Well I figured it’s about time I started a build thread on my 26 sedan... But first let me give you a little background info… I found the HAMB by doing a search for Ellis Manifolds years ago. Almost immediately I became hooked on the site and decided it was time to start planning my next project, a traditional hot rod. Over the past several years I have been restoring a 1970 Brockway truck for my Dad and before that we restored a 1955 Brockway. My Dad drove truck for a living which led to us restoring Brockways… And way before that was a ’64 Impala SS, etc… But during the past several years I have been collecting parts and surfing the HAMB to determine which direction I want to go in. In the meantime a good friend of mine decided to upgrade his ’56 Ford 3/4 ton pickup and wanted to get rid of his 272 Y block. We rebuilt it together a few years back so needless to say I grabbed it and set it off to the side. So really my project started around this Y block… Then I needed to decide on a car… I knew I wanted a 2 door Sedan since I could only take one person with me in the big trucks and with this project I wanted to be able to take my wife, 8 year old son and 4 year old daughter. So a back seat was a necessity!!! So I decided on a 26/27 Model T 2 door sedan and began looking for a project car. It didn’t take too long and I found a ’26 sedan in Oneita NY on ebay. This was back in 2009, so I won the bid and headed north to pick it up. The owner literally had thousands of T and A parts laying around and decided to thin out a bit. Years ago be bought the sedan, paid a guy to primer it and then pushed it in a barn. I think it spent 20 years or so??? They had it pushed outside and this is how we found it… And it no time we loaded it up and headed home… And then I grabbed a quick pick with my son (whose was 4 at the time and just turned 8!) That’s it for now, more to follow as time permits…
Your post sounds very good. Keep going and hand your kid wrenches so he feels like he's part of it. I went to a customers house one time and the little boy wanted to see my tools, handle them and join in the repair. His mother kept screeching at the little guy, "Leave the repairman alone" and of course he ignored her. So I would ask him to hold a tool and a couple of minutes later ask for it back and hand him another.You never know how much a small kindness will affect someone
We rolled the car into the garage and then decided to remove the body from the frame… My Dad picked up a used forklift from CF years back and with the help of some 2x6 box steel we made two 8’ extensions for the forks and lifted the body off of the frame… I have a good friend that collects and restores antiques who also has a 26 sedan that he plans to restore someday, so I offered him the frame since I knew it would go to a good home. Before he took the frame I was able to find the serial number stamped on it and determined it was in fact a 1926 model. So I set the body on a dolly and wheeled the body out of the way for the time being… Then a friend at work mentioned his cousin in CT has an aftermarket model A frame he wanted to get rid of so I wound up buying that as well. I’m not sure who made it but I did find a post on here where someone had one very similar and said it was a Spirit Industries frame??? Regard less it’s a good start so to help save some room in the garage I set it on the dolly and then set the body on the frame and C clamped a model A grill and headlights to it… I needed to make some more room in the garage so I built a shelf out of some 2x6’s and set the entire car on it. I actually sent of pic of the garage to Car Craft and wound up making “This Guy’s Garage” in their January 2011 issue… Here is a link to their article… http://www.carcraft.com/featuredvehicles/ccrp_1101_tom_millards_garage/ And this is where the car has sat up until last week… More to follow…
So now that you have the history behind the project, heres my plans on the build - I want to channel the T body 4 over the model A aftermarket frame. - I dont plan on chopping it, I like the crazy tall roof. If I do decide to chop it, I may take out just enough to remove the tall header over the windshield, but not sure yet. - I am going the run the 56 272 Y block and back it up with a T5. I just found an early 93 S10 with a world class T5 that still has the Chevy bolt pattern. The trans will be the only non-traditional aspect of the car. - For the rear I will be using a 9 I have along with a 4.10 posi I picked up a while back. - I am going to run a 28/29 model A grill shell. - I dont plan on running a hood So last night I ran into my first roadblock. Like I mentioned I want to channel the body 4 over the frame. In saying that, the cowl of the T is approx. 23 tall, so it reduced to 19 tall. It I take 4 or so out of the radiator shell, I will need a radiator thats only 15 or so tall. I do have a 65/66 Mustang radiator but that wont work either. So I have a few options try to find a 15 tall radiator that will cool the Y block or move the radiator in front of the cross member. Im not sold on that since I dont want to pass the lower radiator hose between the cross member and the spring. Any thoughts???
A friend of my Dad’s gave me a complete axle and wishbone from a ’35 Ford. The year, etc. was help determined by an earlier post here in the HAMB. … The axle was fairly pitted but the wishbone was in decent shape… So with the help of my Son and a hacksaw we split the wishbone and then I removed the front spring hangers… In the meantime I located another 35 front axle here on the HAMB as well as a complete front suspension from a ’51 Ford F1. I found the F1 parts on CL down in Harrisburg and made the trip down after work to pick it up. The guy was upgrading the front end in his project truck and decided to part with the original stuff. It has new Napa wheel cylinders, hardware kit, good drums, etc. (The springs and axle are in the classifieds in anyone is interested.) So with the help of my Dad and kids the F1 front end was dissembled… I wound up send the new 35 axle along with the pass side F1 spindle out to Joe Casto in OK to get dropped. Joe supplied another F1 pass side spindle, dropped the axle 4”, installed new kingpins and set the camber as well. Joe did an excellent job and was very helpful. In the meantime I also ordered a Posies front spring and mocked up the front end after I received the parts from Joe… Since I want to determine the ride height and make sure I have the right spring, I dug out an old 272 Y block that I had and decided to set it in place… The Y block didn’t have an oil pan on it so I was able to use a ATV jack to set the height of the motor. I also set a bare set of heads on it along with my Merc valve covers and a 553 Edelbrock manifold I picked up a few years back… More to follow…
Now that the motor was set I figured I would work on the motor mounts and decided to use the Boling Brothers 28 A pickup for reference. I started with some pieces of 2” x 1/4" flat stock and used my buddies press brake to bend them to the correct angle… After they were bent I drilled the mounting holes… And then made a cardboard pattern for the side gussets… (more on those later…) For the frame motor mounts, I used Vern T.’s book for reference and used some 3” x 1 1/2" box tubing I had… And then shaped the mounts… When they were done I set everything in place along with a set of mounts from Chassis Engineering Inc… More to follow later…
Over the weekend I finished up the motor mounts. I wanted to make side gusset plates for both sides of the 1/4" 2” flat stock so I tacked two pieces of 1/8” x 2” flat stock together, traced my patterns out, and started cutting… After some time I wound up with these… And then I tacked them into place… Once I was happy that everything would work I welded both mounts… And then bolted them back on the motor… More to follow…
Looks like a nice start. Don't you just love "T"s I know I do. Keep it up http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=789981
oldspwr. OH. I was hoping you would restore her. This was mine restored. Yours will look great as a street rod. 26-27 look cool either way. Nice job so far Have fun.
Killer project and great progress thus far. Very cool!!! I always have to post this pic anytime someone builds a t sedan which I believe there is only one other on this site.
Looks like you are doing everything right. I wish more folks would be as methodical. Nice fab work. Simple and clean!
looks like you're off to a great start on your project. the 26 looks solid and you also have a nice looking garage
Thanks for everyone's comments! For reference, I designed my motor mounts similar to the Boling Brother's 28 pickup... Now that the motor mounts were done I wanted to move back to the front end. To finish the spindles, I had to cut the factory steering arm off of them… And here is the pair of them done and ready to go… Then I decided to sandblast the backing plates and hubs. So I pressed out all of the old studs (which the threads were really tired…) and put everything into my homemade booth… And after a few coats of paint they were ready to go… That’s it for now…
Before I sandblasted the hubs, I removed the seals and the bearings and cleaned everything… Then we repacked the bearings with Amsoil synthetic grease and installed new wheel seals that I picked up at our local Napa store… I marked the hubs and backing plates before I took everything apart so it would be easier to put things back together (one center punch for drivers side, two for driver…) But after I put everything together I realized the brake hose wouldn’t screw in the wheel cylinder… oops… So I quickly discovered that the backing plates were on the wrong side, and after an hour I had everything flipped over In regards to wheels and tires, I settled on ’40-48 Ford/ Merc wheels with ‘47/’48 Merc caps and trim rings. The issue I had was the fronts are 5 x 5 1/2" bolt pattern while the rear 5 x 5”. I thought about getting a different 9” out of an older Ford with the larger bolt pattern but the 9” I have is the correct width (54” backing place to backing plate) and I already have a 4.10 posi rear that’s 28 splines. You can’t redrill the 9” axles for the larger pattern either since they have multiple windows drilled in them to help removed the nuts on the bearing retainer plate. So I decided to go with Wheel Vintiques Gennie series since they are an Alliance Member and offer multiple bolt patterns… So I ordered new 15x5 wheels for the front but held off on the rears. To mock things up, set my ride height and make it a roller I dug out a set of snow tires my brother had on his ’81 Chevy 2WD pickup. He had 215 70 15’s on the front and 215 75 15’s on the back. I am going with 5.60R15’s for the front and the 215 70 15’s are the same diameter, 26”, so I used these for the fronts. I am going with either 7.60R15 or 8.20R15’s in the back so I used 215 75 15’s on an old set of rims a friend gave me. They are 15x6 with the 5x5 bolt patter and 3 1/4" back spacing. So I used the 215 75 15’s on the back. They are only 27” tall so I’ll put a 2x6 under them to get a 30” diameter. American Classis is coming out with a radial that looks like a bias in the spring and they will be made right here in PA so that’s the direction I’m going in right now. I also worked on the tie rod bar and decided to use the original one from the ’51 F1 front suspension I bought… I wound up cutting 5/8” off of both side to get it to the correct length and then I turned the ends in an old ‘50’s South Bend lathe I picked up a few years ago… I also picked up both right hand and left hand 11/16 x 18 taps on ebay for $11 each, made in the USA... So I was able to clean the threads on both ends (they were already deep enough…) More to follow…
Then I moved back to the bones. Like I mentioned earlier these came off of a ’35 Ford. After splitting them I noticed the bungs would be loose in each end so I made a thin shim with some 18 gauge sheet metal to tighten things up… The I welded the bungs in both bones. I kept the length of the bones at 40 3/4" front he center of the perch pin to the end of the bung… Someone had used a chisel to try to remove one of the nuts on the bottom of the perch pic so the bottom of the bone needed some attention. So I did a little welding on the bottoms and then cleaned them up as well… More to follow…
The Jalopy Journal
