel I cut the structure and made a pie cut. This is a little hard to explain but hopefully I will be ‘clearer’ a little further along here… So close up the pie cut I used a small C clamp… And then welded it in place… More to follow…
The top of the substructure is 1 1/2" wide, so I decided to add a piece of 3” x 1 1/2" x 1/8” tubing to the top of the existing rails. Then I figured I could relocate the existing floor pieces (that are about 4” wide or so…) level with the top of the new 3” box. By doing this, I am effectively moving the floor up 4 1/2" up. So I stopped last week and picked up some pieces of 3” x 1 1/2"… ( I did have to wire brush them to clean them up…) I needed to make 2 gradual bends to follow the existing rails, so I used a chop saw to cut two 1/8” slots in the box tubing… Then I set both pieces in place to make sure everything lined up… After I was happy with the fit, I need to drill a few holes and cut a slot to make them fit flush against the existing rails. So I have to drill two 9/16” holes to fit over two existing rivets… And then I cut a section out as well to clear the gusset out near the front of the door jamb… More to follow…
After that was done I needed to pie cut the 3” box as well, but I only needed to clear 2”… So I taped it off to figure out where I needed to cut… And the I made the cuts on both pieces… And then welded them up… Then I drilled a series of 3/8” holes to bolt the 3” box to the top of the factory rails. Using some tape and a yard stick, I inserted a 1” long bolt into each hole. Here are both sides for reference… Then I was able to bolt both pieces in place… You can see better in the pic why I pie cut the 3” box… Now that my ‘rails’ were extended, I tied them together with another piece of 3” x 1 1/2" box. I only tacked this in place since I will probably have to remove it once I figure out the rear, gas tank, etc… Then I tacked in a few pieces of 1” box as well…, Now that these are tacked in place, I will cut out the (3) floor pieces and move them up… But I will tacklr this tomorrow… Well that’s it for now!
So after tacking so temporary 1” box pieces in, I started drilling the rivets out for the floor crossmembers… After the 2 front crossmembers were removed, I realized I still had to cut the rear of the frame off to make room for the body to fit over the frame. This frame was set up for coilovers and I want to use a /40 spring. So I cut a piece of 4” x 3/16 angle and tacked it in the frame to keep the two rails parallel and cut the remainder off with a sawzall… Then we were finally able to set the body over the frame! In the meantime, we dug out the T5 I picked up out of a ’93 S10. It was an early ’93 so it has the Chevy bolt pattern but was a World Class model. From what I read, sometime in ’93, Chevy went from the Chevy style bolt pattern to the Ford style bolt pattern. So I guess I got lucky… And I my Dad helped me out by removing the old bell housing, etc. and started cleaning it up. I also make a sheetmetal cover to put over the shifter location… More to follow…
To adapt it the Y block to the T5, I bought a Y block to old Ford transmission Offy adapter off of eBay. It didn’t have a model number on it but based on a mid 60’s Rod and Custom magazine I have, I believe it was a #602. The I bought a Offy flathead to T5 adapter from Speedway. They had an issue with their part numbers and it was listed wrong on their website. Originally I ordered a 560-52720 that was advertised as a GM transmission (3 speed, 4 speed, T5) but they later corrected it to 560-52722 which is just for the T5. (I’m not sure, but I think the center hole is what’s different. Advance Adapters makes a ring that reduces the hole from 5.125” to 4.686”, part #716078) And here are the two adapters… And here is everything bolted together… The part number I listed above was for the kit that comes with the input shaft sleeve, throwout bearing and pilot bearing. They also offer two options, one to use a GM style fork and one to use the original Ford flathead linkage. I wanted to go with the Ford style since I had a flathead with a 4 speed out of ’49 F3. So I posted a question here on the HAMB about the linkage and it turns out the 4 speed non syncro trans uses the same shaft and fork. So I went out to my where the flathead is stored to take a look at it… And then removed the trans… here you can see the shaft and the fork I needed… I also removed the pedal assembly since it was the same as the F1… Then with some more help from my Dad, we disassembled everything and gave it a quick cleaning… More to follow…
I wanted to test fit the trans so I also spent some time radiusing the firewall. So I used the first Offy bell to mark the radius… And then I cut the fire wall and installed an old flywheel (just for reference…) Then we moved back to the transmission and installed the adapter sleeve over the shaft along with the clutch release shaft and fork from the ’49 F3. The shaft is wore pretty hard so I will need to replace it, but at least I can use it to mock things up… Most guys say you have to cut about 3/8” off of the input shaft to make this swap work, and after taking some measurements I confirmed that 3/8” would work for me as well. The problem is that the input shaft goes through the pilot bearing too far and hits the cranks shaft (even though the crank is chamfered about 1/2".) From what I can tell the pilot bearing will fit right in the Y block crank… So I taped and marked the shaft and used a 3” cutoff wheel to cut it… And then I uses a roloc to clean and chamfer the cut… One last thing I had to do was make a bracket to fasten the throwout bearing return spring to. So I decided to remove the housing over the input shaft of the trans and drill and tap it to 1/4x28. The I cut and shortened a bolt and drilled a hole for the spring and installed it with a drop of red Loctite… And finally we were able to set the trans in the car… Well that’s it for now!
Great step by step. Early on I looked at running a T5 but was hesitant about adapting the T5. By the way, Glad to see another Sedan getting put to work!
Thanks for everyones comments! Here is another quick update on the T Now that the body was channeled I decided to section the grill to match the channel. When I bought the car I also wound up buying a 28/29 A grill shell from the original owner as well. It’s pretty tired but it will work for right now… With the 4 1/2" channel I determined the shell needed to be section 5”. So I picked the middle of the shell where the original headlight wiring ran through and removed 5” with the 3” cutoff wheel… Then I tacked the shell back together and set it on the car to see what it would look like (the round bar is just to hold it in place…) I also C clamped a set of Guide 682J’s to the front as well. I have a model A light bar that I will be cutting to make the headlight stands in the future… More to follow…
Then I decided to spend some time on the dash. Over the past several years I have been collecting Stewart Warner Twin Blues to this car. My Dad’s buddy had them in his ’32 Ford when he built it in the ‘60’s so that’s where my interest in Twin Blue’s came from. I also picked up a GM diesel 5 hole panel a while back (GM Diesel was later renamed ‘Detroit Diesel’ to make it an easier sell to other truck manufactures, and we have a Detroit in our ’70 Brockway…) So using some cardboard I made a pattern… And used that to mark the dash… Then with the cutoff wheel along with a Dremel cutoff wheel I cut the pattern out… And then set it in the car… So after looking at it further, I will re-radius the bottom of the pass side of the dash to resemble the driver side and better follow the bottom of the GM diesel gauge panel. I have a stock column from a ’40 Ford so I need to make a bracket for the column drop so I’ll try to figure that out this weekend… More to follow…
I tried to locate the F1 pedals and steering column but quickly realized that I needed to have a seat in place to figure out where everything should go. So a searching on the HAMB I found a thread about different seat widths, etc. This car is fairly narrow so I determined a mid 90’s Dodge or Chrysler middle minivan bench seat would work the best for now. So yesterday at lunch I took a trip to the local U pull it yard and scored this seat for $42… The one nice thing about this seat is that is folds forward and completely backward as well… And after removing the factory base we set the seat in place. Now I can determine where the column needs to be along with the F1 pedals… So that’s it for now!
As evidenced by my avatar, I have a "26 Tudor" as well... GREAT JOB so far, subscribed !!! If I can help with anything, I am just a PM away, I used a Chrysler Minivan center seat like you did, fits almost perfect, and I also like the fold forward, just the seat back, or the whole seat, option..
Liking what you are doing. The bellhousing ("hogshead") from that truck 4-speed trans is worth keeping, people use them as the basis for an adaptor for later gearboxes. Mart.
This past weekend we spent most of our time working on the interior of my Dad’s ’70 Brockway but we did sneak a few hours in Saturday morning. A few years ago I wired a good friend of mines ’58 Chevy Apache pickup. In return for wiring the truck he have me an original ’40 Ford steering column along with the factory drop and a cut down ’38/39 Banjo steering wheel. This was in a ’40 Ford he owned years ago and I really wanted to use it in the T. Now that I had a seat set in place, I could not sit in the car and figure out the best location for the wheel. But first I had to remove the original dash so that I could fill the hole were the original ’26 column use to pass through… So I cut the flanged recess out and bent a piece to fit in the original spot… I had to make an ‘angled adapter’ that would let me use the ’40 drop on the bottom of the ’26 angled dash. So I started with a piece of 2” x 1/8” flat stock and bent in my press using am old V block and a 1/2" bolt. All I really wanted was a curved bend (not a sharp bend…) It’s a little hard to explain but I used a small piece of 1” x 1/8” flatstock and welded (2) 5/16x24 bolts to it… And then cut a filler piece for the front of it… And then welded it in and cleaned it up with some rolocs… And here is what it looks like on the dash… And here is the dash back in the car… I will also make a piece to tie this mount into the firewall for strength, I just have to figure out how I want to do it… So that’s it for now!
Looking good! You really gave some helpful ideas with your pics to help me with my subrails. Thanks alot!
The Jalopy Journal
