Another update, I got a 2 carb intake from the estate of my aunt's uncle, which isn't direct relation to me but it's close enough that I had to use it on this car. Rob Paul set up the intake for me, along with adding shocks to the car (finally) and reworked my wishbones to give them a bit more triangulation, in hopes of smoothing out the bumpy ride a bit. Then I got a set of chromed headers for $39 off of Amazon (see this thread for that story https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/cheap-flathead-headers-39.1293194/) and I still had the lake pipes I got for Christmas when I was 15, which were on my first car, a '53 Ford, and at the time, also was flathead powered. So I reworked the pipes a bit to be the new exhaust for the T, along with the bargain headers. It turned out really nice and sounds amazing. Had to relocate the battery into the trunk to clear the pipes, which is OK because I never liked the battery hanging under the floor how it was. Unfortunately, during this round of fixes and improvements, I've discovered I have a bent rear axle shaft. I've got a hub puller coming, and I'll be buying a spring spreader too, I really should have both of those things anyway. But I don't want to pound on it on a race track now that I know the axle is bent (I originally thought I had a bent wheel), so I'll probably only be spectating at the Sanford Field race this year.
Will you at least have the car there? I'm hoping to make it this year and would enjoy seeing it. It's one of my favorite builds here.
Thanks. My current plan was not to bring the T, I was going to drive my '57 Chevy down there instead, so I wouldn't have to drag the trailer all the way there. I don't want to bring it and not race it, and I'm afraid to pound on it anymore, in case I would damage something or make things worse. It's bent bad enough to get some visible wheel wobble and I'm afraid I'm going to make the repair worse by pushing it. I've been following along with your build as well and I've been impressed by the incredible amount of machining and lathe work in it. With that much attention to detail/precision on that car, you can see my hesitance to push a car with an axle 1/8" out of whack.
I bought this style. Should be here tomorrow according to the tracking. I liked the idea of the whole cir***ference of the hub being in contact with the puller instead of just a half moon like the old cast ones were, hopefully it works well. I'm also going to have to buy a spring spreader, or make one. If you or anyone else has any thoughts on where I should get one from, I'm all ears.
You should come, it's pretty fun. It's not huge, which is kind of a good point for me. They do have a cl*** that an early Olds powered car like yours could run in, but they don't get enough turnout yet to really fill out that cl***, and I'd like to see that change. I know there's a few guys building cars specifically to run in that cl***, I'm hoping to see some of them this year. It bums me out not to have the T there to race this time, but it is what it is. I'll get this axle replaced and maybe swap in my good '39 trans and come back even stronger next year.
I haven't seen an axle puller like that before. You'll have to report back how it works. Who makes it? I've never used a spring spreader. On my springs I just put big c clamps on the spring on either side of the center bolt. Then I've cut the center bolt and replaced it with a long piece of all thread so I could relax it. Did the reverse for ***embly. A spreader would be handy though I'm sure.
Here's the axle puller I built. I didn't have it handy but there is a piece of steel that's tapped to screw on the end of the axle. The big bolt pushes against that so the axle threads are protected. I also have an old original one with the dog bone deal you hammer on. I think I prefer that one.
That custom made puller looks BEEFY. Well engineered. Mine came in but I haven't even taken it out of the box yet, got some other things that have to be done before I can play with the T again, but I'll report back on how it works.
Didn't make it to Hillsboro today. Hoped I would but we had our third kid born on the 4th so I figured I better stick around to help with the other kids. Maybe next year I'll be able to check out the T!
Apparently I have not updated this thread in years. Jumping in where I left off in '23, I did end up bringing the car to the Hillsboro/Sanford Field flathead race, and on my first practice p***, I lined up, dumped the clutch, and snapped the end of one of my rear axles clean off. Kept the little broken off stump end as a souvenir. Rob Paul told me there was no way I'd be able to break the axle and even said he'd change it out if I managed to do it. True to his word, after the race he put a replacement axle in the car. I had extra axles and hubs for it but I don't know **** about how to take apart a banjo rear so that was very nice. The axle must have been bent or cracked because I had a wobbly wheel issue which went away once this axle was replaced. Didn't get to race that weekend, but was kind of a badge of honor to break the car on the track. I was getting the car ready for the '24 race but I was having distributor/ignition issues again and I just didn't want to deal with it, so I left it behind and just went as a spectator, and did the same last year as well. This last week there was a car show in my hometown of Brillion including a rumor that the Model A speedster that I rode in the Great Race in the late 90's was going to be there, along with my high school shop teacher and some of the other racers from my high school team so I decided it was high time to get the T sorted out again and bring it. The distributor issue turned out to be a charging issue. The new Stromberg crab distributors need more than 6 volts at speed to run properly as I'd learned before, so I checked my charging system and it wasn't working again. I have an early generator with a cutout on it, but the cutout is a new replacement one that has a diode instead of a breaker so I tore into that first, and the internal connections for the diode broke again so it would not charge. It was originally soldered, which melted off and I had replaced the solder connection with a screw, which corroded and failed. Now it has a br*** loop holding it together and seems to work fine. That fixed the charging, which fixed the ignition issues. Seems like the only issues I ever have with the car are a result of new, replacement parts that are supposed to solve the issues they create. I also wired it for turn signals (finally) which meant adding these cool lights to the headlight buckets so I'd have something up front that would blink but still be period correct. They're kinda big but I really like them, easy to see. A few weeks ago I found a nice Signal-Stat 900 switch at the junkyard which works great and looks period, and still has a metal housing unlike the new plastic ones. Also has hazard lights which I like. Once I had it running right and all the lights working I took it to the post office to drop off a package, marking the first time in my 13 years of ownership I ever used the car as an actual car. Which is a little sad but also a milestone I was proud of. The next day was the car show and the car looked and performed great again, was very happy. In the background you can see the bright yellow speedster that was our Great Race car, was awesome to see it and sit in it again. One of my teammates, Naomi, bought the car and got it running for the first time since 1998 and drove it to the show. The '34 Cabriolet next to my car is my high school shop teacher's car. The car is much, much more driveable now with turn signals (no one knows what hand signals mean anymore) and runs great, so hopefully will get used a lot more. Future plans are for some kind of exhaust baffle (it's incredibly loud through headers and straight pipes), taller windshield posts with a second windshield section above this one (my whole head is above the windshield when driving), and a better bushing at the top of the steering column.
very impressive ride, you did really well with your attention to detail. Also thanks for posting a pic earlier of widening a '23-25 turtle deck that's something I'm interested in doing when I find one.
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