Projects The bucket of ugly! A de-uglifying thread...

For many many years I have had the reputation "Don't ask him what he thinks about your car unless your ready for the answer"

 

If it's done correctly, a suggestion is a lot easier on the ears and esteem. I get suggestions all the time and some, I actually write down. But if someone does it to get a laugh or is trying to be a smart ass? I usually just walk away with the thought that the guys a real asshole.

While watching football Sunday, a friend of ours mentioned his plans for his '53 Belair. he was doing fine, until he got to the part about painting his trim and bumpers flat black. My friends all drive mid 50's Chevys, so they jumped him softly. They didn't out right slam his idea, but they reminded him how nice a 50's car looks with it's trim nice and shiny. He got the hint and his feelings didn't get hurt.

As for that floor, I now notice how the floor looks higher than normal. My gas pedal is about halfway between the floor and the crest of the trans hump. I'm hearing talk of something to rest my heel on and when I get my car back, I'll look into it. Sounds like a great idea on long hauls.

 

Well, hell, guys, you fellas where so quick to chase the poor old Englishman out of your country a few years ago you all missed out on the most amazing simple thing that does make the world revolve the correct way around the sun.... put the steering wheel on the correct side of the car and then you have heaps of room for your chromed spoon accelerator pedal.... Of course driving on the normal side of the road too would help.....

 

Now your just looking for trouble. Can't remember if your ancestors were criminals or missionaries? But them I'm one of those "ugly Americans" that thinks the world revolves around me.

 

I didn't read through this whole thread, but I dig the new look --- Nice work!!



Malcolm

 

I maybe more atuned to pedal design cuz I designed and built race cars as well for 40+ years.
Sorry,but there is no good in driving with your heel and have the type of control you have with your upper pad from at lest the center of your foot up to some below your toes is best place. Can you get use to using a part of your foot you have less feel and control with,yes,just never as good ever.
I've always gone to extra design to get around any poor safety.
I'll post the pedal I designed and built for my son's 23T with shift boot off so ya can see better,note the brake pedal is the extra wide type and reinforced arm but pedal is on center to steering colume,this is so you can work it with ether foot,also note it's at normal hight off floor for his foot/shoe,car has min. tranny hump. Yes it can be done,but dose take planning or redoing. I guess we all have little pet things we make a call on,saftey stuff is most of mine.I hope this helps some one! I'd show the ones in my own,but it's a 1928 A.

 

Chip, the trouble with being a know -it- all,, is it makes it real challenging for US, that REALLY do know-it-all.

 

That's how Total performance did their setup and that's my set up. All they did was bend the brake arm to clear the steering column. My gas pedal is in the exact same spot.

See all that empty space below the gas pedal? That's where I want a heel support.

 

Wish I had only one peddle that only had to move two inches.

No really I would like to see how you would set up the peddles in an early steel T touring front half with a stick. Not saying it can't be done better than I and Ivo did but I would just like to see it and I might change mine.

As far is using your heels on the peddles, we are not road racing. and it only takes a few miles to get used to it on the street.

 

On a funny note. I kept seeing guys with pre war hot rods wearing Converse basketball shoes. I kept thinking, "Yea they're an old design, but EVERYBODY?" Then, I tried to take my first drive with size 12 Nike basketball shoe's. HAH! My foot covered the brake AND gas pedal. So, Converse it is.

Cheaper and stylish.

 

Which is exactly what I was talking about earlier when I mentioned a stirrup for my heal. I want to form a half cup out of aluminum that will fit my heal at the right angle and sink it into the floor just below the pedal. I also am going to cut a chunk out of my trans tunnel to the left of the trans and make a bit of room to move the gas pedal over a little bit. One thing that does truly annoy the hell out of me in this car - the left side brake pedal Roy wanted so bad. If I can make enough room on with the accelerator pedal, I'm going to flip it back over to the side it was originally intended to be on.

 

That sounds pretty good ,check hight and movemint ark off your foot even if ya need to get some one to kind of look from pass side and make a cardboard templet for ya to play with a little. Time on driver interaction and fit is time very well spant and pays back many fold later.

 

I knew I had the color feature of Dave Hill's car around somewhere.... It was already sold to Craig and Gail Sharp at that point. They as a couple were the go-to louver folks in town before I was!

 

Ok so don't take this the wrong way I'm only trying to learn. Why is this a bucket

and this is not


is it the lack of a hood on the first, height of windscreen?

 

Lack of a hood, V8 engine, body slid back on the frame a bit, little more rake, outside exhaust...

In my opinion, the t-bucket is what a lot of cast off modifieds became. Usually the hood is the telling point for me other than the general detailing of the car. There is a certain set of parts that you would use on a Modified, and there are a certain set of parts you will use on a T-Bucket. The same could be said for a track roadster versus T-Bucket. Generally, track roadster has a race car type nose ( although the deuce shell was very popular too) and a full hood, 'cause that's what CRA required for entry. to make matters worse, A lakes roadster was often "T" based and had a nose and hood as well. Ya get a pass on those though 'cause 'till about '52 or so track roadsters often doubled as lakes cars with a gear change.

Clear as mud yet? There really isn't a clear cut definition of what is what in this little realm of the hot rodding world, but if I had to chose just one defining characteristic it would be a hood versus none. After that it's all drivetrain and detailing.

 

At the risk of REALLY starting something, IMO, I probably would not call it a T bucket. And I also differ from some of the other opinions here, in that I dont consider a T a "modified" unless the bucket is narrowed. My approach is that I dont feel the compulsion to fit a one-word definition on each and every car, but the definitions I DO apply, I apply VERY STRICTLY, and they are very narrowly defined. If you read back on this thread (and others) I dont even define the Lightnin' Bug version of Grabowski's car as a T-bucket.

 

further to my post above, theres a term that was commonplace in the sixties lexicon, but has disappeared from the current "Traditional" scene, "bob-tailed T" commonly used for T's with a tank in lieu of a bed or turtle deck, but without a narrowed body. Am I the only one that still uses that?

 

Nope. I don't use it, but I had a guy call my T Bucket a Bobber, once. I nodded my head in agreement as I figured out why he would use that word. It made sense, but seemed to getting kind of picky.

The labels thing is fine, until someone says you're wrong. Some cars do actually fit a certain style. Others, because of parts used, are best left unclassified and work better in a general term.

And if the Lightnin' Bug isn't a T Bucket, what is it?

 

A modified with a 4 cyl. engine could have a narrowed body, but if it was running a 8 cyl. engine, it would be too narrow to fit a hood.

 

Gotta have a label??
As I said earlier on this thread, IMO the heavily chopped and raked windshield is not "t-bucket", and I feel the first car to have all of what later became the defining T-bucket elements was Ivos.

 

Oh really? Interesting theory...

 

And like I said, they're fine until someone says you're wrong. But I do like the "Bobber" bit. I'm going to use it for a while. Could be fun.

 

This is one of the best threads on the HAMB.
One, there is a lively discussion going on, with debate back and forth, and it hasn't regressed (yet) into a pissing match.
Second, it has brought a style of hot-rod that many consider to be a, if you will, lesser respected style of hot-rod into the arena to be analysed.
We all have our own opinions of what a "bucket" should be, and personally, I'm really enjoying hearing the differences, and reasons for everyone's own definition.
Wow, did I just say that? Better yet, did it make any sense? I'm OK now......

 

While they are obviously two different styles of cars I've always assumed the bucket part of T bucket referred to the body shell, it being ( slang) a bucket, like a phaeton style is referred to as a tub, it being bigger.
So a rusted body shell/ passenger compartment in a field could correctly be called a T bucket.

Correct me if I'm wrong please.

 

OKAY! I'll correct ya!

A T-bucket is a style of build, just like a modified is a build style, and a lakes roadster is a build style, and a full fendered "T" is a build style. The rusty "T" body found in a field is a "T" body, a roadster or a touring. What you make of it is what it will become. I never thought of this until your post, but maybe that's why we keep getting people posting pictures of full fendered "T"s on the T-bucket posts.

I hate to keep putting labels on this stuff, but I almost have to. I think that it is setting into my thick skull just about now that there are lots of guys that are new or newish to this stuff that have kinda grown into the world of the last ten to fifteen years where our terms and traditions have been corrupted. I think I have discussed at other points throughout this thread that I am a bit weird about the correct terminology in just about everything I am involved in simply because in my opinion, it's what we communicate with. When that communication is lost, you end up with your history lost. Truly just my opinions, but I believe well founded...

 

Well ok, thanks

You done learnt me up good.

 

There are exceptions, but not very many. Show me more.

 

There are quite a few here.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32889&highlight=modifieds

 

What the hell does that mean? Fit isnt subject to opinion, either it fits or it doesn't....And Chrismans is about the narrowest modified your gonna find.

 

George. you and I usually agree 99% of the time, but I do have to make small exception to the thought that all Modifieds had narrowed bodies. I do know that the early pictures of the cars I have seen from the thirties did indeed have narrow, narrow bodies. But dig through a Don Montgomery book, or sit to an old timers scrap book from the era and you start to see lots of them with full width bodies. I don't know when this thought changed, but it seems that all of the full width cars that I see have Ford solid steel wheels on them, so this would probably have been an immediate pre-war or post war kinda deal. I also notice in these old shots of Modifieds, by the time I start to see full width bodies, you stop seeing three spring chassis, too. It all seems to go to typical Ford stuff about the same time.

It would seem strange to me that this formula changed as late as it did with SCTA pulling the plug as immediately as they did in '46, but stranger things have happened in this world.

I too remember "Bob-Tailed "T" or Bob-tailed 'bucket as a description that seemed to surface in the later sixties and early seventies. Makes me wonder if it was among Baskerville's pet word collection. The term "bobber" though has always meant and always will mean a bobbed or pre chopped Harley, Indian motorcycle. There is another use for the term taught to me by an old sailor buddy of mine for some of the girls in various ports, but this is a family show 'round these parts!