Projects Shade tree Model A speedster kind of thing

Just curious...what's with the wire wrapped around the spokes? Is that your "Shadetree" attempt at balancing the wheels? Also, you should mount that bent up wheel on the garage wall as a trophy.
Andy

 

I'm dealing with the other guy's insurance on this, since he was at fault. We haven't gotten to the value part of the process yet.

 

Andy,
Sorry. We must have posted at about the same time this morning, and I missed yours. Yeah, that's solder wrapped around the spokes for balancing. I made this balancing doohickey because my local tire store couldn't deal with lug indexed wheels. It's just an old brake drum and spindle. That aluminum rod fits the kingpin bushings pretty close. The wheel bearings are degreased and lubricated with WD40. You can see that little magnet and section of all thread balancing the drum. I just clamp the wood part in the vise with the drum eyeballed plumb to the world, throw the wheel and tire on, and start wrapping. I was surprised how much it took, but those are big, old tires. Maybe they didn't worry about balance much back then? I did move the tires around on the rim to try to get the heavy side away from the valve stem, but it didn't make much difference. They did end up balanced, though, and that made a real difference in driveability.

 

We need updates! How's old shade tree doing?
Andy

 

When the accident happened, didn’t you and your car end up on your property? Why did they tow it to a storage lot? As long as it was off the highways right of way and in your yard, it looks like it could have been left there. I am just being nosy.

 

Grumpy,
I ended up on the road. Haha. I remember rolling onto my back as I was sliding, and bumping over those little grooves they press into the edge of the asphalt to warn fools that it's time to look up from the cell phone. Seriously, though, I probably could have insisted that they leave the car, but I didn't think of it at the time. My remaining rear tire was also still on the pavement, so I don't know. Either way, to get to Andy's update request, I settled with the insurance company back in late April. Just in case it helps somebody in the future, I'll recount some of that.
The biggest hurdle was the value of the car. I went to bring a trailer and searched "Ford Model A Speedster", found a dozen or so that had sold or been bid on in the last few years and sent that to them, along with a link to this thread, and a pretty detailed write-up on the car. I also informed them early on that I wanted the option of keeping what was left of the car. They sent an appraiser out, but he reported back that he wasn't qualified to make a value judgement because it was such an oddball case, so they farmed it out to a private firm. I never had direct contact with them, but they got all of the information I had provided to the insurance company. Ended up agreeing to a figure that was pretty close to the average of the values from the auctions, which I thought was very generous. The deduction from the settlement for me to salvage the remains was reasonable, as well. They also gave me a little extra for being slightly injured, and replaced my eyeglasses. I'm not much for putting my financial details on the internet, but I guess if you were really curious you could use that information to get an idea of the final payout.

All in all, I am perfectly satisfied. I had somebody tell me I should have called one of those personal injury firms and I could have been set for life, but I just wanted a fair value for my car. No sense in pushing my luck. I'm still amazed and appreciative that I walked away. Insurance-wise, I anticipated a much more difficult process than it ended up being. Honestly, everybody I dealt with was polite and professional. It all took a while, but that was OK.

As far as the state of poor old Shadetree, it remains on that trailer covered by a tarp. Still kind of breaks my heart every time I drive by it. I am in the daydreaming/fantasizing stage of the rebuild, which may last quite a while. I have a full set of '37 axles with the mechanical brakes and wide five rims. Since I have to replace the Model A diff, anyway, I'm toying with using them along with my frame (which seems remarkably undamaged, knock on wood) and engine. Like I said, still dreaming it all up. I'll be sure to document the work when I get back to it.

 

Thanks for the update @rwrj. Glad you are happy with the insurance outcome.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

 

Can hardly wait to see your updates with lots of pictures. We just of pictures.

 

So happy to here that you are physically and financially good.
Lucky doesn't even begin to describe your journey.
Tim

 

Well, I've been pretty busy for an old retired dude, but I have finally found the time and enthusiasm to see if I can do something about my speedster. It's just been sitting covered on that trailer since I drug it home, but yesterday I winched it off of there and set it up on jack stands. Cold front came through last night, so I left it covered again.



The rain was past this morning, so I decided to strip it to a bare chassis. The post-wreck state of it was pretty depressing:



Somehow part of the car that hit me got mixed in with my parts when they towed it. That's it leaning against the back wheel. Anyway, after a couple of hours I had a pile of busted up crap and the semi-intact cowl off of it.





That's the old roller on the left rear. Flat and bald, but that turned out to be a good thing. That drum is bent (and locked) all up, so I had to skid it off of the trailer.

So, that's where I am for now. Next step will be to pull the front and rear axles/wishbones off and start looking at grafting some '37 stuff I have lying around on in their place. Using what I have, like always. I think the rear tire getting knocked off acted as kind of a circuit breaker. That and the fact that the car was so light. The bell on that side of the banjo is bent, as is the wishbone, but to the naked eye the frame looks straight still. Knock on wood. I'll check it in more detail, of course. Hope nobody is in a rush, though, I'll be moving at my usual piddling rate, I suspect.

 

Good to see progress.

 

Only just found out about the wreck. Glad you are ok. Good luck with the rebuild.

 

Glad to see you back at it @rwrj looking forward to seeing your updates.

 

What a crappy turn of events. First off, I'm glad that you were not seriously hurt because of this. Shadetree was very cool and I appreciated the innovation you used to make or re-purpose parts to fit the character of the car. Hope to see more from you in the future.

 

Thanks to all. I'm still in the daydreaming/planning stages here. The next step was to wheel the '37 front and rear ends around so I could get an idea of height and stance and wheelbase and all. First, though, I had to free up the brakes on both front wheels and one of the rears. The fronts were easy, just back off the adjuster, unscrew those elegant threaded grease caps, remove the cotter pins, castle nuts, and outside bearings, grab the tires and shake the hell out of it. I even heard the shoes pop back on one side. Re-assemble and roll it. The rear was a bit more trouble. I didn't want to get into pulling a rear drum right now (I'll of course have to go through those brakes, if I don't swap to juice) but some judicious knocks around the edge of the drum with a 2lb hammer got it wiggling a tiny bit, and I worked it out from there.
Anyway, I have been through days of trying different positions and heights to get to something I think I'm happy with. I want it lower and shorter than old Shadetree was, but not "modern" low, if you know what I mean. For now, I'm pretty satisfied with this look:



Those front wheels will probably come back a couple of inches. I'm going to switch to the correct 28/29 radiator, so it won't be so tall. That poor old busted up seat is just up there to give me a location from the pedals. I'm afraid it's not really salvageable. Haha.

This is going to be a lot more involved, chassis-wise, than the original build. I'll have to shorten the torque tube/driveshaft and the frame and step it in the rear. I think just one thickness, like Tardel outlines. I'm planning to keep the Model A crossmember back there and use the Model A spring. Mostly because I like the look better than a straight C channel crossmember, but also because I like the idea of some solid iron poking up a little higher behind me. Recent events have made me a little sensitive about that. Ha.



I'll step it forward of the rear end, so I get a little suspension travel. I don't want to get into fabricating a U-shaped section for the axle to run up in. I haven't personally seen anything like that in old pre-war photographs.

For the front, I'm planning on a kind of suicide perch, keeping the spring in front as-is. I'll have to split the wishbone, though.



That's about it for now. I'll leave a couple of perspective shots. Maybe I should start a new thread? I'm torn, because this is still good old Shadetree, just kind of rising from the ashes. Knock on wood.

 

Keep this thread going, no need for a new one. You can change/alter the title if you wish and everyone who has been following will still get notifications.

 

since you mention 'rising from ashes'---make sure and use some ash wood trim inside! congrats for starting to saddle the horse -next step is to get on!

 

Holy cow, this is getting good!!!

 

Well, not a lot of progress to report. I found an aluminum 28/29 radiator for really cheap on the internet. I think the shorter height will be just right. Not going to worry about a shell yet. Carts and horses. Anyway, I just couldn't resist hopping in and checking the fit. I probably won't end up sitting this low, but I was curious about vision over the radiator, figured I'd check the lowest possible setting. Do you think the timer on my phone caught me making vroom-vroom noises? As my father would say, can a fat baby fart?



I had already removed the torque tube and driveshaft in that picture so I can eventually shorten them, which let me get the rear wheels about where I think they'll end up. I wasn't the first to remove that stuff. Sometime in the past somebody replaced the pin through the rear splines with a bolt. It wasn't up to the job.



Everything else looks ok, though.



By the way, the rear end is the expected 3.78 ratio, same as my old Model A unit. I sure loved how she drove with those tall rear tires, though. No way I can replicate that on these 16" wheels. Too bad this rear isn't one of the 3.5whatever ones. Oh well.

Next job is to split the wishbone in front. My old trusty Marvel #12 hacksaw made (relatively) short work of cutting the center forging loose.





You know, a sharp hacksaw blade pulled tight is a wonderful thing.

That's all for now. 'Tis the season, after all, and my time is not entirely my own.

 

Awesome thread man. And glad to hear you are okay with the wreck!! Ever need a beer around Midway area, hit me up...

 

I'll keep that in mind, Kustom. Had to look up where Midway is. I'd have to go through Waycross to get there. Hahaha.

I managed to steal a little time from the Santa circuit to conduct a quick experiment on bending bones, which I have never done before (this is either my 2nd build, or still my 1st, depending on how you look at it). I don't have a rosebud tip for my antique Purox torch, so I used my biggest regular one (No. 6) and heated just behind the perch, concentrating more heat on the side that would be compressed by the bending. I don't know if I'm right about this or not, but I've bent some pretty heavy stuff in my time (some of it on purpose haha) and my experience is that it's more likely to tear on the tension (outside) side of the bend if that has the most heat.



Then I sat down and braced one foot against the offside bone, grabbed the end of the near one with one hand while keeping the torch on it with the other, leaned back and pulled. Wasn't trying for much at this stage.



I'm shooting for a kind of gradual bend, so I moved the torch back about 2" and repeated the process.



Same thing, another 2" back.



All in all, a successful experiment. I feel pretty confident I can make this approach work. The easier plan would be to just heat and bend the spring perches and keep the bones straight. Bending the bones instead should give me a little better turning radius. My understanding is that on these spring-in-front setups the straight bones (split) compromise that a good deal. Hohoho

 

Looking good @rwrj I see you are still committed to you thread titles description of your work place, a bit chilly there?
Merry Christmas to you & all your mob.

 

OK. This will be a lot of reading, but you all can always just skip to the pictures. Kind of like old Hefner's magazine, back in the day.
Ever since the demise of my original speedster, I have been thinking of how it could be improved, while maintaining my philosophy of keeping it cheap and using what I have. I wanted it lower, and I wanted the engine to be farther behind the front axle. Old Shadetree was a little light on the rear end. It was never a problem, but it wasn't ideal, either. Especially on dirt roads. I originally planned to move the engine back, but that involves moving 3 of the 4 crossmembers. I don't have a frame table (surprised?) and, while I know that can be overcome, I wasn't looking forward to doing it. The 1937 front end is what kickstarted my imagination. It's spring won't fit the Model A crossmember, so that was going to have to be addressed, somehow. What if I moved it out to the end of the frame horns, I thought? That puts the front axle about 6 or 7 inches in front of the original crossmember. Moving the wheels forward has the same effect on the balance of the car as moving the motor back. If I shorten the rear of the frame, that helps even more. So, that's what I decided to do.
The initial mock-up was promising:



You can also see it in the last picture of post 1065. Like I said, promising, but when I got the car as low as I wanted it there wasn't much room between the frame horn and the axle. "Too bad those frame horns don't turn up instead of down" I says to myself. Blam. Another epiphany. I made a paper tracing of the frame horn and played around with it until I liked the angle.



A 3/4" wedge got me where I wanted to be, but I decided to go with two 3/8" ones for a little more curve-like result. I made this doohickey:





Sitting each ear on a nut lets me bisect the curve so the sides of the pie-cuts are roughly the same length.

Honesty compels me to admit that I used an angle grinder to cut these. I have a partially torn bicep at the moment, a side effect of not admitting that advancing age brings limitations, I guess. Anyway, here's what I ended up with:





Rolled the front end back under.











That should be enough clearance, I hope. I have plenty of fine tuning to do to level up those horns and build a perch for the spring, and I have no illusions about that skinny pipe as a permanent front crossmember (Don't worry, I'll either replace it or reinforce it. It is thick-walled, but still...). All in all, though, I'm pretty tickled with how it turned out. I know a lot of guys don't like those spring in front set-ups, but I kind of do. As always, I'm a form follows function kind of person, and I enjoy figuring out how to use what I have on hand. Happy New Year.

 

I've done a bit of work on my spring perch. Let me say right off of the bat that this will all be reinforced, so please don't be concerned I'll trust my life (or anybody else's) to it as-is. Work in progress, and all that. Anyway, I'm starting with that heavy wall pipe that fits so well in the ends of the frame horns. First step was to make some tight fitting plugs I can weld in the ends. I just turned down some bar stock on each end, cut the chunk in two, and flattened what would be the outside ends.









Those are pretty much a drive fit. I'm planning to use some heavy angle iron I have for the actual bracket. After trimming it roughly to size, I tacked it on the tube and let the weight of the car sit on the spring so I could get an idea how high it needed to rise above the level of the frame ends to get the stance I want.





Just butt welding it onto that tube seemed iffy, at least with my welding, so I decided to have it pass all the way through. Just a matter of careful marking, careful center punching, careful drilling, a little work with a naked hacksaw blade and some files, and done.









There's a matching slot on the other side. A little fiddling on the high spots and the angle would pass all the way through.



I drilled the mounting holes, spot welded that angle in there square and level and at the right height, and took the whole mess out to the car to check. The height was just right, but I thought that the spring was a little too close to the ends of the frame horns.



It's a little hard to tell from that picture, but the spring is only about 1/16" from the front of those frame horns. Just seemed like future trouble to me. I was pretty discouraged, thought I had wasted a bunch of time, but I had an idea. If I could increase the angle of the angle iron (?), that would move the spring and axle forward. Off to my old hand-cranked forge and beat up anvil.





Sorry I couldn't get any red-hot action photos. Doing this by myself, not enough hands. Anyway, back over to the car to try again. I'm pretty happy with the spring/frame gap now, and I even like the look. Seems a little more purposeful than the straight 90 degree angle did.



I like the way the frame horns might catch the axle if any of that bracketry fails. I'm planning on triangular gussets on either side of the angle and running over to the frame rails, and some kind of bracing from the top of the angle back and out to the rails by the crossmember. Still puzzling all of that out. Surely you didn't think I had a plan and drawings already? Haha.

And yes, Virginia, that is 4-day old snow on the ground in SW GA. We had the heaviest snowfall since the 1890s this week. Go figure.

 

tell santa or the easter bunny you want a whizzer!!

 

First, I sure am sorry this happened. Second, I'm happy there were no serious injuries. Third, I'm looking forward to following along as you develop ol Shade Tree II.

 

I have been thinking about bracing my new front crossmember. Seems to me I need to keep it from twisting rearward and keep the tube from bending. I think welding that big angle in there should help the bending problem, it only has about 6 or 8 inches of unsupported tube on each side of that center structure, but I needed a way to resist that twist. I looked around in the junk pile(s) for inspiration and found this thing. It was on the back of an old Model T frame my father and I rescued from the woods back in the '70s. I think it is a spare tire carrier?



Those dogleg arms looked promising, so I ground the rivet heads off and separated them. They had brackets at the ends that I didn't need, so I got rid of those. Anybody who doesn't believe rivets are an effective way to join metal ought to try taking apart old original Henry Ford chassis parts. Gracious.



These were also induction welded in a couple of spots, but I think that was an assembly aid, maybe? You can see the little shiny spots if you look hard. They popped loose way easier than those damn rivets (with the heads ground off). Anyway, I ended up with two brackets that only needed a bit of notching and bending to let me see if they would work like I wanted.





That spring clamp is just to keep it from singing so loud while I cut it.
Here's what I'm thinking:





There is plenty of adjusting and tinkering left to do here, but it looks promising to me. Funny how things work out sometimes. Isn't serendipity the word for that? I think it's cool that I'm using old Ford steel, and that (to me, at least) it lends a bit of credibility and authenticity to this jackleg front end project.

 

Great use of old parts, I was only talking about this frontend setup with a friend the other day. Good to see you moving forward

 

I'm trying to work out one of those 3D engineering things in my head and sometimes it makes my head hurt! By heating and changing the angle of the spring pad to gain clearance, does it affect the shackles or do your wishbones just follow the new path?

 

I really love watching you work through the build, solving problems, and following your thought process.
But, wow, you really need to invest in a grinder with a cutoff wheel. Cutting those slots in the round bar would have been so much easier.
I think the front end is going to look great with those extra support brackets.