I used to build models all the time as a kid. I have a bunch waiting to get built right now but haven't found the right motivation yet. Is the salt on the body/tires just paint or some other effect?
It’s mostly water with a little white acrylic paint flicked off a paint brush. On the tires it’s a small painted brush and the same white but not watered down. I had to keep myself from adding to much detail because at the scale it would look wrong/ too in focus. So I just aimed for the right energy/motion/ general areas
Reminds me of when the first AMT 3 in 1 kits came out with the '25 T roadster. They were $1.25 and I only had $1.00. I walked the alley behind the hobby store, picked up a few Coke bottles, and "returned" them to the grocery store. I bought the T kit and sent years building those things. I'm almost done with my new greenhouse. Send me that hot rod seed and we'll see if it grows.
I wish I still had my models. When I went to college my mom moved (but I found her anyway) and gave my models & one of my Lionel electric trains to my feral cousins. The wild children destroyed them.
At the risk of derailing Tim's thread, I gotta comment. While I was in the Navy my model cars, Hot Rod (& other) magazines, and baseball cards all disappeared. They are probably 100' down on the bottom of the landfill pile in the town where Mom/Dad lived at the time. b-t-w; most of those models came from the local Rexall drug store and also cost $1.25 in the early '60s when I was in elementary school. Back to Tm's Model A...
Spent the afternoon allotment of garage time taking a wire brush to the 16x4 wheels I had picked out. Elbow grease reveals one good wheel and one that needs some repairs. For the moment I’m not feeling like that’s an added project I want to add on so I’m going to take a tape measure to a few more of my wheels and see if I havnt got another 4” floating around. I think that I’ve got one in the mix in the rollers I took off the 46 when it got the chromed wheels put on. the weathers looking cold and the tire changing station isn’t exactly climate controlled so I’ve been trying to get these ready so when a “decent” day presents itself I can be ready.
Another wheel update. This time with photos. this is the wheel I want to do some work on before running it. It’s an otherwise nice 16x4 ford wheel but there a little pock about 10:30 on the valve stem hole and the center rivet is a little dished in the center. Nothing a little weld can’t shore up but I’m just not really in that zone right now. So I’m gonna clean the better/good one up and pull this black one off the roadster mock up. it’s to my knowledge a 16x4 1939 Lincoln wheel but I’ve never measured it. So I measured from the center ring on the back side to the back edge of the wheel on both and they are the same. The face/front was a little harder to measure with a wheel on but I think they are the same. If they are different it’s a 1/16 or less at the wheel lip you can see in the photos above the hoop/rim of the wheels are differently shaped. Where my thumb is on the ford wheel is wider with a crisper corner to the shape, where the Lincoln wheel is narrower and the transition in the corner is rounded. anyhow it wasn’t fridged today so I opened up the paint booth and got after it. I wire brushed it for half an hour yesterday and uncovered a lot of black paint and lines and today I took some co**** sandpaper to the lip where the bead of the tire lands. Laid on the paint with a brush, should have waited til I had a foam one because picking bristles out with a pick wasn’t any fun, but got it done and dry in time to bring it inside before dark. gonna wait for another nice day then go bug my buddy with the tire mounting rig and get the rubber swapped around. pretty excited to see the front on steelies to be honest. oh and the ford ring and cap fit the mopar wheels! Very very tight on the center cap but I damn near had to tear them off the ford wheels so seems about the same. Don’t think I’ll run the rings or this cap but good to know on could.
Little update. I got about 70% through installing a pan hard bar in the rear of the car. after a little head scratching holding things in place I gave the guys at Pete and Jakes a call to confirm that the rear pan hard on the 8” they sell runs from the drivers side to the p***enger frame rail. Not sure why, maybe it’s because the pinion if off set and it seemed stronger to run it from this side? Who knows. Either way everything lined up nice but it was just to snug to get the smaller bracket on. I tried opening a hole with a rat tail file and couldn’t get it there so I took a step drill that had a size juuuuuusst a hair bigger than what was already drilled and ran it through. That on I put the larger bracket on and put the through bolt on before snugging them up. The third member bolts seem plenty long enough to hold the bracket, and the pinion bolts were enough to easily catch threads and so I’m unsure if I need to get longer bolts for that or not. Any opinions? After getting that all together I mocked up and measured the bar, the frame brackets and the bushing tube that goes on the end of the bar. Ended up with a bar around 21-22 inches long. Happy with my measurements I mocked it up again before running it through the band saw. I’m really impressed with how beefy and thick all of this stuff is. All that’s left is making a little dish/cope/ notch for the bushing tube to register in the end of the bar and tack it all together. It’s about 1/8” deep so I think I can mark a center line and tap it with a rough flap disc a few times and be there easy enough. The frame side brackets, double sheer, end up right on the boxing plate but I havnt cemented that area yet so they’ll just get a quick tack to stay in place. I don’t need this to do anything other than confirm it doesn’t bind and hold its place in the 5 lb sack as I try to shove in ten more pounds. Should be able to get it ****oned up early next week and move onto shocks. Also because it was hard finding a photo of this bracket online I’m gonna add this so it pops up in peoples search’s in the future. Pete and Jakes panhard bar 8” ford.
Alright let’s make the bar part! cut the bar down last time in the band saw and roughly marked the depth of the little notch the bar came with. Hit it with a flap disc and made a new 1/8” deep belly and mocked it up wanted it centered and square or at least as close as I’m gonna get it. I've been really pleased at how thick everything I’ve received from Pete and Jakes has been. Nice little bevel/ counter sink on the threaded end to help get the threads started easier. put the bushing and crush tube in the end and bolted the tabs to each side of the bar. Bumper bracket is in the way so I just used a big *** magnet to hold it in place for the moment. plenty of room. I’m happy with this set up. Got a few ideas brewing for the rear shock upper mounts. I’m mainly having to work around the rear bumper brackets at the rear cross member but I got a little light bulb of an idea today so we’ll see how that turns out next.
So moving onto the shock mounts. My current plan is the previously shown 90 deg bracket with stud similar to an AD Chevy truck for the lower mount and these Pete and Jake uppers. you can just barely see the bracket welded to the axle where the lower will bolt to in this photo. These beefy bumper brackets are what has caused my head scratching at a few spots. The very end folds and goes inside the top frame flange, and the bracket where it goes over the rear cross member is in the way of my running the shocks as far out and vertical and I would like. My pending solution for the first issue, the tab inside the rail, is to get the bend very very hot and hit it with a hammer. Folding the bend flat I can then weld a nut into the backside of the boxing plate and just bolt it in. Its probably not going to take as much leverage as the stock situation but in all honesty all I’m asking of this “bumper” is a place to hang a plate and exhaust hangers, somewhere sturdy I can push the car around in the driveway, and in the future a mount for a deck or trunk of trips. It hasn’t got to be able to hold the entire car up. Though to be honest that would be really nice lol. I think the angle is about right with the upper in the same place as the bracket that holds the bumper mount to the top of the rear cross member. Sitting them on top of each other it clicked in my head that if the bumper bracket and the shock bracket want to be in the same place just make one bracket do both jobs. I’m 90% sure I can drive the two rivets out of the bumper bracket and make it bolt to the shock bracket and be right where I want to be. The first mock up will be removing the entire bumper and brackets and taking it apart so I can put the p***enger side bracket on the drivers side - which doesn’t line up anything at all but does put the bracket on the other side so I am free to put the shock mount in place with out swearing at nearly 100 year old ford rivets four an hour or two first. With “hold it up and look” mock ups the only other interference I can see being an issue is the upper dust shield might rub. But it might not. Anyhow that’s my ideas for now.
Alright, update time! For Christmas my wife bought me a t-90 top plate/ shifter etc. Yesterday after some shipping confusion it showed up and I’m pretty happy with it! It appears to me that the unit offered by jeep retailers, summit and Amazon are all the same unit/source so I went with Amazon because I’m comfortable with their return policy’s and other things ***ociated with third party sellers working threw them. Kinda like buying parts from eBay for retailers that are normaly lax on getting parts out the door because eBay won’t let that slide generally. Aaaaaanyhow…. The great big box showed up, maybe 4 feet long? With absolutely not a drop of packing material. They must have put the kid gloves on the whole way from door to door because even the box was mostly fine! wrapped in heavy plastic with a plastic tub wired over the forks the reviews on this part seemed “good enough” for me. Some mentioned them needing some clean up or fussing with but for the price point I figured if I have to mess with it to use it it’s still less money/ effort that finding one myself that needs gone through and rebuilding it myself. It says the come from India and from the condition it makes me think India made cj2 jeeps for a very long time and someone’s got a stash and is rebuilding them. Works for me. everything is covered in a thin coat of oil and is very sharp and snappy. If I hold the bottom between my legs I can bang the shifter from reverse to first and vice versa but I can’t get enough side force to get it into neutral. The springs are very stuff but I think once it’s on/in the trans it’ll be just peachy. this is the plastic tub that covered the forks. I zip tied it back on for storage but honestly if you find something like this it would be perfect for any top shifter storage or shipping. I didn’t try but I bet it fits a 39 ford. which I of course held side by side for a look. I know I’ve heard people contemplating if one could be forced into service on this trans. At a glance you might be able to force one into service but at the price point of the cj2 t-90 shifter vs the ford stuff I don’t know if I would bother unless you had a ford shifter and felt like a challenge. Alright so quick mock up time. I just gotta know! So this plate gets pulled…. And the t-90 goes in its place. I need to check the shifter throw once its in place but sure looks like once it’s dropped down into place it should be perfect! Yup. That’ll work! To make this work with an over drive equipped transmission you need to make some modifications, you need the over drive to be locked off when you shift into reverse but it’s a pretty minor modification in the scheme of things. I’ll mess with it when I pull the trans out and get into that stuff. Other than making sure I have right leg/ throttle clearance there’s no reason to mess with it now. So that’s my update! Lots of photos, big score parts wise but nothing to elaborate. Kids holiday break is finally over so if the weather will warm the garage up a bit I’m hoping to get back to making progress. Still thinking rear shock mounts are next.
I'll be watching when you make those modifications to the forks for the reverse kickout. My '26 Chevy is getting the same set up. I also have a link to somewhere that did it.
Cool! I found it on a website that looked like it was made in 1999 I’ve probably linked to it but I’ll be sure to add the info when I get there
I approve of this message. That shifter looks like it's going to fit perfect and be right where you want it....unless you are planning on extending it so you your Normskull is looking directly out the windshield. LOL
That 39 top looks real close. Thats crazy if that box came from India with no packing material and still showed up in that good of shape. I agree with the others looks like its going to work well. Glad I was able to see this one in person last week. Stoked for all the progress youve made recently
I've been going back through your thread for ideas/inspiration. I think I'm about 1/3 of the way through now . One question I may have missed the answer to: Did you find a good method that worked for you for taking out the old rivets? I'm trying to take out the rivets holding the bed subrails to the pickup bed (along with others) and I am failing impressively.
@05snopro440 i noticed! There’s not really an easy way to get them out. Right now if I have to do it I take an aggressive flap disc on a grinder and take them flat on both sides if I can reach them and then take a good step drill bit to the center of the rivet and then pound a small drift with a big hammer into the hole. I think the idea is to have the outside of the rivet collapse inwards into the hole. I bet an air hammer with a little punch on the end would rattle them out quicker than swinging a hammer but they are just tough no getting around it.
Thanks man. In my misguided attempts I've skipped the drilling step. Even with the air hammer they just don't want to budge. I'll try drilling the center and see if that gets me better results. Luckily the current subrails were torched by someone, so at least I don't care about that side.
I grind one end flat, which ever is easiest to get to. I drill a hole through. I have a drift I ground so a half inch or so loosely fits in the hole with a shoulder a little smaller than the rivet. I hit it with a large hammer after I heat it red with a torch. Works pretty good. I'm still working on a one guy way to back up the back side to put new ones in.
Similarly except without the heat. In 1992 I removed some motor mount brackets from Clarence's frame near the front crossmember. I ground the heads smooth with the surrounding frame, used a punch just slightly smaller than the rivet diameter, and hit them with a BFH. Every one of them came out. It took a few hits to determine just how hard to hit the punch but eventually it became almost easy. The grinding took some time but once the method was perfected the hitting with a punch took only seconds. I used the same method when turning the rear spring hangers up-side-down about 15 years ago. Removed all the rivets and used double nutted grade 8 bolts to reinstall the hangers in the new positions.
The Jalopy Journal
