Well, I've been waiting (and lurking here) for about 15 years to make this thread: my very own banger-powered Model A coupe. Found on the side of the road in western Nevada with a "For Sale" sign on it while heading out for a hunting trip earlier this year. Not something you see every day, but if a car or bike is meant to come your way, the universe will throw you a bone and things will work out. A few days after I got back, she arrived on a trailer and my available garage space became that much less. Other than the chop, she has basically stock running gear, with the exception of the 12 volt, neg. ground conversion and a one-wire alternator (for now). The plan with this car is going to be slow upgrades and refinements while keeping her on the road, and drive the wheels off...
First order of business was a quick tune-up. Low and medium-speed driving was fine, but the car would hit a wall in third gear above 40mph or so. The car has a Tillotson and float level is supposed to be set at 1" from the carb flange to the "top" of the float when held upside down, and this was set much lower. Adjusted to 1 1/16" per consensus on the other site and she drives great now and leaks no gas. I'll of course go to downdrafts eventually once I get a good game plan figured out. Not sure if I am going to be able to keep the cowl tank with the '32 dash panel I'd like to run or not, but I don't want to change one thing which leads to six other unforeseen issues leaving me unable to drive the car for a while until I get them all figured out.
Here's where the car sits now. I had a front spring pack laying around for about 7 years which I was finally able to put to use. It has a reverse eye main leaf from "A Springs" (which appears to no longer be in business?) and 7 springs in the pack in total. I chamfered the edges of the leaves and greased them up with that white, super tacky Energy Suspension grease as specified somewhere in Dennis Lacy's PU rebuild thread. I absolutely hate working with this grease on any of my vehicles, but I've used this on some OT offroading vehicles for years and it certainly stays where you put it. All of this led to more drop in the front end than anticipated, and looks great. Guessing about a 2" drop in the front. This led to two issues: the drag link and tie rod were now hitting, and the drop changed the geometry in the mechanical brake linkages more than I expected. Drag link/tie rod interference was an easy fix with a shortened pitman arm from Bratton's, which also did significantly reduce steering effort. I would definitely recommend the shortened pitman arm for this reason alone. Bringing the brakes back into adjustment required trimming maybe 1/2" off the ends of the brake actuating rods and chasing the threads with a (if I recall correctly) 5/16"x24 die. The factory-length rods would bottom out on the tops of the clevises requiring their removal. Nothing like freshly-chased threads. From there, you can follow the Paul Shinn guide on YouTube to adjust the brakes. It's not difficult, just a little tedious. Looks much nicer with a little drop in the front end. Wheels and tires will be next. Starting to look like a hot rod now...
Very cool! a few… shit probably 8… years ago a local guy started driving a stock model A coupe and about every couple of weeks upgraded soemthing. By the end it had a flathead v8, 39 box, great stance, juice brakes and f1 steering. Don’t think it was ever down more than a weekend. looking forward to following your build
Even in the '60s we couldn't get rid of the cowl tanks fast enough. Having ten gallons of gas over your lap was never comfortable.
Thanks, that's the plan! Although I will be keeping the banger. I understand, my feelings are that if I get into an accident in this car that's bad enough to open up the gas tank I am absolutely dead as a doornail anyway. If I do relocate the tank to the trunk I will probably go the old WWII airplane O2 tank route. My only real reservation about doing so is limited trunk space since it's a rumble seat car. That was my exact first thought. It's actually kind of great, I can enjoy not having to worry about a haircut and build the rest of the car the exact way I want to. Thank you! It will be getting a set of the 1935 16" wires, I too love the look of wire wheels. I have two on hand now and two stashed at my parent's house which they are kind enough to be sending out. Then blasted, painted, and wrapped with big & littles. Low-effort sneak peak:
I, too, love the look of the chopped top, wire wheels, and fenders. I approve of your lowering efforts - definitely improves the look. Just be careful about changing too much and losing "the look".
I agree, other than the tires and 16" wheels I think everything else on the exterior will stay as-is. Perhaps a reverse eye main leaf in the rear, but there some cars I've found on here that have an awesome stance with what appears to be just a few minor touches: This one looks like it has 17" or 18" wheels, which I also thought about to keep it a little bit more in the '30s, but "the look" in my head really has always been 16" wheels so that's what I'm going to use for this car.
How ironic......I just spent some time on four pages of concern about lack of content, traffic and especially build threads on the HAMB........and then this shows up !!......I have FAITH. Great looking project and please keep us involved in everything you are doing. Thanks
Here are some photos of the interior. I'm not sure if this is a legit old interior, or if it just has the appearance of one, but either way it suits the car well. The wrapped steering column, e-brake lever, and dash rail really make the interior to me. I have the passenger's kick panel, just have to get it secured in there. I also figured this is worth a mention due to the way the seat is mounted on the floor to a simple 2x4, rather than an original Model A seat pan. Even with the roughly 4" chop, there's still plenty of room to wear a cowboy hat in this sucker, which is important.
Your interior is 100% an old couch. Works perfect! My model A sits pretty close to this with 750 and 525-16’s model T spring in back with a few leafs pulled and up front a dropped stock axle and a posies super super low front spring -special Order because it’s for a stock axle so it’s slightly wider at the perch pins- not to hard to accomplish
Nice, looks great. Stock A setup would be my preference for KISS reasons, but... I was able to walk around Hershey with Gene Winfield quite a while ago, and he found this gauge cluster and told me that this should go in my roadster project (sold the project a bit later but hung onto the cluster, of course). I talked to Ron at Williamson's and he is going to restore these once I figure out which sender will be used so he can calibrate the fuel gauge. This all depends on if I can keep the stock tank and run a '32 dash in front of it with enough clearance to fit the instruments in between... or if I'll need to relocate the tank in order to clear the dash. I definitely downloaded that picture onto my computer without paying attention to where it came from, but I really like your car and I think I will go the T spring route in the rear as well. You're running a dropped A axle? I'm interested in any pictures you can share and was considering the same thing.
The photo you shared isn’t my car to be clear it’s just how mine sits. I’ll see if I have a decent photo it’s pretty torn apart at the moment Here’s a great reference thread for you though https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/lowering-my-model-a.995027/
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