Hot Rods Budget 28 Tudor

I’ve seen these before, but never used them myself. I don’t see why they wouldn’t work.
I didn’t want to use all this cloth wiring and loom, then put zip ties around them. I bought this “wiring harness tape” and it blends right in with the loom. It almost looks and feels like a cloth material as well.
https://www.amazon.ca/Electrical-Ha...2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm&psc=1

 

I was told not to cool anything forged, just let it cool down on its own. This cooling with oil technique is something I’ve never heard of before.. is there a big difference between cooling with oil and cooling with water?

 

This is the before shot of under the hood. Zip tied wires and lots of electrical tape, exposed modern looking pieces. It didn’t look right especially with the hood sides off.

But now I have the cloth harnesses installed. New original looking ignition wire installed. New terminal box with a cover on it. Everything has cloth loom on it. It’s all held together with original frame clips or the cloth harness tape mentioned in the previous post. Looks much better now.

 

Got all my lights rewired and working now. Also made a new mount for my switches. I bought this old fog light switch at a swap meet last year, but never hooked it up. Now that I have, I realized there’s a light inside that illuminates when turned on, pretty cool. I’d like to keep an eye out for another one to replace the other light switch.

 

I was running out of things to do, so I decided to remove the original red steering wheel. With the chop, the wheel is too big and not having a column drop makes it even more in the way.

home made puller

 

I found an old steering wheel at a swap meet a few weeks ago. I needed to adapt the new wheel onto my existing steering column.
I looked at adapters online, too many options and too much money. So I removed the inner splined part from my red steering wheel. Ground the heads of the rivets, drilled them out and smashed them out with a punch. I got a little aggressive and broke the wheel..

 

Realize that a smaller diameter wheel will make it even harder to steer. Also by dropping the ball you added positive caster, which does make steering a bit harder.

 

Correct, but the smaller wheel was necessary. Combined with a column drop my vision should be much improved while driving.
The new wheel is 17" in diameter, the old red one was 19". Hopefully not too much more difficult to steer. We shall see.

 

You can buy a shorter steering arm for the model A steering box which makes them much easier to steer. It's all I run on my Model A's. Snyders is where I get them.

Dave

 

Are you talking about the pitman arm? A shorter one makes it easier to steer?

 

Are you looking for a Model A steering wheel?

 

@Speedy Canuck - No, I happened to find one at a swap meet a few weeks back!

 

Now that I have the centre splined part removed from my old steering wheel, I can attach it to my new to me wheel.
I had to drill the centre of the new wheel out from 7/8” to 1” and then drill new holes to mount the centre piece to the steering wheel.

 

Looks better than what I had, but I didn’t like the old go kart looking foam on the wheel.
So I removed it and cut strips from the left over leather I used for my front seats. I cleaned the wheel, wrapped two sided tape around the whole thing, then tightly wrapped the wheel in material.
I first put four small pieces in front of each spoke because I know my skills aren’t that good. Then cut four pieces equal length and used four individual pieces to wrap the wheel. I think it looks alright, it also matches the seats.

 

Yes! Many people mistakenly think that is backwards but it it true. Shorter on pitman arm or in theory a longer steering arm at the spindle (not practical).

Dave

 

Very interesting, thanks Dave I'll look into that some more!

 

Dodge Brothers early cars had long arms. Later DB's '24-'27 had short arms. late arm on early car a big improvment. I bought a '20 DB tourIng one time, guy had LENGTHENED the long arm! Couldn't hardly turn the steering wheel. Swapped to later arm, steered way easier. You do have to turn the steerig wheel a little farther but not much, and you will love it.

Dave

 

That bit of info is good enough for me, next time I do a parts order I'll be including one of these shortened pitman arms.
Thanks again Dave!

 

I’ve always liked old hot rods with advertisements on the side of them. So I’ve always wanted to letter my car, but never knew the right way to go about it. Finding a sign painter is difficult enough, let alone pay them to come paint the doors of my car.
I found a vinyl cutter at work and managed to cut out some stencils I could use to paint the car. I’m not good enough on the computer to make it fancy, so I just printed out the words, cut them out, then laid them out on my coffee table and taped them together when I thought they were straight and even. Then transferred that onto the car.



Probably could have been better, but could have cost more money as well.
I used a can of Rustoleom enamel paint and a brush and brushed on 3 coats then removed the stencils before it dried.


Meyer is my last name and the address is where my folks live. Lots of work has been done on my car at my dad’s garage and with his help so I wanted to incorporate that into the project.
No windshield yet..

 

So in the local vernacular- is your lettering done in Tremclad recreational white? I love that colour.

 

You got it, thats the stuff! It turned out well, no brush marks or anything and I really like the colour.

 

I found a cheap bicycle carrier which got me thinking, how cool would it be to take the hotrod mountain biking? So that’s what I did.
I welded a trailer hitch onto the back of the car. It’s covered by the license plate when not in use, and when I am using it I mount the plate on the carrier. It looks cool and works perfectly.

 

Would it hold a mini bike for Jalopy Jamup?

 

Hahaha, never thought of that... I think if I could find a mini bike between now and the Jam Up, I'll take the back seat out and stash it back there!

 

Where there is a will, there is a way.

 

The speed of the quench is what helps to determine the hardness and properties. The quicker you can "freeze" the microstructure in the state it is, the better chance you have of making it strong and hard. However, there is no such thing as retaining the forging. Forging results in a deformation of the microstructure, and as soon as you heat the forged steel, you get relaxation of the microstructure which can't be returned.

In terms of quench rate, generally air is slowest, oil is next, and water is fastest. However, with water you can get deformation and cracking if it cools too fast. Oil is preferred because it helps freeze the microstructure, but you have less chance of cracking and deformation. Air cooling generally results in the lowest hardness and therefore lowest strength, but you therefore have the least chance of cracking. If you're heating and bending forged steel and want it to retain as much strength as possible, an oil quench is your best bet.

 

The door sign looks great! For what it's worth, I had a sign painter do mine, and I have never been 100% thrilled with it. What you ended up with feels really reminiscent of what would be on there in the period this car conveys.

 

Thanks for that, my knowledge of working with steel is minimal but I’m always wanting to learn more.

That’s what I was going for! It turned out well, but I’m wanting to ad more..

 

Update, I got my windshield frame back but it doesn’t have glass in it.. I showed up at the glass place almost 4 months after dropping it off to find it hasn’t been moved from the spot I dropped it off at. He kept telling me another 1-2 weeks and it never got done. So now I’m trying to find another place close by that can cut me some glass.. frustrating

 

Gotta blast this as you drive by each time.