Projects My "You didn't build that" 27 T Roadster build thread

Eric , this is what the dies look like . They are Mittler Bros. .
I have 6 different sizes and you may borrow which ones you need . Real easy to use . I can mail them to you and if I don't need them befor 6-1-16 I will be in Kanab then and can pick them up . One way or another I would love to see and meet you . Will be out there for a antique motorcycle road run . Blue

 

Been a while since I checked in Eric. I see you are moving along nicely. Cant wait to see it on the road. By the way. I drove my roadster to the George Barris funeral yesterday. Nice turn out. Nice customs. A lot of people showing their respect. Mark.

 

Eric, I will caution you on that grille insert idea.
As cool as it looks I assure you that you are losing a great deal of surface area of the rad and your airflow and rad efficiency will be effected.
If you want to do the math, calculate the surface area of the rad opening without the insert, then calculate the surface area of the holes and subtract the two.
You will be surprised.

 

Or go negative space like this hand-built one.

(Image stolen from the Kustomrama site.)

 

Or, you could just go with #4 stainless steel mesh like I did

 

I bet if you slid all the wires on the mess to the outside it would have a similar (or more obstruction) surface area as the one with holes, i like them both , just saying. JW

 

Heck I like the idea of the tie rod crossing behind the radiator, looks so tidy. How is progress going on the '27 ?

 

Heres a T Roadster a young HAMBer is building in NZ. JW

 

Blue! Thank you so VERY much for the offer. I'll shoot you a PM in a moment!

Not a lot of room in the shop to get the photo, but I'll try. There is definitely an angle to the dangle but I believe in "no bad angles". From this very angle it looks like the grill needs to come down 1" or more. I assure you it doesn't, but part of the "no bad angles" theory dictate we'll need to move it to make sure it looks right from the side and this 3/4 view too. We did string it early on to make sure there was a slope, but you know how things go! Anyway, we'll work on it here in the near future and I'll report back with photos.

Again, THANK YOU for the offer! Yes, I'd love to meet up with you and I'm sorry I missed you in Scottsdale. I looked at the Kanab deal, seriously cool! What will you be riding?

I thought I saw a few shots of your roadster of different Facebook pages at the funeral! Looks like it was very well attended.

Larry, you're absolutely right and I have considered that. There's a few thought processes going on here in my sick little mind, and they mostly conflict with each other. Wanna go for a ride?

1. The Mustang radiator is quite small. I know they cooled the stock 289 and 302 well, but I do have my concerns. The 283 is hardly a powerhouse as it's mostly stock with a small RV cam.
2. The Mustang radiator is also smaller than the '28-29 grill shell. You can almost see the whole radiator in the hole of the shell. I need "something" to dress it up a little, and don't want to do an "inner ring" of sorts to hide the bottom tank and mounting bracketry on the sides.
3. It's hot as hell here in the summer, typically 100 days over 100 degrees. Adding ANYTHING that would restrict airflow can't be a good idea.
4. Four screws will remove the shell, four more will remove the aluminum sheet.

Let this be a lesson to others. Although lots of guys are running the '64-68(ish) Mustang radiator with an A grille shell the radiator is just too small to look "right". I very well may swap out to a copper A radiator in the near future. Still, I think I'm going to try the insert idea as it'll be relatively easy to remove.

That's bad ass! I love how every bar has a curve to it. Looks "fluid", but too 60's for this car.

I've considered that too and do have a source for it. I know from several friends how difficult it is to cut, then how dangerous it is to handle afterwards. Did you end up with multiple stitches too? LOL

Obstruction or not, I think that anything and everything will impede airflow, but I believe Larry's idea would be much more efficient than mine. I'm going to have to do some more thinking on this.

I've never been a fan of a big ol' tie rod interrupting the look of an otherwise clean front end. Not to knock that look, as it has it's place, but if there's a way to tuck it out of the way and hide it, then I'm all for it. I like to hide what shouldn't be seen.

Whoa, that's a GREAT looking roadster! Who's is it? Does he have a build thread?

No updates for a little while fellas, sorry. I have a ton of business travel coming up and need to focus on that. Gimme 10-15 days and I'll be back in action. If Bob sends me any photos or info while I'm out I'll post them here.

As always, thanks for all of your input, ideas and critiques. I like having you guys hanging out in my garage, LOL.

 

I was thinking of doing the mesh treatment for my shell as a bug screen and stone guard to protect my $700 radiator. If I can find it in NZ I will try it.
That T roadster belongs to Zac (zacattack on here) and I haven't seen a build thread for it, I stole that pic from his album. JW

 

I found the biggest challenge with the stainless mesh was getting it to lie flat ( when I bought it, it had been rolled on a big roll )
Thick strong leather welding gloves did the trick to prevent blood loss
As you can see in my build thread I framed it with small tubing and made mounts for the inside of the shell.
Larry.

 

I didn't use a Mustang radiator but did need to lower my Model A shell. I chopped it 2 inches which lowered it the right amount and hid the radiator tanks. Would that work for you?

 

It may. I'll have to remeasure everything when I get back to Bob's.

 

I got my out of town project completed sooner than expected and got home late Friday night. Hell of a week, I slept in until 10:30, something I NEVER do!

Spent time with the wife and family and headed up to Bob's. Nothing too exciting, but the deck lid got some attention.





You can see in the final photo there's still some polishing to do on the edges. I use a smaller detailing pad to do this so I have more finite control.

 

Nothing like a nice polished finish!
It's coming together.

 

You are up late !! That deck lid looks amazing....... no distortion in the reflection. Very slick. JW

 

Looks great!

 

Thanks fellas!

 

JW

 

Wow guys, December is gone and I made it to Bob's just yesterday, the first time in about four weeks!

So @b-bop cruised up from Las Vegas to visit.

We hung around my place for a little while and I showed him my '50 shoebox and '54 COE. We jumped in his bitchin' A Tudor and grabbed a burger on the way to Bob's. Funny thing, Bob and his wife were there having lunch, my buddy @Cap'm and his wife were too, along with three other couples from our car club that I know really well. Barry probably thought I planned it, LMAO.

Bob has been plugging away. Carbs are mounted, radiator mount is complete, heater is mounted and the cowl vent functions!








Now, the question has come up that the grill shell might be too high in relation to the cowl. I put tspe between the two and stood back for a photo. Strangely, the pic shows something that the eye doesn't see... it really DOES (in photos) look like the grill shell is higher than the cowl, but it's not! In person the profile is good when viewed from every angle!



The only concern I have is what the car will look like in pictures when complete, which really doesn't bother me that much. Once the shell is painted and the front wheels and tires are on I think it will look more proportional. Fingers crossed.

 

Cowl vent works!
https://www.instagram.com/p/_-d0VcQbPp/

 

Totally cool brother and you are experiencing the very same issue I had with my shell. I would say cut it 1.5 -2 inches. Mine is stock height but the body is above the chassis by 1.25 inches. My radiator cap makes mine look taller in photos. JW

PS; tickets are booked and payed for.

 

Looks really nice Daddio ! Can't wait to see it in person . Blue

 

One thing that generally plays with the eye on these is that there's a slope to the cowl, and the hood (or tape) line winds up on a different angle, which makes it look like the shell is higher than what it actually is.

More messing'-with-yer-eyes: It looks like the nose of the engine is kinda high. Once it's down on all fours will the carbs wind up more level?

 

Your tape line needs to be parallel to the frame rail, or even an inch or so lower in front. Just because the tape is level to the ground doesn't count. It will look goofy if the hood top runs uphill from the frame rail. Trust me.

 

It's looking really good, great to see it coming together.
I gotta agree with alchemy on the tape line. I'd want it sitting on the ground
on it's tires to make that decision. But if you look at the reflection on the 1/4's
and the cowl, the hood should follow that line.

That Barry really gets around. I think his Model A has about a bazillion miles
on it.

 

The front of the engine does look a little too high to me Eric. That's a question to ask Bob, I would think that he planned the carbs to be level at ride height.
The angle the engine sits on will also affect the tail shaft driveshaft and pinion angles.
Hope you don't have to drop the front of the engine.
I do think that you need to come down with the height of the grille shell. I'm thinking 1 1/2"
Larry

 

Okay, update today! We measured, eyeballed and stood back, adjusting for the best line with the grill shell in place while using a straight edge. We decided the best look was to move the shell down 1 1/4". An inch wasn't enough, 1 1/2" was borderline too much. Bob will work on that this upcoming week.

Also, I think I mentioned it before, but we need to make a 1" spacer to bring the rear of the trans up a little. Going way back we planned on using the Power glide but decided to build a TH350 mount "just in case". That soon morphed into the 200R4 debacle, requiring the adapter plate and moving the trans mount back another 3/8". Anyway, there is indeed too much angle currently but it will be sorted out shortly.

We haven't built the driveshaft yet so that's not a concern, but it will put the output shaft in the same location as we had set up the PowerGlide. That's important because the driveshaft angles were already calculated and we don't have any adjustment in the rear axle.

Guys, thanks for the constructive criticism. It truly is appreciated and has helped shape the build for the better!


On to today.... floor templates!

This is old hat to most of y'all but Bob showed me a neat trick today for accurately locating holes in a template to be transferred to the final piece.

You can see the holes drilled (and tapped 1/4 x 20) on the top of the frame rails.


Made a pattern using cardboard.


Hole locations located and cut.


Using a clear organizer you can get at any store selling office and school supplies.


Cut pieces slightly larger than the location holes. I'd recommend taping these to the bottom of your template, not the top as I did here. You'll be much more accurate doing this.


Tape the clear pieces over the holes in your template.


Tape your template in place so it wont move and mark each hole location with a Sharpie. Here's the accuracy portion I mentioned above. Although the cardboard template is thin, it's not thin enough to make contact between the Sharpie, clear folder organizer thingy, and the hole to be located.


Use an open hole punch (leather punch?) to finish your template. I used a 3/8" punch for the 1/4 x 20 holes.


Set your template back in place and check for accuarcy.

I'll use 3/4" plywood for the floors and seal them on both sides.

 

So I was 1/4" off I ended up with 1 1/2" shorter on mine and then also had to modify the bottom apron portion of the shell to work better with my front crossmember.

 

Ha! That 1/4" can make a difference, but your truck body and my car body may be different enough to make that gap!