Technical Build: The 60's Style T build

this is post number fifteen, day fifteen of my modified series,

today I cut the rear crossmember apart and dropped the center an inch and a half, effectively raising the rear of the frame the same amount.

I also added some leaves to the front spring raising it about an inch.

this was done to help correct the undesirable angles in the driveline as shown in yesterdays post.

there is still some fine tuning to do to the wishbone and the motor/transmission mounts to bring it all together, but when done all will be well and good in that department..

so here's a couple pictures to show how I did it,

I was a little low on plywood template material so I layed the rear crossmember out on the floor,

 

then transered that to the crossmember itself and threw some bracing around

 

I uncerimoniously butchered the bitch, and started welding it back together

 

finished welding it up and stuck some bolts in it

 

then I went around to the front and stabbed three leaves in the front end and bolted her down too

 

howzat?

 

today is the sixteenth day into my modified series,

I am back at work now so I only have a couple hours a day to work on it

so daily steps will be small steps.

today I welded up the rear wishbone, I had the whole thing all nice and tightly fit in order to tig weld it but was unhappy with the geometry of the drive line so I broke the tacks at the rear joints, rolled the pinion down and was left with some pretty good gaps at the bottom of the joints so I mig welded them and the front joints too. I also added gussets to both sides of all four joints to spread the weld area a little.

here's some after shots, you can deduce the process by viewing the end results..

Rear;

 

rear again;

 

Front;

 

tagether

 

tagetha agin

 

I set it up like a short ladder bar might be set,

pinion at a negative one degree, drive shaft level and tailshaft at about three..

carbs are leaning forward a degree or two.

this will change slightly as the car becomes loaded, with the front coming down a little more then the rear.

Paul

 

here is post number seventeen it the modified build series

I slid out of work early to get back on what what really matters, HOT RODS!! hahaha!!

today I mounted the front shocks, it could have been done much later in the build but I couldn't wait

I used the '49 F1 shock mounts from Upchuck, thank you, a pair of '51-'52 Dodge car front shocks and some pin style bolt on lower mounts that I welded to the axle.

and here is how;

the rubber bushings in the shocks take 3/4" bolts but the mounts top and bottom are 5/8"

so I used some 3/4" electrical conduit the just happens to be perfect for sleaving the mounts out to fit the shocks.

I gathered all the parts together

 

I cut the threaded end off the lower mount, I'll be welding it on

 

bolted a shock to an upper and lower mount and clamped it to the frame to check fit

 

tacked the lower mount to the axle and warmed the upper mount with a torch and bent it top and bottom to fit the frame and shock

 

after several warming/bending/fittings I got it to fit and look like it was going to fit pretty good and bent the other one to match

 

welded the lower mount up

 

let everything cool and bolted it together

 

then I bolted the upper on the other side and measuring from a couple bolt holes saw that it needed a little more warming and bending to get it the same as the first one, when it was looking good I let it cool, bolted the shock to it and used the shock to help align the lower mount, tacked it, took the shock off, welded it to the axle,

 

let everything cool off and bolted it all together

 

one more

 

here is post number eighteen in my modified build series

today I put together a transmission mount to carry the Stude T86

this is, as all of my posts in this series, very basic hot rod building stuff.

here is how I did it.

the Lark that I took this transmission from used the two bolt holes in the bottom of the bell housing to mount the trans.

I want to use the two bolt holes at the bottom of the transmission itself to move the bearing point further back towards the tailshaft.

the forward holes take 1/2" bolts and the rear holes take 3/8".

here you can see both sets of holes.

 

the spacing on a Chevy transmission mount is almost exactly the same as the Stude but the Chevy uses 7/16" bolts.

so I drilled and tapped the Stude transmission with both a regular and bottom tap to take the bigger bolts

 

and bolted the mount in place

 

then I layed out the bracket that will bolt to the mount and drilled it to take the lower bolts

 

I bolted it in place to check fit and layed a piece of 1-1/2"x2-1/2" tube on it that I will use to build the crossmember out of.

 

it looked ok so I cleaned the bracket up a little and bent the tab for the angle of the motor/transmission

 

and cut the tube to attach it to the frame

 

tacked it all together and checked it's fit, and took a totaly out of focus picture