I believe that working on your hot rod in little spurts in between everything else is very traditional That battery installation is very nice! I see so many batteries that are installed with a bungee cord and a skyhook!
I finally got back onto working on the Hot Rod. I spent the past several days installing the wiring for the whole car. I've wired several cars which I restored, but those were done using pre-made wiring harnesses, which are a piece of cake. Doing one from scratch, one wire at a time, is a whole 'nother ball game. I removed the instrument panel so I could get at the backside of it. That helped a lot! I didn't wire up the S-W electric speedo yet; I'm going to try to find an earlier mechanical one. Everything else is wired up except the tach. I was going by the Bishop-Tardell wiring diagram which has no tach, so I forgot about it. But that's no biggie, I'll do it tomorrow. The oil pressure and temp gauges are mechanical, so they didn't need any wiring. I used a Ron Francis light switch, which has a separate position for low beam. There's precious little room for a foot-operated dimmer switch with 3 pedals in a Model T body, so I thought that would be a good idea. Here's a peek at the engine area. The firewall is getting very crowded! I put the fuse panel and tach sender under the seat. I like the looks of the asphalt-coated fabric wire loom, but wiring one from scratch doesn't lend itself to using it. So I just used electrical tape every now and then to hold things in place. Quick and easy -- KISS. I also installed the fuel gauge sending unit in the tank and got it wired up. That's all I have to report for now, but it feels like a big accomplishment getting the wiring done. There are several little odds and ends to attend to before I can drive the car, but getting the wiring done is the next-to-last big item crossed off the list. The last is upholstery, but I can drive around a little bit without that. I'll let y'all know when I fire it up for the first time!!!
Dang, you are moving along! Your thread started up after mine and ZOOM, you blew right by me. I've gotta get cracking. Great to see this.
Thanks, Clark. Small update -- I got the tach wired up today. I had to order more wire for the tach, so it took a few days. BTW, all the wiring is fabric-covered ("braided") wire from Rhode Island Wiring Service. I am really impressed with the quality of their wire, and I heartily recommend them. All the wire to do this car cost about $100, which I thought was very reasonable considering the quality of their products. I'm glad I went with the fabric-covered wire. It just looks right.
I have a small update to report. I ditched the French distributor and timing cover for a regular cover and a Mallory distributor. I got that all wired up and ready to go. I think all I need now to fire it up are some gas, oil, and anti-freeze. I mentioned a while back that I wanted to raise the air cleaner a bit to square it with the hood top. The car tilts forward and the engine tilts back, so the air cleaner and hood top didn't line up. I had my local muffler shop make me some "extensions" from 2-1/2" exhaust pipe, stretched to about 2-5/8". I trimmed them on an angle to get the air cleaner at the same angle as the hood and also raise it an inch or so. And I was able to tweak the position of the air cleaner to center it more accurately in the hood opening. Here are a couple of pics. The hood doesn't show up very well in the pics, but you can get the idea. Anyway, it looks pretty righteous in person.
I just realized I hadn't included any pics of the extension pieces I mentioned which the muffler shop guy made for me. Here they are. I just drilled and tapped them for some set screws. I wrapped all of the wiring with that non-sticky stretchy tape which sticks to itself. That cleaned things up a bit. Yeah, I know -- what kind of dummy would pay extra for cloth-covered wire, then cover it up?
That's funny. You know, I'm about to start wiring myself, and am sitting on spools and spools of 10, 12 and 14 gauge wire that my brother and I aquired over the years. And I have reams of that black asphalt-covered loom to hide it with. And still I'm wondering if I shouldn't just bite the bullet and and shell out for cloth-covered wire that nowbody will every see. Guess I'm a dummy, too.
Clark -- I'm building my car for me, and you're building yours for yourself. That's the bottom line. I know mine is done right, and I expect you'll want the same thing.
Car looks mighty good! I am looking forward to seeing a photo of you driving it. That air cleaner is one of the cleanest looking setups I have ever seen!
My visiting son said, "Let's go play with the Hot Rod," so we slipped away from the houseful of family and moseyed over to the shop. Unfortunately, it was one of those "one step forward and two steps back" kind of afternoons. While installing the fan belts, I stripped out the threads in the front end of the intake manifold. Bummer. We removed the radiator to get a better view of things, went to the parts store and bought a Helicoil kit in the right size, then just drove around in my Model T for the rest of the afternoon. So the afternoon wasn't a total waste. Today I tackled the Helocoil project, and it went smoothly. Here's the generator mounting stud in with the Helocoils. I used two Helicoils to give the stud good support. I ground the edges off the washers I had on the generator mount, because they were interfering with the fan mounting bracket. I'll tell you for sure, working in this area is 100 times easier without the radiator in the way! So I installed the fan and its bracket, and got both belts good and tight. Here it is all back together (except for the radiator). The fan bracket ears just slide by the ground-off washers, and they help to stabilize it. So today made up for yesterday's fiasco; it felt like a "two steps forward" kind of day.
Well, two months have elapsed while I worked on other people's projects. This having to work to pay the bills certainly takes a lot of time away from building my Hot Rod! But in the interim, I managed to get my windshield figured out and assembled, and took it to the glass shop. The glass guy had to make the pieces of glass a bit taller than normal, then bevel them and add some clear sealant at the seam. I think he did a good job. I got it back two days ago and mounted it today. I chopped the bottom frame half 5", and tilted the top half back a notch. My line of sight is a couple of inches below the top of the windshield frame. That tilt obviously makes it a bit more aerodynamic, and I think it gives the car a bit of "attitude." These early T windshields have indentations in the hinges which allow the top to be folded back. I chose one notch as being about right, then drilled a hole through one of the bumps and put a bolt and nut there to secure it in that position. That's about all I have to report for now, but here are a couple more detail pics. I don't know what's up with that black line below the glass seam; it must be a reflection of some sort. I got the bills caught up, so hopefully I'll be able to spend a little more time on it. I'm itching to get it on the road! Mike.
I did get to spend a little time on the Hot Rod this weekend and some more today. I had been dreading rigging up a parking brake, so I figured I'd better bite the bullet and tackle that project. To my surprise, I was able to remove the floor pan, even with the shift lever and pedals in place. I was worried about that part, hence the dread of starting this task. I'm certainly glad I didn't have to do this part from underneath! I bought a Model A hand brake lever from a friend a week or two ago. The nickel plating was mostly gone, but I was going to paint it black anyway so I didn't care about that. It seemed to function well, and the teeth are sharp. The two black lines at the bottom are the extent to which the lever moves in both directions. It occurred to me that a piece of 1x1 angle iron would be perfect for a mount, but I didn't have any of that and it was the weekend so I couldn't get any. But I did have some 1x1/8" strap, so I figured that would work. Here are the pieces cut out and shaped a little for clearance of the lever parts. I welded up the pieces and painted them yesterday, then cleaned up the lever and gave it a couple of coats as well. Here's the bracket in place. And the lever. It looks to me like this is gonna' work, and it looks as if I might even be able to get the floor pan back in place without having to cut it into pieces! Now I need to gather up all the other parts to hook this up to the rear end. But I'm not dreading the rest of it; it should all be downhill from here.
At this point, I just have to give credit to someone who helped me figure out a bunch of stuff on this build. I've been buying several parts from the Early Ford Store in San Diego, and a fellow there named Mike has usually been the one who answers the phone. I've been impressed each time with how knowledgeable he is about early Ford parts, what works with what, etc. After looking at their parking brake parts online, I wasn't sure which cables would work for my car so I gave them a call just now. Mike answered. I told him what I was working with -- Hot Rod, Model A rear end, '39 tranny, Model A parking brake lever, homemade mount to put it onto the tranny, etc. I told him I had the lever mounted and needed to buy cables & equalizer but wasn't sure which cables I need. He said he knows what will work and he'll send me the right parts. The only thing which won't be a stock part is the rod from the lever to the equalizer, and I can easily make one of those after hooking up all the other parts to see what length I need. I've restored cars for many years, but building a Hot Rod is a very different animal. Figuring out which parts work with which other parts can be quite a challenge. In talking with some early parts vendors who deal primarily with restoration guys, when you mention Hot Rod they go berserk. It's a breath of fresh air to find someone who is equally fluent in both resto's and Hot Rods. People always register complaints about vendors when things don't go right, but I want to register kudos and many thanks for someone who is very knowledgeable and helpful. Thanks, Mike.
love the ingenuity. Where this is a will there is a way. The rear shock mounts. are they just welded to the one frame piece
Fantastic thread! We're all here doing garage builds to our best ability! I guess we love the satisfaction we get from creating with our hands (and love the smell of welding and grinding just quietly!) Love the scratch build vehicle and the process it takes to do! (How's the neighbours with the hammer and dolley work? ) Look forward to seeing future posts!
Stormy -- I apologize for being tardy in answering your question. I didn't see your post until today. Yes, those shock mounts are welded to the outside of the frame. The spring leaves are very close to the frame flange and there's no room inside for a bolt head, so I used weld-on mounts from Speedway. I'm not a very good welder, so I have a friend who is a professional welder come to my shop and weld "important" parts such as this. Cad -- My hammer and dolly work isn't as noisy as the 5 dogs in the yard across the back fence. My neighbors are all good folks and seem to be OK with what noise I do make. At least they haven't complained to me yet. I work during the day when the younger ones are at work, and I guess the retired ones can't hear well enough to be bothered by it. I usually quit work by about 5:00, so if they want to sit out on their patios in the evenings I've already gone home. Thanks to both of you for the compliments.
Great progress, the car looks period perfect in black! Also like the 'Oxblood' interior plan, my son has a '27 Track roadster, it had 'Goodguise Tan' interior, (was actually a 'Street Rod'!) Son Rich sanded and spray-dyed the nice rolled seat, then the door panels in BLACK. Then sanded and dyed them in RED. Came out a perfect 'Oxblood'...He then attacked and replaced all the rest of the 'street roddy' stuff with 'real stuff', wish I could include a pic, it's been displayed on a 'T' only post here recently... My '27 tub is coming along slowly, been set on 3 different frames so far...(Model A, '32, now '28 Chevy rails.) I was originally impressed with your use of TT rails. Open minded build, all the best 'stuff' from 'back then'! And it looks SO GOOD!
Atwater Mike -- Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate your compliments. Everyone -- I've gotten back to working on the car lately. I added all the necessary fluids to everything a few days ago. I ordered the 1/2-inch longer lug bolts and got those installed yesterday. It was a time-consuming process, pressing out the short ones, drilling the hubs and brake drums with the new ($26!) 19/32" bit, then pressing in the new longer bolts. It took most of the day. The day before that, I had a Hot Rodder buddy come by my shop and we tried to get the engine started for the first time. No surprise, there were several things I had done wrong, such as somehow wiring the ignition switch incorrectly. The "accessory" position was "off", the "off" position was "on", and the "on" position was "start." So I need to sort that out, obviously. That means taking the windshield assembly off the car so I can remove the dash panel to get to the switch. One step forward and two steps back. With the fuel pump turned on, gas streamed out of one of the carbs. So I just now bit the bullet and ordered a pair of the "new" 97's. They cost WAY too much money, but as my Dad used to say, "Anything I can get on credit is cheap enough!" It'll be a bigger-than-normal credit card bill this month, but what the hell........ But the best news of all is that with the fuel pump "off", when we sprayed some starting fluid into the carbs and hit the starter, the engine cranked and tried to start!!!!! So the distributor, timing, and all that associated wiring are working correctly, which is a relief. When the new 97's arrive and I get them installed, and I find a fuse to put in the fuel pump circuit so I don't have to run a jumper wire to it, and I get the ignition switch wired right, it ought to run. And since it now has hubs, wheels, and tires back on it, I might even be able to take it for a drive!
Astounding news! I got the engine to run today! I don't know how to make a video with my phone, so you'll have to take my word for it. It was great to hear the car come to life for the first time, as most of you know. A week or so a Hot Rodder buddy came to my shop and we tried to get it to run. It acted like it wanted to run, but it didn't. Something weird seemed to be going on with the ignition switch. So I had Steve Peterson, of Peterson Auto Electric come by the shop to check things out. I didn't know whether it was the switch or maybe I had some things wired wrong. When you wire one from scratch, there's always that nagging doubt that you didn't do it correctly. But Steve messed with it for a few minutes and pronounced the switch junk. It was a new switch from O'Reilley's which cost only about ten bucks. He said that he had been stranded by those switches more than once and that he'd order me a good one. That one arrived today, and I installed it into the car. When I hit the switch, it started right up!!! What a great sound! I still need to bleed the brake and clutch systems before I can drive the car. But as soon as that happens, I'll be able to drive it onto my trailer and take it to the exhaust shop to have a system built for it. I have a pair of 30-inch "Smittys" to go into that system and headers on the engine, but the rest will need to be fabricated. The oxblood tuck-and-roll interior will come later, as funds allow. But after hearing it run, I feel I'm dangerously close to actually getting it on the road!
The brakes are bled, but the clutch doesn't want to cooperate. I had a crack in a crimp I did on that hydraulic line, so I replaced it. Now the clutch master cylinder doesn't want to pump up; I guess I'll need to take it off and bench-bleed it. But in the interim, I took it on a trailer to a guy who fabricates exhaust systems, and he did it up. I had the headers on the engine, and Smittys in hand. He did the whole system in 2" pipe for $200, materials and labor. I thought that was a great deal! The exhaust sounds wonderful with those longer Smittys. I was afraid it might be unpleasantly loud, but it's just what I had hoped for -- a low rumble that's not objectionable at all. I wanted chrome turn-down tips on the pipes, but he didn't have any so I ordered some from Summit. They are nice and fit the 2" pipe just right. They don't have any screws sticking out; just add a touch of weld to hold them in place. Here's a pic: This pic also shows the most exciting thing that's happened for a while. I got up early this morning and went to the DMV, and walked out with the new license plate for the car!!!! After two months of jumping through hoops applying to register an "Assembled Vehicle", it happened this morning. I'm a happy camper! Now all I have to do is wrestle with the clutch a while longer, and I'll be on the road. Legally, even.
The Jalopy Journal
