Projects '23 Model T Gow Job - AKA: Sand Creek Special

Chad, I'm late to the party here and wished that I found your thread years ago. Could have helped you and David earlier as I have done what you are doing several times and have a lot of T parts and racing equipment. If you are headed to Langs again I'm on your way.

What are you planning to do for rear main and camshaft seals?

 

I rarely get out that way, my only two visits two Lang's involved to see the Aldrich Roaster (and thus spotting the overheads) and then going back and making the deal on my Fronty.

The rear area of the block is a project in itself. I have talked to a few people already, I am not after a total seal, just something to contain the majority of the oil and return it to the pan. It's going to leak, I know that. I wanted one of Dan McEachren's rear block covers, but he really had no intentions of making more----and they are a bit pricey to boot.

 

Good luck with it.

 

@T-Head if you have any ideas on the rear sealing, I'm all ears.

 

Well, in the mean time hopefully to hear ideas on the rear sealing from @T-Head

It was 1 year ago I did the patch repair on the drivers side body panel. I knew because of the door opening and the amount I needed to remove that the passenger side was going to be a royal pain. But, I needed to take a break from working on other peoples stuff and get back on my own. I am no body guy by any stretch of the imagination. I hate welding really thin sheet metal and dealing with the heat associated problems. I probably said the same thing a year ago doing the other side.

But, I dragged the super flimsy panel out from the basement and got it on the body stand and started diving in.


You can see there is a significant amount of rot on this side of the body which was literally trying to fold in half under the door area.



The lines drawn on the first pic were the rough area the repair panel was to lay. So out with the wire brush on the angle grinder and clear the paint off those areas. Unlike the other side, this side was body filler free...just alot of rot .




In order to make sure things were relatively lined up, I had to bolt the door in. And then to make sure the lower half didn't move (the latch is way up high near the top) I added a piece of strapping tack welded in as a brace. This added significant rigidity to the assemble. Also hard to see is a piece of 1/8" thick stock jammed into the top door gap latch area to make sure that stayed put on the gap.





Snip snip snip!




Too late to turn back now! Rough cut completed.

More to come later on........

 

Lookin good so far!

 

Managed to continue progress yesterday......more today on my last day off before I have to go back to work


The first of many test fits and what I like to call, before I destroy a perfectly good panel with my cave man like bodywork skills.



Starting to tack it in. I was having alot of issues TIG welding it in, before I realized I never cleaned the back of the original panel. That helped alot, but trying to weld this pitted up junk with a TIG was just difficult. This is where a better MIG (than mine), would have been better, it needs some low amps, I am down in the 28-30 max range and backing off on the pedal as the weld/ metal come up to temp.



Then it was onto the front side. Leaving the remnants of the wood framing has been a challenge to work around but I wanted to leave some structure to the whole panel.....remember what I said above about getting the metal clean? That was rather difficult on this part.




I can't remember if I bought or was given this panel. It is very rusty looking, but its all surface rust and is really solid. I forgot to take a pic before I cut it apart, the big tear on the donor piece had to be reshaped and welded back up.





Tack welding it up......it was going OK, the parts I couldn't clean on the backside were proving to be really difficult.



I'm getting there, but the metal did the opposite what it should have done. I lost (rather gained) my gap on the patch panel. the weld will typically pull the panels together unless you hammer and dolly along the way. This gap opened up on me. Trying to TIG welding a gap is a HUGE pain in the rear.




Almost done. Will finish this up today. It needs a bunch of hammer and dolly work once I separate the panel from the under structure.

 

Hay! Its coming together rather well! But I am setting here only seeing the project pictures, not hearing all the verbal release of frustration used. I understand about the unclean backside, a real pain! You are getting there! Be safe Have fun!

 

After you clean the back side you can slip a clean piece of thin aluminum between the wood and metal before welding.
The heat of the weld can cook the wood releasing gasses that make a mess of your weld.
Always a good feeling when rusty crap turns to good solid steel.
Looking good!

 

Lots of curse words were released----might be part of the other reason it took me a year to get to this side done from the first side. But when I get the weld to stick and flow and get to see fresh metal in there, it's all worth the frustration.

That's a great tip. Wish I knew that before. I've done pretty good at setting the wood on fire and dowsing it with my spray bottle of water. The best way would have been remove the structure and repaired. I was greatly concerned with it moving around to much which is why I wanted to keep it in place. Sheetmetal work is definitely not my forte. Maybe if this was a later 30's up car id be better at it---and maybe dealing with some better metal too.

 

I'm almost now considering doing a combination of wood and steel bracing or all steel.....Thoughts? I really wanted to do wood as stock, but with things like rearranged seating and floor board positions, I don't know if I can pull it off with wood. It will loose some of my accuracy of the car being built in the mid-late 30's.

 

Any one have thoughts to switching from Wood to metal on the framing of the body?

In other news, a couple of small victories attached:


These are a pair of rear driveshaft spool bearing from John Stoltz - Model T Ranch. I have two of them as I will have two driveshafts and tubes set up. One to go from the A trans to the T driveshaft, and another one just for a stock style T engine / trans. A friend of mine bought one and told me these work great to set up the backlash in the T ring and pinion.





Finally got my front hubs deburred and primed and painted....again small victories.

 

i think id redo the wood.but im a carpenter/joiner by trade.keep the original character .

 

Parts gathering and prep. Trying to find all the rear axle parts to start building the '26-'27style rear axle I'll be using. Going to see if I can drop the housings off to be blasted tomorrow.

I've had to go and reclean some of the parts up again as they gained some surface rust from sitting. The vibratory tumbler works aewsome to clean up hardware. I have some engine main cap bolts in there too as I am trying to get my stock pickup truck block ready for some fresh babbitt.

 

I'd sure like to, but it is such a pain. There is not a straight piece of wood on this thing. Everything has a shape (curve) even if it's very slight. I'm going to give it another shot I suppose. But I am wasting alot of money in Ash wood.

 

Build a part out of cheap soft wood first. Whatever is cheap in your area. This will let you get the setups and sequences figured out (along with a few bobos.) Then build your Ash part. The soft wood parts can be saved for future or used as fire starter. (Maybe a bonfire marshmallow roast!)
This way of attacking the wood saved me lots of Ash!
Boyd

 

I gave up trying to tube out my latest 24T, considered wood framing, and settled on hammer forming some internal braces from 22g as I'd gone for a folded 2mm channel for the subrails. It'll probably all get covered with a stock interior anyway. There's another internal hammerform I added across the back panel when I repaired the top edge. It'll never be pretty but it'll always be mine...




Here's what I started with...

 

Wow, nice job.. Admire your moving metal skills

 

Man, I hope the '23 turtle deck T I'm putting together looks half that good.

 

More progress:


Bolts for the rear differential out of the tumbler



Had a little issue getting the remaining two sleeves out. The one was severely deteriorated and rusted in. Used a die grinder and carbide burr to cut it.



Housing ends, took them to the sandblaster this morning. More parts are ordered, should be here by end of the week.

.

 

I think I'm going to purchase a body wood kit from fordwood.com. My woodworking skills aren't refined enough for that job.

 

If only it wasn't so damn expensive......
I havent burned up the cost of enough wood yet to even equal 1 sill side. Im, going to give it another try, part of the other issue is the rear structure as I am removing the rear seat riser to lower the seat, So that also means I need to redesign things.

 

Yeah, it ain't cheap. I'm glad my body is still fairly straight, so I won't have to spend it on sheet metal.

 

Thought youd enjoy these... 1949 h.r.m. the roadster of the month. Lotta neat tricks on this one

 

@oliver westlund , That's neat, Thank You for posting!

 

Minor update:



Got the axle housings back from blasting.




And then cleaned the outside and put them into etch primer ---I still need to clean the insides out. Just needed to keep them from rusting.



Then press the side differential gears onto the axles----they press on farther than they need too. So then..........



You can put the split retainers in, then press the axle back down so the gear locks the retainers in place.



And a bunch of parts to assemble the rear axle with. The brake shoe levers are a little hard to find as they are 2 year only, so I was happy to get them. Seems some of the repop parts are starting to get a little hard to find. Had to shop two places to find both rear brake shoe cams. Sign of the times I suppose. Might be a day we wont be able to get this stuff.

 

You are making good progress!

 

I have a '40 banjo rear for mine that I'm planning to tear down in a couple months. I should probably invest in a press like that.

 

20 Ton Harbor Freight. Works good. My axles JUST fit in there. I am not sure how the banjo rear is set up, but if they require the same process, those longer axles might not fit. Anyhow, good tool to have around. I straightened my bent up Model A front axle with it. You just have to get creative sometimes depending on the job.

I put it in my basement as I have no room in the garage. Downside is carrying heavy parts up and down the stairs. I do a bunch of rear axle work for muscle-cars and some of those diff carriers with a ring gear already on them get a little heavy to be toting around to press bearings on.

 

Some updates:


Separated the skins from the inner structure. Body panels were dropped off at the blaster this morning.



Both inner structures stayed in one piece until I took a few screws out from the upper cowl metal brace then it just fell all apart.




Whats awesome with building similar cars with your buddy, is you can help each other out. Being I worked out a decent steering box mount set up for myself, I started whipping one up one for my friend. Here I am slightly turning down the outer housing on an Model A 2-tooth steering box----using the only lathe I have, my brake lathe.



That allows it to slide into this piece of tubing that I slit so it can be clamped down onto the housing.



All set for this part, more to come, but if you go back in my thread, you will basically see the same thing. His will mount under the frame rail where mine mounts on top.