I really like this build. Reminds me of my t, only better. I've got 30000 miles on my car since I built it 13 years ago.
I have a young dog that is afraid of the moon and hot air balloons, she has mostly gotten used to the moon. On my tie rod and drag link I used plenty of anti-seize on the treads and that keeps it free and once its set you shouldn't need to touch it. JW
My fan showed up this afternoon and it must be double bonus point day! The only reason I bought it was, it's a 16" diameter fan that will bolt up to the parts I currently have. It came with a hub and mount, but that didn't really sink in because certainly the hub will be junk anyway, just like the one I already have. Bonus #1 - the hub it's on turns and has no play in it. Unless there is some evil lurking within that isn't obvious now, it should be useable. Sweet! So here's a front shot which doesn't show the size difference all that well. It also doesn't show the detail of the stamping which clued me in to bonus #2. More on that later. Maybe a little better illustration of the size difference. And without furter ado, Bonus #2. I noticed the stamping on the front of the blades made it look like the blades themselves didn't extend out from the hub. I put them both down on their faces and there it is. The new fan is a good 1/2" shorter than the old one! Look at how high the hub from the old fan (on the right) sits off the floor. The new fan puts the hub right on the floor. Ok, it doesn't bring the radiator back to it's stock position but it's a step in the right direction. It's a busy weekend with non-car related tasks so I'm not sure when I'll have time to put this on the car for a trail run. I did get a couple belts too, so I can start dialing in how everything fits together.
Yeah... whatever. I can do that other crap tomorrow. A B52 belt is too long, the generator hits the carb. A B50 is too short. I hope a B51 works... As for the fan, a B32 fits, but just barely. I think a B33 will work better. EDIT: I've been looking at carb spacers, I think I'll pull the front carb, adjust the belts, and see what size spacer will allow the use of a B52 belt. I haven't got THAT much room before it hits where the hood will be though. Here was the first fan. The blades are too big and as shown they almost hit the seams where the tanks meet the core. The blades do hit the filler tube and extend past the bottom of the core. Here's the smaller fan. Granted the blades aren't in the best position to show the difference but trust me, it fits much better. It could even come up a little, which is good since a longer belt will make the fan and generator brackets fit together better. So how much room are people putting between the fan and radiator these days???
I too have an odd number of left and right rear backing plates. I'll check on Monday and see if we can help each other. Ed Sent from my SM-G935F using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Last weekend I decided on a steering box location/set up. So when I got home from work tonight I thought I'd mod the drag link to fit. POP QUIZ! What had to be modded to make this fit? Time's up! The drag link now goes on the top of the steering arm so it's upside down, which means the stock opening is on the wrong side at the pitman arm (or vice versa). I decided to make another hole on the end I put on the pitman arm so the grease fittings pointed to the outside. Putting the hole on this end made it farther away from the threads, which I thought would mean less chance of screwing things up when I welded a cover on. Here's the hole I put in the drag link. So here's the rub. The plan was to weld a cover over the stock hole and regain the strength that was lost when I cut out so much off the other side. But when I got to this point, I pretty much convinced myself not to use it. Welding the drag link isn't legal in Michigan (if the website I was on is correct). That doesn't really bother me but the loss of so much metal does, welded cover or not. I've got a lot of time to think about it but for now I'm leaning toward only using this for set up and replacing it with a mini-tie rod later. Bonus points there is the length would be adjustable too. To back up a bit, this is the steering box positon I've decided on. I'll have to rebuild it with a right hand drive gear to get it to move the right direction but it needs to be rebuilt anyway. This spacing puts the steering column centered in the cut out on the T dash. The oil pan still hangs lower then the steering box. The steering arm needs to come up an inch or so but that shouldn't be a big deal. I'll probably need a U-joint in the column for a decent angle on the steering wheel though. There's no room to put it on the top of the frame. Putting it in the stock Model A location makes the pitman arm interfere with the wishbone. Under the frame seems like the best choice.
Well, you're not wrong... I put the internals into my cut up drag link and jumped on the front end. I was expecting some movement of the pitman arm, but not as much as I got. I thought more about it and realized I had been looking at the geometry the wrong way when laying things out, and the changes I expected to make to minimize it aren't going to do jack. Maybe cowl steering is still an option after all.
That puts the pitman arm into the hairpin. I'll have to take another look at it though. In other news... I got an email from UPS last Monday with a tracking number from Howell's! The box was waiting for me today when I got home from work. I'll offer more details when I get into it but my intial impression is the fit of the parts isn't anything to get excited about but not so far off as to be useless. For now, the deck lid... you can see where the leading edge of it is straight on the lid and curved on the tulip panel. I don't know which one is correct or even how far off things really are, the lid is just set on whatever is left of the drip rails. I did notice that the embossment for the key is about half an inch off center, so I've got that going for me. While I think of it, I'm still looking for a source for the "T" rail stuff. Found it for a couple but that's too short. I've seen similar stuff on other brand cars so I'm guessingit's available somewhere in generic form at least. Let's just say there will be some work involved in making everything play well together... but it's a start.
So what do we think about putting the parking brake under/behind the dash? I don't remember where it ended up with the Model A transmission. I played around with a few locations and this made the most sense. There isn't much room in these things and putting it forward got it out of the way of the passenger's legs a little, and helps to keep it away from the dash. I was afraid I'd have to shorten it but I think it's ok. I still need to trim the mounting bracket but this is the general idea. Speaking of brackets - Tardell mentions using a 2x2 angle. I used a 2 x 1.5 and it worked fine, in fact I could have gotten away with a 1.5 x 1.5 but to get the most legroom I have it pulled up close enough to the transmission that a nut or bolt won't fit behind it. I threaded the stand off bosses instead. I got the material from or local Alro, a great place for this sort of stuff. They sell cut offs by the pound, this cost a couple bucks and I used about half of it. I tried the steering box in the stock location again. I probably can make it work, I mocked it up and jumped on the front end again. There's still bump steer so I spent some time with the numbers. The stock location is better but still has appreciable movement if I did the math right. Looks like if the wheels come up 2" the steering wheel will move about 1/8 of a turn with it in the stock location. "Bump" is shown in inches up there but I did all the work in mm, because fractional inches are fookin stoopid to deal with. Not that it will make any sense without a diagram but here are the numbers I was using. I have metric tape measures. I do not have tapes that show inches in decimals. So basically I think I can make it work in the stock location, but I may have to bend the pitman arm towards the frame/away from the hairpin. Something I'm still not sure about is if the drag link can travel through it's full range of motion without hitting the hairpin. Easy enough to check but I ran out of time today.
Just make sure you can get to it easy without getting a black eye from the gear knob. Here is where I put mine, it seems a long way over to the right but there is still enough room for the passenger. This is when I had just mounted it, still in masking tape to try and save the paint. I like how yours sits. JW
I have all my tape measures with inches on one side and mms on the other. Sometimes it's just easier to use mms. Sent from my SM-G935F using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/index.php?threads/1001406/ Here's some inspiration for you. To make more space inside I used a parking brake from a Morris Oxford and column selector. Ed Sent from my SM-G935F using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Not a lot of Morris Oxfords in the States. I have a Morris Minor unit hanging in my workshop but have an aversion to using English parts on an American car, although they are similar to the Lokar items. JW
So you wouldn't use Ardun heads on a flathead? Or a Stromberg 97? Sent from my SM-G935F using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
A Mazda whatnow??? No, not a lot of Morris anythings in the states. And for the most part, it's pretty much always easier to use mm's but for some reason known only to grade school teachers and ruler lobbiests, fractional inches just will not go away around here. (FWIW, most industries I'm familiar with here are now "metric" companies, which in reality means units get mixed all the time. It's fun!) Having ranted about that, I do however think inches are appropriate when talking about parts for 90 year old cars that were built in the USA. Anyway, on to what I've been messing with lately. With the steering box mocked up in the stock position, this is about where the wheel will end up, which seems to work out pretty well if I'm using a 15" wheel. Which brings me to my current decision on if I want to use a 15" version of the 1940 Ford wheel. The wheel I'm using now is 15" but from a Triumph that's about 25 years too new. I had imagined using a spoked banjo wheel but haven't seen anything I like yet. Here's a general idea of where the drag link would fall if I put the pitman arm on backwards or bend it in further. Basically it shows me it could be made to work. (I forgot to take a decent side view - the pitman arm extends past the top bar of the hairpin) There are a couple issues though. I don't have the outer part of the steering column installed and suspect it will complicate the exhaust routing and hit the corner block in this area. The steering box will be brought in a little when it's mounted for real but will it be enough? Made me wonder if I really need to outer part to run the entire length of the column anyway? Another angle of the area in question. The Triumph wheel I'm using for mock up and the approximate location of the needs to be shortened steering shaft relative to the dash. Speaking of the dash... it might be time to figure out what I'm going to use. I am leaning towards one of the "universal" '32 dashed sold by Brooklands or Howell's. I put the pedals in place on the crossmember and they seem to play well with the steering where it is. I do need to remove the brace for the toeboard though. I started on it but it's not gone yet.
If you aren't running any switches or wiring up the column, just run it bare up to the wheel with a bearing in the column drop off the dash. It will give you more room all around.
Move the column back, drill the frame to accept it and shorten the column accordingly. Nip the problem now instead of chasing it later with wacky exhaust solutions etc. I've done this. Its straightforward and it works.
That sounded logical enough so I played around with it some. At first I moved the box back but kept it the same height as the stock mounting location. Ok now that I posted that I see it's a pretty crappy picture. basically that helped with the column hitting the block but it still held the box pretty high up. That white line is roughly how far back the sector shaft would be. I tried to put a stock manifold on there to get an idea on how an exhaust would work and they just barely hit each other. Then I tried putting the steering box lower on the frame rail. Here it is maybe back and maybe half an inch lower than stock. Much more better! You can just barely see the top of the box in that shot. Should be more than enogh room to run an outer column all the way to the box if I decide to though. Here's better shot of how the stock exhaust fits with the box. Once I had this in place it made consider running a dual exhaust using stock manifolds? Certainly a less expensive solution! The Red's Headers part for the F1 box should work fine too but damn it's ugly... Might need a full hood if I run those. Lake pipes would work too, that's the way I'm leaning right now. Strange enough, yesterday my wife and I were out walking Ollie. I told her "I think I'm going to put lake pipes on the hot rod". She said "That's nice. I have no idea what it means though..." the strange part was on the way back home we stopped at a BBQ place to pick up dinner, and there was a '31 roadster sitting there with lake pipes and a '32 grill. So now she knows what lake pipes are. She also likes the '32 grill. And she's wanting a bench seat rather than buckets. Here's roughly how the wheel would fit with the box in the new position. It's more horizontal than I was imagining, but that does make it a touch easier to get in and out. I'm not sure how it'll work with a windshield but everything is still just kinda sorta where it's going to end up, there is still a lot of time to tweak things as needed. In other news, I also got some new Gates belts. The belt for the water pump works great, it can be adjusted without the generator hitting the carb. The fan belt works better too, but I think one size larger would be perfect. Third time is a charm...
Yeah, I have a windshield frame which obviously isn't installed yet, but the windshield location is one thing I'm trying to keep track of. I'm also aware of the potential of smacking my elbow on the door when turning. Not sure what to do about that short of wearing one of my bike jackets with armored elbows...
You will develop a driving style (as I did) that suits, I haven't got my elbow yet ...you will adapt. Now is the time to sort your seating position to make sure your knees fit under the wheel as its tight and your legs will still need to move enough to reach all peddles with ease and comfit. JW
You can always cut the shaft and have double "D's" machined on each end and add a steering u-joint to bring the wheel down to where it should be. With a single u-joint you do not have to have a support bearing as long as the box and the wheel end are fixed.
I'm getting easily distracted/overwhelmed on this now. I go downstairs to work on it, think about doing one thing, then realize I should do some other thing first, but wonder if maybe I should do thing three even before that, and end up not doing anything. In the theme of "doing anything is better than doing nothing" one afternoon I decided to make the turtledeck fit the body. Here's the issue I have. The left side of the body is beat to heck and the corner is smashed down. The top channel thingie is twisted around too. I had no idea what I was doing but I do have some bodywork hammers and dollies so what the heck. My dad gave me a few pointers about 40 years ago and I went from there. Twisting the rail back in postion more or less was done with two Crescent wrenchs. The corner required some hammer work. Things went faster than I thought but I screwed up, as this shot shows. The corner of the "ledge" that the channel connects to had basically been moved, and when I moved it back I missed and left a low spot. So I've still got some work to do before the turtledeck will fit under the ledge. It's a boatload closer but still off by a touch. Right about here I remembered the turtledeck had welting under it from the factory (according to the Model T sites I've been on) so I decided to wait on the final fitting until I had some on hand. I also thought about buying the wood tack rail that fits back here. Snyders has them but they aren't cheap. It seems it wouldn't be THAT much work to steam/bend something then shape it to suit? I also realized having the body bolted into position would help on a lot of the things I was getting ready to do. Before doing that I wanted to bolt down the stock crossmember in the new position, so off came the body again and I started playing around with the crossmember. Again. The new position is rearward, to give more room for the master cylinder. It also helps line up the crossmember on the frame with one on the body so I can put some body mounts there. Here's a clip from an earlier post where I was looking at clearances. Click on the red arrow and you can read my rambling and see more pics. I did flip the crossmember so the back was now in the front, but still in it's original location, as in the old holes for the back flange were still being used on the back (now front) flange. Then I marked it up where I thought I need more clearance and figured where I'd cut and weld and patch and... then I measured everything up (again) and dag nabbit, the numbers kept saying the radius rods would hit the frame before the torque tube hit the crossmember. So, I used a combination of ratchet straps and clamps to drop the frame onto the radius rods. Here's how that looks at the crossmember. With the frame rails resting on the radius rods, there is still .3" of clearance at the crossmember for the torque tube, and .4" at the front of the radius rod on the right side. The left side has even more room because of how it's formed. I didn't bother measuring. Once I saw that I made the rivet holes in the frame a touch bigger and bolted it in place. It will still have to be modded a little, due to the taper of the frame the rear flange of the crossmember is now about 1/4" from the frame. I'm not going to mod that quite yet, I'll wait to see if it needs tweaking for the parking brake or whatever first. I used button head screws. The idea was to make them look like rivets. Unless someone can tell me the history of button head screws (were they around/being used in ~1950?) I'll probably put some filler in the holes and them paint over them when I do the frame. I've got them for the front radius rod mounts and engine mounts too. One more thing - body mounts. I was planing on using some rubber pads from Drakes, but surprise surprise they aren't in stock. What are people using between the frame and body? (And in case anyone is wondering, the circles around some of the bolts is to remind me not to fill those holes when the time comes.)
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