Projects Drdave accidentally buys a Model A. Now what?

Lookin' good Dave. I had to add a leaf to mine when I dropped it because the tires rubbed on the fender brace's when in a hard left or hard right.

 

@1stGrumpy they rub on the outer edge of the brace or? Just curious

Dave, when you ream the bottom hole are you just cleaning it up or tapering the hole?

 

Mine had the cast fender braces and the tires rubbed inside the curve. I think that if I had the stamped braces I wouldn't have had the problem.

 

Good to know, I’ve got a set of each and have plenty of room above just curious where people end up hitting so I can watch out for it

 

Maybe, but, tell you the truth, I’m in a bit of a time crunch to get it back together for the Stray Kat first of May....I only have this weekend and Easter weekend left to work on it, so my plan is to at least get the front end done so if I run out of time I can worry about the back end later and just make due with the front end for the show.

Well, I had actually considered that, so getting another vote from an impartial third party gives me a confidence to do just that. Thanks!!

LOL..I’m sure there’s been more than one that has at least wondered quietly in their mind at least what kinda weirdo doc they are stuck with. Of course, it wouldn’t only be the greasy nails (although, I do scrub the goof out of them to minimize it lol) that would give them those thoughts. Haha

First, I slid the reamer into the steering arm from the top side (which is the tapered side from the factory of course) and marked the reamer with a sharpie at the depth it went in the hole. Then I clamped the spindle in the vise on the drill press, squared the machined bottom of the steering arm to the reamer and ran the reamer down until it was in the steering arm to the mark. So, what I ended up with was a new taper from the bottom to mount the ball in. The new taper only goes half way in though, until it meets the taper from the other side. If I had done it so that there was a solid taper all the way though, it would be too wide since now what used to be the wide end would now have to be the skinny end and the ball would go in too far. Did I over explain that and now it doesn’t make any sense? Lol. I can get a pic tomorrow if I need to.




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Definitely want to use spring clamps on that rear spring Doc. Especially, if you're removing a few leaves

 

Thanks Matt! I ended up with all the leaves that fit in the front clamps so that worked out without any figitting, so hopefully I’ll get just as lucky when I get to the back.

Not much to report today. I did go ahead and ream the steering arms a little deeper as suggested by @alchemy, but didn’t get to put the tie rod back in see how much clearance I have now.

 

I couldn't help it drdave, just had to lower that rear end a bit...

 

Niiiiiiice!!!’ Thanks a ton!! Keeps me motivated to keep moving forward. That’s the look I’m going for right there. How many leaves did you remove from the rear spring? [emoji6]


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It is looking mighty fine Dr. Dave

 

I’m sure it’s in the thread somewhere. What are the tire sizes, Dr. Dave?

 

Thank you Dave! Should be a fun little buggy.

550/16 up front and 700/16 in the back. They are Firestone’s from Coker

 

Two of them and three of those.

 

Haha!!


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Ok that’s what I figured. I’ve got to do the same thing and was trying to convince my self it was possible to do with out taking everything apart lol.

Recall how slow you turned your drillmpress to ream it? Seems like you’d want to go pretty slow

 

I was running it on its lowest speed, but I don’t know how many rpms that is. I just went slow, little at a time, backed off and went a little more. I also used some liquid wrench to lubricate it and it went fine.

If you were good and careful, you could maaayyyybe do it with a handheld drill without having to take it apart. I’m not good and careful though...haha.

 

Hasn’t been driven since I put the king pins in sonit should come back apart easy. Just so used to beating them out of stuff that’s sat behind a shed for 70 years lol

 

Oh yeah, pop back apart in 10 minutes or less....at least it does coming apart as much as I’ve been doing it. Lol. For never working on a solid axle front end before, I’m getting pretty good at putting this one together and taking it back apart. Now we’ll see how good I do at setting up mechanical brakes. Lol


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Haven’t had any time to work on it this week, but I did confirm that reaming the steering arms a bit deeper gave me the clearance I needed for the tie rod. Whew! Thanks @alchemy for confirming my hunch on that giving me the confidence to give it a shot. Looks like we are cleared for re-assembly.....the next time I get a chance to get out there and do it. Lol


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Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait

 

Dave,
Looks great. Reading up today between wedding to dos, running around for pictures at various Hartford landmarks and getting ready for the big moment.

How did you finally make out with the interior of the car?

Cliff Ramsdell

 

Hope all went according to plan and was beyond beautiful Cliff! Congrats to the happy couple!!

Still waiting on the interior. I checked on it last week and it is indeed in production (or at least on the production list), so hopefully will have it all here pretty soon.


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Any of you guys recognize this car? I know I’ve seen it before but don’t recall if it’s on the H.A.M.B. Saw it yesterday at the Round Up...it’s running mechanical brakes and a banger like I’m planning, so was hoping to find a build thread.

 

Well, finally back at it. Next weekend is the Stray Kat, so time to get this thing back together. I’ve ended up with Monday and Tuesday off, so hopefully we will have is an assembled and ready to go Town Sedan by the end of Tuesday.

Unfortunately, only got a few hours in yesterday and today, but got a few big things done. Made a couple spacers to put underneath the spring so the clamp plate would work. Of course, that meant pulling the spring back out, removing the bolt and reassembling the pack with the spacers bolted in. The spring is now finally installed for good.

Also, made these two tabs to attach the brake actuators to the spring perches.



Got the kingbolts all installed and lucky for me, the rotation was such that I could bolt the tabs to the back of the perches and the actuators lined right up. Under normal circumstances, the actuators would line up and attach to the front of the perches, but for whatever reason, combination of parts I guess, they lined up slightly to the rear...even with the back of the perch. Oh well, perfect alignment for what I needed.





The last thing I got done this evening was getting the tie rod in. Just to back up a bit, I reamed the steering arms from the bottom to mount the balls underneath. You’ll recall, I didn’t quite have enough clearance between the bottom of the tie rod and the top of the wishbone. It was suggested that maybe I could ream the arms a bit further to seat the balls a little further in for added clearance. Haven’t seen any pics of al this on any of the other threads, so here are a few in case this helps someone else with their set up in the future....



The shiny part is the the new ream on the bottom side. You can see the line in the middle where the two tapers meet. So, in essence, the ball now only seats on half the thickness of the arm. I guess that’s ok. All the cool kids are doing it. Lol

Here’s how far “in” the ball seats from the top. When looking at the threads, there’s maybe 3/16” of threads inside the arm....important in a minute....





Since I don’t have the tools to run the threads on the ball further up the shank, the most I could go with the depth of the new taper was about an 1/8” deeper than “stock”. I figured that gave me 1/16” of thread to cinch everything right against the taper.





Worked like a charm, and I needed up with just the smidge more clearance I needed between the tie rod and wishbone. It didn’t come without a cost however....I discovered I didn’t have room for the grease seal and metal cover on the tierod end...it al wedged tight in the shorter gap between the steering arm and tie rod end and seized the steering. A trim of the rubber seal to thin it down solved the problem...



Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have the brakes all back in and adjusted. Set the toe, grease it all and the front end will be done. With any luck I’ll have Monday and Tuesday to swap out the rear spring and get some seatbelts in. Had hoped the interior kit would have arrived in time to recover the seats at least, but no dice. Oh well, I doubt I would have had time to do that anyhow. LOL

 

Nice build I originally had planned to keep Mechanical brakes and the banger on mine but all has changed . Your car looks great. Now I gotta go back to the beginning and read through[emoji106]


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Had to do a quick search to see where you’d gotten your interior fearing it was the place that just shut the doors. Glad it’s not!

Cars looking great! Makes me look forward to rolling my project outside this summer

 

Yeah, Tim, I lucked out on that deal. I had looked into a LB interior, but the cost was significantly higher and recent reviews led me to think I wasn’t going to end up with anything better that would warrant the cost difference. Mac’s said 6-8 weeks and it’s been six, so should be here soon.

Finished up the front end today. All assembled, greased, aligned and brakes adjusted. I went ahead and put a set of floaters in the front. Even though the mechanical brakes were working fine before I took it apart, these should improve them a bit.



I noticed these shorty shock links on the car I posted above at the Round Up. Found them at Mac’s and got a set. When I mocked it all up before, with the original tube style links put the shock arms nearly into the fender, which made me nervous. These shorter links were just the ticket...plenty of clearance now.



Here it is back on the ground. 8 inch total drop.





Now onto the rear end. Hope to have the spring swapped out tomorrow and have that done....with any luck, I’ll have the right combo of leaves the first time. [emoji6]

 

Did the rear spring thing today. The T spring I ended up with only had 5 leaves and the A spring had 10. I knew I needed to use the top leaf to center the narrower T spring in the crossmember, and I figured there couldn’t be much harm in just using a few more A leaves to fill out the pack. Like any red blooded boy, I couldn’t put 10 leaves back...ya gotta at least leave out one...right? LOL. Took the top 4 A leaves over to the press and adjusted the curve to match the T spring and reversed the ends of the longer one of the 4 since it came to down to the turn.





Just for grins, took a pic to compare the A main leaf and the T.



Cleaned up the A leaves, rounded and dressed the ends, squirted some paint and put it all back together. “Only” took 12 hours today. LOL. By the way, does anyone get as messy as I get when I’m out working? Man, I am gross!! Haha

Set it down on the ground and I think I hit it right on the money....about a 4 inch total drop on the back. Another inch up in the back so the tire to fender gap is even all the way around wouldn’t hurt, but I’m not taking it back apart to add a leaf, at least right now. It’s in the ball park and I’ll call that a win. Seat belts and a wash tomorrow and we are ready for the Stray Kat. Whoop whoop!!

 

That really looks good! Wish I could see you at Stray Kat but looks like storms will keep us from heading up there. Hope you have a great time!


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Can’t see all the photos just the finished one, looks damn good!! What did you end up with for the rear spring? T spring with some A leafs on top is what I understood