After almost 10 years lurking on the HAMB, I'm finally starting a build thread. I bought this model A off of craigslist, just about everything but a body. At first glance it looks to have been restored at some point. Look a little closer and it looks like someone just poured buckets of paint on everything and called it restored. It has a Borg Warner R10 overdrive installed that is cable operated. This will be the only major component newer than about 1942. It came with a pretty nice set of 1935 ford wires that will be cleaned up and used. I hope to keep the banger at least for now. If it's in good shape it will get some basic speed equipment. My plan with this build is first to get it running and driving, while I sort out the rest of the plan. Here we go... I pulled the dipstick and the pan has oil in it, I spun it by hand a couple times. Everything seems ok so far. I pulled the distributor cap for a look inside. Uugghhh.....not pretty it been out in the weather for a while. I pulled it apart a little, it will spin but not easily. Should I rebuild it or find another? Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
pre war is the way to go!! nice start. keep the banger. make it driveable with the banger. the over drive will be really nice if it works. keep the pictures coming. ask lots of questions..!
Great start to what sounds like a good plan. Oh, and I'd just get a new distributor, they are pretty easy to find good and cheap.
There's a guy on eBay who rebuilds A distributors, I'm sure you could get one from him and send yours in as a core if that helps anything. Cool project, what are you planning for a body? I'd like to know more about the overdrive setup, too.
Thanks for the kind words. I saw that macs has rebuild kits for the distributor for about $80. Does anyone have any experience with these kits? Plans for the body depends on what I stumble on. I'm building this on a pretty tight budget. A roadster pickup would be easiest on the wallet, I think. I would love to build it with an A roadster body but they are a little out of my price range...at least for now. I also have been staring at cut down sport coupes. I think if you could rework the cowl area for a roadster windshield they could be bitchin. I also could use the extra room since I'm 6'3". Posted using my fat fingers, excuse the typo's.
Drilled out all the rivets for the running board brackets this morning. Funny how taking little things off instantly makes you feel like your building a hot rod. I needed to get them off without screwing up the holes in the frame because I won't be filling any of the holes. Talked to my dad before I started, he recommended flattening the rivets with a grinder then center punching and drilling them out. Worked perfect, thanks dad. Also found that grinding the rivets down almost flush with the brackets cut down on drilling time by alot. Posted using my fat fingers, excuse the typo's.
Hi, CT! Nice project. That distributor looks like it absorbed some water, all right. I made a plastic tank electric bath some time back, had a distributor that was at least that bad. 2 days in the 12 volt water ridded it of all that rust...everything polished up nicely. Replaced the springs, used the rest. If you do exchange it, the core will be nice & clean...and you'll know all about distributors. How did the previous owner adapt that Overdrive??? Not a 'factory option'...
The overdrive unit is welded to the torque tube. From what I've read it sounds like this setup first became popular with model A restorers in the 70's. I've found a few pictures of similar set ups. Bill Swigart is the name I keep running across as being an authority on these conversions. I still haven't seen one just like this one. It is cable operated with 2 cables. I need to keep searching to find out how it is supposed to be used. Posted using my fat fingers, excuse the typo's.
Congrats CTKing - good looking start to your A-bone. Keep it simple and keep at it and you'll have a great looking ride. Keep posting th epics for us all to see. Cheers.
I will be trying to keep an update coming every Tuesday. I got a little bit done today, front brakes got put back together. Had to mildly polish all the pins due to pitting. Everything went together easily and a little anti-seize should keep it moving freely. I was also able to pull the rear drums off for the first time. I know all the model A sites say you need the big hub puller, but all I had was a bigger 3-jaw puller. It worked fine with no excitement. I will be going thru the rear brakes on Sunday. Next I disassembled my distributor. It started like this... I pressed the upper shaft and advance assembly out of it with an arbor press. These little guys got ground down to fit on one side of the bottom end on the upper shaft. It came apart easily but after bead blasting the advance plates I found them pitted well beyond being useable. Because of the centrifugal advance and the little bit I have read, I believe this to be an OE style distributor for a model B banger. Can anyone confirm this? The tag reads AutoLite 1456A. Also, does anyone sell a complete upper shaft with the centrifugal advance assembly and distributor cam? I have searched Mac's and Snyder's and have not been able to find anything. Posted using my fat fingers, excuse the typo's.
Thanks. I drained the oil out of the engine yesterday. Before I saw any oil, I drained about 2-3 ounces of water out of the bottom of the pan. This stuff has been sitting for a long while. I am still hopeful that the bottom end is in decent shape. There isn't any rust in the cylinders, even toward the bottom. I will pull the pan in the next couple days to inspect and adjust the bearings if needed. If everything looks the way it should I can start collecting all the little things I need to make it run. There are a few different methods posted on the internet about adjusting the main and rod bearings. I am going to try the tin foil method. I will document my experience here. I've got my fingers crossed until the pan comes off. Posted using my fat fingers, excuse the typo's.
When you have the pan off check to make sure there are no rust holes in the dip tray. this happens sometimes when "A" sits with some water in pan. With a hole in dip tray that rod has no oil, at first, on a sitting startup.
I am not sure what dist. you have but I dont believe it is a B model. You can find B models on Ebay easy enough and them get parts to rebuild them here.. Renner's Corner Early Ford Parts. With that dist you have being so rusty I would also pull the valve side cover to see if the rust traveled down the shaft to the valve area.
Bob that little car is badass. Looks like you're having a blast with it. The simplicity of that car is refreshing. Thanks for the tips guys, looking forward to getting the pan off after work to tonight. 62pan, I have been searching for info on that distributor. I haven't found much yet. I got a good 4 or 5 hours in searching the part number on it. I'm still pretty much empty-handed. All it needs is the centrifugal advance assembly on the upper shaft, and points, cap, rotor of course. I will keep searching, somebody's got one somewhere. I'm really trying to stay within my means for this build, which puts me on a pretty tight budget. I would like to avoid spending 2-400 dollars on a new or rebuilt distributor. This one is in good shape except the advance assy, the bushings are tight, and the body cleaned up nicely. Posted using my fat fingers, excuse the typo's.
Tuesday update time. I got a little done today. I pulled the engine and put in on a stand, then removed the oil pan and oil pump. The oil pump will be getting a rebuild in a couple weeks, just for peace of mind. The water that was in the pan rusted away a section of the locating spring, so I added that to the parts list. I began by pulling the main and rod caps one at a time and for damage, or signs of a abuse. No sense in starting the bearing adjustment until I knew the condition of all the bearings, especially when I don't know the history of this engine. Everything looked like it should, no cracked Babbitt or deep scratches. I guess it wasn't long ago, in this engines life that the bearings were adjusted, you can still see the witness mark from the last guy who checked clearances with plastigauge. I then started checking and adjusting the rod bearings. Starting with #1, I pulled the cap and cleaned away all the oil off of the cap and rod journal. I also cleaned the shims to ensure accurate measurements. Set the plastigauge on the journal and installed and torqued the cap. All my rod bearing clearances measured about .003" before adjustment. I measured the shims before removing them to try to keep both sides of each even. This engine has the thick brass shims that are made up of .002-.003" layers. I separated the layers with a razor blade. I removed a shim or two and repeated the plastigauge process until I got all the rods to .0015". It took a little patience and I did the mains the same way. I ordered a gasket set and some other parts from Snyder's. I'll take a little time off the project until my parts get delivered. Posted using my fat fingers, excuse the typo's.
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