Turkeyjerk's Tailgate Torpedo Trad T

Damn, you guy's don't mess around, haha. Tell Matt his T is lookin good. Us guy's up here should get together and do some thrashes sometime. Good luck guy's. later shawn

 

Well, Matt's been working hard making all the steel pieces to replace the wood in the body. I went up the other day and helped him start to assemble and square everything up. We still have more pieces to make for the dash/firewall, floor, back, and door opening but it's coming along nicely.





Matt also decided against the original T shell that came with the body and bought a filled steel '32 shell and insert that someone had already mangled the bottom on. He also ordered some P&J chrome shocks that we'll be installing this weekend. Stay tuned!

 

That looks like a fun, more or less, simple build. Should be a neat mo-sheen.

Why do the brits always make swamp buggys with old tin?

 

Nice build ! I was looking at the front spring perches. I am going to show my new-ness....is this the way it is normally done?

 

Thanks, Jeem! That's what we're going for simple, to the point, fun hot rod. My guess would be that there's a lot more swamps than dry lakes 'n drag strips over there.

I don't think it's normally done this way, but it's the best way I could think to do it. I've seen it done like this before somewhere (roller coupe maybe?). Anyhow, that pic is just a mock up shot. Once the weight of the engine and trans were on the chassis, the suspension was at ride height with the correct ammount of caster set, I tightened the perch nuts against those lengths of tubing until I had roughly 45 degrees on the shackles and tacked the perches in place. I removed the nuts and tubing and welded everything up and lopped the rest of the perch bolt off. Not the best pic, but it looks like this now...

Just a little bump on the outside of the bone where the perch pin is welded. Looks smooth, nice and strong, no nuts to come loose or bolts to fatigue and break, and except for the welding wire, it's all early ford parts! There's no adjustment though, so you have to make sure everything's right before it gets welded up.

 

We spent a "few hours" working on the T today. I started by chopping up the grille shell and insert to fit around the perch. The perch is gonna get a stainless cover to hide the fugly nylocks and smooth up the front end a bit.

I didn't want the bars flopping around in the wind, so I cut the lower support and "z'd" it and recrimped all the bars back to it.



It will get a little strip of stainless trim to cover the bottom edge. While Matt was furiously grinding on the dash support pieces, I cut up a model A headlight bar, broke out the hot wrench and coaxed the two pieces into shape. I welded studs into the frame and the mounts will get some nice shiny acorn nuts to secure them. Pretty basic stuff, but I think it looks a hell of a lot cooler than 1-800-hot-rod-parts.

Speaking of 1-800- hot-rod-parts, after hours spent searching for a decent light duty shock absorber that wasn't gas-charged for a 5000lb vehicle, Matt broke down and ordered some chrome Pete&Jakes shocks. I cut the discarded ends off of the rear wishbones and made a lower shock mount off the rear axle...


...and a couple pieces of plate offset to follow the frame Z worked great for the uppers.


Finally, we couldn't resist clamping all the body panels on and rolling it out of the garage for a look-see! We chopped up the T bed and precariously balanced it on the rear crossmember. Anyone need the front 3/4 of a nice T bed? seriously?...



Overall I'm very pleased with the look. The front end seems a bit high, but it's hard to tell on a bumpy gravel road. Right now the rollers that are on it are taller in the front than the rear too. The new rubber from coker should be here this week and nose should come down a bit. We might end up reversing the front spring eyes, but we won't know until the new tire are on and the rubber rake is in full effect. I do love the way this thing looks from the rear, though!

 

Andy,looks good.Are you gonna have that thing done by the time you move up to Buffalo? I have a nice MII front end for it if you need it,I picked it up from your place to keep the grass from growing at my place

 

Probably not, I'm moving tomorrow! But I think I've made pretty good progress for 4 months of occasional weekend work and we have a good chunk of the tough stuff done so Matt can finish her up for the showdown drags this fall(he hopes, anyhow!) I might go over tonight, if I can get away, and make the door functional and build the body mounts.

Yeh, those MII's they make good grass killers, you really need about 20 of them to cover any ammount of ground though!

 

this shot is killer



this is probably my favorite new build of 08

 

Just to damn cool!!

 

Put a Caddy with 4 deuces on it and a Lasalle trans in it and your on your way to a really good Kookie clone. Oh Yea, you need some really tall bias belt wide whites for the back.

Frank

 

Killer build! The SBC is OK; but if you can find something else, I'd do it.
Hijack: Monkey -I really like your rod! Do you use it in Trials? Is it high enough to not drag on the country lanes? Hijack over...

 

Lookin good guy's. How come it seems I'm the only guy in this area that doesn't get anywhere fast, LMAO!!!! Good luck on your move Andy, you are coming back aren't you. later shawn

 

Nice, I love the way this thing is turning out. If Matt needs a hand after you move north let me know.
Thanks for not calling me to move your house shit. I see where I stand frozen flat heads in sub zero temp Y blocks in the snow. I guess you refrigerator wouldn't be enough of a challenge for me.

 

posts like this rule............
wish there were more of them.

 

Thanks guys! Seriously, it really means a lot to know other people are diggin it too cause most folks, even car guys, from Williamsport seem to think we're nuts...

Well, technically I'm not really from "this area" anymore soo... keep after it, man!

Ya, I figured I'd call you this winter sometime to help drag some rusted hulk or locked up engine out of a yard up here. Hopefully we'll have to chip it out of solid ice or something...

It may end up getting a nailhead eventually, Matt's been talking about building one over the winter after he gets this thing driveable. It's gettin 7.50x16 ww in the rear 5.50's up front.

 

I went back to PA for the weekend and managed to finagle some time in Matt's garage. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so there are no "in progress" pics, just some finished shots I snapped on my way out of town. First off, he's been cranking away on the subframe and it's almost ready to start hanging body panels on. He just has to bend the curved round tubing pieces for the rear, hang the door, and add some floor supports. Since last week he finished the cowl top up and put all the diagonal supports in between the uprights. This thing is absolutely #*%$ solid!



I went to work on the front shock mounts/headlight bar. I wanted the shocks to be mounted nice and low on the front, I don't care for it when the front shocks become the "centerpiece" of a front end. Sooo, I took the remains of the "spring in front" perch pieces and welded a shock stud to one side and the other was fit to the bottom of the bone. I preheated the perch piece a bit as it's much thicker than the wall of the bone. Even though it's in single shear, it's plenty strong and looks a lot better than a flat plate bracket or tabs. For the top, I welded another stud to each headlight mount. Nothing too fancy there... To tie everything together, I took an old bent model a tie rod and stuck it in the press and bent it till it looked good. Fit the ends and welded it all up.






We also got a good headstart on the torque arm, although it's not quite finished. It's made from 0.156" wall 7/8" DOM tubing. We had it cut to length, threaded, and the ends cleaned up by a lathe operating friend of Matt's. We made the two mount tabs from 1/4" plate thickened slightly at the mounting point. Eventually, these tabs will get 1/2" standoffs to mount them slightly away from the center section to clear the u joints. Also once the u joint position is known, a support will be added in the center of the arm. The front is mounted with a poly bushing to absorb any twisting force from the rear suspension travel. It will be secured with gusseted tabs welded below the trans mount like a ladder bar would be.




That's all for this installment, till next time....

 

I like your Shock/Headlight mounts.Very NICE work.

 

Love this build - great looking............

Checked out the links on your site, for some inspiration took me to Boyd C's - that's tradition? I'll stick to swamp buggys

 

Finally another update! I went back to PA for the weekend and got a few hours on the T. First, I wanted to finish up the torque arm so we picked up some grade 8 hardware and cut out some mount tabs to be welded to the bottom of the trans crossmember/k-member. Also in order to get the arm out of the way of the driveshaft yokes, we had to make up some .5" spacers to be welded to the torque arm plates. Matt drilled out some round stock for these. I added a few supports to the arm and we put it all together.

 

I made a little mount bracket for the steering box and after playing with the steering wheel position a bit using a round rod and old wheel, I tacked it in place. It will get fully welded and gusseted once the column drop is made and we're sure it's in the correct location.

We also got the master cylinder and brake pedal hung. We're using an early econoline jar that has a built in pedal boss. Nice and easy, just cut out a few brackets from .25" flate stock, drilled a few holes and tacked them in place. Again, they'll be finish welded once we're sure there's no interference with other stuff.

this bracket looks like it needs to be trimmed a bit, but...

 

Matt's made quite a bit of progress on the subframe too. The body mounts are on, floor rails are ready to be finish welded, just needs the trans tunnel built and it's ready for bodywork!

I also finally finished the engine mount and installed the biscuits...

A lastly, the new tires arrived and were installed on the wheels. We thought it deserved a look-see in the sunlight...

 

Great little car! Everybody loves a tbucket, but only a real man will admit it!
A thought for your brakes, we used a similar master cylinder on the Track Car but removed the cylinder guts and ran an extended rod through the cylinder bore to a dual master cylinder(late 60s dual drum/drum, Ford, Chevy, Dodge etc used 'em) which is available new, affordable and safer. Works like a champ.

 

This build is seriously cool. I know it's a long shot, but do you still have the front 3/4 of that T bed? I have one, but it's been chopped too short for my build and I was considering fabricating new bed sides, but they wouldn't have the raised bead. Prices for a whole bed are outrageous and repops are worse.

 

I think everybody loves a well executed T bucket, but you see so few of them that they get a bad rap. As far as the brakes go, we had given that a lot of thought too. We actually have a dual version of this mc with the pedal boss cast in that was only used for 1967 econos, but it will need to be rebuilt first.

 

My shortie truck bed... PM sent.

 

any updates?

 

Nothing worth posting yet! Matt's S...l...o...w...l...y... been putting the floor in and he's got a big crop of new parts to install, but I've been screwing around in Buffalo for the last few months. I hope to get some body panels installed over X-mas time.

 

well i'll ask again hows it coming