Projects Modified Lakester Build (THUNDERCASKET)

Speedway and Specialty Ford Parts and others sell them, mine are shopbuilt. I set the friction with a large spring scale that is actually a fishing scale. I compared them to new tubular hydraulic shocks. Friction material can be purchased from machinery repair houses or brake or clutch parts suppliers. The main problem I had to overcome was maintaining proper and constant spring rate. I solved it by using cotter pins/keys to hold the nuts and Bellevue washers face to face between nut and bracket for tension. At the time I built mine I couldn't find commercial units other than some real pricey ones from the UK Therec are some made for model T's that show up from time to time.

 

There are some raised areas for mounting the original bracketry etc on the frame - they give the frame character and i spend time to make the transition lines as crisp as possible. You don't hammer and dolly much of anything on the frame - that implies a finesse that don't work with frames. They will be bent & twisted all to hell and gone, go look for cracking etc, look for poor collision repairs etc.
If you are building a modified you will be changing that frame a good bit, probably working with the individual rails and have removed all crossmembers.
If you have an offset grinder then get some 'flapper' discs as opposed to the hard fiber ones that came with the grinder - they have thier uses but flappers will smooth metal while hard fiber will gouge.
good luck

 

Yeah I've seen what an aggressive disc will do. I only really use them to grind welds down. I just bought this rig and I forgot to get some... Off to the hardware store I guess!

I'm still not sure exactly what I'm going to have to do with this frame just yet to get the right look. You seem to have a couple things in mind, oj, mind if I ask what? Do you think I'm going to need to relocate, replace, fabricate, narrow, etc.?

 

Ok, last night I pretty much just moved parts around & got the frame up pff the floor a bit. I was able to do some inspecting on the frame. I found a few issues here & there but nothing horrifying. Here's some pictures of what I did and what I found:



Now for the issues I found that I'll need to patch up I bang out:

I found 2 sets of rust holes. The area surrounding them doesn't seem particularly thin, so I should be able to fix these without too much fuss. I think I will need more than my crappy flux welder though.



Here's the worst of the pitting otherwise:



There's a ding here that I'll need to bang down some. It doesn't seem to be throwing anything off but I don't have much in the way of methods to check that presently.



The center crossmember looks good.


So, at some point, it looks like the body was torched off of this frame. They melted these two holes:



So that's as far as I got last night. I gotta come up with a solid plan to address these issues. I'm thinking my flux core welder might not be good to deal with this, mainly due to slagging and penetration concerns, but I may do a test bead to check. I certainly won't use it to box with or do structural additions though.

 

I'm also starting to try to figure out a plan for the amount of kick-up I'll need and how to go about it.

Has anyone ever just pie cut a frame like this & pulled up the rear crossmember a foot or so? I know that would shorten the frame quite a bit which I'm not sure I'd want.

 

I posted all those links and you didn't look at them.

One of the links "60's style T bucket" shows how he pie cut the frame.

In the "Down Under" build, he mentions that his kickup height was probably more than needed, and it was less than about "a foot or so". That car is low

Also, a lot modifieds are a short truck box away from being T-buckets. Look those those builds for other helpful info.

 

I just finished all but the downunder thread. I'm still digesting & looking to collect some more pennies on the subject.

I gotta get this thing mocked up better to really figure this out. The frame's only about 6-8" off the ground now & IDK if that's gonna be doable in reality since that's with the front end resting on the monospring, resting on the front, stock axle and original A drums.

 

Minor progress update: I picked up some batwings, lower shock mounts & perches to start figuring out my front suspension a little more. I think I've gotta get those Model A drums & hubs off of there. It doesn't look like I'm going to want to use any of it anyway.

I got a couple spring questions. I've got what appears to be the bottom leaf from the front suspension (I need to measure it). I managed to get the old, mangled shackles out (took most of the day) but the nylon bushings that came with the Speedway shackles is about .10 over and won't slide in. How should I proceed?

If I should just get a new spring, for a stock axle, do I NEED 31.5" or will a 31" work without getting the wrong angle with the shackle?

 

That's pretty interesting. I've got what's left of a pretty well hacked front half of a 27 touring body and enough extra pieces to put one together without having to spend a lot if I ever get some of the other projects done.

Patmanta: I built the chassis for my first T bucket by tacking things together with my little 110 Monkey Wards 59.00 welder and then carrying the then tacked together piece up the street to my buddy who was and is a great welder and having him weld it up. If you get all the cutting and fitting done and tack things together with your flux welder and clean the welds up you should be able to find someone who can then weld it up for you. Or practice on scrap pieces until you get good enough with the welder you have to do a lot of the repairs like putting patches in the torched out spots. Even a 110 flux welder should be able to handle that if the person welding it is up to the task.

 

DO IT! But finish your other projects first.... it'll be added incentive to do so! I'm about to be in a somewhat similar boat. I've already got 2 axles, getting another, Model T body arrives Saturday, already have a rotten A cowl that I'm not using & won't be using the rear of the T touring body or these 35' wheels I have. So, with another frame, built or bought, I'm already getting well into a second build partswise.

That was the idea with the 110 fluxer. I figured if I could get good with it, fix a few things around the property, make some tools maybe (I did manage to make a little benchtop welding table), and then a good welder would be an AMAZING welder for me. But, these project parts came up and I had to jump on it.

Fortunately, I know a great Tig welding guy, who taught me how to weld, that I might be able to get out to finish my tacks if I don't get the results I need with what I have for skills and equipment.

I'd have just bought a good welder but with the holidays, I spent that money elsewhere.

Here's the little table I have tacked up & functional and my cheapo Planishing Hammer that I'm a ways off from needing on this project:

 

Minor progress update. Life has been happening lately and I haven't been able to do much in the way of actual work on the car. However, I have measured out the frame and it came out square, so that's good.

The body should be arriving tomorrow so I should have something for y'all to look at soon. I'm hoping to be able to set the body on the frame to get a look at things soon.

 

Here are some pictures of my modified. There are more pictures in my album. I decided to build a new frame to get the look I was after. One of the first things you need to worry about is can you get the car registered in your state? It would be a shame to build a car that you cant license! You need to decide on what size tires you will use, they do not need to be new tires, just the same size and hold air. Now you can buy some 1 x 4 wood to make a frame mock up. It is a lot cheaper to waste wood figuring out you kick ups and width/taper. This is enough to get you started.
Have fun

 

fasternu and I are building a modified you can check it out ''26 modified" by fasternu . We did a double kickup, one under the seat and one behind the body. It can sit very low if you want, we moved the axle forward and hung the front spring from the split bones. You need at least 8" in front of the grill shell for tie rod clearance. don't put the tie rod out front as some do as this makes your ackerman backwards and will scrub tires severely and is dangerous. An A frame has a 103.5" wheel base and a modified does not need that much (ours is 97") so your have plenty of room to do a rear kickup. Hope this helps.

 

For wheels/tires, I was looking at Front: 15x5 with Coker Classic 2 1/4 Inch Whitewall - 165R15 (25.25 OD) & Rear: 15x6 with Coker Classic 3 Inch Whitewall - L78-15 (29.3 OD) but that might give me a bit too much rubber rake to work around.

Massachusetts is a state that loves legislation & red tape and hates training. So, getting anything done at any state agency that's not daily routine is always a pain in the ass. BUT, I have a title on the body I'm using, which clears the path pretty well. MA does have specific titling & registration for "Hot Rods" and "Street Rods" but it involves the above stated ill-trained RMV staff and a new VIN# assignment.

Thanks. I'm considering stretching the body a bit and using a long engine, so that might necessitate a longer wheelbase, but we'll see.

The body didn't show up this weekend like it was supposed to, so all I got done was some rust repair on the frame. The crossmember I bought looks like it was shortened and doesn't come close to fitting. The axle I'm probably going to use won't be here for a little while. The front spring I have won't take the bushings on the new shackles I have... so I'm pretty well stuck in a ditch at the moment.

 

The body has arrived finally. I was able to get it loaded into my shop thanks to some help from some neighbors who were drawn in by the spectacle.

I didn't get a whole lot done after the unload. I got sidetracked trying to help my neighbor get his bike running for a couple hours. I did however gat some inspection time and a little tapping on a couple of the dents. I have one of them close to worked out.

 

Over the weekend I scored big progress.

I picked up an engine hoist from a couple locally that does salvage & scrapping. I also put a but in their ear to let me know if they get any old car parts before they think about scrapping them (which apparently, they have to do if they can't find a buyer in a reasonable period of time). Double score!

I used the hoist Sunday to unload my Ford 300 I6. It came out of what was apparently a show truck 20-30 years ago. It's got an Offenhauser intake, Holley 600, dual long tube headers, and supposedly a hot cam. There's a couple layers of paint on it and very little rust or evidence of leaking. I'm happy with it.

 

After being kept out of the shop for most of the month, I've gotten back in there and made some progress finally!

I got the dash and steering column out with a lot of cussing and drilling a couple weeks back. I'll have much better access to the dents I gotta tap out and the rot I gotta patch up with some panels I got. I guess I'm going to have to fabricate pieces for the subframe that are too far gone.

Yesterday I made big headway towards getting this thing looking like the Modified I've got in my head. I hacked the back of the Touring tub off, with a little more cussing and an oiled up hacksaw (my kingdom for a sawzall!).

I also managed to get the gas tank out of my Model A cowl (more cussing and a rubber mallet). I'm thinking of using it for the build. I haven't seen an A tank on a T modified before. I'm still digesting it. All this enabled me to get the first, horribly rough & one wheeled, mockup done. I still gotta remove the rear doors from the body and set it on the A frame I'm gonna use but it's a start.

 

I've gotten the body free of the old frame. It was a bit of an adventure doing it by myself with nothing but jack stands and a sawzall (no way those old bolts were gonna turn). I couldn't slide the frame out the front or back so I had to maneuver it out the side by using 6 stands (2 in the middle) and a Model A rear spring for ballast on the drivers side. Then I moved the frame a few inches here, moved a stand there, and so on until I had the frame out.

I've been splitting my time in the shop between actual work on the car and improving/cleaning the shop itself so I have room to work. Slowly but surely it's coming along as the weather warms up. I built a ladder into the previously inaccessible loft/attic above the shop too. It looks like a horror movie set up there so that's gotta be cleaned & made safe before I can use it for storage.

Other than that, I'm still collecting parts as I can.

Next stage is going to be dealing with the rotten subrails on the body and then on to cutting out the rotten sheetmetal to add the patch panels I've got on hand.

 

I did a quick, frameless mockup last night to start getting some measurements & visualizing the project.

Here's a quick, crude composite photoshopping:

 

lookin good so far man keep it up!

 

Thanks! Just picked up an old 3.03 transmission over the weekend.

 

Liking the use of the cowl tank. Is there enough room underneath for the spring mount when mounted at that level?

 

So far, the tape measure says yes, but I need to get a frame-on mockup going and figure out where my rear end's going to need to locate. From the measured sketches I've been putting together, I should be able to kick up to 12" without a problem. That tank's sitting on a 10" or so high tool box in the photo.

Once I determine I can run with that tank, its next hurdle will be the fuel level sender. I'll have to adapt something to run horizontal and fabricate a flange to mate to the old Model A gas gauge mount.

 

Patmanta,
I recieved your PM asking about how to build your 300 six. From the description and photo in post #46 I think the engine you have as built will be capable of making power past your desired 5000 RPM. The carb alone will do wonders for it (Ever try a one-barrel carb on a 5.0 V8 and expect it to rev to 5K?) Good valve springs are a must of course, along with the hotter cam.

For more valuable information on the 300 visit www.fordsix.com

For some valuable inspiration for your modified visit my champ car thread below



Good luck with your project. You have a good start.

 

THANKS A TON! I've made contact with Comp Cams, & one of their techs has gotten in communication with me to try to put together a parts package/plan for me. They seem to offer the most stuff for this block at this point and are being pretty helpful so far.

I'm leaning toward one of their cam, lifter, spring & timing kits with some roller rockers, larger valves, & possibly stiffer pushrods.

That Champ car looks like it's gonna FLY!

 

Well I got the body sitting on the frame for the first time over the weekend, after hitting the Boston World of Wheels show.

I also managed to get the hacked up crossmember I ended up with mounted up just to get some perspective. This thing had been narrowed too far to be of much use to me but with some washers and a length of slotted angle, I was able to get it and my spring on there to get a look at least. I'll still need a new one, I'm not terribly confident about trying to lengthen it.

 

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Hey there neighbor! Man, you probably drive by my house on your way to work! You should stop by some time when I've got'er a little more together.

 

I picked up a set of 51 F1 brakes, hubs & spindles from a fellow HAMBer over the weekend as well as a 60's F150 steering box to run cowl steering with. The shaft looks long enough to work without too much fussing about but we'll see.

What progress I've made lately has mostly been things around the shop so I can get work done. I've got my crane rolling again, so I'll be able to move heavy things around with some degree of safety and start getting a mockup... started.

I didn't get very far on the car yesterday. I checked my phone after wrapping up the crane work and saw what happened in the city. All of my people are reporting in as safe so far.

 

Just pinch the frame a little to get that crossmember to work.