A little over 2 years ago I started kicking around the idea of a Model T roadster build. Just some loose ideas and a fuzzy vision of a finished car. I have never owned a true roadster, plenty of convertibles, but growing up in the Northeast and currently living in the mid-Atlantic a roadster was never a prime choice for a build. Yet the idea of owning a T just wouldn't go away. For about a year I talked myself in to, and out of, a T project... The whole thought process was just... lacking something. I needed inspiration, a goal, and a challenge. A good friend of mine has a beautiful 23 lakes modified. Its a gorgeous car, done right. But I couldn't build a car that was almost exactly the same as someone else in my circle of friends...could I? I decided that I couldn't, but there was that spark of inspiration. I started searching out T builds, "traditional" pre-war T builds to be exact. Something about the pre-war stuff just felt right to me. ah-ha!! Inspiration, Check! I started studying era correct cars and looking at different design and build aspects. Not looking at the cars as a whole but looking at each part or section of the car and making a mental list of things I liked. fast forward to early March 2020, I was fortunate enough to go to Detroit with some friends (the guy with the 23 lakes modified and the guy that built the lakes modified). If you lock some car guys in a truck for 8-10 hours, eventually they will talk about cars...lol In the course of conversation I shared my ideas for a build. Come to find out one of them is sitting on a perfect, original paint, 23 turtle deck that had been sitting in a barn for 60 plus years... it still has the original skeleton key for the lock!!! More inspiration! That really got the wheels turning. The vision was getting less fuzzy. Now, I am not a rich man and I can't just commission a car to be built... not that I would ever want to do that, but it did make me start seriously thinking of the financial aspect of building a car. It was decided during that ride back from Detroit that this car could be built in the $5000 range... Ah-Ha! A Challenge!!! A deal was struck for the turtle deck and a pile of vintage parts including a stack of 23 body tin, a model A frame, front end parts, and a transmission. and a strong lead on where to pick up a good flathead and rear end. Now all that was missing was the goal. Could a down and dirty prewar racecar be built in less than a year? Should we try for TROG 2020? A Goal was set!!!...albeit a short lived goal... And then... Covid struck.... and everything got cancelled... I will end this first installment with some of the inspiration pictures I gathered that kind of set the direction of this build. (Credit: Owner, Photographer, Builder, Artist) Before I go any Further, I want to take the time to thank some people that have made this build possible: @Clark for his seemingly endless patience with me, and my questions. His knowledge, his generous access to his parts stash, and his talent. I really appreciate it. My buddy Billy for his inspiration, companionship, encouragement, and all around historical perspective. My Buddies Jason and Matt of Never Enough Performance and MechTech for the use of the garage space, lift, machine equipment, and technical expertise. My Buddy Fred (USAF retired A-10 maintenance chief), for his electrical and mechanical input and moral support. @Mac VP for taking the time to help me wade through early ford transmissions and helping me get the correct parts I needed the first time. Red's Vintage Parts The Early Ford Store The HAMB and everyone that has taken the time to answer one of my questions.
The inspiration, the challenge and the goal have been set. I am really excited to get this project off the ground and then Covid. I am not going to review all the bad things that covid brought us. i will just say that the Goal was moved when TROG got cancelled. The Upside of Covid for me was I found myself with considerably more "down time" locked in and I turned it into an opportunity to hit the project hard. The parts collection... this is one of my favorite parts. I love the search, the research, the chase... I gathered up as many parts as i could and brought them home to start working. the first order of business was to sort and evaluate. then clean, inspect, and see what else i needed. here are some pics of the collection process.....
During the time i was doing research I kind of fell for Isky's T, I had always appreciated its place in Hot rodding history but the more I looked at it the better I liked it so when the chance to pick up a 33/34 Pontiac grill presented itself I jumped on it. I think Isky used two of them to form the grill on his car... And now comes the part where my car gets its name.... I had the Pontiac grill hanging on the wall in the garage for a few months... its a sexy thing IMHO... I really like the peak at the top. One day I was over to Clarks shop with Billy checking on the progress of the Anniversary 32 Sedan (chronicled in a different thread here on the HAMB) and trying to not get in the way when I saw an aluminum part, its was a cover of some sort sitting on a pile of stuff. what drew me to it was the shape... it had almost the same peak as that Pontiac grill. I picked it up and thought that it would make a bitchin' air cleaner for my dual 97's. I did a test fit on an intake and it fit great.... Now to figure out what the hell it was. It had a tag on the back of it. come to find out it was the aluminum motor cover for a 1930's electric floor polisher...from the Clarke Sanding Machine Company... Model P-12 Floor Polisher! And that is how the car became the P12 T
At this point we are heading in to summer, we are locked down, but we have a vision/inspiration, a challenge, and a crushed goal. We also have a pile of parts and a lot of free time. I decide to push on and believe that it will all sort itself out in due time. I got a line on a supposedly good '46 59AB so I picked it up for a very fair price. I figure I better dig into the engine first because if it has any cracks or issues then the whole $5000 challenge is shot to hell. Supposedly one cylinder is down on compression (80-85 compared to the rest that are at +100ish). This was a risk I was willing to take. I get the thing home and put it up on the stand. I have no real way of testing it so I figure I will just pull the pan and heads and go from there. I get the pan off first, no chunks of metal in the oil, no major clogs on the oil pump pick up, no cracks on the pan rails... so far so good. Another good sign is that the cam gear has been replaced at some point with an aluminum replacement to the fiber gear that was OEM... and it looks to be in good shape. The next thing is pulling the intake... the news isn't quite as good here. lots of sludge in the lifter valley... At this point I am getting a bit concerned but I press on. The next order of business is getting the heads off. I have read enough HAMB posts to know this could turn south in a hurry so I take my time, use plenty of PB blaster, Deep Creep and some well timed prayers and manage to get all the heads nuts (or studs and nuts) off without breaking any off. This alone is a major victory as far as I am concerned. Looking at the vales and pistons the carbon build up isn't as bad as I expected. I do find a few loose valve guides and the low compression cylinder has a lot of carbon build up on the valve seating area... To be honest, this is the only time I have been happy to see carbon build up. Hopefully this is the cause of my low compression. I begin the task of cleaning everything up I clean all the sludge from the lifter valley, clean the top of the pistons and valves and find that the pistons are marked "STD" (flathead gods be praised)! after getting it all cleaned up i figure i better make sure its worth moving forward with so i pull the main cap furthest from the pump, shockingly it looks really good. i now feel comfortable that the bottom end wasn't starved for oil. I decide that it is worth pressing on. I find that there are 4 valves that have lots of "play" in the guides, and most have more than thier fair share of deposits on the mating surface. I try to get a goo look up inside the engine at the cam lobes and all seems well as far as i can tell. Now I am at the point that a couple of specialty tools would come in real handy so I start the search and ultimately purchase the valve spring compressor, pry par and horseshoe clip removal tool. My next call is to Red's vintage parts for a set of NORS split valve guides and NORS springs. I meticulously clean the valves and valve guide area, along with the valve seat surface Now its time to lap the valves. After everything is lapped, cleaned and properly assembled, I turn my attention to the oil pan. Someone had done a repair on the dipstick tube mount, but I felt it could be done better. So I went over to my buddies shop and cut a piece on the plasma table and welded some bolts to it for a new mount plate. with the pan installed I am finally ready to install the timing plate and heads.. next episode will be carbs, distributor, fuel pump, water pumps (and modifications), and accessories and pulleys and the modification it took to make a pile of multi year parts work together..
After getting the heads on it was time to have a good look at what I was going to do about water pumps, crank pully, generator, fan, distributor, carb and intake. I had picked up a nice Almquist intake and a pair of 97 carbs that needed rebuilt. The intake is a neat piece of east coast speed parts history. The manufacturer (Almquist) was based out of Milford, PA which isn't to far from where I live and the company has a neat history. A quote attributed to Edgar Almquist Jr. from 1946 says, "Enjoy the distinction that is inherent in owning a customized car." Preach on Brother Edgar, preach on!!! There is a reprint of an interesting Hemmings story about Ed's life here: Almquist Intake - The Flat-Spot (myflatheadford.com) Unfortunately the Almquist I have is for the later 8BA block... but after some digging I found that it could be used for my application with just a couple of bolt holes not used. I also had a Crab Distributor of unknown year and no fuel pump, and no fuel pump push rod. I had parts, and a lot of questions. I did some reading and got my head around the problem areas and then made a phone call to Charlie Schwendler (CharlieNY on the fordbarn) up in Orchard Park NY. Charlie is a great guy and he had helped me with a pair of 94s on my coupe that I had rebuilt a couple of times but just couldn't get to run as well as I thought they should. He rebuilt them, then ran and tuned them on his test engine and sent them back to me. I took them out of the box bolted them on and haven't looked back. After talking to him about fuel pump stand pad height, timing cover measurements and some other issues I decided to just send the pile up to him and have it done right. The peace of mind and the quality of work were well worth it to me to know it was right and would work right out of the box. Charlie is not cheap but his prices are fair and his work is excellent. He even cut me a break on price because I wasn't in a big hurry to have the work done and he could work on it between other more pressing projects. At the end of the day, he rebuilt both carbs, tuned and balanced them on my intake by running them on his test engine, rebuilt the distributor, made me a custom length fuel pump push rod and supplied a period correct rebuilt fuel pump. While Charlie was working his magic I turned my attention to the front of the engine. I have the wide belt double sheave crank pulley, oil filled fan and long pumps on my 30 coupe and it looked like that fan placement would work well for this build. Along with the motor mount location. So I started collecting and mocking parts up for that. The first problem I ran into was the 8BA pumps had a port at the top that didn't have a corresponding hole in the earlier 59A block. Every thing else seemed to line up perfectly soooo... I hot rodded it...lol I got some freeze plugs and some and set about sealing those holes up. The first attempt was a failure... the casting hole was not quite round and had some fairly sharp edges that did a real number on the brass plugs. I broke out the deburring tool and cleaned up the casting and tried again. Things went much better the second time around and hopefully they will be watertight. Next up was the timing cover. There was a bit of interference between the timing cover and the driver side pump that I took care of with a bit of grinding After getting the distributor back from Charlie I started mocking up the crank pulley... I knew it would be a close fit and that I would need to do some machine work to get it to fit together like I needed. here is the issue Measure twice and cut once was the mantra here.....even though the measuring location and the cutting location were across town from each other...LOL After parting the timing flange off the pulley and cleaning up the edge I was really happy with the result and I think I will have the clearance needed to make it all work together. I checked the alignment of all the belts with the the crank, gen, fan, and pumps and every thing seems to be in good shape. So now I have and engine pretty much ready to go. everyone please keep your fingers crossed that there are no knocks, ticks, or leaks when I fire it up for the first time. That was the last part of the engine build/mock up that needed to be done. next up... front end parts from the early 30's, mid 30's and early 40's all need to work together....
Next up on the build is some front end parts. We decided to go with a 33-36 non dropped axle. We can use a low spring or forward mount if we need to lower the car any... Mock-up is still a good ways off. I have some '40 spindles, drums and backing plates, a mid 40's unsplit bone that the perches had been cut off of, some 32 spring perch bolts ( I wanted to use friction shocks) and not much else. I made a list and ordered, bearings, races, wheel cyl, brake shoes, springs, king pin kit, threaded bungs, ball joint style split bone mounts and some assorted hardware. While waiting for parts to arrive I got to work cleaning and inspecting. I split the wishbone and found that the passenger side had a bit of a bend in it... I am fortunate to have access to a pretty well equipped shop so I got this in the press and got it straightened out. Once both sides were straight I had an issue with the 32 perch pins fitting in later bones. the 32 pins are pretty short and there is a lot of material on the topside of the bones. I set about removing material... Getting closer... Finished Product... not to bad for my limited mill operating experience... I also blasted some 16" wires. Got them painted and mounted up some tires... (having to buy new rears really put a dent in the $5k budget.) Next up.... I dive into the wonderful world of the 39 ford top-loader 3 speed trans... And try to kill my budget at the same time.... Chappy
As I sit here waiting on an alignment on my OT hauler I figured I would start in on the trans up build post. Let me first say that this is my first ford 3 speed toploader rebuild... mistakes were made. Early on I was just collecting parts and there were some details and differences in top loaders that I didn't even know that I didn't know. The first trans I picked up looked good, it had the double syncros, and the gears looked good. Turns out it was an early case ('32ish) that at some point had a later gear set installed. Another detail with the early case is the fact that the Flywheel on my engine is for a 10" clutch, and that clutch will not fit in the early case bell housing... I figured all was not lost, I could still grab a later case and swap all (or most) of the internals over... Wrong. A call to Mac Vanpelt started my education on case differences, single and double detent towers, shift fork differences, etc. Mac recommended that I buy his book, "The Ins and Outs of Early Ford Transmissions" It was money well sent. And I recommend it to anyone no matter your level if experience with these trans. It is a wealth of details with drawings and part numbers. After getting really familiar with the differences I set out to find the later style trans I needed. 8bwas able to swap out the early trans for the later trans and I began the tear down. Sadly, this trans was wore slam out, rode hard and put up with some water in the bottom of the case... and then left in a damp barn, wrapped in a wet burlap sack...lol I am exaggerating... but not by much The more parts I took out, the larger my parts list became. Here are some pictures of the parts as they came out... After getting the case cleaned up and inventoring the salvageable parts I placed what would be the first of what would turn into multiple orders to Vanpelts. Seeing as I was going to be replacing the cluster gear and most of the others I decided to go with a 28 tooth cluster. Once all the parts had arrived I started the assembly process and it went fairly smoothly. Getting the cluster gear shaft installed with the thrust washers on both ends is a.... challenge. Here are some finished pics. I even tried my hand at safety wire... Next up, making a body out of a pile of tin and assembling a rolling chassis Chappy
It has been awhile since my last update... life has been happening and it is really putting a damper on my hot rod building time. But, some progress has been made We got some mock up work done on the body and we were able to see what was needed and get a patch panel made for the rocker area of the drivers side. There is still much to be done on the body.
We shelved the body for a bit and decided to concentrate on the running gear and chassis. Time to make a roller out of the trailer full of parts I have. First things first... the frame. I am using a model A frame for this project and it needed some modifications. To make the T body fit we needed to narrow the rear. We cut the stock A rear cross member out and narrowed it. Next we modified/narrowed a 40 ford cross member for the trans mount We then stepped the rear of the frame, pinched the rails together just aft of the center crossmember and then tacked it all up. After some measurements and parts mock up we finish welded and moved the frame from the frame table to a dolly. We set the engine and wheeled it into the trailer for the ride back to my garage for some assembly.
Progress!!! We have a roller... While dealing with life's everyday hurdles I managed to make some progress. The first thing I got to work on was the rear. The pinion turned very hard and had a couple of spots where it would hang up and get "stuck". Problem two was the ends of the axles.. both had flattened threads and one was broke off at the cotter pin hole. Third problem. Was that spring perch mount on one of the bells was blown out.. After searching around I was able to find a set of axles and a bell. This is my first banjo build so there was a good bit of time spent on research. While waiting for some parts for the rear to arrive I got to work assembling the front end. Everything there looks pretty good. The only thing that isn't sorted there is the caster. I want to wait until I have out of the parts hung and rude height set before making the brackets for the split bones. Once the front was done I fought with the rear. (Note to self, next time make sure you have an extra set of hands around when doing the rear assembly and set up.) I started out with a used model A spring with 3 leaves removed and did the assembly, this is not going to work at all. As soon as I started lifting the rear it just collapsed the spring until the bells laid against the bottom of the frame... still trying to decide on my best option here. But all in all I feel like it's good progress... Aside from everything is taking twice as long as I expected. Once the rear was febrile and mounted I put the tires on it and declared it a "roller". Big milestone for me... almost like my kids first birthday or something. Anyway, here are some random shots... Chappy
Update 10... After reading @THE FRENCHTOWN FLYER post about updating build threads I started feeling guilty about how I haven't updated this and also about how little work I have gotten done to the car. Currently the four main reason I haven't done much My oldest daughter bought a house in the next state over and I have spent a good number of weekends helping with projects My side hustle t-shirt business has really picked up again and between customer orders, shows, and constantly trying to track down available product I am spending a lot of time on it. Day job, I travel some for my work bit now that everything is ramping back up and our regional offices are a bit short staffed I find myself on the road a bit more...all the stuff I would normally do during the week ends up getting done on the weekends instead of working on the project. And last but not least, waiting... I am constantly waiting on something... a part to arrive (finding a usable 35 ford rear drum)... a friend's schedule when I need that extra set of hands.... etc. Having said all that. I have still managed to get some stuff done... mostly the mundane things like getting parts clean and in primer. And getting the rear spring right. Currently I am working on getting the torque tube and drive shaft cut down...I am in need of a cup and coupler to mount tube to the trans... I need that to get the correct measurement to cut the tube So... If you have one laying around, help a brother out... Untill next time.... Chappy
The holidays have come and gone and I have run out of excuses to not work on the T. I have been doing some stuff here and there, mostly having to do with shortening the driveshaft components. Perhaps you saw my post about the driveshaft mystery... still not sure exactly what happened there but I plowed ahead and think I am right where I need to be length wise. After shortening the TT I took it up to the carwash and gave it a good internal cleaning then I dried it out and gave it a good coating of WD40 on the inside to keep the rust away while I shortened the shaft... a few days later and I noticed that my amateur welds have a couple of small spots that allowed the WD to seep out... so that will need to be addressed. I guess if I do it over enough times I will get better at it...LOL. On to the shaft, i was going to just turn the parts down and then pin and weld them. But where is the fun in that when you have access to a machine shop? LOL. Why not cut new splines?!?!? So yesterday I took my time, noodled it out, and went for it. This is by far the most complicated thing I have ever done from a machining standpoint. And I had to use some math I haven't needed since college... and you thought Pi was just for eating...HA! I don't have another driveshaft so I really wanted to get this right and only had one shot at it. It took me about 6 hours but I got it done and it works!!! Now all I need to do is assemble it all and hope it fits properly Pics below Chappy
Just found your thread. This is a really interesting project. I’m subscribed for the rest of the trip.
Big day today... After shortening and splineing the driveshaft I finished putting the rear together. Today I went over to Clark's a d we finished stitching the parts of 3 different bodies into one. I came home and was going to wait until tomorrow to bolt it together and set it on the frame... I couldn't wait...lol Still a long way to go but this is a mile stone event for sure
Well, it has been a few months since I last did an update. quite honestly, progress has been a bit slow. I have gotten some very important items on the way to being sorted out but I have just been struggling for motivation to jump on this in the few spare moments that I end up with everyday. And, the middle part of this year has been pretty devastating. Between the Beginning of April and the end of July we have lost my mother-in-law, my dog, 3 good friends and my mom. Motivation to work on the P12 (or do much of anything) has been hard to come by. But, we will soldier on and get it finished. As I said, progress has been made, and some new skills were learned. A big moment came when I was able to push it out of the garage and finally get a look at it from a distance greater than 3 feet. there is still a tiny bit of tweaking left to do on the grill height but i think we are very close. The next big item was getting the floor cut and putting some beads in it with the Pullmax (what a great tool!!). We also got the body bracing done and welded in, cut and bent a seat riser, and cut out and fitted a firewall and toe boards. I also played around with some dash designs and test fitting. the jury is still out on how all of that is going to go. but, here are the pictures... Chappy
Progress has finally been made. After the debacle that was the middle of my 2022 we ended on some high notes. My oldest got married in September and we tried to have good holiday season despite it being the first without our moms. My new years resolution was to hit the '23 hard. And I have made some progress. The big challenge was getting the steering, exhaust, and pedals to share real estate in harmony. First up was the steering box mounting. I am using a late 30s chevy box. I notched the frame and used two early model a 4banger center bearing caps as my clamp. I claimed them together and turned the ID out to match the box. Then I ground the faces off the allow some clamping force. Then bolted them through the frame. Next up was the pedal assembly, nothing special here, 40ish ford pedal assembly heated and bent to clear the steering column. I did make a concession for safety sake and went with a "newer" dual pot master cylinder. I found that a mid to late AMC master cylinder has the ports on the driver side, making running lines over to the frame a bit easier. And it only took a light modification of the mount holes to fit nicely. Then I had to work the top of the shaft to accept my wheel... i ended up turning down the splines, re-tapering the shaft and cutting a key way. Then we bent the pitman arm and shortened the drag link. Once all that was done we could move on to the headers. For these we stayed old school. Late 30s torque tube straight out the side.
So it's been awhile since I last posted...but progress has been made... BIG progress. We have a running, driving, and stopping...well, kind of stopping, car. Still a good bit of work today to do but the major systems are pretty much sorted. Now it's time to fit the turtle deck and dash, bead roll the firewall, fuel tank and battery mount.... Here are some pics
The Jalopy Journal
