Features traditional t bucket

Why doesn't someone make a fiberglass "T" body that is TALLER (like 4"), and in proportion LONGER (like 7") so PEOPLE actually FIT in them. The body doesn't Have to be widened..... if left stock width, it will look like it is narrowed, and will fit on standard width "T" frames.

There are some fiberglass bodies that are longer, but without being TALLER, they LOOK longer! Being taller would also help with the knees blocking the view out the windshield problem.

 

mine has been stretched and has opening doors

 

Quite honestly, because the second you start moving too many lines on one of these cars, they start to look odd. The longer buckets stick out like a sore thumb from 200 feet away, if you added height too, then it would ALL look way out of scale. The "Shadow Rods" plus size '27 comes to mind...

 

You pretty much just discribed a Model A roadster.

Ron

 

Yes, the white body does have a hood ledge. Fiberfab? I remember the name but not the location. Is it the outfit somewhere in California?

 

Mounting a T-bucket is sometimes the hardest thing you'll do in a day of riding. I've found this method to be stressfree and easy for everyone I've shown it to, young, old, male or female.
Stand by the cowl on the passenger side facing the rear of the car and steady your self by holding the windshield. (This assumes your windshield is mounted steady enough to lean on) Lift your right leg up over the body sidewall and put your foot on the floor. You'll be pivoting on your heel. OK, turn slightly to the right grasping the windshield frame/post then lift and swing your left leg into the car pivoting on the heel of your right foot. Now you're standing free and clear on the floor of the passenger side of the car. Sit down and slide into the driver's position and you're ready to ride.

 

early early fiberglass t i redid few years ago. always looked a little too long to me though


car i saw in a garage when i went with a friend to look at another car. he said it wasn;t for sale. then i found out he sold it three months later. really liked this car. was all steel. stick shift. flathead. even liked the top.

 

The complaint about T buckets/roadsters being only for smaller folks is valid BUT the cars can be built to fit most everyone by simply paying attention to what goes where and sitting in the car you build about 50-100 times while it is being built.
Possibilities:
Sit the body ON the chassis, not channeled down over it 3"-5". You can actually zee the frame at the firewall and still maintain plenty of interior room.
If you must, channel the front 3" but the rear only 1", or some variation, this gives a bit more depth to the seating area and is hardly noticeable. Avoid the broken-back look like the plague.
After the frame hits the firewall contour it to fit the body or just step the frame sideways to gain more inside frame room.
Keep the step in the rear of the frame outside the body back wall.
Use stock T seat spring assembly for seat cushion. Henry designed it to keep your butt from getting beaten and it works. Every one who has ever ridden I my old roadster or the Track Car my friend Burl owns can't believe how comfortable a stock sprung seat feels. New seat springs are available from Car-Line Mfg. in Beaumont TX 409-833-9757 and from Snyder's Antique Auto Parts in New Springfield OH. These folks are the manufacturers of the new assemblies and can even make up custom springs to your dimensions.
We install toeboards in every build we've done. This allows a comfortable foot angle while driving just like car manufacturers made them since the 'teens.
The Track car and the new roadster building now have brake pedals on the left of the steering column. Easy to use. Left foot braking isn't wrong its just right.
Don't just whack a big semi-circle in the firewall or use the one the mfgr. cut there without really checking the clearance. We've found many many Ts have way too much clearance under the floor/transmission bump.

 

really dig this. very nice

 

All of my cars have floor mount pedals as I think that there's more foot room and the firewall is clean. Put a lumbar support in my Zipper and it really helps on long rides.

 

I loved T-buckets,but the old Ford body that I found in 1958 run over by a tractor across the trunk and up to about 3in above the frame in mud,was 1928A roadster,so in 1959 I built my highschool rod with it. Had more room anyway,I used a Thunder Bird Y-block for power.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=2230&pictureid=18328

 

Fiberfab was out of north L.A. in California.

 

X2.

 

Here's mine, from New Zealand.

Inspired by a tiny black and white pic of Dan Collins' bucket in a Custom Rodder around the mid 90's, (This thread is the only other pics I've ever seen of it), and obviously greatly influenced by Norm's and Tommy's.
Mine's on a 90 inch wheelbase so everything is fairly compact.

It's been sitting in storage at my folk's place for the past 6 years, but it's coming home soon!

Need to find some better pics...

 

I guess you don't understand proportion....if the body was enlarged "in proportion" it would look normal at any distance.......if you were 200 feet away, it would just look smaller! The "Shadow Rods" wasn't enlarged in proportion, they as you say, "started moving lines". and they look, "off".

 

An enlarged "T" wouldn't look anything like an "A" especially a pre 26 "T"!

 

If you start moving things around the car starts to look cartoonish.

Ron

 

My understanding of proportion is excellent, I assure you. A "T" bucket body that is stretched and added to vertically is gonna look just plain wrong. There is a '27 that was running aorund the Northwest a few years ago that a guy built who was damn near 7' tall. He added about 3" to the body height, and about the same to the doors. Net result? As wrong as salami ice cream!

Give you another real quick. Take a cute say 5' tall female and put a nice shoe on her cute little feet. Looks good and proportional, right? Now this girl has a friend, she is 6' 7" tall and plays girl basket ball. She wears an equivalent of a mans size 12, but in the exact same shoe as the first girl. Now take those big shoes and put them on the cute, small girl. See what's wrong here? Proportion, pure and simple...

We have had the last 80 - 100 years to look at Model "T" Fords. Those of us that know them know what they look like, and where certain style cues should and shouldn't be. It's a conditioned memory. You take one of those lines or proportions and change it, and your back to salami ice cream, or just plain wrong. If you were to take a "T" body and enlarge it as you said, next the engine will look to small, then the wheels and tires, and so on.

I will tell you with out a doubt in my mind that if some one has messed too much with "T" bucket proportions, I can see it from about 200'...

 

Ok, so we have all the experts weighing in on T proportions.

I took the front of a T touring and stretched it 4" behind the doors.

I have it mounted hi-boy style on a 32 style chassis I fabricated that follows the shape of the body.

The rear of the body is the rear of the touring widened to the outside edges of the body and with the top lip reformed to eliminate the tack strip and match the body sides behind the doors.

I am going to run about a 36" bed on the rear.

Here are a few pictures of the project so far in various stages, one with the Y block 312 in place.

So, did I get it close to right ? I like it

 

I have a T bucket and while it's not "traditional", I guess it's traditional themed (I've got HEI, radials and front disc's). In my book, T's like Isky's, Norm's "Lightnin' Bug"and Ivo's are perhaps the best examples to go by. They just have the "look".

IMO a stretched T never has looked right. And as stated above, it's pretty easy to spot one... at any distance. To me, part of the "cool" factor is it's size. If you plan it right, most people can fit in one. When you stretch it, some how it's not a T anymore.

When it comes to T's, a rule of thumb should be "keep it simple". Don't start adding all the crap that turned them into side show freaks. No brass shit, no beer keg gas tanks, no 32" wide tires, no vintage T lights, etc.

 

Absatively!

 

I guess as long as you enlarge the wheels, tires, engine, headers, grill shell, headlights and every other visible component by exactly the same percentage as the body, this would, at least in theory, hold true. Uh, otherwise, not so much.

 

This whole question of changing proportions is a difficult one.
On one hand I agree 100% with Need louvers(NL), in that once you make proportional changes you kill the OEM traditional styling of the body...but then again, it was common in the early days to do just that in the search for increased speed or "modern" looks!
Having it look stock wasn't a real worry at all.

Making changes and hoping to pass them off as original at a glance really doesn't cut it...but chopping the crap outta one to make a T BASED Hot Rod is as traditional as it gets!
Kind of a catch 22 situation I guess...but we have more of a problem with it NOW than Hot Rodders did back in the day!

Besides all the one man Mods and early rebodied Speedster style T's, not to mention the post war "Sports Rods", you have others with major reproportioning like Blackie Gejeian's "Shish Kabob Special" or even Tex Smith's "XR 6" custom project!

For me it comes down to how you approach the reproportioning...and approaching it with deception in mind really isn't the way.

The TRADITIONAL way was to PURPOSELY cut the livin' crap out of it and offer no apology whatsoever...

 

If you add 3" to a "T" and you are 7' tall......it isn't going to do jack shit.

 

I think...............





This thread needs more vintage pics.

 

To me big rear wheels, big engine, lower in the front, small overall body proportion is what a hot rod wants. As long as you fit in it somehow- I think some just aren't clever about predicting the ergonomics when planning the floor/pedals/steering/seat location, etc. But, yeah, generally, I cringe when I hear something's been stretched or made taller, I always think it's just gonna make the wheels look smaller.

 

This ones a knockout, and I have never seen the whole car before. Whats funny is, while I was looking for more period t-buckets, I ran across an article in a early sixties Car Craft on custom dash ideas, and theres a photo of the dash in this car! As soon as I saw this pic, I recognized it. More period T-bucket photos to follow.

 

And thats NEVER good...

 

What weez said x2

Ron

 

As far as a "T Bucket" no, as far as a good looking Hot Rod I think you're on the right track.
Larry T