Alternative uses for old Ford parts- you know any?

I read somewhere that the the Ford Model T has touched history and still today...yada yada..... because even when they were melted down they were reused and are mostly likely in the car you drive today. You know what I'm talking about......I'll see if I can find it..

Well, I was talking to grandpa about this and he reminded me of MANY things he used Ford parts for around the house, farm and places he worked.

I should have taken pics, but you'll get the idea...

He has used
-35/36 drive shaft and torque tubes for his clothes lines (still standing today)
-he used some banjo parts for making a pulley system to get water out of his well (no longer there)
- he used radius rods to support his i-beam in his garage...supports to other trusses
-as many did, he used the banjo housings with the outside end cut off and notched for jack stands

He has seen used
- said T and A frames were all over people's property for bridges across little creeks....people just added wooden planks...
-he said he can remember seeing Ford axles used at the circus from the 30's to 50's (maybe longer) as tent stakes
-when he worked in a Ford garage 30's/40's he remember every joint on the trusses has some plate that you removed on a model T tranny to access the gears as a truss bracket....kind of like what is used today with the flat steel with all the little nails in the back...

this is the little stuff that disappears from the history books and the ole' timers take with them when they pass......I love to hear/read about it...


what have you seen?

 

I know it's pretty common to find model A and T frames used for farm trailer frames, at least around here. Wish I could find a 32 frame or something...

 

most have seen these......pretty cool....

 

My grandpa built a behemoth of an RV trailer that used an old truck axle. It looked like a house on wheels. It eventually rotted away and a family member tore it down to sell the metal for scrap but he kept the two ends of the roof. I somehow ended up with them. Upon closer inspection I realized they are a pair of model T frame rails cut in the middle and bent into V's to make end gables for the roof.

I know a guy who has the most unusual band saw. The frame work is built out of heavy threaded 2.5" pipe fittings. The wheels are a pair of old brake drums from an Oakland. Still have the center caps in them.

Been many a farmers made drag behind mowers out of old army truck rear axles. They would lose the inner tires and turn the pinion down and attach a piece of sharpened steel several feel long as a blade. Hook up some type of frame and hitch it behind a tractor. No something you would want to be anywhere near when the huge blade was spinning.

 

I'm in a "rural" area so I see it all the time. The old farm house just across the road has a torque tube holding up the mail box, a model A front axle under a homeade cement mixer, and a model A chassis as a cart. Down the road 1/4 mile there's a chunk of model A frame rail as a fence post.
2 houses down from the house I grew up in theres a house that's driveway retaining wall is held in place with parts of a model T frame.
I was in a dingy farm barn a few years ago that the 2 main roof truss suports were made from the frame rails of a big model A truck.
I remeber seeing a barn that had a window in it that was the windshield frame and glass off the 34 Ford truck parked outside.
Or the model A rear fender braces turned upside down, screwed to the wall of a barn, and used to hang a garden hose.
I've even seen a Model A engine way up in the mountains of Arizona just outside an abandoned mineshaft that musta ran some kinda drilling machinery. How they got it up there I don't know 'cause it was a heck of a hike on foot.
The front '34 wishbones and rear '36 wishbones on my current Hot Rod came off old farm carts.

None of this includes the stuff I or my family has used old Ford parts for.

 

If you look at any Popular Mechanics, Mechanics illistrated etc pre 1970s you'll find tons of alternate uses for ford parts.Oldtimers were very ingenious at recycling auto parts into daily goods .lathes,drillpresses ,bench grinders,I have a 1954 edition of mechanics Illistrated Do It Yourself encyclopedia 18 books and just about every one has recycled car parts projects in it.connecting rods as bearing blocks seemed to be a favorite.Remove the rod cap slide a shaft of appropriate size into the wrist pin bore space as needed and bolt down to a flat surface.Commonly used for arbore shafts for bench grinders.

 

There is a farm gate made from some old Mopar frame rails near here -they split the crossmembers and widened it to about 4 feet so it was "tall" enough....one frame rail at top and other at the bottom!
Also ,here in Missouri-and other rural areas, a popular use of model A frames was to take each rail apart with a"cold cut"[large chisel on a handle] by striking THAT with a mall...knocking out the rivets..... resulting in two seperate FENCE CORNER BRACES! they are everywhere!
YES ,THATS RIGHT- THE BEST SOURCE OF A MODEL A FRAME IS ON old DIRT ROAD FENCES!
My hope is to find a farmer who "moved up" [or started later] and used 32 frame rails instead!

 

There are a couple I have seen. The model A wheels with a spike welded on it to go in the ground to hold a garden hose and of coarse the ever popular grill shell clocks. Or the model a engine that my friend found up in an old mine being used as a compresor.

 

Growing up, my dad had a trailer made from a '37 Ford chassis. The tongue looked like a commercial piece designed for the purpose. A pivot clamped on the front axle and a bar went back to clamp on the tie rod. It steered the chassis with tongue action. When the tow car turned left, it moved the tie rod to the right, so it steered the trailer to the left. That old trailer and the body that used to be on it were our favorite playthings. The trailer was often a pirate ship and the body was a stage coach, rocket ship, or submarine. I wish I had them now. I'd want them to be a car!

 

The stacks on PackRat32's (AKA TONY) 33/34 truck you've seen plastered all over the place are made from early 50's Ford driveshaft tubes. Note the cool shape near the bottom where the exhaust pipes attach. One of our old-timer friends/aquaintances gave him the pipes and cool idea.

I've seen Ford wrenches used as wood stove handles and made into shed door handles and latch parts. The usual pistons for an ash tray. We made up "stroker" trophies out of bent and broken connecting rods. Large truck brake drums are good bases for bench grinder/polisher/vise/anvil stands.

-Bigchief.

 

A farm near where my dad grew up, had a bridge over a creek for cars made from about a dozen 20,s and earlier car frames, most of them T,s. Dad said it was built just before WW-2 and was still in use for for cars and tractors till about 73. The county declaired it unsafe for cars then and it was remodeled into a pedestrian bridge. It stood till the county redid the road and drainage and condemed it in 92.

 

Remembered some more, tho not Ford parts. My uncle had a tractor he built during the depression out of a 1919 Oldsmobile truck. They only made them for two years [actually only made them one year and sold the leftovers as 1920 models]. Made less than 200 of them. They're only claim to fame was being the truck used on the "Beverly Hillbillies". He got it for $7.50 because the owner could never get parts for it. He stripped it down and fitted a second transmission behind the first, to gear it down more. Used it to plow and haul for several years. Really regreted cutting it up years latter after realizing how rare it was. But heck it was worthless back then. He also had a 4 wheel flatbed wagon He built on a complete 1928 Packard Limousine chassis. It was huge. Ah, the old days of the dirt poor.........

 

Until modern concrete became affordable, farmers in this area built spud cellars by dredging out a long trench 8-10' deep, then covering with poles, willows, straw, then dirt. Around 30 years ago, I was taken to one that was collapsing from age. It was built of car and truck frames, and there must have been 200 or so of them ... no '32s, but dozens of model As ... never seen a "Hoover Wagon" made out of a '32, either, and only 1 Ford, period. Farmers said they tipped too much when loaded. The farm I grew up on had a spud digger that used a PTO driving thru a '20s Chevy 3 speed box into a T rear axle to drive the digger chain.
302

 

Rumor has it that thousands of engines, mostly flatheads from the northeast, were melted down in VT to make the Vermont Casting Wood Stoves.

 

I have the two tapered axle tubes from a Model A rear end, and I've cut the bearing surface for the rear brake hub off, ground it out, and attached a 39 Banjo wheel to each of 'em. These up-turned, makes a stand for an 18" glass table top, and are used as side tables.

Its sort of like those bar stools you see in retro bars, except it has a steering whaael and glas top instead of some-where to plant your arse

 

My Grandfther used to tell me about how he would fish Mussels in an old boat he'd built, it had a T engine which He'd modified somehow to run on only two cylinders.

 

back in the 50s, we used ford drive shafts to make the frame rails for our dragster.sleeved and welded together. 49 up shafts.

 

Using a T engine in a boat was common over here in the UK. I was recently talking to Neil Tuckett (http://tuckettbrothers.co.uk/) who had an engine in for repair that had originally been used in a family's Model T. After they'd finished with it in the late 1930's the engine was pulled and put in a motorboat.

Some time in the 1960's the head gasket started to leak. Someone wiped putty intot he joint and the boat was used regularly for the next 40+ years!!

Only last year was it taken out of the boat and sent to Neil for repair. He replaced the gasket, gave it a service and it's now ready for another 85 years of service!

 

Back in the 70's I saw 2 Forty Ford hoods welded together for a small pond boat. It had been done in the 50's.......kids were using it as a snow sled in the 70's ( Mt. Holley NC )

Lots houses had wire rims welded together to make a mail box post......

Couple places had old cars or trucks way up on a pole for a sign...

Cafe in my town used a 32 Ford truck as a salad bar ( the rear bed )

 

A boneyard in Veedersberg, In. had an A chassis cut off into a trailer with the engine converted to an air compressor. Two cylinders had piping installed in the plug holes to a manifold to supply air. The intake was blocked off to the compressor cylinders an an air cleaner attached. It's been sold now , maybe restored and pumping.
deChrome

 

About ten years ago I bought a wagon loaded with aluminum pipe I knew the chassis was early Ford; The real suprise was when I found a Columbia under it! The frame,rear,and front axle went to the flea market to be recycled as hot rod parts.

 

My Dad is still useing a pair of Model A frame rails to keep his wood pile off the ground today.

 

How about case for small cars.




BB

 

No real practical purpose, but I planted a "T" garden.

The other one isn't ford, but it made a nice awning over the shop door.

 

Over here that T would still be considered rebuildable!!

 

This is my way of getting past the local regulations limiting the number of cars I can keep in the driveway Someday it just might get built!

 

The use of radius rods to extend Harley springers...

 

my dad still has a model t axle that was flattened on one side for a pry bar, probably before he was born , i've used it to pry bodies off frames for years while scrapping cars, the damn thing still hasn't bent, And i use a model t jack in the garage all the time for lifting transmissions and such under the car.

 

Not far from me there is an old farm, it's been family run for many years and is still open. They have several wagons made from ford front axle/wishbone assemblies. Picture two front axles with wishbones mounted back to back. The spindles welded solid on the rear, and left to turn on the front. They are also flipped upside down to give more ground clearance. One of the wagons even had '35 wires on it, complete with banged up V8 center caps

 

Although I have not actually seen this- I hear that many towns used PILES of modelT and A cars as fill on riverbanks to shore up levees and to prevent washouts on banks on a curve in the river......
I personally used this51 Ford car "half" as a sign on my custom shop...My brother Scarliner has the right half for his sign.....of course I chopped mine 5"-Ha!