Featured Hot Rods Building my first roadster in Kansas City

Well no shortage of followers, let's go! Maybe following this fro the start will inspire my roadster build again. You'll probably still be done first. Cool bunch of parts and ideas.

 

Learning a little more back story on a few parts today but for now I’ll just add some inspiration. I was putting some magazines away on the shelf and found a cool un numbered roadster and who should be sneaking into my field of vision but the weiand roadster again lol

 

Photo of T from Pomona 1953

 

You’re unreal man lol

 

Tim, do you have a nice clear wall to hang all these shots on?
Seeing all of them makes me itchy, and I don't want to start one!

 

As of now they are just burnt into my brain lol

 

Painfully accurate lol

 

Alright so after breaking down the shapes kiddo and I decided to make cardboard hotrods this morning.

I used this sketch I found, which I have no idea if it’s even sorta accurate measurement wise but I figured the proportions are close enough for a cheese its box mock up. I think the top of the “bucket” and the tulip panel seem wrong to me so I change mine a bit. so first on normal box thickness cardboard I cut out a floor pan, fire wall and dash. some packaging tape and a little gusset to get it to hold in place. skinned the cowl and cowl sides in one piece. the sides/ bucket I did in three pieces but you could do it in one or two. At full size it would come down to how big of sheet you can get and how big you can handle working with. then I made the tulip panel/ deck lid/ bottom panel in one piece. I had the furthest back curve pretty on the money but tape and cardboard doesn’t always want to stay put and it changed a little when I let it go

Over all a good fact finding mission to see if my line of thinking holds true.

what I’ve done today could be done with a slip roll or even a good telephone pole. I basically used all the methods you would use to bend yourself a one piece hood top for an early ford hotrod.

Now the “missing shapes”

The round bun panel at the bottom back of the bucket after exploring some options I think the easiest would be making it separate and welding it in. This came after seeing people weld in that patch and it making the shape seem a lot less complicated. I’m thinking I’ll make a hammer form and make them like you would a speed blister and then ether spend a lot of time with a hammer and dolly smoothing them out or visiting a friend with a planishing hammer set up.

The second is obviously the quarters. I’m going to make a hammer form for those also after seeing @Jimmy B hammer his chevy quarters out it again really simplified the process in my mind. Maybe he’ll share some photos of that.

I will hammer form the wheel wells separately and add them in.

Those are the two big shapped areas I’ve left out of my model even though I could have pie cut the cardboard for the bun panel and taped it, and probably could make quarters bending around a pencil but I had already figured out what I needed to so I didn’t do that.

As far as the various beads and body lines I’m still kinda weighing options. You could do them a million different ways, you could make a hammer form and do it by hand or planishing hammer, I could use a bead roller, really whatever your brain likes and what ever you have on hand.

I plan on making this with pretty minimal tooling, it’s boardline a wheel barrow in shape.

I’m also not making an exact clone to the ford body. I would say I’m going to be as close or closer than a good glass body, in that it measures the same but maybe the beads have a different crown/profile , they are placed slightly different, and the firewall isn’t stock.

It’s a fun hot rod project. No reason to make it any more difficult than it really needs to be.

anyhow there’s an update for today.

 

Wow, And I balked at making a few pieces of wood that hold the great metal pieces I have together.

 

@Six Ball aint nuthin to it but to do it!
To be fair my brain freezes every time I think about replicating wood in my model A so I do get it lol.

I think my best advice would be to realize it’s a hot rod not a golf course show restoration. Does it fit? Does it function? Does it look like you did it on purpose? Check those boxes and move forward.

Real easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis

 

Thanks! That is good advice. The tough part of the Chevy is that not only are there no kits there are no drawings, plans, pictures for the earl open Chevys. It will get done. If you can tackle 3 at once I can chip away on my "collection".

 

Ok, I'm subscribed and all caught up. Carry on. This is gonna be fun!

For those bottom corner pieces of the body you could always hammer them into a bag rather than carving a hammer form. I watched Gene Winfield do a hood blister on one with a hammer made from a piece of pipe and a welding tank cap. Took him approximately 3.75 minutes. Piece of cake. Nothing to it. You should be able to knock those out in 15 or less. LOL

 

@Six Ball if there’s no drawings then No one can tell you that you did it wrong! That’s my favorite thing about early Chevys, no “rules” lol

@drdave yup I can think of lots of ways to do it but I am on the hunt for a stray welding tank cap for a hammer. Been “casually” looking for about 6 months lol someone’s gotta have one they are tired of stubbing a toe on

My next step is taking measurements and templates followed by building another more complete model from metal in a little bigger scale. Like maybe a “big deuce” model size

 

@Tim

I have one (or 5) you can have. Next time you are heading east on 70 give me a shout.

 

@atch deal

 

@atch beat me to it...and he is a lot closer. There is a fellow here that uses old welding tanks that he has polished up, turned horizontal, for panel and hood forming...just another thought
....and like my stuff...on a dark, rainy night at 60 mph, it all looks good as it passes by... credit: Eddie Corbin

 

If you need measurements or need photos of T body let me know

You mentioned my body bucks so will post a few photos of the ones started in recent months


I built the bucks in 2011

 

Subscribed, 26-27 roadsters are cool.

 

I take a few days off and miss the party! This is fun! Watching and wishing I could contribute in some manner. Great thread.

 

more inspiration, Drake bros. T
Gear Grinder pics

 

Really looking forward to some hands on time with a real roadster. It’s really hard to tell in photos if the top of the deck / tulip panel has a little reverse curve going on or not. I may have to find some photos of a deck off the car but even placing your hand on it will tell you what it’s doing.

I’m also noticing that some of the cars have a thick bead between the quarters and the trunk lid/ center panels.

im wondering if this isn’t a T strip like on the back of a model A Tudor thst fits in the seam and not in the panels themselves. It would explain the some times it’s there sometimes it’s not.

oh and thanks for the added photos @Jimmy B

 

Found some photos I saved for reference of a deck that was for sale a while ago.

From behind it looks like the tulip panel - I’m meaning the panel above the trunk lid, some times people call it a cat walk also- looks like it does not have a reverse curve and that it may be an optical illusion from the way the quarters are shaped where they meet that panel.
Just something to chew on.

 

Hey @Ryan glad you dig it

Here’s a parts story for the day. I ended up with these frame rails as mentioned before and thought I’d share some detail photos and a little more back story.

So looking front to back we have stock length but really mangled frame horns then we see a fat weld that was holding something to the frame, from the inside there is no damage. So let’s move to the drivers side bingo! I’m gonna say this little tab and the other side were mostly likely holding the ends of a split wishbone. the damage to the top of the frame roughly where the steering box would be makes me think the front ran into something hard enough to mangle the horns and push the steering/ steering box all at the same time in the back we can see the frame was pie cut and leaned up to “Z” the frame I figure. Someone was un doing that a long time ago obviously. it also has the rear horns lopped off which makes since with the pie cut rails. Im sure they would protrude any sheet metal around it.

I traded into the rails but I know he got them from a mutal acquaintance so I asked if he knew any back ground. He said he pulled them from a horde in Kansas around June 2018-2020 this isn’t even touching what he found but you get the jist, it’s one of those urban legends kind of finds. Several of these bodies have already been turned into some really cool hotrods you have probably seen online.

So there’s today’s little parts story hopefully the next updates will be about measuring and making templates

 

But the question that comes to my mind is, Who in their right mind would want to scratch build a T body? You may need a bigger garage soon the way you're going.

 

Only a crazy person right

 

In case you’re curious @justabeater37 is also a crazy person. Here is his thread if you’d missed it.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/pounding-out-a-t-roadster.1086957/

 

As long as you are going to all the trouble to build a freaking body from scratch…I’d cheat a bit and add a little length and a little height, slightly bigger than Henry’s, for more interior wiggle room…just a little.

 

That’s what she said!