If you can't get them out/in without dropping the wishbone, I have a feeling that's part of the reason.
When you set the position for the radius ball mounting, you should check the the castor angle is maintained to the original model A castor angle. I would say the angle should be 5-7 degrees.
Stock Model A is 5 degrees. But big and littles will change that. You'll only get so much adjustment before you start putting the spring in bind with the axle and the crossmember.
It looks like it would be very close. Would likely need to drop the ball in order to get those two bolts in/out. I'll rummage through my jar of old Ford hardware and see what I got. I don't think there's much I can do at this point. If I want the castor to be in spec I would need to split the bones, which I'm not wanting to do at this time. If for whatever reason this mount doesn't work, or I can't live with the extra castor angle I'm going to be having then I will take the front end back out and split the wishbone.
Long overdue for an update here. Unfortunately I haven’t done much in terms of getting the car back on the road. I started working on my front seats and wanted to get them finished since my dining room turned into an upholstery shop. I liked how the main floor of my house smelt like leather, but I was the only one.. I stripped the seats down, I welded on some tabs to the rear of the seat frames so that I could screw my new seat backings to the frame. I painted both seat frames black with the same black paint I used for the front end parts. Next I made a template out of cardboard to transfer to wood to create the backrest part of the seat. I didn’t want to just cut big square pieces out of the leather hide I got and lay them down on the seat, figured that would look like a school bus seat. So I decided to cut smaller pieces and sew them together with one seam down the middle. This way I’ll be able to use more of the hide and waste less material as well. I haven’t really sewn before, but after watching some YouTube videos and doing some reading, figured this style seam was easiest. Not sure if it’s a seam you’d see in a car back in the day, but oh well. I got some of the seat foam from Amazon, some from a local craft store. Did more measuring and cutting and began to assemble the seats. The backrest is just wood, then foam and then leather. On the bottoms I put the foam over the wooden seat base, then three layers of cotton (saw a guy on YouTube do it this way, says it makes the bottom of the seat less flat, gives it a little arch). Maybe ya, maybe no, but it’s done now. I did my best stretching the leather overtop of the foam and tried to make it as even as possible all around. The bottoms have some wrinkles around the edges, but for my first time and this being a budget build I think it turned out pretty good. Overall I’m really happy with how it turned out. Took much longer than expected, I used more material than expected and I thought two front seats would be a walk in the park. But I learned a few new skills and I’ll be able to apply them when I get around to doing the rear seat and door panels. That won’t be till the winter time I think because now I need to get this thing off the jackstands and get to cruising around.
The seats look great- I might copy them for my sedan! But what did you do on the back and bottom, that are exposed when the seat is tipped up for back seat access?
Thank you! I will post photos of the back of the seat when I'm home. When I finished the backrest's I traced them out onto the leather I had, I then strategically stapled that cutout to the backrest, putting the staples around the outside edges. I thought all those staples would be hidden by the outside metal seat frame. However, some of the staples are visible from the backside of the seat. You would have to be in the backseat looking at them, or when the seat is folded down you can see a few staples. The bottom however, is a folded over mess with a million staples exposed. I wasn't too concerned about the bottom of them.
Here’s a photo of the seats folded down. You can see a few staples around the outside, but with the seats in their normal position you won’t be able to see anything unless you’re sitting in the backseat. I wasn’t sure how else to accomplish covering the backside of the seats. If I can see the staples from outside the car when it’s out in the sun, which I don’t think you’ll be able to I guess I’ll touch them up with a black paint marker.
Nothing too exciting lately. I’ve been working on the daily driver recently, taking my time away from the fun stuff. However, while waiting on parts for my truck I took my water pump off and dropped it off to get rebuilt. The end of last season it started to get really bad. Felt like it was raining everywhere I went. Two studs came out with it, I’ll probably just chase the threads and loctite them back in there. They look to be in fine shape.
Months ago my neighbour was checking out my car and mentioned how cool it would be to do a new floor for it. He likes wood working and has a wood shop in his backyard. He sourced the wood and did some glueing and plaining for me. I went over there this week and he showed me around his shop, taught me some things and showed me some tools I’ve never used or heard of before. Now we have the new floor held in place with a few floorboard screws, next is final sanding and some dark stain to match the rest of the car.
I got the floor finished up. I rounded all the edges, stained it and put a heavy duty outdoor type finish on it. I’m sure it’ll hold up just fine. I painted the floorboard screws black and put the same finish on those, just to try and match the finish on the floor. Today I dropped my chopped windshield frame off to get a piece of glass cut for it. That’ll look cool once it’s back and installed. I also got a call that my water pump is ready to go. Can’t wait to reinstall that, get the rad and grill shell back on. It’ll soon look like a car again. I’ve also been making progress on my wishbone ball mount spacer. It was something that I was putting off, trying to finish other things in the meantime. But I think I’m heading in the right direction, I will post more on that once I have a good chunk of time to dedicate to it. Thanks for following along.
Nothing too exciting to report on. I’ve been real busy lately with life and family responsibilities that have taken priority over garage time. I did however get my water pump back. I stayed up late one night, got that installed, got the rad and grill shell back on. One step closer to driving this again.
Thanks Tim, little progress is better than none. Lots of threads on here that are keeping me motivated!
@Tim is the master and my idol when it comes to a little bit each day makes big progress. Life is crazy here and rarely do I make any progress at all. When I take the Tim Approach TM is when I really get something done and really doesn't interfere too much with all what else I have going on. 15 minutes at a time even makes a big difference pretty quick.
So I think I’ve got my wishbone ball mount spacer thingy all rigged up. A few other things I need to do before driving the car, but then I’ll be able to test this mount out. I got longer allen head bolts to drop through the bell housing. I tried drilling holes in them, but after going through all my bits with the hardened steel, I just cut slits through them with a cutoff disc. Next was making something to cradle the top of the ball. I cut and grinded my way through this square tubing and set the top of the ball cap in place. I welded some smaller steel tubing inside of the square stuff for some extra strength. Test fitted in the car, bolted it up and tack welded the cap to the square tubing. Then removed it all for final welding and painting. It’s not the prettiest thing, but I think it should work? If anyone see’s a reason why it shouldn’t or something I could modify let me know. This seemed like a pretty straight forward way of doing it, hopefully there isn’t an issue.
I made it as far as I could with the car, getting it to a drivable state again. I now need a torch to bend the steering arms to allow proper clearance between tie rod, wishbone and oil pan. Nobody I know has a torch, I looked around trying to rent one, but no luck. So I bought myself a torch, late birthday present. It’s not something I’ll use everyday, but it’s something I’ll likely never get rid of. I spent a good amount of time hooking it up, getting familiar with it and then I started bending some stuff. Works awesome The steering arm had to get bent down to avoid contact with the spring perch.
I got all my steering arms bent downwards with the tie rod running in between the drag link and wishbone. Didn’t take too many photos of the process. I got everything bolted back together, double checked all the hardware I had touched over the winter. Every nut has a cotter pin in it, greased everything and adjusted the brakes and took it for the first ride of the year. Despite not having a windshield it was still a lot of fun to drive it again. I have a few other things to do, but I’ll keep picking away. Atleast it’s at a driveable state now.
Still waiting on my windshield.. but I’ve been busy with a few other things. Ever since I saw a hotrod with hood straps I loved them, thought they looked great and if your running just the top half of a hood they’re the perfect tie downs to keep it in place. On Black Friday last year, Limeworks had a bunch of stuff on sale including their strap kit. When I inquired they didn’t have a complete kit, something was missing. But they honoured their sale price and shipped it to me a few weeks later. The kits been stashed in my garage until I got the car up and running again, which it is. So the past two days I’ve been installing that. I took my sweet time measuring out the leather for the first strap, after punching the holes and assembly everything, making sure it fit properly. I took it back apart and used the first set as a template for the other three. The only difference is the strap hanging from the hood is 3/8” longer at the rear than the front. Everything else I could copy, cut and punch. After I had all my straps done and installed I took a step back and didn’t really like it. The leather was brand new, barely creased and the latch’s were all shiny and new. This was really the first brand new piece on the car and it didn’t fit the bill. I took the straps back off, used a scotch brite pad and a razor blade and started fraying the edges of all the straps. The razor blade was good to fray the edges and really weather where the straps go through the latch’s. The scotch brite pad took the shine off the new leather and roughed up all the latch’s and rivets. I think it looks much better now and will continue to get better with time.
I got to take the car to a local car show today, one of the longest running shows in south western Ontario. There were a few HAMB worthy cars I took photo’s of. But I forgot to take one of my own!
After driving the car last week and over the weekend, I've come to realize that it is quite difficult to steer. I still have the original Model A box in it that could likely use a rebuild, but I'd rather wait until I replace it with something else. I was informed here on the hamb that with the extra negative caster on the front axle from my wishbone spacer, the car may become more difficult to steer at slow speeds - which it has. But I was also wondering, since I heated and bent the steering arms on the spindles to avoid the tie rod hitting the oil pan, my steering arms are now sitting pretty vertical. Could this also cause the steering to worsen? Should I try heating and bending the ends of the arms where the balls are mounted back up so they're more horizontal? Or with the negative caster I'm pretty much screwed? Deal with it or split the wishbone?
Well I’m moving on. I’ve had all these wires and fuses and cloth loom etc for a while now. I dislike electrical so I’ve been putting it off, but nows the time. I have new cloth covered wire for under the hood, new headlight sockets, starter fuse, I need to hook up the fog light and drill holes in the dash for my light switches. Just trying to tidy everything up and hoping it looks more correct once it’s all done.
Been thinking about my own wiring. Here's something that might be helpful, BTW, I have not tried this exact product, just grabbed one. Seems like it would make layout, grouping and basic management easier. Better than zip ties or twist ties. Just to be used during the process. www.amazon.com/Reusable-Microfiber-Management-Organizer-Black-50/dp/B071S43ZYL/ref=asc_df_B071S43ZYL www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcOhVeWiVY4&t=102s
Something to remember, those steering arms are forged and when you heat and bend them, you should cool them in oil to help retain the forging. r
The Jalopy Journal
