Projects The bucket of ugly! A de-uglifying thread...

Err....it folds down, but because of it's height it hangs out behind the car so you can't drive with it down.

 

I can drive it fine.
I made using stock t saddles and steel tubes that slide into the front stake pockets of the bed saddles and i lower it down and it stays connected where stock t hinge point is you can see and sits then in the saddles. It folds pretty thin.
If i had a short pick up bed you would be right but it looks good sitting down and there is still more bed behind it.
I will post picks of the saddles and bare top bow before it was covered tomorrow.With the top being white and bed cover same white i think it looks factory as they blend into each other.

 

That would be good thanks very much Sir. I intend to be able to fit a zip up cover over my top when down to keep it tight and tidy. From the measurements I have done my top will sit flush with the rear of my pickup bed which I can live with no trouble.

 

I forgot to mention that due to running a roll bar which the seat belts hang from, I will also have a hidden zip arrangement so that I can use the belts whether the top is up or down.

 

Saw this bucket on another thread. Thought I'd post it. Wonder why I like it. The same front suspension as mine. He had to bend the steering loop up because it interfered with the spring hanger as I did. Judging by the shadows might be the same hairpins. Looks like a California license plate. Don't remember seeing it before. I even kinda dig the bigol steering wheel.

Gary

 

Gary...Looks Good! By the way...Your Care package is on it`s way.....

Waiting for word on a 40-48 Rearend.....Then I have to make time to work on the thing. January in the Shop is Brutally busy......too much going on.....

 

Thanks Paul

A house building contractor friend of mine the same age of me said now that he turned 70 he only works half a day. Twelve hours. Me on the other hand is a slug. Some days I do nothing.

Glad you are thinking banjo.

Could you use a good 49 Merc. thrans. with floor linkage or the same O.D. that still spins but has some rust inside. For you cheap or trade for something small that I could make a few bucks on at a swap. Not sure how to get them up to you though.

 

Gary...Struck out on the trans, you did. I have a recently rebuilt `56 Pickup OD trans gathering dust here that I am going to have to get rid of. I just can`t see using it in the T, or anything else coming up..... As for your contractor pal--maybe you can plug a long extension cord into him somewhere and get charged up a bit...

 

here are more pics for those wanting to see the folding top ect.
Also you can see the machined tubes welded into radius rods for spring hangers that allow perfect alignment of front spring to frame spring perch. just don't tighten till weight is on all parts and it seeks being level then tighten up.
Also to gain a better look of bed to body I placed rear bed end into the 2nd set of bed pocket holes, made a round filler plate and a side plate so when you look in it all blends into black.
And you can see I made frame to widen just inside firewall so there was more room for things.
Also the weld on top of radius rods I did not grind off, just ground a little to a point for a fine line detail and with many dips in copper and block sanding it makes for a different look and not lose the weld strength.

 

What a great batch of pics. Some Awesome ideas and great execution, Gege......has me thinking about some different things on my build. I`ll wait to get my Early Ford rear and then I`ll probably do some alterations as per your ideas. Too Cool, and Thanks for posting these!!

 

gege

I actually like everything about your bucket. especially the quality of the build. I can even go with the purple fur after you explained the Roth connection.

And since this is a learning thread I want everybody to know why we all like it so much. Notice how low the grill is. Yes a little lower than most would put it but it fits and adds to the overall look. Anything any higher would look out of place. Also note how level the engine sits and how the windshield lays back just a little. These things don't just happen by accident you have to step back look and evaluate your ride and make the effort to change things that LOOK wrong as Chip has done from the start of this thread.

Okay my one wine lunch rant is over.

Gary

 

I agree with most of what you are saying Gary BUT, re the grille sheel and how low it should be, your thoughts are only if one is using a " I wanta Be a '32 when I grew up " grille shell and personally I perfer what Henry used with a good dose of chrome. But each to their own. I'm sorry but I just don't get why one wants to have a smaller radiator opening by having a lowered grille shell for the sake of " A Look " which to my eye takes away from the look of the car if too much. Especially when one has a gianormous spring hanger sitting like a huge infected boil blocking a good part of the radiator, it looks so darn heavy and busy , again when one has a heap of leaves in the front spring also. Hell I remember the verbal diarrhoea that flowed about a certain yellow '32 Five Window Coupe that was used in a 70's movie due to it's grille shell been out of sorts with the rest of the car and now we have people saying that is how it should be done, no thanks, not for this guy.

 

172 pages on a T- Bucket........................who 'da thunk it?!!?

 

You have to realise Mr Seatex that too us here, we aren't just talking about " Just T Buckets " , to us they are " The Car of Choice " and we are as passionate about our T's as the guy who owns a '32 Ford or a '57 Chevy or a '59 Caddy. I will admit that since owning mine and rebuilding it, the love I have for T's has grown to the extreme so will quickly jump to the defence of our beloved cars.

 

I don't own one but follow this thread faithfully as this is my favorite thread on the HAMB. I do love the look of the well done T bucket and think it would be fun to own one, but not likely to ever happen as I have too many projects to finish before I would consider building one for myself.

 

Whip
I love you man but you are wrong. I like your Bucket Whip but it would look way better with the grill a couple of inches lower. But if you really don't care or don't see it I don't care either.

The two most photographed, most cloned, most beloved hot rods ever built have the the grills mounted way low. Do you think that is an accident. Out of all the thousands, tens of thousands hot rods ever built the two most copied have yay low mounted '32 Ford grills. I think not. I think both would be just run of the mill rods otherwise.

 

gege, what a well crafted bucket. I liked it before and now you have shown us its construction I like it even more, Totally cool. JW

 

Gary, you know how I love your T, its perfect and I cant really say why because no one thing stands out.......stance, color, balance and parts used. Whip, I love yours too and I also cant really explain why.....it has the same appeal as Gary's except different. If that makes sense? JW

 

What i might do after a few other projects get done is buy one of those shiny chrome t grills with a new radiator and make sure it sits on frame without chopping it and put it up for a vote as to t vs 32?
Also i did not feel bad when i cut up a ginny shell and grill as it was "slightly" in poor shape.

 

Hey sorry guys and especially you Gary for my outburst this morning and no, I wasn't hung over from New Years Eve as I was home and in bed well before midnight and only had a couple of beers all evening. I do love both of your cars Gary and Gege with the use of the '32 Grille shells but I'm not a fan of them being low down. Now getting back to my training as a body man / panelbeater, I was taught to stand back and check the lines of a car so that there wasn't any dips or sharp angles that attracted the eye to one spot. Now when I look at my car the top of the radiator shell is even with the top of the firewall, now that looks right in my eye but if I envisage a straight line following the rake of the body then the radiator should be several inches lower. But again one has to take into account of the angle the engine is mounted also as that effects the visual lines of the car too.My engine is sitting reasonable level so that allows for me to get away with the rad.shell sitting parallel and at the same height as the fire wall. Another important point in the cosmetics of the overall picture is that my roll bar is laid back slightly on the same angle as the screen posts and isn't ever too high or low. In a picture I posted up the page ago there is a T bucket with a roll bar that I believe is too high for the rest of the car as an example. I also mentioned that I have cut 2 " off the pickup bed as side on I felt it sploit the balance of the car. I will try and post a side view of the car just before I took it apart again.

 

You know Whip I was just going to apologize to you for my outburst and I had had a couple of glasses of wine. But that is no excuse. Their is a lot I like about your roadster but I stand by what I said. Here is what I want you to do. Lay a strait edge along the top edge of your P.U. bed in this photo and continue it through the body and cowl to the grill. I don't care what grill you have T, A or 32 to look right it shouldn't be any higher than that line. Now here again you might not care but that is what this thread is about De Uglifing T buckets for those who care.

Any happy new year. As I write this it is still almost four hours away from the new year but probably into the first morning of 2015 there. Isn't the internet great.

Your friend Gary

 

Happy New Year guys

 

Interesting. See, I can see both sides of things here, and it boils down (at least somewhat) to our cultural and Hot Rod history differences. Because of Rob Campbell and ` Project T` the New Zealand Bucket has a certain look to it. Don`t forget that in the seventies when those seeds were sown 90% of Kiwi Hot Rodders wouldn`t have known who Tommy Ivo and Norm Grabowski were, and certainly never saw either the Mickey Mouse Club, or , more importantly, 77 Sunset Strip. In fact most Kiwi`s had their Hot Rod exposure from American Graffiti and went from there. The first American Hot Rod book I ever saw was the late `50`s Fawcett Publication `How to Build and Race Hot Rods`. My Dad bought that home to me in about `69 or `70, and I can still quote some of the captions. In fact, I suspect my Bonneville Addiction came from the Salt Article in that book. I can still see that large pic of Denny Larsens `Dreamliner` being pushed off by an almost new F100. But I Digress. So our `look` varies, but there are some things we agree on as being ugly, and we also can tell some stuff is bad and agree on that, too.

That reminds me....Larry--I`m afraid that rear end setup is going to ride a bit too stiffly....

Happy New Year to us all--and to all a Good Night....

 

LOL, stiff isn't the word a buckboard wagon would be smoother. Hopefully the coil overs will be better

 

Paul, you are right about ''Project T'' getting a lot of future NZ Hot Rodders into their first Rod. I don't know who made the body for that but it didn't resemble a Model T in any way, it was longer and the cowl area was completely made up along with the rest of it. I will try and find a good pic of one. I do know that the first NZ made Bucket body was sold in Green Lane Speed Shop, Auckland.
And a big Happy New Year to all you T guys. JW

 

I appreciate what you are saying Gary now as I place a ruler across the screen of my computer and in that photo of my car, the top of the grille should be at the same height as the top of the left hand headlight in the photo. If it was then yes, the lines would be absolutely floorless from the side view but from the front on view, it wouldn't look ideal to me. So we will have to just agree to disagree on this point or maybe just leave it up to how the different builders wish to have their cars look.
I was going to suggest to Larry that the diff in his car was so badly set up that he should package it up again and send it down to me. Now that would get rid of the " ugly " 10 bolt in mine plus I could have split bones on the rear to match the front ones too.
Hey guys, I wish you all a very good and happy New Year into 2015.


PS, Gary you have and still are a major influence on me as one of the first things I wish to tackle soon is the removal of those dummy cowl lights and which will mean upgrading the windscreen posts. The ones at the moment are NZ manufactured copies but I'm aware of where I can purchase original screen posts here in NZ now so will be doing that too.

 

I'm not too sure where you were originally from Paul (Wellington area ?) but I can tell you that it wasn't any American Hot Rod books that influenced me from a early stage with this disease. I blame a very young man named Terry Furness who drove a '28/29 Ford Roadster around Putaruru, my birth town, with it's channelled body real low, fenderless and with Vauxhall PAX tail lights set into the rear panel looking like cats eyes. Putaruru Panelbeaters also had a custom '36 Ford Coupe and a '34 Roadster that are still around. So I had the sights and sounds of V8's to make inroads on my brain to make sure I was hooked. Not long after living with those cars in our small town we then we moved to Waiuku where we lived 5 houses down from one of NZ top hot rods, Kevin Dolores Roadster, and then my step Dad was keen on American cars too and taught me to drive in a '55 Desoto so I have been a lost soul from a early stage. Oh and I started buying the NZ Hot Rod mag from the early 70's too.

 

fyi for past discussion of wheelbase of m my t: I just measured and it brought back recollection I chose 106 inches in tribute to the 32 ford.

 

Yeah Mark..I`m from Nelson, and I remember a channelled Roadster called the Rolls Rod because it had a Rolls like grille on it. I was 11 or 12, I think.I remember it being painted, but I never saw it on the road. We also had Beach Racing..I went with my Mum and Dad every year when I was a kid. But no T Buckets. I don`t remember any on the road until after Project T. I think that was a Glass Repro`s body, but I don`t have any NZ Mags over here newer than `72. I only have about a dozen early ones here. After I moved to Wellington in `76, there were lots being built that I saw. Good move on the Cowl Light delete, by the way...

Gege...I had a mockup of mine at 105" but it didn`t look quite right. Maybe because I didn`t have the Spring Behind front end as you do. With the long pickup bed it seems to need length in the front. If you look at Garys, his is shorter both behind the body and in front of the Engine....