Projects Drdave accidentally buys a Model A. Now what?

Right. I picked up a set of ‘40 brakes from @1stGrumpy after he sold his Tudor, but I’m not going to be putting them on right now. The mechanical brakes have been working quite well, actually, so I’m not going to mess with them for now. This round of redo is mostly just going to be cosmetic....stance, interior and maaaaaaybe some paint.


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Had a little time to mess around this morning, so I pulled the headlight bar off to try on the dropped bar I picked up a while back. It’s a bit short, but easily remedied since the bow in the middle is too tall, so I’ll flatten it a bit and should be good to go. While I had the dropped bar hanging on there I decided to “try on” the headlights I’ve been collecting to see what I liked best:

903j....








682j....








682c....(imagine it black)







I have my favorite, but I’ll let you decide first...

 

Door number two Pat. And can we please see Vanna's tits ???

 

Personally, I like 682C's the best since that's what I had on the '29.

 

Couldn’t say...this whole Model A thing is new to me so my knowledge base is pretty limited. LOL. It’s an early 30 Murray body (January 1930) I have learned, beyond that, beats me. Lol. Also, in the pics above, the hood is wonky and not down all the way cuz I had the stock headlights and horn tucked in there, so the conduits were keeping the hood from going down all way.

....edit....well, hmmm, this was in answer to a post asking if that was a ‘29 Murray hood cuz it looked shorter, but when I posted my reply the post was gone. Oh well...

 

Well, there’s two conflicting votes...and I can’t help ya with Vanna... lol

I do like those full chrome 682c’s Jim!!!

 

I like the 682Cs and Vanna is too old now, so forget about her's!

 

What fun!
(682j for me. )

 

One more vote for the 903j

 

Ooo! Eyebrow fenders, those are rare. And I prefer the 903J headlights.

 

Well, actually, come to find out, only the passenger fender is a real eyebrow and the drivers has been made to look like one with either bondo or lead. Lol

It’s a hard call for me. I lean towards the 682j but the 903j is a close second. I really thought I was going to love the 682c’s, but I think with the cowl lights the blinker on top of the c’s is a bit much.


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I agree with you. The first ones. 903j`s Nice and simple. Not to overpowering.

 

Of the two you have up there I like the 903j's. I personally kept the stock model A lamps and fitted them with snyders H4 bulb and reflector kit, these things throw some killer light at night.

Cliff Ramsdell

 

You gotta pull them fenders off that fordor!
Kidding aside, your looking good, I like it.

 

That’s a nice looking rod @dmdeaton! I’ve seen a couple fenderless 4 doors in my search for hot rodded 4 doors....most of them have been “ratted”...pretty sad. Yours is quite nice!


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I saw this nice roadster in the Classifieds, and thought of your sedan.
I know you can appreciate it.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...v-conversion-hydraulic-brakes-clutch.1137811/

 

That is a sweet little roaster Mo! Seems like a pretty decent price, too. I see mine ending up much the same....just a little hot rod flavor added to a nice, clean car. Funny you bring this thread back up.....just ordered the new interior kit the other day and almost have all the parts gathered to lower the suspension. As soon as I finish up a house project we've got cooking, it will be time to get busy on the A. Can't wait!

 

Well, with all the house projects going on at the moment, it has become evident that a dedicated couple of weekends to knock out the suspension work and get the A down to a more reasonable height isn't going to happen anytime soon I was really hoping to have it at least lowered and the seats recovered in time for the Stray Kat 500 in May. So, in order to have any chance at that, I decided to take a page out of the @Tim book and sneak in a few minutes here and there. Took me a few weeks to sort out the parking brake thing last summer when I got it, but, hey, they got done.

So, obviously, at that speed, not much progress has been made, but there is progress. Yesterday afternoon I took a few minutes to break down the T rear spring and succeeded without killing myself or destroying anything else. There were no clamps on the spring I bought at the swap meet last year and it was bolted to the crossmember. Fortunately, it was done with a long bolt, so a few c clamps and relaxing the tension slowly on the bolt, things came apart nice and easy. It's nice looking spring with no gouges. The goofy thing was that rather than cotter keys on the shackle nuts, someone a long time back used nails. Not quite a cotter key, but I guess it worked. LOL



Start cleaning this up, taper and radius the ends and new bushings up next. Hoping this weekend I can start getting the front end out as well.

 

I did the ends of my leafs with a cut off wheel and a grinding disk on my 4.5 grinder. Wasn’t fast but it was a fair bit quicker than some of the times in seeing mention with other methods.

 

Is a T spring the hot set up to lower a Model A?

 

A lot of guys do go that route Dan. But I know you can get just as low with an A spring. I think some use the T because the shape clears a quick change better

 

I don't think a T spring clears a quickchange any better than an A. Actually a T sits a bit lower with all the car's weight on it. So that means it would actually be worse for clearance.

 

That's what happens when carpenters are left alone to do mechanics work! Good thing he wasn't an electrician!!

 

That's how I kinda thought I would do mine. Seems quicker than my tiny little grinding wheel. LOL I saw mentioned somewhere back in your thread about the spring liners and making the springs taller. I was thinking I'd put some in, but didn't think about them reducing the amount of the drop. Are you happy with your choice of using the liners?

Beats me, but it's what I've read, so that's what I got. LOL Guess we will find out.

Haha! Right?

 

I bet when the new shackles are installed they'll be safety wired with high-tensile orthodontic wire.

 

Haha...I dunno about safety wire, but I can do crazy stuff with Desoto teef! LOL

 

In case you haven't seen it, there's Tons of Banger info on the following thread
:https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/model-a-banger-hop-ups-and-upgrades.569558/
Checkout Flat Ernie at the first link in BCChopit's reply (Post #2). When you get there, scroll to the "Monthly Banger Meeting" links. Amazing what you'll find there.

 

Thanks for the link Mo! I've done just a little scrolling through the banger meet here and there, but nothing too serious. Thinking hopping the 4 will be the way to go for what I want the car to do. Wise words were said early on in this thread by someone that taking a motor out of a good running car to swap in something else is a good way to never have a running car again....or something close to that affect. Having been guilty of that before, that's advice I should listen to, so simple upgrades to the banger is probably the best thing for me. Haha

 

when I first got into rodding the boys were all watching the city's spring clean up for sno-boats...
a red or orange plastic sled, about 4' long, we cut them up lengthwise and used the plastic strips between the spring leaves... my brother 6 years my junior was pithed that we cut them...

 

Hmmmm....that’s not a bad idea. Too bad it doesn’t snow here, but there are a few sleds like that in the stores here. Ill watch for them to go on clearance.


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