Alternative uses for old Ford parts- you know any?

I've seen the river bank thing in a few magazine articles like National geografic one shot had all 50s cars about 20 of them lining a curve in the river .while not a t or a One guy I think in texas had a Ford econoline camper van put up in a tree and uses it as a deer blind !All the comforts of home with gun ports!another couple had their 50something Chevy pick up put in a tree on their front yard as a tree house !they use it when they want some quiet time .of course I've seen a bunch of cars or parts used as legit buisness signs a 50s compact sits atop a pole in Louden N.H.not for from the racetrack at a small repair shop and junk yard

 

An acquaintance asked me to price removing a school bus full of dirt from his creek bank. It was fine for 20 years, but then they built new homes and zoning gave him two weeks to get it gone.

 

I grew up in Columbus, Nebraska, and there were lots of rivers lined with old cars still. I remember going fishing with my Dad a lot and standing on trunks and roofs of many a tri-five Chevy (and about everything else)...oh, man! Now I'm kinda wondering if they're all still there...roadtrip!

 

"Wish I could find a 32 frame or something..." I did...I found a wagon based on a complete '32 chassis in Pennsylvania. I paid $25, delivered a few miles...pricey back then, but, still, I'm glad I bought it...
Generators: I have a book of conversions of Ford and other '20's-'30's car generators to produce 110 and a bunch of other purposes.
I've seem Pop Sci magazine plans for bench grinders built from A water pumps, drill presses and such based on Ford rears.
I've been told that the drive mechanisms in circus Merry go rounds and other such machines were factory conversions based on Ford truck rear ends. This allowed easy repairs and parts finding anywhere they went.
There were numerous commercial conversion heads that made T, A, and V8 engines into high capacity air compressors, running on every other cylinder and pumping with the others.
I have more pop sci articles on cutting down T engines into compact i and 2 cylinder farm engines.
No depression era farmer ever threw away anything metal...all repairs and construction of new gadgets started with a survey of the scrap pile of dead cars and stuff behind the barn.

 

Ever wonder why every other '32 through '36 Ford hubcap at a swap meet has a small hole in the middle?

Fence post caps.

 

"Fence post caps."

Pop Scie once, long ago, did an article on reader ideas for uses for the zillions of WWI surplus helmets on the market in the 20's...uses were generally pretty far fetched, but one was fence caps. Imagine miles and miles of evenly spaced helmets criss-crossing Kansas in 1920...
Bruce McCall the cartoonist did a pop sci parody issue in the 1970's...one of the tips, I have no doubt inspired by this, was using WWI surplus spats as jackets for your rabbits in winter...

 

My use: accumulate Ford parts until all compasses in the area point to my house. Copyright my house as the "East Pole", collect royalties.

 

I was just telling Merlin today... my garden hose is held by a rusty '33 Ford wheel lag bolted to a 4x4 post. I have a bird feeder made from a SBC flexplate suspended from small chain. and the obligatory tall jack stands from '46 Ford axle bells, a piece of 3" C-channel welded to the top and painted a lovely shade of purple. the banjo is being made into a mantle clock with a engine turned face.

 

No pictures but a T frame leaned up against a wall with some hooks welded to it makes an excellent rear end rack.

I use Trashed brake drums for door stops, but they make an excellent foot for a bench grinder stand.

An old friend of mine in the Ozarks (now deceased) used a T frame for gin poles in the back of his pickup. And when it snowed real heavy he had a basket he stacked full of rocks and stuck out on the end with it layed almost horizontal to give him traction.

 

Although I live in tornado alley now, I grew up in the rural south. Within a 5 mile radius of my home town there were literally dozens of A and T engines and shortened frames attached to "buzz saws" and cane mills. My grandfathers machine shop was originally powered by a either a dodge or chevy four cylinder that drove belt driven overhead jackshafts;he converted to electric power during WW II so he could do defense work. Most of the people I remember from that era could perform the impossible with absolutely nothing but their own inginuity and a few scrap parts. As a kid those things weren't important to me but they sure as hell are now; unfortunately most have been scrapped.

 

I have a cherry deuce grille shell that I use as a wheel chock for my 53 Plymouth....just kidding. But 57 Ford driveshafts made bitchin exhaust tips if you slash cut the fat part.

 

How about my new coffee table? It's a ford bolt pattern wheel

 

Both of my Deuce chasses I found as Hoover wagons out in the Sagebrush. Found a 32 Tudor sedan body out in the brush once too. I'm sure there's still some of it out there.

 

You guys have all the cool shit in the mid-west.

 

I saw a home-made barber shop chair that used a banjo housing for the floor mount, and a model T jack to pump it up.

 

The very first time I went sking in the late 1960's the ropetow pullies were 16 inch Ford wire wheels running on front hubs with the spindles sttached to poles. The bent torque tube from a wrecket Model t has been a mail box post in front of my house since 1978. I've seen model T Ford open car door hinges used as outhouse door hinges. The first time I ever took parts to a sandblaster was around 1966, a local graveyard headstone engraver. He had boxes and bushel baskets filled with porcelain license plates pre 1916 here in Connecticut. He was using them as template material for sandblasting shapes on headstones. Just last year there was a barn in New York state that was 50 feet high shingled with license plates. ALL NEW at one time, owner went to DMV at the end of the year and collected all the unissued plates, they were from the 1930's and installed in sequence.Model T Ford and early brass car side lanps were often converted to electric and used as front door lights on homes. Any 1940-55 car hood makes a great stone boat. I have a pile of Model A bumpers, axle shafts and front axles that are useless, but make for cheap rebar in the stone wall I'm building to block my view of the neighbors.

 

When my dad was a teen in the late '30's he used to spend his summers with relatives in Harrisonville, Missouri. He and one of his cousins would drive out in the country and ask the farmers if they had any old Model T's they wanted to sell, and around this part of the country every farmer had at least one 'T' sitting unused on their proprty. The usual going price was $.75-$2.00 for one depending on how much work it needed, and they would get them running and sell them to the local teens that weren't mechanically inclined and make a buck or so profit. One day they found a farmer that had a 'T' out in a field that had a circular saw attachment on the rear axle, but no fourth wheel, or spare either. The farmer didn't want it anymore, but wanted $3.00 for the car and saw. It seemed a bit high, but my dad and his cousin went to the local junkyard where they normally bought T parts and told the yard owner about it. He offered them $2.00 for the saw, plus gave them the wheel and tire they needed if they'd bring him the saw back. Model T's powered all kinds of farm contraptions back in the '20's. Air compressors have been mentioned too, and my dad had one of those, it was a kit sold by Montgomery-Wards called the Smith, and they were a very popular way to build a low cost heavy duty compressor- Two cylinders fire, two pump air.