Projects Tomcat’s Crazy '31 Model A Build Thread (2010-?)

Thanks for the kind words Mikey. I read a lot of your posts and have to say your Model A pretty bad a$$!

 

Finished up the Stainless exhaust this last weekend. Here's some details.

Started with these hangers and some old school style clamps in 304 SST. The quality of the hangers was not very good so I drilled out the rivets, saved the rubber bits, and threw the rest in the trash.




Seems everything you buy comes in a bit rough so a fair amount of work went into making these clamps presentable.


Here they are after many hours of sanding and buffing.




After a lot of measuring I made a template, measured some more, then fabricated these frame brackets from some left over 1/8" x 1-1/2" flat stock. I wanted hangers that were simple, short, and light.


Some special bolts were needed to replace the drilled out rivets so I cut down some longer 5/16-18 SST bolts to take advantage of the longer shank. A few extra threads were added then they got polished.


I made some tabs out of 1/8" x 1" 304 SST flat stock, polished them, then welded them to the clamp U-bolts. I also narrowed up the rubber bits about an 1/8" cause they just looked too bulky.


Here's the finished hardware, and no I don't have OCD....or do I?


Brackets tack welded in place.




This was my first stainless steel exhaust system and probably my last. Crazy amount of work to get the result I wanted.




Done!

 

Last week I dug this vintage accessory light out of my parts stash. Made some SST hardware upgrades, a mounting bracket, a ground wire, then mounted it for use as a back up light. Well, now I'm trying to decide if I like it or not.

 

I did the same thing for my '29 AA but I like your bracket a lot more. Very nice!

 

Thanks man. I just got through replacing the original yellow wire because it was too stiff and brittle from age. Took the pig tail out of a trailer license plate light which is exactly the same .

This light is really not weather prof so I added a rubber grommet to the housing for the wire and covered the new wire with some heat shrink tubing. There's no seal for the gl*** lens or trim ring either. Maybe some O-rings? If water gets inside it's going to have a short life.

 

Good tip on the weatherproofing. I'll have to take mine apart and run the traps on that.

 

Been working on punch list of smaller details the past couple of weeks. Finished welding the Chromoly Track Bar. Super deep weld prep on this tube which is 1.00 O.D. x.160" wall. Took 3 p***es at 130 amps. Slowly cooled to room temp between p***es. Two rosette welds were added for extra security.


Then for ****s & giggles I polished it just to see what it would look like.


Got the front brake hoses mocked up and the tabs tacked to the frame. The hoses are actually 2 rear hoses for a 1970 Dodge A100. Ran into a snag and had to open up the holes in the tabs a bit because these rear Dodge hoses have a hex on them (Left) instead being round like the F100 hose I used on the rear axle.


Had to make a couple of brackets from some 1-1/2" x 1/8" angle along with some brake line fittings and washers to be able to clamp the tabs and hoses in place and check for clearance and freedom of movement.






Very time consuming because I wanted these tabs parallel with the centerline of the ch***is and they needed to be in just the right spot fore and aft.






Out of my parts collection comes this vintage NOS Mallory Volt Master II Coil and special rubber mount Mallory offered back then. These came out in '69 so not quite period correct but, personally I think these are the best dam coils ever made. I mounted it inside under the dash to keep it out of the rain and out of sight.


Firewall side mocked up with a Double Life YC-310-HP.


Also dis***embled the rear shocks and springs using these redneck spring compressors. Up until now I had no idea what these springs were rated at. Turns out they are 200# but, they were previously mounted at a 30 deg. angle. Now that I'm mounting them straight up they are going to be too stiff and my wallet is going to be too empty


Recently scored this cool old Cal-Custom dimmer switch cover. Spent a little time sanding out some dings and scratches and it polished up nice. You don't find these all too often anymore. Here it is before and after.


After some love.


I don't know why but, I Love this car ****!

 

The progress continues. The rear shock bodies had lots of maroon body color overspray on them so that got cleaned up. The adjuster knobs got removed, cleaned and lubricated then the new 150# coils were installed. The installed height, bump and rebound travel distances got checked and are now where they should be.


Rear suspension got broken down and the 9 inch is out. The 307 SBC and transmission are back out. The dash board was taken out and a ton of upholstery adhesive was removed from inside the cowl.


I cut some pieces of 12-24 threaded rod and ground a point on them. This allowed me to match drill the front floor panel and toe board panel to make them removable using the factory Model A threaded inserts. 10-32 square nuts got tack welded in place for the screws that attached the two panels together and to the firewall. 12-24 Truss head screws and some #12 SST spacers from McMaster-Carr finished it off.










All the parts for the body lift had rusted so they got cleaned up with a 50/50 mix of concrete cleaner and water to remove the rust and then got a coat of rattle can Rustoleum. These are going to need some new holes drilled for the new body mount positions.


Trailer jacks got washed up as well. Hopefully the body will be up off the ch***is in the next couple days.