Projects It has arrived! (Model A inside)

My Model A chassis arrived on Friday for my 40's hotrod project. This project has now jumped way ahead my 36. It's a bone stock 1930 Model chassis and running gear. It's from a car that was restored for a museum. The guy I got it from bought the car from the museum and is now street rodding his car with a modern chassis.

The rest of the posts ive made about my project.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=296750
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=296750&page=3
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=351150


Almost got it running. Had to wire it and time the distributor. Got a couple putts out of it until a bolt vibrated out inside the bellhousing for the starter.

Plans for it are:
- Higher Compression 7:1 Head
- Make a downdraft intake with a Single barrel Stromberg 97, Holley 94 or Carter YF carb.
- Long tube 4-2 split header
- Lighten the flywheel 25lbs
- Reground Model B cam
- Lower it 3" all around
- Borrow some wheels off my 36 for a bit

I'm keeping the mechanical brakes.

enjoy

 

That is a site, often not seen (bone stock complete chassis) good for you running with the bare essentials..always nice to see a hopped up banger on a stock chassis.

 

thanks! couldn't believe it when i first saw it, and for the price i couldn't pass it up.

 

This is just what I'm hoping to find for my '27 T roadster body. I'll put '40 brakes and an overdrive on it though.

I know it's really impolite to ask, but I am very curious as to what something like this costs. I hear people say that the stock running gear from a restored car isn't worth much at all, but then I rarely see a good running A chassis come up for sale.

 

I paid $1700 cdn for it, which also included 4 brand new hydraulic lever shocks with all new arms a linkage. I looked up the cost of those and they are about $1500 on their own . Plus i got the cluster with all of the gauges, enough parts to rebuild the distributor 2 more times and the spare tire!

 

Thanks for letting me know, this is a good reference for me. That seems like a bargain, especially when you consider what you can sell the OG wheels and tires for.

Is there a reason you're planning to keep the mechanical brakes? I raced Model A's in the Great Race and that's the first thing we'd ditch. We weren't allowed to change wheels or tires, but we could change brakes, add overdrive, and do whatever we wanted with exhaust and carb. We had a basically stock engined A speedster clocked at 85mph.

I know those enclosed driveshaft overdrives are pricey, but they are worth it, highway speeds are a breeze with that in place.

 

thats just cool,
nd $1700 too??

 

fixed the starter today. still wont run. had some massive backfires out of the carb. the distributor seems to be timed right, i followed the manual and the rotor position looks right. i have spark. maybe it's a fuel issue. ill have to mess with it more tomorrow.

any tricks to getting these going?

 

Post it on the banger threads ( if you haven't already). Those dudes will know what's up.
Nice score by the way.

 

very cool-i'm jealous. i'll be looking to pounce on one of those "gonna street rod it" goons here shortly. that seems like a great price for being in such good shape.
nice score.

 

Thanks, Currently i feel im not worthy to post this in the thread just yet, i need to investigate for myself a little better incase its something stupid.

lol thanks. Gotta love it, i pounced really fast as soon as i heard about it. One mans trash is another mans treasure. Im waiting for him to street rod the interior next.

 

yeah, i saw you got the gauges with it and imagined the sweet digital unit that would most likely take it's place and cringed.
whatever-different strokes for different folks i guess.
all that matters is that you got a good thing at a fair price. nothin' wrong with that.

 

cringe is right, his car now has a mustang II IFS, and a 4.3L v6... oh and he filled the roof, but he left the spare tire pocket.

 

thats a beautiful cab!!!!!!!!!!


looked at your other threads....thats a steal 31 pickup shell.........

see the eblem is stainless and embossed...not blue with ford lettering....

r u gonna run that shell?

 

Strap a park bench on her ,and ur away

Looks good conditon

 

It doesn't look like you have the timing lever on the distributor hooked up. You need to hook that up and the manual idle rods. That will help you start the engine. The carb should also have a chock rod so that you can pull it to close the chock and be able to turn it so that you open and can adjust the main jet in the carb.

They can be hard to start if you don't have the timing right and carb can be flooded easily if you leave the choke on more than a couple of cranks.

Hope this helps.

Joe

 

well i got it running yesterday. started it up a couple times today. then i noticed something bad. water got it the oil overnight and i had started it and let it run for a couple mins. pulled the head and it turns out the guy never cleaned the deck or the head before reinstalling the head with a new headgasket. reasoning for putting in a new headgasket was because the distributor was stuck in the head and he cracked the housing trying to remove it. so he replaced it with another distributor reinstalled the head. no water was put in it till i got it and it hadn't been run. runs good tho for getting water in the cylinders. i hope the bearings are fine. i feel sick about it.

if the head has to be resurfaced, whats a safe amount to take off to raise the compression a bit?

heres the pics of what i found.

the deck after i cleaned it up, looks really good. wanted to make sure it wasn't damaged. i poured oil on top of the pistons the leave over night.



the uncleaned head, it was not as bad as the deck.



The waste of a headgasket..



the********* oil...

 

ewww that drain pan is ugly

 

You could probably shave the head .010" or so and be fine, maybe more. They bearings are babbit and are pretty soft. bolt her back up and fire her up. I'll bet she'll run fine, those ol A engines took a lot of abuse

 

You've already convertd your 36 to late hydraulics I guess because the original 36 wheels don't fit anything except 36-39 Fords since they are wide five 5 on 10 1/4" circle wheels.

That's a heck of a nice chassis you've got there! Funny thing is the price of them has'nt gone up over all these years. Back in the 80s and early 90s I was selling running pretty complete chassis pulled by streetrodders for that money to a guy in Europe plus all the rearends, transmissions, steering columns, bellhousings etc I could find. Since there are no boneyards in Europe to speak of all the simple chassis stuff that is every where here was pretty golden there.
They had lots of As but NO parts cars and chassis to scavenge.

 

Hope shes ok...... Looks clean...

 

well, im going to check it out tomorrow and see how flat it is. i may just mill it anyway just to be safe.

any suggestion on how to get this***** oil out of the bearings? i really wish there was an oil pump to prime the whole thing. should i put fresh oil in, run it just long enough to get oil moving and then change it again? how effective is the splashing inside?

my 36 is a non-hamb friendly pickup with a 2004 irs and wilwood discs in the front but i am running 34 wires in the front and 35 wires in the rear.

me too!!

 

here is the second last it ran before i discovered the oil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfTwGg-ymB8

 

Bearings okay ???? that motor will run without oil for quite awhile

 

Nice find. That whole overhead valve thing is a fad anyway...

 

lol good to know. i think its fine, i just need to get it all out and running and ill feel alot better.

thanks, i had to try something new, er old but new to me.