This is a thread to document a chassis I'm building for a Friend/Customer. I met Dillion years ago when I sold him some remains of a model T coupe, he contacted me awhile before my open house about building a chassis for his T coupe. He had seen my T roadster come together last year, and liked the stance. He wanted to see what thoughts I had for a chassis using some components that he had sourced, (some with my guidance) so I threw together some thoughts on paper and we came up with a plan. When he showed up for my open house, he had a bunch of parts and steel in tow. so soon after I tore the chassis mockup for the speed coupe down, I pulled together some parts for a good mockup. once I had an idea of how I wanted to run the rails, I made a few cuts, and did some rough figuring. I used a protractor to determine an angle of 6 degrees would match the subrails inside the body. I cut the rails on three sides (and around the corners on the outside face) and laid them outer face down, on a level section of floor, and using a digital angle finder, I kneeled on the longer end of the tubing, and made that end level, and using a 2x4 under the short side, slid it towards the cut until the degree of the short side was 6 degrees up from the long side. Then I tacked it with the mig welder in each corner. this gave me my 6 degree angle for the rails to match the subrails. after a test fit clarified that my math was correct, I determined I needed to square the back section of the rails, and tack in some crossmembers to hold it in place. but first I had to weld the rails, and I had just finished the wiring for my New-to-me lincoln Tig welder. now I'm 10 years out of practice on the Tig, but like riding a bike, it comes back slowly. once that was done, and angles re-checked, I started cutting out and installing temporary crossmembers. Then started playing around with suspension ideas. I determined these little cute hairpins would fit well, and give us the seating roof that will be required once dillion chops the top. And as usual, when I'm working on something it eats at my brain, and I have to doodle it out. Once I got home on monday night, I had a plan to mock it up in the driveway, to confirm our direction. I tacked some old exhaust hangers to the frame and used a couple old ratchet straps to connect the axle to the frame. the engine is mocked up so the bottom of the Pan is just above level with the bottom of the framerails. from the inside you can see my rearend attachment, and where I will build a kickup, now that I know where the axle needs to be placed. from the front you can see I have a few dots still to connect, as I didn't have a spring at the time of mocking it up. The motor mount is still in place from when I mocked up the speed coupe, we plan to use side mounts on this motor. don't worry those sport bike-ish looking tires will be gone soon enough. I left it up for awhile after sending dillion a bunch of the above pictures, just to walk around and see if it had any weird angles. Nope, looks pretty good. can't wait to see it with the roof on it! now I'm waiting for some parts to show up so I can finish the front suspension, and plot how the rear kickup needs to be built. I'll keep updating as I continue building. .
I like the ideas. If I could make just one little comment without getting into verbal altercation with anyone. May I suggest that in the future, at the end of the weld, that you bring the puddle either off to the side of the weld joint or run the puddle back into the weld. That little hole that happened when you broke your arc leaves a definite possibility for a crack.
Looks like a silica island to me, not a crater. Now back to important part: Coupe looks awesome Joey. Excellent work and vision as per usual.
Tim is right, it's a shiny spot, not a hole, and it's also on a second pass. It's 3/16 tube and I did a deep root pass and a top pass. but thanks for the tips. I'm always open to learn more. Thanks buddy. Thanks, I actually forgot to measure it before I packed it back into the shop, but I'll try to remember to stretch a tape on it tonight.
Hmmm, looks like you’ll need three deuces, a four speed and 389. You’ll also need a Winfield fade, tuck’n roll upholstery and an exaggerated shifter with one of Grabowskis skulls on top. Hehe.
I'm guessing its some kind of aftermarket T-bucket front end, but I've never seen an axle quite like that one. The shapes are weird and I really dig it!
I checked, its somewhere around 106 right now. The weird brakes are from "performance machine" and the chevy style spindles look kinda "total performance"-y to me, so that's my guess? with the floor at nearly stock height, and most of the cabin length retained, I think he'll be able to chop it pretty heavy and still be pretty comfortable. (but I drive a 22 T roadster, so everything looks spacious to me) thanks marty! Its going to have a flipped stock T firewall, and we are gonna have to put a small notch in the center of the cowl top for distributor clearance. It's a price to pay to not have the motor (and therefore front end) too far forward. thanks man! it should be fun. Dillion is stoked that his dream is coming together and he said when I sent pictures, "its like you're in my head!"
thanks guys! sorry to disappoint Bob, but the rear of the chassis will be over the axle, I just was using the rear part to mock up with. I thought about it, but the rear end would be locked in, with no way of removing it without first removing the body, and I didn't want to lock it in like that.
If you were building it for me, I would have the rear fender well line at the top of the tire. But that’s just me. I am sure it’s going to be a neat rod.
That would work great if it was a model A, and I'd agree with you, but the fender line is so low on a T coupe, the body would be a foot off the ground. We've done a bunch of research, and the best looking T's usually have the top of the tire right at the rear curve of the decklid. At the end of the day, its whatever we think is cool. might not be everybody's bag. Oh well.
Lets get to building! Dillion brought me a bunch of parts last weekend, and I finally had time to make some progress after mocking up the front end with some new parts I had an idea of the way I wanted to go with the front end, but I had some work to do first. first order of business, I had to move the bottom hole on the batwings. here's a tech tip I wish I had learned earlier. the hole, and where it needs to be: the plug, made of the shank of an old bolt. weld partially around the plug on one side, but NOT on the side that you will be drilling into. now center punch, and drill your new hole. by not fully welding the plug in beforehand, the metal is not hardened and you don't have to cut through a weld. the back side with the rest of the bolt cut off, but before being welded then, fully weld. here I just fused the plug in, with no filler. .presto! and don't worry, the chrome was already flaking, we have already talked about cleaning the chrome off the batwings and painting them. Now that I could bolt the hairpins to the batwings, I could attack the next problem, the batwings are setup angled to match a narrow "standard" T frame. That just wont do. So I forgot to take pictures of it, but I scored the inside of the batwing, halfway between the axle and the batwing mount, and bent it with a pipe wrench. I will get the angle set perfect, then weld up the inside of the batwing. here you can se they stick almost parallel. hang on, I've got more.
With the angle on the batwings corrected, it allowed me to set the placement of the back mount for the hairpins on the frame. some measuring, figuring, guessing, . . . and boom, holes in the right spot. So I started trimming a chunk of tube for the bottom of the front crossmember. I left the front edge of the rails at an angle so the front crossmember would cover the open ends. I then started figuring out the frame mount for the hairpin, and needed a bung to put through the frame. so after looking through my drops of tubing, I found an old chunk of vw steering column that had a about a 1/4" wall and a perfect size hole in the middle. so I cut them a hair over 2" long and set to work boring the 7/8 hole in the frame rails. I dry fit them in, and they fit perfect. flush outside, so I can use a high clearance washer, and a little proud on the inside. And another mockup, this time with the rear of the hairpins bolted in solid. Now to start on the crossmember. WAIT THERES MORE! .
The crossmember, part two! Ever since @scootermcrad built the frame for his brigg's, I've wanted to build a underslung type spring mount, so I decided it would be a slick way to mount this one. so taking a piece of tubing and drawing out an arc with the help of my wife and some welding wire, I made some cuts with my plasma cutter. see where this is headed? after some... creative clamping... I got the sides tacked down. and was able to fuse a root pass into it. this is no filler. it went pretty good, other than a couple spots where I had some junk come into the weld. I'll cut those out and re-weld them. by cutting part of the way down the side, I was able to carry the rounded detail across the top edge. a little dressing... yupp. that will work. The current idea is sinking this 1/4 plate I made, into the crossmember, and sinking nuts into the crossmember underneath it. Then we'll use this top plate from speedway. (anybody make a chrome or stainless one of these?) I think it turned out pretty good, and now that I have all the pieces cut up, I'll start welding them into the frame. That's where I wound up last night. hopefully I'll have some time over the next week to knock some more out. Till next time! .
Looking good Underslung is an idea bouncing around in my head, there were a few Early T speedster's/gow jobs which ran a flipped front cross member/chassis to get the front down low
Update! I have been mocking this up with a 2" angle iron under the frame, and mocking the axle up 1.5" lower than the ride height with wheels (meaning I had 1.5" of theoretical suspension droop), but after thinking about the front end and its lack of adjustment to raise to car afterwards, I wanted to make sure it had enough clearance. So I welded some bolts through the crossmember to keep it from spreading, and cut 1" off the bottom. you can see above how much I dropped the perch in relation to the spring. This would give me about 2.5 inches of droop before I started getting into the 2" ride height. After talking with dillion I played around with ideas for the front shock mounts. I think the shackle mounted shocks might work. but we may need to be creative with the upper mount... I don't think the F1 shock mounts are gonna work. also tested clearances with a mockup radiator. Then last night I decided to test the front of the frame, and see if it was high enough, and how much the shackles/ spring would settle. using my trusty harbor freight mockup straps, I put the front end together. well... It was a fair amount... It has about 1.5" under the 2" angle iron brace (that will be removed, its just holding the rails while I build the front crossmember). all good... except it has no weight on it. I stood on the very front of the frame, and my 220# was able to make the angle iron touch the ground. Not good. So, I'll admit when I'm licked. Onto crossmember numero dos! some quick geometry... As you can tell, its a much simpler design, the sides will bend down and form a nice angle down to the "bottom crossmember" its about 1.5" shorter than the other crossmember. One of the things I think that is very important in building things, and fabricating things from scratch, is to not be too attached to the pieces you make, at least, not to the point that you can't admit when they are no longer going to work. Luckily I've needed to build nearly the same curved front crossmember for my dads roadster project, so the old piece won't go to waste. I should have some time tonight to get the new crossmember welded up, "installed" and be able to mock it up again, hopefully with better luck. .
Hmmm still staying tooned. With the shocks why don’t you lay them down and cantilever Them with a Z bar. With headlights on you’ll hardly notice it and seems the kinda weird you like.
That's a possibility, but complicated as the rails are close to the hairpins, limiting the room outside the rails, and as always the radiator clogs up the inside framerail space. I was looking at mg style lever shocks going out to the tab on the front axle, and I have a few different ideas, but we'll have to see where it leads as we progress. I think a smartly designed headlight bar/ shock mount, sort of like what I built for my T would be a viable option too.
Looking great! Not too late to do the floor at the bottom of the frame rails. High trans tunnel is better than a high floor…every extra interior inch is extra comfort. Can even skip the tunnel and have the transmission in the cockpit!
believe me, I know all to well. Last we talked about it, he was planning on a trans open to the cockpit like mine. we'll see where he wants to place the floor once I'm done with the basic chassis work. .
The Jalopy Journal
