My dad finished the last bit of repair on the rear arches.Loads of work but nothing to show for it! Back onto the floor next. Should feel like progress is being made when that starts going in. Mocked up the pedals and side-shift 'box and ran into some major clearance issues with the pedal ***embly and the shifters. The brake pedal and arm are fine, so the plan at the moment is take the clutch pedal apart and try and move the clutch arm from the right, where it is now, to the left side of the ***embly. Also changed the front spring over and am already more happy with the way it feels.
Nice work Clark! I've been tweaking leafs like that forever. I weldded the "pins" to angle iron, one on one of em and two on the other, then you just put em in the vise, just gotta slack off the vise a bit to move the spring, makes for an easier job. Your car is taking shape, interesting to see what yer doing with the ******/ pedals as I'm in the process of looking for stuff right now for my '35. -Shiny
Got my rear axle together! Like always I took loads of pictures. This isn't a step by step guide to putting a Columbia together just a few snap shots as it went together. I thought people might find it interesting to see inside one. First of all why Columbia's (Columbians ???) have a a reputation for being weak and problematic and how to overcome this. This is the spider side of the diff. You can see in the photo a seamless band that goes around the unit. From the factory the unit didn't come with this. The whole thing has an open end with no support. What happens is when a great load is placed on the axle, for example dumping the clutch off the line, the diff wants to and does pull itself apart. When this happens the gears eventually start to climb each other and your left with a axle case of broken parts. Its a simple process to have the band fitted at a competent machine shop and this will give the axle a fighting chance of giving many trouble free miles. The next problem area, again a simple design fault, is the other half of the diff that contains the planet gears. In the photo you can see each leg has a bead of weld around it. From the factory they only came tack welded and its not a great stretch of the imagination to see this not holding together for very long! Again a simple fix for a silly design flaw. This caused some confusion when I asked for two pinion bearings and got given these sealed bake bean cans! Didn't think I would be needing a can opener with this build! When your laying your next garage floor have a large tube set into the floor. Makes a great stand for rebuilding early Ford rear ends. This is the shifter ***embly. It pushes and pulls the Columbia in and out of overdrive. This is the planetary gears set inside the axle casing. The spider and gears go on over the top and the whole unit bolted together. The ***embled banjo goes on next. This is shimmed just like a rebuild on a normal Early Ford rear. I decided to change the 4.11 gear set that the Columbia came with to 3.78 gears. The Columbia gives a 33.3% overdrive, so in top overdrive I should see roughly a 2.7 final drive. The finished axle.
Oh, and the Columbia looks good! Did it already have that band? I don't remember that... but I do remember the welds. Sam
I think at the the moment there is 3, including mine. None are on the road. There has been one or two more but they have been sold outside the country. No, I had the band fitted. Odd they had the welding done but not the band.
Well the other car that came in on the same boat is looking a little more like a car front axle , rear axle ,steering ,engine ,trans, all in place ,lots of parts on order will pick up when in socal next week
Yep, joined the others. Wow, looks great. Really unusual direction for a '36 but it works well. Keep the updates coming.
Clark has generously permitted me to use his comments and pictures for a permanent page for the Columbia axle here: http://victorylibrary.com/mopar/columbia.htm If you have any other data, pictures, sales literature, etc. please PM? Thanks!
Whoa!!!! I never ever think that '35-'36 cars should have the fenders removed but that one with the track nose looks really cool. Purposeful at the very least. I hope you plan on bringing it back to the states and giving it a run on the salt with that look.
I would love to do that but its the cost ect ,will be at bakersfield this weekend for the hotrod reunion and to shop for parts
My dad has been making great progress on the floor. Starting to feel like a real car again. Also got the toe boards and trans tunnel mocked up. Onto the last section of the floor, which is filling the gap between the rear section and the toe boards. I've got the drivers toe board in place.... ..... But also have this steel version. Anybody know what the deal is with this? Hows this for wall art!?! This is the very rough old floor which someone had gone to alot of trouble of drilling out all the spot welds so it could be removed in one piece. Its being used as a giant pattern at the moment but its days are numbered. We hope to salvage some complex sections from it and then its gone.
I have the steel version on the drivers side and a wood one came with the car for the p***enger side. I was going to ask you if you knew what was up. I am sure someone like Bruce Lancaster will guide us through. Looks awesome though. I put 2 coats of POR-15 on my floors a couple weeks ago and they look like heaven. They are not new sheet metal like yours but will serve their purpose. Nice work man!!!
through mid march 1935 the drivers side floorboard was made of metal.... had rubber bumpers on the bottom for the pedals to rest against..... otherwise they all had wood with thin oil based black stain
Cheers Zach. So they were only used in a brief period in '35? Does that make them rare.....? Because I have two of the things!
I guess so? I just read it in the book my '35 is later with wooden boards on both sides and the X on the cowl... so I never put much thought into them....
Come on Clark, were living vicariously threw you at the moment! Can't wait for the next installment! -Shiny
Big update coming soon. Work hasn't slowed just the updates as I felt people were becoming bored with it. Can't wait to have it working!
The Jalopy Journal
