Projects A Michigan Model A build

So it has been a slow progress summer. I’m a teacher so I’m off for the summer so I had big goals… but I haven’t l completed as many house projects as I would like to have, let alone work on my ‘31. Believe it or not a 2 year old takes up a lot of time and I don’t have a single regret.


But a couple weeks ago I started making some progress during naps in the late evenings. I started by finishing my sub rail kick ups.


Next I had to repair the foot of my A-pillar. This piece was a royal pain. Not to mention, somewhere around attempt 3 my daughter came down with croup and required a 2 night stay in the Pediatric ICU. Well last night I finished the a A-pillar foot just have to install.



The goal is to start making steady progress until the next life curveball LOL.

 

Nice work.

Thanks,

jim

 

Sub rails are now attached to the frame. Turned some 7/16” bolt bungs on the lathe and welded them in. Reinforced the a pillars. Then the other night I made a patch panel on the bead roller. Super happy with the finished product.

 

I have family in Holt. I'd like to see your project in person too when I come up to visit them.

My daughter and son-in-law were also teachers at Holt. Recent empty-nesters. Your project brings back memories as I was given a wretched Model A frame from my boss to build my Hot Tub. I had to weld 138 holes in the frame rails shut, as well as replacing a section by the steering box (it was reinforced with a license plate!) and boxing it all. Good luck. Persevere.

 

In Michigan you don’t build early fords without filling holes

Shoot me a message if you’re ever in the area.

 

I remember reading your thread quite a while back. Good to see you getting back to it. Keep up the good work!

 

Killer work, the beat goes on.

 

Looking good…

 

so many S. Lansing and Holt people, we should have a get together

 

[QUOTE="THE FRENCHTOWN FLYER, post:" I had to weld 138 holes in the frame rails shut, as well as replacing a section by the steering box (it was reinforced with a license plate!) and boxing it all. Good luck. Persevere."[/QUOTE]

Typical farm type repair, use what you have to make it work and look somewhat presentable. I found a Michigan license plate embedded in the panel below the decklid on mine.

Hey, great to see this project still has forward momentum! Nice progress! Like eating an elephant..one bite at a time!

 

There would be no barn finds without farmers…

 

No doubt, farmers are the original "jack of all trades". In days gone by, a long trip to the hardware store wasn't made if you could make do with what you had! I wish I was a farmer, I would have a barn instead of my puny garage. LOL

 

Had an electrical issue with my bead roller I had to fix last night. So I didn’t make it as far on the passenger side as I would have liked. It’s mostly shaped, I need to bring it to work and use the metal break for the right bend on the a-pillar. Then a little shrinking and English wheel time.

Next is the front cowl patches. Those make me a little nervous.

 

I’ve been plugging away making patches. The front cowl lower quarters have taken quite a bit of work, but work but I’m mostly content. I don’t have a 3/16” bead roller die so I’m at a stand still for the moment. But a friend drew me up some bead roller dies in Fusion360 and is machining them this week. Also I had a Camaro T5, but the other day I scored a S10 T5 off an Iron-Duke for $150 (win). It’s amazing how coveted the S10 T5 is today. Shifter placement with the 283 should now fit with the model A seat. Exciting when the rust belt cancer is starting to get covered up.

 

Yes, great score on the T5! I just recently picked up an Iron Duke engine that included the T5 transmission. I'm looking to use the whole shebang in my model A.

Not sure of the difference in gear sets in your two T5s, but you should be able to swap the ID tailshaft to the Camaro T5 if it better suits your needs. There may be slight differences, tho, so don't take my word for it.

 

I made a little progress last night lower patch panels are trimmed and tacked in place. So far I’m very happy with it. I was not able to do the vertical bead on the forward end of the cowls yet. My buddy finished my bead rolling die but the bead finished height wasn’t tall enough. It made a great bead but it just didn’t match, so I’m going to have to go with another approach. But I have a plan. When it looks right it is right.

 

I’ve been attempting progress but have been at a bit of stand still. My cowl sides required repair at the bottom and a friend suggested that if I was to repair the bottom aesthetically I should replace all the way to the top. Well that was a more difficult feat than I thought. My JD2 bead roller didn’t have the right die for the raised bead underneath the cowl trim (I’m not running trim but details matter) and tipping wheel was unable to tip the joggle without distorting the that bead. I tried the Mitler Brothers bead roller at work, which was closer but still not close enough. After several attempts I walked away from it for a bit and did a few garage projects. I finished a planishing hammer which I had started a while back. I also bought plasma cutting plans to make a profile hammer. The plans were from the YouTuber Carl Fischer from Make It Kustom. A friend of mine cut them out of 1/4” plate and I welded and assembled the machine. I made it how Carl did on his channel. Then broke it, fixed it, broke it again, upgraded it (3/8 plate on the arm), broke it a third time, then fixed it again and now it seems to be a nice working little machine. I did both cowl patches out of 16 gauge and they turned out great. Now it’s time to weld a few patches. It might look like a body pretty soon.

 

30 & early 31 used the same firewall. In late 31 they went to the indented firewall that had the fuel shutoff under the hood rather than under the dash.

 

I think you’re right

 

It amazes me how many changes Ford re tooled for for only 6 - ish months production.

 

Seems like it had to be a lot easier to incorporate changes when there was someone at each individual station. Instead of using a single purpose built robots that require retooling and reprogramming.

 

In Model A production that was over 600,000 cars. It was probably easier to assemble the shutoff and filter on the front of the firewall than having a guy crawl under the dash - speeding up production and saving labor costs.

 

Weren’t there complaints about the cabs smelling like gas?
Steering column supports riveted to gas tank and interior petcocks were an issue.
So much so that by 32 the tanks were moved out to the back of car.

 

Yes - they changed to column support too. They went to one that bolted to the dash rail. It was used from May 31 onward. I'd suspect that's about the time both changes took effect. It will bolt right on to any 30-31 but 28-29 requires a little grinding to get it to fit.

 

My wife and daughter went up north for a couple days leaving me home with just the dog for Tuesday and Wednesday night. I managed to cut out most of the Swiss cheese on both sides of the body and tack in the new patches. It needs about 10,000 more welds and a hell of a lot of planishing. But from 20 feet away it looks a lot less holy and way more like a model A.

 

got a day of welding

 

Nice progress and very nice quality work.

 

Great job.