The other side is in much better condition. More rust on the lower part of the post but aside from the typical rust in the body section the rest is good, considering it's a 92 year old body that was obviously neglected along the way. That's a picture from right after I bought the project. Because of how it sits in my shop, the vast majority of recent pics are from the left side. While searching through pictures I came across one that shows it had a door latch on it when I bought it, so I should have already known it had the late style latches. Oops. I haven't seen it for years though. No idea where it is now. Getting back to the bun panel, there is more info than I put into my last post. I posted early on that I had found an unfinished panel made by a member here. I forget the details but he changed direction on his car before he finished this panel but I got what he had done so far. I haven't done more than held it up to my car when I was tearing things apart and never did even figure out just how much more work it needs. I'll probably investigate that more today. Also, I ordered the bun patch panels from Howells (I know, they also made the deck lid that doesn't fit right but they're the only game in town from what I can tell). Anyway, the panels come in pairs so I'll have the lower section from that too. They are supposed to arrive tomorrow according to the notification I got from UPS. I ordered them (and other panels) weeks ago in anticipation of needing them and knowing they could take a while to get here. I'm not sure if the order will be complete, or how well any of it will fit, but it's a start.
Looks like you should be able to do something with the panel that Zach made. The deck lid is a tricky one but if you have an inner frame that is the right shape the outer skin should follow it when fitted. The lack of compound curve is never going to be right but the deck lid is a hell l of a thing to make. I had three attempts before I finished mine.
Yeah I think the panel Zach made will work out. Not sure about the detail at the top of the door I'll have to copy, but I MIGHT be able to weld that part on from the original? I knew the panel wouldn't fit with the twisted up door post, but in an optimistic mood I tried to fit it without the post. There's a bracket on the lower front to position it on, and the top of the back to fit that end. Ok, not quite the fit I was fantasizing about... so I measured the metal and compared it to the other side. The dimensions were close enough that I figured Zach's panel will work. So then I measured the rear brace the panel bolts to. Starting down low the two sides were as close as couple be expected for the quick measurements I was doing. Moving up... the top sides of various details are off by about an inch which is just about what the gap is between the door and the panel. Looks like a little work will be needed back there too! I'll try to get the turtle deck to fit at the same time I suppose. My plan is to rework the door post using measurements from the other side and the fit of the door as a guide. I put an ad up here and on the Fordbarn forum looking for a post or the top bracket on the post but I've never seen one for sale so I'm not expecting to find one. After that, I'll rework the rear mount matching measurements and the fit of the panel. Once everything is fit, I'll move on to rebuilding the front of the subframe on the driver's side. I don't want to remove that brace until everything else is in position and I know there was a good fit before I messed with it. I'm ignoring the deck lid fit for now... I can get to a driveable car with no deck lid, but I need the doors to work.
Just found your thread last night and read through all of it. Great project! I really like how you talk through your thinking process in your posts. Looking forward to more.
To my surprise I've already heard from a couple guys who may have a door post or parts... here's what the one I have looks like. This pic doesn't show the ugliness very well but here's the basic shape of it. In other news the order from Howell's showed up today. It's complete. I got a couple cross braces which are pretty simple and should work fine, sill plates which look surprsingly good and seem to fit great, bun panels which I'm not too sure about yet... and a key emboss panel to replace the one on the deck lid which is off center.
Yes, the 1928 open car door latches fit the 27 door. The 28 latches need a separate knob where the T latch had just the lever as part of the latch. I got mine from Snyders.
A month or three ago I found an original quarter panel for this on ebay but decided it was too expensive and I already had all I needed to make something work. Then I started to make what I had work, and with a tweak here, and a tweak there, and some work over there, I could fit something up... probably. And then I found some gauges on the classifieds here. They were about half price and still in the box. Not what I had planned on using but they were close and the price was right, so I bought them. My toy fund was destroyed at that point. So I decided to order the quarter panel too. Now my toy fund is destroyed along with my double secret hold it back in case of emergency cash is accounted for too. But I've got gauges. And a quarter panel. I've stopped checking the classifieds here. For now. Looks like I'll be getting off my lazy butt and advertising the various stuff I have sitting around that I'm going to sell "someday"! A few other things have happened in the mean time. My mom will be coming to visit over Thanksgiving so I decided to mock this thing up as far as I can. I put the engine back in, radiator, grill shell, steering box, etc. She has told me the story of riding in my dad's Model A, with no floor, and burning her shoe on the exhaust. Interested to see what she thinks of this one. I had some radiator tubes bent up at work but between not having the desired radius tooling and me wanting to drop the radiator about half an inch in the frame, it turns out they won't work. So I got some molded 90 degree radiator hoses and will use a straight section of tubing. I wanted something angled but oh well. If I put a hood on it (I want to) no one will see them anyway! I mocked up the steering wheel position and discovered my dash layout leaves the speedo behind where my hand would be. The speedo is basically hidden. Along with a couple other gauges. I'm going to have to put more thought into gauge placement. And/or the importance of seeing the speedometer. I discovered another oops but can't think of what it was now... oh yeah, headlight placement. I have a couple different headlight mounts. Neither will work with the shock mounts I made up. Another area to think about, it looks like making something up that mounts the headlights to the shock mounts may be the best bet? No progress in the near future with travel and holiday plans, but at least I'm amassing parts so when I get time I'll be able to be productive!
You don't need to see the speedo all the time and you will get used to it and just move you hand the odd time to see it. All in all it sounds like you have a handle on things and hey.. its not paint by numbers. JW
Yeah I'm leaning that direction. The dash isn't big enough to find an unblocked spot for everything anyway and it'd look like a mess if I tried. One of my favorite bikes never even had a functioning speedo, I should be able to deal with one that's not always visible. I'm hoping to get downstairs to play around with the new quarter sometime today, but things aren't looking good.
I've been going back and forth between keeping the stock seat riser and trying to make something work, or removing it and figuring out the seating from there. I was trying to keep it because I thought it'd be easier and save time, but today as I got further into making the new quarter fit it became apparent the riser had to go. I ran out of time to pull the rear brace for the quarter. I'll be using the ones that came with it so I don't have to cut any welds on the panel. Not sure how much repair I'll do to the rear panel. I don't think any of the damaged areas are all that important for what I'm doing? Looks like it was a good call to get new crossmembers too. That thing's worse off than I was expecting!
Make a new seat base that suits you, thats what i did as i had to hide the battery under there (though the floor) and have a small space for a jack and some tools. You want to sit as low as you can or it will look like you are sitting on it, not in it. JW
Dealing with this quarter has been a bit of one step up and two steps back. Now I'm thinking the rear panel will get pulled to replace the bottom section of it, and then I may as well pull the right side quarter off the car to have better access to that too. We'll see. I just seem to be going backwards on this thing and finding more to do rather than making the to-do list shorter! As for progress over the past few weeks, I removed the broken off bolts in the replacement panel that hold the turtledeck on. I drilled out the first one and managed to ding up the threads a little. I didn't simply weld a nut on the end and screw it out because there wasn't enough of the bolt left to get a good shot at it. On the second one, it occured to me that I could build up the bolt with the MIG welder, then weld a nut to that. Duh. Worked like a charm, the remains unscrewed with no issues. Lesson learned. From there I removed the old rear brace from the subframe so I could fit the replacement panel. I had to remove three of the four rivets from the bottom side. That meant I had to remove the crossmember to get access, but that had to come out anyway so no worries. Anyway, this is where it sits now. Here's what the old panel looked like I still have a lot of work to do to get it and the door to fit right, but it sure does look a lot better, even with the panel just sitting there. Fixing this was one of my main worries about the body when I bought it. Now I'm over that hump, so I can obsess over how I'm going to make the deck lid fit now. Seeing it with the panel in place has me thinking... I may not finish the body before proceeding with other stuff like I had planned. Instead I may get the doors functional, brace it up and fix things to the point it all functions, then move on to getting the mechanicals done. Make the thing a runner before I finish the bodywork??? Hmm... EDIT: Are any of my pictures showing up to anyone else? I can't figure out why some of them seem to be working and others aren't. They are all posted the same way...
I can see them. Man that new bun panel is much better! I made my '34 a runner before I did the bodywork. Chassis and everything is painted but just wanted to drive it! It's been on the road now since 2011 and I still haven't finished the body .
Quarter panel looks great, money well spent there. Thats got to feel like a big step. Wish someone repop'd the whole panel like that i could use one too.
I’d vote you make it a runner. You never know what issue might pop up that you’ll need to resolve and I hate tearing into work I thought I had finished.
I’m not sure what kind of budget your on but keeping the stock seat riser means you can do a cheap bench seat...I’ve got $60 in wood,foam and a Mexican blanket...and a space under the seat for some tools and to hide my electric fuel pump...keep at it ! mine was in the same shape as yours....I got mine running and driving for a few months before last winter then took it back apart and finished the patch panels and bodywork....drove it around in grey primer...
Two months with zero progress. My OT track bike needs TLC before spring and I decided to work on that instead. But then my OT everyday bike needs TLC too. And my OT play bike needs TLC. And so on. Long story short, I'm crashing on this thing. The time and money I'd need to put into the V8 has me thinking maybe the Model A engine IS the way to go. The title matches that engine number. It's a lot closer (I think) to running than the V8 is. I could easily use the stock wishbone up front then which would simplify fitting all the steering bits in place. The radiator (which I'd have to buy) would fit in the stock position, so the headlight bar I have should work then. Etc... The other option is to move it all back into my garage once the snow melts, and put it up for sale. I'm hoping to retire relatively soon, and getting rid of things that take up space/time/money is high on my list. Maybe this goes too? I have no idea how some guys put these things together so fast and (at least relatively) inexpensively. I'm getting pretty stressed on both the time and the money it's going to take to make it useable let alone finished. I'm much more comfy working on bikes. I can't move anything until the snow melts so I've got time to think about it. It ain't going anywhere any time soon!
This has been a very cool build to follow along on and have always looked forward to your updates.........the only advice i can give at present is you gotta do whats best for you. JW
As far as a seat for your T I found a seat from a 1948 Prefect was the perfect size. I paid $100 for it and the upholstery is in pretty good shape. I guys used buckets when they Hot Rodded them .
In my opinion the original seat riser is too high if you want to sit "in" the car. I have a lower riser you can have that's out of an A I think. Just come get it. You can have it. As Hank57 said you can then build an easy bench seat base. Cheers, Stewart.
Thanks for the comments, I've talked myself back from the ledge as far as as selling it goes... it's got at least one more summer with me. I AM still strongly considering building the car with the 4 cylinder though. One problem is I'm making a bunch of assumptions and need to get more reality based. As in, is the banger in as decent condition as I think it is, and what would the V8 really cost to rebuild? I need to figure out how to evaluate the Model A engine. I'm tempted to get a distributor for it (the body of the one I have is broken) and do the minimum needed to fire it up. Trial by fire as it were. The other option is to tear it down to check things over, but I'm not even sure on these how to check things. I've never worked on a babbited(sp?) engine before. Gonna need to do some research on that. And then resist going with a new head, manifolds, cam, dual carbs etc right off the bat. I have one or two books on the four cylinders already but nothing I've seen talks about how to check things out. And as I was typing that I remembered I have a couple shop manuals for the Model A that go into detail on things. Where the hell did I put those? Once I started playing with the V8 I forgot I had them. With the V8, I need to find a local place to take the block to be cleaned/magnafluxed etc. I'm not even sure if the block is good at this point. If it is, I can tally up the rest of the machine work it will take to get it ready to rebuild. Basically get a realistic number on that rebuild too. I've got $5k in my head but I have no idea where I got that number. Limey Kid, thanks for the offer. I agree the stock riser is too high. I'll PM you.
Aaannnnnnddddd.... I think it's time to call it on this one. With all that's happened over the past months it's become pretty obvious to me this isn't one of my top priorites. Looks like I'm still more of a bike guy than a car guy, all of my free time and money this summer has gone into off topic bikes. I also want to retire in July at the latest, and selling this helps that happen. I had planned on putting it up for sale in the spring, but lately I'm wondering if I should move it back up to the garage and list it now. I'd have to park my daily driver outside for the winter but I can't very well list it with it in the basement, especially if it snows. I will probably list some of the parts seperately, the heads are already listed locally. I hate shipping stuff... So that's where I'm at with this. Time to call it a day me thinks.
Well, Craig, i was thinking of this build recently and this comes as no shock. You just got to do what makes ya happy. You gave it a good shot and with the direction and style of the T was very cool and i hope whoever gets it has a similar vision and utilize what work you have already done. Keep us updated on how the sale goes. To me it will always be ''Desmo's'' Hot Rod. JW
Post pics, list it and you might be surprised how many are interested, even in the flathead v/8. Then if some one comes and looks at it, figure it out how to get it topside. Keep the daily in the garage ,especially in Mi. Best of luck.
Flatheads are heavy. Holy crap, I spent the weekend moving all the major parts for this up to my garage. I had the flathead ready to roll, called a buddy to help me pull it up the hill, and found out he was out of town. Long story short--- I have a Jeep and don't care what my neighbors think. I dragged that and the Model A engine up the hill and it worked great. Now I know how I'll move all the other big stuff when we move. But that's the lead in to, the project was listed for sale today. I more or less slapped it together and will be loading all the extras into the trunk and interior over the next few days. I also listed my OT track bike. Retirement date has been set for May 28. I'm pretty psyched about walking away from work and having the space/time/money to get back into a couple of the vintage bike projects I have sitting around.
Well folks, that's all she wrote. Today a fellow HAMBer loaded up the car and dragged it home. Have fun with it, Derek!
The Jalopy Journal
