Projects Shade tree Model A speedster kind of thing

ok-that is now 2 votes-you (the shadetree man) are outnumbered!

 

@ne'erdowell,
I don't think the angle change will affect that. For one thing, I haven't even addressed the split wishbone attachment yet. If the angle iron was wider, I could have just drilled the holes further forward and accomplished the same thing, really. Hope I'm right. Haha.

@simplestone, @patsurf,
I actually have a couple of angle grinders, even one of the rechargeable ones, which is really convenient. I just have this notion that I want to do as much of the work on this car as I can with the tools and methods that would have been available to someone during the depression years. I guess I'm a masochist. Seriously, though, if this was how I made my living that would be stupid way to go about it, but since I'm just doing this for fun and therapy I get a lot of satisfaction from being something of a Luddite. All that journey vs destination stuff, I guess. I appreciate everybody's attention and comments.

 

well,then...BRAVO!

 

Thanks, @patsurf. If I'm being completely honest, I had no idea what a "whizzer" was. Makes perfect sense now. Hahaha. That whole slot-making exercise took about an hour, but it was pretty zenlike.

 

I'm busily modifying the old T parts to fit my front end application. They have a curvature to the "foot" that fits the modified frame horns almost perfectly, but I decided that I liked the look of them better flipped over, so I had to reverse that curvature. Seemed like it would be a challenge because of the L-shaped crosse section, but the forge and anvil made short work of it.



You can see the original curve. Sorry my phone decided my hand was the most important thing here.





I should have flipped the finished one over here to be a mirror image of the one that is still original, but if you tilt your head and hold your mouth just right, this picture makes sense.

One of the unexpected side effects of these brackets is kind of lucky. I know I'm going to need to reinforce the upper sides of the frame horns where I cut the notches so I could angle them up. These brackets fall right on top of that area. What luck. However, when I got them in the ideal position on the frame, they weren't lining up with the angle iron spring perch, so I had to curve them a bit.





I thought about using the forge for this, too, but I was pretty sure that the facet I ended up cutting would have just turned out wavy if I heated and bent it. I do feel like I'm getting somewhere now.

 

I recognize that the last few posts have looked pretty questionable. I could see it in my head, but I'm not sure my communication skills are up to the challenge of making my plans clear. After a morning of grinding and bending and hacksawing and measuring and welding (not pretty, but I did at least get penetration, went ahead and welded from both sides, anyway) and about 30 trips back and forth, I have what I hope will be a little more understandable.











This last one illustrates how the foot of the bracket will bridge the cuts I made on the frame horns. I'm hoping that will be enough of a reinforcement.

 

Properly welded it will be just fine, myself I would box that section also

 

Well, I've got the front end mocked up enough to hold weight. I'm bolting the front crossmember assembly in, partly because I don't think I could get a hot rivet tight up under the original cross member where the rear of each bracket falls, and partly because I fully expect that adjustments and/or repairs will be needed once I finally get to drive the car. The local big box store was almost out of button head 5/16" bolts, so forgive the temporary hexes. I'm hoping the button heads will look enough like rivets that they won't be too noticeable. I'll fill the Allen holes (?) with something I can get out easily. I used 3 bolts per side, the middle ones are between the pie cuts.



Somehow didn't get a close up of this, but the middle of the bracket is bolted to the angle iron with four 3/8" bolts. That's probably overkill, but I wanted to tie this center section in pretty solidly, since it's basically flat. In hindsight, I don't think I need the inside two. Oh well. I just drilled and tapped that 3/8" angle iron to receive the bolts, so I can eventually trim them flush on the inside. I just used the shackles from the original Model A front end to clamp it all to the spring because they were lying around, but they seem to fit well. Haven't fooled with the center pin yet, just mocking up at this stage. Here it is supporting it's own weight, at least in the front. You can see the aforementioned bolts in the first picture, if you squint.

 

I've done about all I can to the front end, at this stage. I'll have to wait until I have the car sitting on all four tires before I tackle attaching the front split 'bones to the frame, so I can make sure the caster winds up where I want it. That means it's time to start working on the rear suspension and drivetrain. To be honest, that's been intimidating me a bit. I've done loads of research, and I have a pretty good idea what's up, but still...

One good thing about my particular situation is that, since I'm going to be shortening the frame and building a body to fit it, I don't have to be so exact about the length of the torque tube and driveshaft. I just eyeballed where I want the rear wheels to be and got a rough measurement. An inch one way or the other won't really matter, I can just adjust the frame to suit what I end up with. Within reason, of course. More on that later.

I started off marking the torque tube and driveshaft. I just used the tape method, and it seems to have turned out OK. I did lay them side by side and line the tape joints up really carefully, so I know I cut the same amount out of each one.







Aren't they cute? The torque tube will be 36". Those little pencilled arrows on the tape are to keep me from foolishly cutting on the wrong side of one or more marks and making the tube and driveshaft different lengths. You're never so stupid you can't outsmart yourself. Remember how I said the length wasn't all that critical? It's a good thing, because where I had the rear wheels set by eyeball turned out to be far enough forward that I would have had to cut the driveshaft right at the start of the tapered section at each end. I just moved the tape marks in about 1" each so I'd have a bit of un-tapered shaft to help line things up when it's time to weld. Convenient.

I plundered around in the junk piles and found a mild steel coupling that I can turn down to make a plug that will fit inside the driveshaft at the joint. I only had time this morning to turn one end of my plug, but you get the idea. It's a tight, tap-on fit after I carefully filed away the little seam inside the driveshaft.





Test fit is good enough for me. See that short little straight-walled section at the big end? That's what I was talking about. Next time I'll just flip that plug around and turn the other end, then I'll start seeing if I can weld all that shit back together. Knock on wood.

 

Piddling along over here. Not a lot of time today, but I did get the other end of that plug turned, plus I went ahead and turned out a piece of pipe that was threaded in there. It seemed permanently attached, but I figured, just my luck, it would somehow unscrew itself over time and go to ding-dinging around inside the driveshaft, driving me crazy. Also, just seemed sloppy to leave it.





I left that little ridge so it would end up centered when I mashed this all together.



I have one end chucked in the lathe, the other supported by the centering doohickey in the tailstock. My lathe is just long enough. The dial indicator and jack let me get it straight. You can see the holes where I'll plug weld it as well as welding the seam. No time for all of that today, though.

 

Turns out I was right to be intimidated by this driveshaft/torque tube shortening business. What a time I have had. My only welding equipment and skill (?) is OA torch stuff. I think it just put too much heat into the tubes (or I did...) and they both warped on me. I tried to do it right, tacking on opposite sides, then welding short sections, again alternating sides, but the driveshaft still ended up with about 20 thousandths of bow. Same thing with the torque tube, but I didn't measure how much that was. For the driveshaft, I just left it chucked in the lathe, centered at each end, and used the dial indicator to find the high side, then heated a little spot red hot in the middle (on the high side) and cooled it. Repeat as necessary. I did end up getting it so that the ends had less than 1 thousandth runout. The middle was harder to judge because it isn't perfectly round (it should be where I had the turned coupler pressed in, but my plug welds kept me from being able to use the dial indicator where that is) but I'm still within 5 thousandths there, I'm pretty sure. Hopefully it will be good enough for 2,500 or so rpm. If not, I'll just pull the old Model A solid shaft and shorten it.





I only have the one bad picture of me cooling it with a wet rag. It was a borderline business, wet the damn lathe and had to resort to 000 steel wool and oil to recover. What a mess. That jack is just still sitting there from setting up the welding.

I tried this angle iron/hose clamp method on the torque tube, and I think it would have worked if that radius rod lug hadn't been in the way. The angle iron was too long to fit between the lug and the end collar, but I didn't realize it until I had already welded the first two sides and tried to move them 90 degrees on the tube. Rather than do the right thing and stop and trim it, I tried to just clamp one piece on and that wasn't strong enough. Warped again.



What I did was go ahead and pin the driveshaft to the diff then slip the tube over and bolt it on good and tight.



This is looking straight into the driveshaft/torque tube from the transmission end, with the bearing/washer/speedo drive gear on the shaft, but not fitting in the tube. It wasn't as far off-center as this picture makes it look. I had forgotten to take the speedometer drive off. Its gear and the drive gear were interfering with each other and pushing the driveshaft over a little bit. The same high side heat trick brought it in line pretty easily.



See the soapstone H for high side? Still able to outsmart myself. Haha.

And here it is. A short '37 rear end.



Radius rods are next. They sure are going to be short, but I think it will be OK. All they have to do is hold the axles square to the torque tube, so shorter rods should actually be stronger, no?

 

but since I'm just doing this for fun and therapy I get a lot of satisfaction from being something of a Luddite. All that journey vs destination stuff, I guess.

Haha, I get that. It's the same for me - very therapuetic. I just don't seem to get as much accomplished as you do!

 

This will be a long one, although the job took less time than welding up and straightening the driveshaft and torque tube. There's just a lot to describe here.

I had to shorten my radius rods for the rear end. Right off of the bat, let me say that some of you might be a little grossed out by how I've done this. I could have made or (gasp) bought some custom plug-in fittings for the cut ends where they attach to the torque tube, but I went with wagon technology. I can always cut them again and make some more elegant terminals, if I need to. I think this will work, though.

First step was to bolt them on one at a time and bend them so that they crossed just under the lug on the tube.







I realize that one is crossing the lug, not under it. That was before I finalized my plan. I fixed it after the picture was taken. Next, I cut them off a little long and bolted them back on (one at a time again) and carefully marked where the face of the lug fell on each one. Took them back off and compared. The marks didn't quite line up from one to the other. Shoot. That means the tube is not perfectly square with the differential. I measured carefully, and came up 1/2" different, which means 1/4" off. I sat for a bit pondering. I wasn't happy leaving it that way, but I didn't want to intruduce a side load on that long bearing at the nose of the driveshaft. Which was the lesser of those two evils? I decided to square the axle, theorizing that the stress on the bearing would be pretty light. Hope that turns out to be the right decision.

Anyway, having decided, I just pulled it with a ratchet strap and re-marked the radius rods.



It took a moderate amount of tension, but nothing crazy. This is the point where I decided to take the old school route. I've seen plenty of pictures of old original cars, especially fairground racers and such, that have split radius rods (and even wishbones) with the ends just flattened and bolted on, so I though I'd give that a try. Off to the forge and anvil.





I know that looks like hell, but just wait. Anyway, once more back to the car, bolt them on (one at a time, again) and torch bend them to fit.



I marked the lug outline on the inner face of each rod and hacksawed the ends to a rough shape, then inside to the bench grinder and edge sander. Ended up with this:



Back out at the car, I bolted one up to the backing plate and marked where to drill with a close fitting bit.



Inside to the drill press, then out to bolt them back on and mark the other one. I have become an expert at bolting on 1937 radius rods. Haha.



Guess what? Yep. Unbolt that one and back to the drill press. After I did that and got everything re-assembled, I removed that ratchet strap to see if it turned out square. Dead on.





I think I'll weld or braze around those ends where I smooshed the walls together, just to prevent water intrusion, but I'm pretty happy with that. I'm not planning on the same thing for the split 'bones in the front, since they are articulated. I think I'll use Model A tie rod ends on them.

A few times in this thread I have worried aloud that I was being too detailed and posting too many pictures only to be pretty strongly disagreed with. Hope that sentiment is still out there.

 

Keep it coming. Anyone that doesn't like the detail can just scroll down. Personally, I like to read about a guy like me that doesn't start with a set of dimensional drawings but figures things out and solves the problems as they arise.

Just start with an idea about where you want to end up and find a way to get there. Also, glad to see we operate under the same basic "Law Of The Shop"... "BUY NOTHING BUT BEARINGS AND BELTS"

 

Thanks, @Fabber McGee. I do love figuring out how to use random stuff. I couldn't help but run out after lunch and braze those cut-off forged flat ends. I'll have to do the top edge when I take everything down next time, but they do have a more finished look now. At least to me. Also couldn't resist rolling it under and clamping the clamshell back on.





Next to shorten and step the frame, and figure out the rear spring. No real set plan yet, but I have some ideas.

 

Isn't first-gen Henry steel great to work with? Love the stuff!
D

 

smooth the brazing w/ a file and polish those ends!

 

Make them shine like a diamond in a goat's ass? Nah. Hahaa

 

At this point, the frame rails were sitting on the differential, at the ride height that looks good to me.



You can see the '37 main leaf there. My original plan was to step the frame enough to just use the Model a spring in the original crossmember, but I ran into a couple of issues. One being that I was going to have to put in more of a step than I wanted to (no offense, I just don't personally like the look of those real tall steps), and the other that my gas tank would have to end up really high in order to clear the crossmember. I want the bodywork on this car to be reminiscent of the old car, want them to be related, so to speak, and that kind of dictates a similar gas tank arrangement for this one. A predicament for sure.

On thing was certain, I was still going to have to step and shorten the frame, so cut the back of it off. In the rain, no less.



I sat that piece up on top of the main frame and looked and figured and adjusted, I finally decided the best thing to do is to flip the Model A crossmember 90 degrees to the rear and use the '37 spring. You can skip to the last picture in this post real quick to see what I mean. Kind of like what some of the old racers used to do with Model T front crossmembers, back in the day. So, time to chisel and grind off some rivet heads. My appreciation for the strength of that system grows .



I wish I had thought of using the cold chisel before. Anyway, I want to re-use those stock brackets, so they had to come off of the frame rail stubs.





Lots or rivets holding all of that together. Whew. The frame ends with the brackets now need to fit inside the old spring pocket of the crossmember, which is 2 7/8" wide, so I just figured out what spot on those tapered rails, with the brackets on the outside, would fit there and marked out some ears.



I drilled those holes where the corners will be hoping to avoid future stress cracks. Ended up with this:



Then a little torch bending and trimming.





This is how the brackets will go:







Mockup:



That big C clamp is holding the '37 main leaf to the new bottom side of the crossmember. Still figuring on the best way to deal with attaching that, but something will come to me. Thanks for looking.

 

Good job and cool looking.

You probably already thought of it, but you might consider boxing that rear crossmember. A channel on edge doesn't have much resistance to twisting and the bulge with the spring under it would have quite a bit of leverage. I think even 1/8" would be enough to firm it up. Easier now than finding out later that it needs it.

 

Not that it matters but couldn't you have switched the axle bells side to side. That would have placed the spring in front and with the A spring there should have been enough clearance that you would have to only shorten the frame to length.

 

Such a great build. Keep the updates coming.

 

@Fabber McGee, I have considered boxing that crossmember, even though this is going to be a lightweight car. Jury is still out in that.

@62pan, I have seen that done on lakes modified and such and it's pretty cool how the differential just kind of hangs out in space on those, but I don't think that's the look I'm going for here. Also, having been rear-ended once in this thing already, I'm not averse to having a little extra steel behind me. Probably wouldn't really matter, though. Peace of mind, I guess.

 

More blacksmithing this morning. I needed to unfold the middle part of the rolled edge of the crossmember. That side is the new bottom, and I needed some more width there to make room to drill holes for the U-bolt ends. I just made notches out of one pair of stock u-bolt holes, heated that area, and hammered it flat.







Next problem, the stock Model A u-bolts went outside of the crossmember. Since I'll be mounting them upside down, they will need to be just a little wider than the '37 spring. So, into the forge, straighten, and re-bend to fit.







Here they are next to an after-market pair of stock sized ones:



One of them has slightly different length legs now. Oh well. When I checked them agains the crossmember, I realized that even with the lip folded down, it was still too narrow. Out to the junk-piles to dig out a short section of 4" angle iron. Trimmed one side down so that it would fit inside the crossmember.



I notched that trimmed side so I could have a little more bolt hole room, did a little shaping and smoothing and drilling, and wound up with a thing.





Still figuring on options on how to attach that fixture to the crossmember. I think my building style could best be described as "evolving prototypes"? I find if I have a problem to ponder at night, I don't have much trouble falling asleep.

 

Hah! I'm just the other way, engineering costs me sleep.
Used to be I'd lay awake figuring out my problems when I went to bed. Now I get up to pee a couple times each night. Second time is after about 5 hours of sleep and I have to be careful to not think about my projects or my sleeping is done for the night.

Good job on the crossmember. That's what this site is all about... using your hands and your mind to make something cool out of what most folks would classify as junk.

 

Engineering is a generous term for what I'm doing, Fabber. Haha. It's the damnedest thing, but I swear I sometimes figure this stuff out in my sleep.

 

I'm slowly reaching the evolutionary culmination of this rear end business. I decided to bolt those two upright ears on my angle iron bracket into the stock spring pocket rather than trying to weld up in there, but first I had to bevel them to match the curvature of the stock Model A crossmember. I didn't remember to take a picture of that, and I don't want to unbolt and unclamp everything now, but I did find a shot that kind of shows it.



That's probably pretty hard to decipher, but maybe a shot of the assembled crossmember will help.



Those two ears on either side of the square hole are the ones I had to fit to the curvature of the crossmember. You can see the bolt ends, too. They are off-center in the ears because I just tapped the angle iron and wanted it as close to full thickness as I could get. I think they will hold fine, considering that the whole thing will be clamped together by the U-bolts.

There was a lot of time consuming marking and figuring and fiddling around involved in this, took most of the morning, but It all clamps together like I wanted it to.








This is how it's sitting. I think that rake is a little more than I want, but I also think it will settle a bit with me, seats, gas tank, bodywork (which will be pretty minimal, but still...) and all. The oil pump housing/drainplug is getting pretty close to the scrub-line on this thing, so I think I'll stick with this for now.

 

I like how you worked the rear frame and spring setup. That has a really cool look, and I can't wait to see it with the body mounted.

 

Thank you, @simplestone. You probably have a pretty long wait ahead of you, though. I have been making progress on the frame, at least.

Those corner brackets have a little jog in them to accommodate a tab that I no longer have. It kept them from lying flush against the crossmember, so I needed to flatten them. So, take that crossmember off and head to the forge again. I ought to rename this thing the Blacksmith Special. Haha.









I didn't take pictures of this, but I pulled the diff/torque tube out, removed the front axle, and put the crossmember back on. Leveled the frame up on jack stands, measured every which way, and sat the short frame ends on top of the rails I had cut them off of. They overlapped about 8" or so, the amount I'm shortening it. Once I was satisfied with my lengths and diagonals, I clamped the frame pieces together and marked a square line top to bottom. Took everything back apart (the crossmember is only held by a single bolt on each side for now) and cut to those lines carefully. Then I butted the bottoms of the short pieces to the tops of the frame rails and clamped them with those vise grip clamps with the little pads on them, propped everything back level, and tacked those edges together.



I know that looks dodgy as hell, but you'll just have to trust me when I say it all works out level and square in the end. Anyway, I made a cardboard pattern of the shape I liked to fill and brace the ends. I found an old piece of angle the right width and thickness and cut four little square-shouldered triangles. After that, it was just a matter of clamping and tacking and welding. I'll box in the inside of each rail, too. Eventually. Got to get some more oxygen first.





It's basically the Tardel method, I just made my filler brackets with a little more slope, purely because I like the looks of it. Told you my welding aint too pretty. At least I can see from the back that it penetrated fine. After I got it all done, I slapped the crossmember back on it so I could measure and check for level again. Seems good, so I'll drill and bolt the crossmember brackets and start putting the axles back on tomorrow. Damn near got a roller. Knock on wood.









Hardly looks like a Model A frame anymore, does it?

 

It's not a Model A frame anymore... it's a SPEEDSTER frame.