T Bucket Bodies Question "Who To Use"

Love it or hate it, that's the response I was going for.

 

Traditional Axels Easy with so many people restoring old Fords and replacing the suspension with "Mustang II". Anything between '39 and '48 will have hydraulic brakes and an I beam axle with the right look. In fact I just took all the suspension from a friends '48 Ford to a swap and he sold it for $300. That's everything complete front suspension, rear differential. steering shaft and gear, everything. Some Ozies. bought it and took it down under.

Some race car axles were drilled back in the day but in my opinion not really worth the trouble on a street rod.

 

The body I have (the one from eBay) has had no extra body work done to it. Besides the peak, what you see is what you get from Barry. It was formed in two halves and joined together. These are dead square even halves. I was looking at Wintec's and they don't appear to be even halves. I had never seen a peaked cowl on a T so I figured I would give it a little custom touch. It comes primed but the overspray you see on the cardboard is me getting over zealous with what I had left over from the peak.

 

Nah, I wasn't bashing your peak! I always kinda liked the sunken antenna on the center cowl of the Big "T" kit myself. The wonder was whether it came from the body maker that way. For what it's worth, I too looking at those photos see a nice even body as well.

 

I know your not bashing it. I took a gamble on buying this body because of the saying " you get what you pay for". think I came out on top. I can't wait to buy my turtle deck and '32 shortened steel grille from him.

 

You bet! He has decks, beds, grille shells and all in stock. Just tell him what you need and he'll get it out to you in about a week. Glad you called and I'll give you a shout.

 

Sounds good man. When I get the funds to buy the body I will give Bear a call and see what price I can get on getting the body, turtle deck and some other parts. I want the 32 grill as well.

Is Bears grills metal? I think I saw them on his page but not sure.

 

I have used Speedway's bodies on 8 of the Track Roadsters I have built. The new turtle deck from Speedway is a great piece, the lid has an inner structure, it fits perfect. These "Assembly Line" shots are from around the turn of the century!

 

Sorry pics didn't load!

 

Thanks do you have any pics of your build? That is a lot of cars!

 

Here are some shots taken at a car show 12 years ago, we assembled it in 4 nights and drove it out the door. Notice all of the parts, my cars are for the "Dirt Tracks", and the street as well. The #7 in the background was the first one.

 

$297.50!!! $297.50??? The steel alone in mine cost more than that (no prize for guessing I can't get over that )

can anyone tell me how many hours they spent glassing in a floor,wood and steel structure to mount things from,doing seat-belt mounts,tunnel etc ,etc please?

 

Geezzz..Marty! You have built some well thought out T's!
Extremely cool stuff going on there.
Love the wide fives I see on one or two...talk about completing the look!

 

I didn't read the thread all the way through so maybe someone has already mentioned swap meets, large flea markets, and craig's list to you for finding an inexpensive body. You might also think about joining a local T-bucket club. Most members have a network of friends and aquantences with similar interests. A friend of a friend may have an abandoned project or extra parts. When you have a club with several people, friends of friends adds up to thousands of people.

I bought a brand new '23 t-bucket body at a flea market for $250.00. I was able to personally inspect it. It seemed like a quality product, so I tied it to top of my car and drove home with a big silly grin that wouldn't go away for a few days.

I mocked it up in our living room with some PVC pipe and styrofoam. It sure beat watching tv.

 

That is awesome and I love that you built them at the show and drove them away! The number 7 car I have seen and I think it was when I was looking up Speedway. Great looking car.

I would like to know that too. How long would it take to glass in a car?

Agree with you on that one very great looking cars.

The bad part is in my area as big of a city as we are I have not seen a swap meet. That is one thing I would love to do with our fair grounds and it could be as big as Carlisle PA.

I look on Craigslist and so far found cars that are high. I saw a bucket for 15K I think it was back in the winter time. I keep looking.

I did find a 70 Dodge Dart tonight that has a 360 in it running and a 340 complete motor with it for 3k OBO and I would like to make an offer on it just to get the motor and trans and then eBay the car. It also has the Anesen style wheels.

I'm also a Mopar guy and it would be hard letting a running and driving "A" Body Mopar go but I'm betting at that price it needs a good deal of work.

 

I have also narrowed my list down with these being my choices and listed in the order I would choose them.

1-Bear from eBay. I love that his has the correct lines and I also love the price. He is very willing to talk to me, answer all my question and work with me on getting the body and parts I need. Seems like a really good guy. What won me over was that and that a couple of you guys chimed in fast on the lines of the car looking correct.

2-Speedway. You guys gave me great advice on them and it seems like a lot of people who use them use them again and recommend them highly. What kept me from putting them at the top is just price, not bad but I can buy a few extra parts with what it cost to buy a body and ship it.

3-RPM. Again guys have gave them a great heads up and I have talked with Ron a few times super nice guy and would deal with him. What put him third on my list is just price of body and shipping. RPM is about $200.00 more then Speedway.

4-CCR. They have been named in the thread a lot and again only thing making it not for me is price. If I didn't have a budget they would be number one on the list.

5-Spirit. They have come up and a lot of you guys like them. What put them on list at number five for me is price both regular and sale price with shipping puts it just a tad higher than Speedway and right in line with RPM. The thing that I do not like about the body is the dash. I love a bucket with a straight dash. If I'm going to pay the price for something I should just go with what I want in the first place. Sale price with shipping from Spirit to home was higher than Speedway and shipping to a docking station was also higher.

Those are my top five and my reasons. Bear has the lines, costumer service and the right price. If it would have not been for a HAMB'er here I would have not asked about the bodies on eBay.

So with that being said tell me what you find wrong with my list and reasoning. I wont be ordering for a couple of months and you still have time to point out the what, whys and where. Also if there is another company you want to throw into the mix feel free to do so.

 

Here you go.

 

You've gotten my attention with the body cage. Any more pics? Is it separate from the basic frame?

 

Man I dig that! That is very cool. Where do they race the track T's at?

Would also like to know more about the cage or roll bar. I have seen a few pics from the 60s with T's having a roll bar.

I want to use seat bealts what would be my best way of doing this?

 

About 2 hours building and installing my seat. An hour attaching the seat belts to the frame.

 

I thought about putting a roll bar in my roadster a while back. Think I might have started a thread. Anyway somebody posted and said he had seen more people busting their heads open on a roll bar than one helping. If you had one close to your head you would have to wear a helmet when you drive.

 

How about Rats Glass????

 

I dont want to wear a helmet so I guess the roll bar idea is out lol.

 

Do you have a link to them? This name sounds like one I've heard... I will see if I can find them.

Just found them and I dont see a T listed but their stuff looks more modern. They look to have nice stuff but man crazy prices for me.

 

To really do a "T" buckets wood bracing and floor I have spent 2-3 days myself. I like a full wrap around at the top, and at least three ribs per side though and I am not a wood friendly kinda guy...

 

Here is what the roll bar and mounting looks like. The yellow #5 that a boner posted is the one from the car show, with Indy Veteran "Len Sutton" behind the wheel. The bar clears your head, (no need for a helmet) if you are not racing. A few more shots, including my "Tub".

 

Damn Marty, when you were trying to get that off the ground as a racing class years ago, I was damn near foaming at the mouth for it to be commonplace countrywide... I think I actually called you at one time about it, but I can't remember.

 

Everyone who has built one or more glass bodied cars has their own way of doing it. Some like steel reinforcement, some like wood. I am a fan of wood personally because it is easy to work with, bonds extremely well to the glass, has the same contraction/expansion rates as glass, and is fairly inexpensive.

However, I did put a steel cowl "roll bar" under the cowl of my 23 because I was going to run the steering column through the firewall instead of the usual way of putting it down through the floor. I felt that steel would keep the front of the body from flexing when you cranked the wheel from side to side.

I did not glass it to the body, but I made it bolt to the frame, to the windshield posts, and to the bottom edge of the dash. Here is what it looked like before I painted and installed it in the body.



For the rest of the body I did the usual wooding routine, using fir lumber that I cut and shaped with a belt sander to conform to the shape of the body. Between each strip of wood I put several layers of wetted out mat and clamped the wooden stringer in place until the resin cured. After all the stringers were in place I painted black undercoating between each one so there would be no shadowing or light showing through.



Some of you have asked how long it takes to wood a body. I would suggest that you first go to the library and pick up a book on how to repair and build fiberglass boats. The techniques are exactly the same whether you are building or fixing a boat or adding strengthening stringers to a fiberglass car body. There will be sections in those books on "tabbing" fiberglass, which is where you lay up cut pieces of mat or cloth on a seam between two pieces of wood to tie them together. That section will be the most useful to you because that is mostly what you are doing in wooding a T body.

As I mentioned earlier, the other thing I like about wooding a body is that it gives the upholsterer something to fasten his interior panels to. I leave the outer part of the wood sort of raw except for a thin coat of resin so he can put his staples and screws into the wood easily.



Finally, there are two types of resin you can use........polyester and epoxy. Epoxy has some benefits, it is stronger and bites in to the glass better, and it also costs more. I personally use polyester because that is what most boats were originally made from so it has enough strength and bite to do what we need done in building a glass body framework. But if you want to use epoxy there are no real downsides to it other than cost.

If you take your time and make each piece of wood fit nicely into the curvature of the body you will end up with a very strong body that will last for years. I glassed up my 27 body over 25 years ago and the wood is just as fresh as the day I put it in because I sealed all the edges and top and bottom with resin and mat. The wood is encapsulated so water can never get near it.

Once you do a little glassing it will start to become second nature to you, and the nice part is that if you screw up you grind it out and replace the parts you goofed up on. Fiberglass is a very forgiving medium and can be worked with common household tools.

Don