Projects Shade tree Model A speedster kind of thing

Nicely done!

 

Some minor progress to report. This kind of piddling stuff just takes an inordinate amount of time.

I mentioned earlier that I forgot to account for the angle the torque tube hump sits at when I made the little inverted U bracket for it to rest on. That had to be fixed. I just cut a bunch of slots in the curved part, bent the resulting tabs down a bit (just by eyeball, you know) and brazed it back up.







Next I had to fasten the new crossmember to the frame. I had tack welded it in place and briefly considered just welding it the rest of the way, but I decided it would be best to bolt it in, just in case something doesn't line up in the future, or my plans change. Haha. To do that, I needed access to the backsides of the boxed-in sections, so out with my miscellaneous collection of hole saws.





I made the holes as big as I could, anticipating the difficulty of manipulating lock washers and nuts back in there. That was a good idea, because it was a tricky business, but in the end it all worked out.



I'll be sure to trim that little sharp corner at the bottom off so it doesn't joog me at some future date when I'm on my back under this thing desperately trying to effect some jackleg repair.

 

Well, after all morning cutting and brazing and drilling I came in for lunch and made that last post. Went back out and it only took me about an hour to fit the floorboards. 1/2" BC exterior pine plywood. Trial and error method, but they fit well. I'll use them as patterns if they don't last.



They are sitting on the bottom edges of the frame rails, an existing flange on the bottom of the front crossmember, and the flanges I bent into the rear crossmember and transmission tunnel, so supported all the way around. I'll fasten them in with some appropriately sized bolts once I get them. They already feel really solid, plenty enough for me to throw the seats in there.






I've had to abandon my idea of staggering the seat positioning. In order to support those floors as low as I wanted them, that new rear crossmember has to be no farther back than the deepest point in those doglegs I put into the frame rails. That puts the driver's seat in perfect position for me (at 6 feet even), but doesn't leave room to push the passenger's seat farther back. I'm not worried about it. Never carried passengers too much or too far in the original car, anyway.

I'm planning on bolting those floors down and installing the seats for real, then I'll really have to start concentrating. Lots of codependent stuff coming up. I think I need to figure out the caster angle and attach the ends of the split wishbones, then figure out what height and angle I need my drag link to be so I can avoid as much bump steer as possible, which means I have to make some kind of hoop or something to convert it from cross steer to side steer. The drag link will give me the height of the steering box, so I can make whatever bracketry that will require. That will give me the chance to set the steering column angle and length, so I can make that work. Then I can make a firewall of some sort and start working on combining the '37 brakes with the Model A pedal. Then maybe I can slap the radiator and some kind of fuel tank on it and see if she'll fire back up. Whew. Sounds like a whole summer of work, and it's already topping out in the 90's down here, with our usual humidity. At least I have shade. Hahaaa.

 

These seats were missing a pair of the mounting rails that they slide on when I got them, but the two that they came with were extra long (remember how deep those seats were originally?), so I just cut them in half. That will limit the amount of adjustment I can get but, but I think I'll be ok. I also made some hardwood pads to lift them off of the floors a bit.





That's just surface rust. They will fit right in on this deal. Haha.

Those blocks were necessary, because while sitting and dreaming with the the seats flat on the floors I realized that I wanted the bottoms of them to be angled up a bit, and that overall they were too far below the height of the pedals to be comfortable. Felt like my legs were higher than my waist. It was off-putting. The blocks are angled, and ones that will go in front are taller. Only by about 1/2" or so but it makes all the difference. They only raise my ass by an inch or so, but again, makes a bigger difference than you would think.

Anyway, bolting them down was pretty straightforward. I screwed them down first to make sure everything was aligned, then drilled the floors where the screws were and used 1/4" galvanized bolts with washers and lock washers. I may decide I need to add some sheet metal strips in place of those washers, but it all feels pretty solid right now. Except for the fact that the floors aren't bolted down yet.











Sharp eyes might think the passenger seat sits higher than the driver's, but that's just because its back isn't reclined as much. That feature is adjusted with two bolts on the bottom of each seat back whose heads ride on pads on the seat bottoms. I need to bolt the floors down now, then blow it all apart and paint the wooden parts. It's been raining here, though, and some of it leaked through my tarp and wet the passenger floorboard, so I'll need to wait a bit on the painting. Oh well.

 

So cool to see this progressing - I appreciate the thought process and the pictures!
And I think I might agree with you on the size of those seat washers. I would feel more comfortable if they were larger, or maybe even a metal plate that runs between them.
Anyways... I just love this thread.

 

I really like this MKII speedster and it sits just right. Keep up the good work and the enjoyable commentary.

 

Thank you, fellas.

Like I said last time, I'm getting to the point now where things kind of have to be done in a certain order. Hope my old addled brain is up to the task.
First off, I need to set the caster so that I can attach the split wishbones to the frame rails. I did this by clamping a piece of 1/2" conduit to the snouts of my brake drums.



I'm going to use the same size tire all around on this, so first I measured to make sure the tires that were on there were the same size as each other. Doesn't matter if they are the same size as what I will end up using, as long as I'm not planning any "rubber rake". Luckily, they were the same diameter. I guess that figures, since they are both 6.00-16 size, although they are different styles and brands.
Anyway, the next step was just to adjust the axles until that conduit was level, then measure and adjust the caster angle. I had to do a little more heating and bending on the wishbones to make that happen. They were just a bit too narrow. I bent them right where the wheels rub at full turn, because why not?





I settled for 5 degrees positive, which lands the ends of the 'bones dead in the center of the frame rails. I researched that caster angle a bunch before I settled on 5 degrees. If I'm wrong, it won't be too hard to adjust.

Next, I started on attaching those 'bones to the frame rails. I had decided long ago to use Model A tie rod ends from an old front axle I had lying around.



I'll figure out a way to attach the actual rod ends to the wishbones, but I want put the old steering arms on the frame rails. First I had to saw the drag-link branch off of the driver's side and grind it down. After I cut the tapered studs off of them, I had two pieces that almost matched each other.





I know those balls are pretty worn, and I may regret using this old junk, but they will be dealing with a pretty small angle of movement, so I'm hoping I get away with it. Anyway, next step involves the forge and anvil. I need to forge the butt ends of those into long, flat tangs I can bolt to the frame rails.










Cleaned them up a bit on the belt sander, hacksawed the tie rod ends off (leaving plenty to spare) and then out to the car to see what was what.



Mocking it up, I realized that the old body mount bracket was in the way. I also started to worry that those long skinny tangs, even bolted to the frame rails with two bolts each, might not be strong enough.



I decided to modify the body brackets so I could use them to reinforce my modified steering arms. I just cut that rectangle part off, did a little grinding, and welded the leftover triangle onto the forged base of the arm. Then I brazed a fillet over the weld so I could smooth it out without grinding any of my weld away.








Now, I could probably have cut some triangle pieces easier than doing all of that, but I like using that old Ford steel. I still have the other side to do, and I have to make some plugs to go into the wishbone ends and accept those tie rod tubes, but I think this should work pretty well.

 

Worked on the tie rod ends today. I'm just making shouldered plugs out of 1 3/8" bar stock that will fit into the cut wishbone ends, and that each have a 1 1/4" deep hole to accept the cut-off tie rod ends. I wanted those holes to not go all the way through because, to my thinking, these things will be mostly under compression loads, and I thought having the tie rod ends bottom out in blind holes would help resist those loads. They are an absolute drive fit, actually had to heat one of the plugs to get it's tie rod fully seated. I'll weld or braze around them, haven't decided yet. Also still have to fit them to the insides of the wishbones. They are very close to the largest diameter of those holes which, unsurprisingly, are not perfectly round. That is for tomorrow, along with popping off the other side's body bracket, modifying it, and welding it to the steering arm doohickey I made yesterday. I could have had a chance of getting to all of that today, but I had a dentist appointment to get a filling in one of my rearmost molars that turned into having the damn tooth pulled. Took up a big portion of my morning. Oh well. Hopefully these pictures will be pretty self-explanatory.








I didn't take a bunch of unnecessary pictures of the progression of drill bits that got me here. I think this is the next to last one? Also got lucky and had a bit that was barely undersized, compared to the tie rod ends. Just had to take the merest smidge off of them to get that drive fit.



Turning a little chamfer so it won't just be a butt-headed eyesore. Here's the end result:

 

Well, I got done this morning what I would have gotten done yesterday morning, but for the tooth business. Removed and modified the passenger side body mount bracket, welded it to the modified steering arm, did my little brazed fillet trick, and managed to get my plugs tapped into the ends of the cut wishbones. Whew. Those plugs weren't near as much trouble as I had anticipated. I used those little cylindrical flap sanding deals in a drill to clean up the insides of the tubes, and they tapped right in. I could lie and say that was a result of my careful measuring with highly accurate devices, but I just held a tape measure up to both holes and hoped for the best. Sometimes you just get lucky. I haven't fastened them in permanently yet.
I used one of the old body mount holes to temporarily bolt the brackets on so I could see what I had accomplished. Here's what they look like in temporary status:



Sorry I didn't get a perfectly square cut on that wishbone. It will make it easier to tap the plug back out so I can bevel the edges and such, though. Haha







Finding room for the steering arm should be pretty easy to do by just heating and bending the new brackets. I'll figure all of that out before I permanently attach them. Making progress, though.

 

I have been thinking hard about the steering on this car. I'll try to be brief, but I do want to get my thoughts down, if only for my own future reference. My original intention was to stick with side steering, using that F100 box, but I had misgivings. First of all, it's not from the timeframe that I'm trying to keep to. Admittedly, that's a small issue, but it has been bothering me. Secondly, that steering box is huge. I think it was misrepresented and is from an F300 or something. I'm not accusing anybody of being dishonest, perfectly willing to accept that honest mistakes are made, but I can't want this thing on my car. That left me with the option of continuing my search for a real F100 box or, even better, one of the elusive and expensive (down here, at least) F1 boxes, or just rebuilding my Model A box. The third issue was that I left my split wishbones as long as I could, just because I liked the look and had some vague feeling that it would be better that way, but this is going to cause geometric issues with the height I'll need the steering box to end up at, and the drag link will be much shorter than the radius arms. I can easily shorten them, but I do like the way it looks right now. After weighing the pros and cons, I decided to try using a cross steering box that the front end is already set up for. There are a few advantages to this. The box can sit farther forward, improving my steering column and wheel angle, and it should be easier to get the geometry right and avoid bump steer, at least in this particular case. Also, the 1937 and up boxes are supposed to be far superior to the Model A ones, and they are much cheaper and more common than the '37-up side steer options. I never considered a Vega or reversed Corvair box. Nothing wrong with them, they just really don't fit my timeframe for this car. I'm also just personally not a big fan of cowl steering. Nothing against it, just not my thing.

Anyway, I found an old suspect box on the auction site for cheap. I don't know the exact year, probably around 1940, but my understanding is that passenger car boxes were pretty much the same from '37 to about '48, so I'll just call it a 1937 box. The shaft and column had been chopped, but that's fine with me. I will have to lengthen them both, anyway. As soon as it arrived, I stuck it up in the frame and started figuring.





With it clamped right up against the front crossmember (the real Model A one, not my stuff) the drag link will end up about 3 inches out of parallel with the tie rod, viewed from above. I know that's not ideal. What I think I'll do is leave it like this until the car is up and running and see how much of a problem it actually is. I've got pretty limited suspension travel on this thing, so you never know. If it does cause excessive bump steer, I can always make, modify, or find a longer pitman arm. I don't anticipate the steering effort on this car will be high enough to make that become an issue, and the quicker steering would probably be a plus.
The next thing was to figure out how to mount it. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not crazy about welding stuff to my frame. That's partly because, as I have repeatedly acknowledged, my welding always seems to turn out ugly, but I also have this gut feeling that Ford must have had a reason for avoiding welds and using rivets. Either way, I wanted to make a bracket that could be bolted to the frame. To get the steering box position right, I clamped it on and used my old steering column and wheel to help find the correct angle.



I started by making a pattern out of some leftover doorskin plywood, super-glued together.







It doesn't show in the pictures, but there was a fair bit of trial-and-error fiddling before I got to that point. Anyway, my next step was to make a paper pattern of each part of that structure and tape them together to get a flat outline.




(That's an "after" picture. I forgot to take it until I had used the pattern to mark my steel and get the first bend done.)

Didn't take pictures of this next part, but it's pretty simple. Transferred the paper pattern to some 1/8" plate (same stuff I used for the frame dogleg boxing), then cut it out and shaped it with the hacksaw, file, belt sander and, yes, the angle grinder. Bent the tabs with the vise and a suitable hammer, and done. There was some back and forth to the car to make sure I got the distances between the top and bottom folds right, but it all went pretty quick.



Then out to the car to clamp everything up for a test fit.





It doesn't show in the pictures, but that long bottom flange on the bracket sits on top of the bottom lip of the frame rail. I'll go ahead and bolt that bracket in, but I don't think I'll drill the holes for the steering box yet. That will probably need to wait until I've made some progress on the body. I made the bracket big enough that I have some wiggle room, and I might end up having to play around with the angle of the steering box some. I think the next step will be to lengthen that steering rod and column. Need to puzzle on that one for a bit.

 

Here it is bolted down and coated with that rust converter stuff. There are also two bolts through the bottom of the frame rail.

 

Did you get those floors painted? I was going to suggest using Thompson’s water seal before painting. It will keep the wood sealed up against that moisture.

 

I haven't yet. We are in the dog days of summer here, thunderstorms almost every afternoon. I've been able to keep the rain off, but the humidity is another thing, entirely. I might just have to take them out and bring them inside, if this keeps up. I've used Thompson's before, and it is really effective. Good idea.

 

I love your approach to this car with some very creative solutions!
I've seen filler put into the hex on those cap screws to make them look more river like

 

I took my steering box apart this morning and cleaned everything up. I bought it as a dummy so I could see about the feasibility of the whole idea, but I have to say I'm pretty impressed.





I'm also pretty ignorant on steering boxes, so if any of you see something that causes you any concern, please comment. I was figuring on buying the whole rebuild kit for $300 plus, but now I'm reconsidering. The sector shaft looks good to me, no pitting and it's a nice tight fit in the bushings. As far as I can tell, there's no pitting and not much wear on the gears, bearings, and races. It had a fair bit of play when I got it, and there were no gaskets at all under the covers, so I'm a little worried about that? Like I said, ignorance is definitely a factor here. I'm thinking of ordering a new seal, bearings, and a gasket set, slapping it all back together, and seeing if that will do me. The horn wire tube was completely loose in there, but I don't need it anyway, so I'll probably just figure out a way to plug the hole in that cover. Either way, I think I'll move on with my longer steering shaft/column project.

 

cornhead grease and paper gaskets!

 

I'm leaning your way, patsurf. It will not take me long to make some paper gaskets, and we have a John Deere dealer here in town.
I've been working on lengthening my steering shaft and making/modifying a column for the last couple of days. For the first one, I cut my old Model A shaft off as close to the box as I could. I removed the column first, didn't cut it. More on that later. That left me with a stub shaft on my 1937 steering box, and a larger diameter long piece from 1928. I found that a (I believe, memory is suspect) junk VW shaft was a perfect intermediate diameter, so I measured and cut a section of it to join the two and lengthen the whole business. I turned a couple of solid plugs about 5" long. I only remembered to take one picture, but they were custom jobs, two different diameters each. One had an end that fit inside the Model A shaft with the other end fitting in the smaller VW shaft, while the other went from the VW to the 1937. I drilled that '37 hole out a bit, but it was still smaller than the VW. These were all tight, drive-in fits, and I then cross-drilled and riveted them.





I'll weld around those joints. This is how it ended up:



The column was next. It needed the same treatment. I had this 40s or 50s truck column that fit the 1937 box with a little persuasion and was a loose fit inside the Model A column. I cut the last 14" off of it so I would have a couple of inches of bury.



Then I turned a shim out of some black plumbing pipe that fit over the late model column and inside the Model A one and split it.







Then it was just a matter of drifting all of it together and loosely assembling it so I could clamp it back on the car to double check.








Sorry about the glare in that last picture. I'm satisfied with that. My throttle linkage even matches up still. Haha.



I don't say it often enough, but I appreciate all of the attention and comments I get on here. The encouragement and ideas are very welcome.

 

Looking good. If it was mine, even welded, I think I'd put a few more rivets in it just for overkill. Don't see where you might have said what you used for rivets, but something tough like a 16 penny sinker nail in a snug hole comes to my mind.
Enjoying your progress.

 

You are correct, Fabber. They are indeed 16 penny nails in snug holes, countersunk on each side. I should have mentioned it, but my plan is to turn the shaft 90 degrees and put in another set of rivets. That's why I stuck those in so close to the joints. Good catch.

 

This is still my favorite thread on the HAMB. I like to hear your thoughts as you work through the build and solve issues.

 

Dang, Simplestone. I appreciate that.
I have the steering column assembled and mounted. I ordered a new drag link, the ends of mine are pretty worn. It's not like the tie rod, where the ends are easily replaceable, one of them is built into the link itself, so...
Anyway, while I wait on that, I went ahead and started on mounting the radiator. I didn't have the stock bolts and springs, but I found this exhaust clamp/hanger set-up in the generic parts aisle of my local discount parts store. Has two fancy big-headed bolts and what looks like valve springs that fit over them. I cut some flaps out of an old inner tube to go between the radiator flanges and the frame and bolted her up.



I'll re-do those rubber flaps. Got in too much of a hurry. By the way, I didn't use pliers on that boogered up bolt head. The bolts had this built-in washer like thing about halfway down the shaft that I had to turn off so the flanges could ride up if they needed to, and I let this one jump out of the lathe chuck. I'm not sure that makes me look any better than if I had grabbed it with a pair of vise grips, but there you go.

I mentioned a while back that this radiator was a good deal online. Turns out that's probably because the inlet and outlet pipes don't line up with their partners on the engine. It was advertised as a direct replacement for a 1928-29 Model A, so I contacted the company and they offered to pay the shipping for me to return it, or to just refund me half of the purchase price. "Damn", says I , "I can do an awful lot of jackleggery for the sake of a brand new $50 radiator", so I kept it. The bottom pipe is too far towards the center of the car, a straight run from it would hit the altenator boss, plus my new steering box is in the way as well (that's not the radiator's fault, though) but it wasn't too hard to find a section of a hose with a dogleg in it. I think it's from a Dodge Dakota I used to drive? I did have to shorten the stock model A intermediate pipe a few inches, but that was simple, and I still get to keep that cute little brass petcock for draining. I should have taken a "before" picture of that pipe, but oh well.





The picture makes it look like there's less interference than there actually is. That hose it bending up and out towards us. It's touching both the alternator boss and the steering box, but I hope it will be OK. It will for sure let me know if it's not. Haha.

The top pipe on the radiator doesn't line up either.



That should be an easy fix, as well. I ordered a 1930-31 neck, and don't forget I have that coupling I made to hold the sender when I installed the temp gauge in the original car. It will go somewhere in that space, so I should be able to take a little bent wire to NAPA and find a 2" ID hose with some appropriate bends in it. Once the new neck gets here. I did manage to slap it together with my old hoses, but I had to force bends into them, and it just looks sloppy.

With the radiator, steering, and seats mounted I am able to start dreaming about body with a little more serious intent. This is a first try, just some little 3/4" square wooden strips tacked together with super glue. Food for thought.





Those are more to show my thought and design(?) process than to document any actual progress. I'm not planning on a wooden body this time but, unless I change my mind again, I think it will still be unique and a little outlandish. The flare to the side back by the cockpit is intentional. I want the bottom of the body to not be wider than the frame anywhere, so that flare will give me a bit more room. Those hard corners will end up round, I just wanted an idea of proportion here. I'll probably just use this to help with the firewall dimensions. Just kind of tactile dreaming.

 

Life does tend to get in the way, doesn't it? I've been busy with children and grandchildren lately, so please don't take that as a complaint. I have found a few minutes from time to time over the last week or so to keep working on the radiator project. First, the '30-31 neck came in, and it helped solve my alignment problems. I did find a suitable hose, 2" id and a couple of gentle bends I could use (in conjunction with the sleeve I made to accommodate the temp sender) to get it all lined up.



I forgot to take a side by side of the two water outlet necks, but this should give you an idea. The later one is longer, and the angle is less acute. Just right for me.




Next is the cap. This new radiator is set up for a new style pressure cap, and I can't want that. For one thing, it interferes with the radiator shell. The neck on the radiator is so short that the cap won't go on at all. Also, I kind of want to put the old flip-up cap I used on the original build on here, if only for sentimental reasons. I made a billet aluminum (gasp) adapter. It fits over the radiator neck and inside the flip up cap, which is attached to it by a couple of screws. They are Phillips at the moment, but I'll try to remember to replace them.



I turned one end down to fit inside the radiator neck. Then I turned a groove into the big part to fit over the flange on the neck.

Next, I had to put a hole through it. I drilled it up to the biggest bit I have, then finished with a hole saw. See that groove outside of the drill bit? That's from where I started with the hole saw and quickly realized that it was going to seize up if I got any deeper. Drilling it first kept that from happening so bad, but it was still slow going.





That got me this:




A little drilling and tapping and I had this. You can just see the o-ring I put between the two parts.



Here it is all put together. You may notice I also found time to put my repurposed fire screen grill in there. Yes, it's just wired in, dammit. What did you expect?



And a perspective shot:



I think I'll shorten it just enough to bring that flipper cap down to the top of the shell.

That's it for now. If I don't post again before it gets here, Happy 4th to you all.

 

Well, I got just a bit of time this morning and worked on securing the bottom of my radiator shroud. This radiator had some weird aluminum brackets on it, but they were different one side to the other and didn't match up to anything on my shroud (it is a 1930/31 though) so I cut them off. I can't weld aluminum with my set up and skills, so I made a couple of little brackets out of angle iron. Again, the spring clamp is just there to eliminate the singing of the part that's not clamped in the vise.







Then I riveted them to the bottom of the shroud.




That's some trick of the light and the rust that makes that foot look twisted. It's not.




Funny how I tend to get lucky so much. Look how close the rivets from cobbling this shroud together came to where I needed to put the brackets. I couldn't have planned that any better. Dang.

Then out to the car to mark and drill the holes for the spring bolts though the feet of the brackets and bolt it on. Notice I trimmed that floppy extra inner tube flap. The shroud is only held by these two brackets and the tight fit of the cap adapter, but the sides are sprung in and held in tension that way, so it feels real secure. Time will tell.



This picture also gives a better idea of why I needed that doglegged lower radiator hose.

 

I started on my firewall. I'm using 1/8" marine plywood for this. I know that sounds thin, but if you'll withhold judgement for a bit, I think it will turn out alright. First step was to make a pattern out of some leftover masonite. I used the eyeball/trial and error/hold up and mark/saw/file until it's close enough method.


Then I transferred that to the plywood and cut it out. Carefully, with fine tooth blade. Still got some splintering, but it'll be ok.



Offered it up to the car and made some minor adjustments.



I have to get that marine ply shipped to me, so I order it in 2'x4' pieces, which means it was just a bit too short. I ripped a 2" section and temporarily glued it to the top, then cut it to shape. It's a tad oversized, but that's because I need room to make adjustments as the body starts to take shape.







This will eventually be fiberglassed with epoxy on both sides. That ain't period correct, but it will just keep me from having to replace it so often. I did that to the old one, and it has lasted for years. It was just cheap doorskin from the hardware store, so I feel pretty good about this. I'm also going to frame around it when I arrive at the final shape, and I might find that I need some stiffeners glued on, as well. I haven't cut the slots for the pedals, because I'll need to bend them a bit, I'm sure.

Also, my new drag link got here. I had to shorten it, because the Model A frame locates the steering box about 1 1/2" closer to the center of the car than it would be in a 1937 frame. I cut 3/4" off of each end of the coupler, and off of each tie rod end. One of them is a full-length piece.



One of those coupling ends rolled off somewhere. Didn't feel like rooting around for it. Only needed the one to illustrate the point, anyway.



When I was young, my careless and impatient nature contributed to my becoming an expert cross-threader. To keep that from happening here, I made sure to countersink each end of the coupler, and chamfer and chase each tie rod end before I put this all together. I know shortening those threads may cause concern for some of you, but I still have about 1 1/2" of thread bury each end when the steering is eyeball adjusted to dead center. I've seen plenty of tied rod ends backed out that far in my time, and I've never personally seen one fail at the threads. Knock on wood.

I am a little concerned about the geometry of this set-up. That drag link seems good, height-wise. Viewed from the front, it's parallel to the tie rod, but it sits at a pretty strong angle rearward, viewed from above.



I stood on the spring perch and bounced as hard as I could while watching the brake drums, and they do twitch as the suspension travels. (Edit: That was before, with the old sloppy drag link ends. I posted a video with the new drag link below.) I know that, given the multiple levers and angles and arcs involved, it's pretty much impossible to eliminate bump steer completely. I just don't have enough experience to know how much is a problem. I'd have to lengthen the pitman arm by about 6 1/2" to get it fully parallel to the tie rod, and I don't think that's going to be practicable. My plan is to get this thing driving and see what's what. Hopefully, if the bump steer is a problem, it will be something that I can remedy with just a 2" or 3" longer arm. Best case scenario is that is works as-is, of course. We shall see, I guess. Eventually. Got to at least get the brakes sorted out before I can do any more than yard driving.

 

Here's a short video of the bump steer. It's worse than I first thought. The old, loose drag link ends were giving me false sense of security. Oh well. A longer pitman arm will give me that quick, race car steering. Hahaha.

https://youtube.com/shorts/DqdfxD_sfI8

 

I sheathed both sides of the firewall blank with 4 oz fiberglass cloth and epoxy. That's a pretty thin cloth, for those of you who aren't experienced with fiberglass, but it's more for abrasion and weather resistance than for strength.



Next I lined the bottom inside edge with 1/2" wood (I'll eventually line the edge all the way around), and made a plug that fills the slot that allows the firewall to drop over the steering column and also provides some support to said column. I could have just cut a hole for the column and framed around it, but then I would have had to take the steering shaft out of the box every time I took this thing in and out of the car. I had it this way in the old car, and I could take the whole body off in a matter of minutes, which was occasionally convenient. Anyway, that slot-filling plug was moderately complicated, but it turned out fine.












I know it looks like those pedals have nowhere to go, but just wait a bit. There's a plan for that. Also, there is space at the top of the column because I'll eventually line the bottom of that hole with leather.

That whole business involved a fair amount of glue-drying time, so I have also been working on the brakes while I waited. First order of business was to pull the drums and see what I have. Each drum has a small lip on the inside edge, which is not surprising, and I'll have to measure them more carefully, but I'm cautiously hopeful that they are still within spec. Wide 5 drums aren't cheap. All of the internals look salvageable on first inspection, except each side on the back had an ear busted off of one of the little doo-dads that go between the adjuster and the shoes. Somebody must have been a little forceful pulling those drums off? I'm betting they used a puller and tipped one shoe on each side. One shoe definitely tipped after they got it all buttoned up and drove it, and the lining got a little bit beveled and that drum has a light score line, but I don't think whoever it was put any miles at all on it. Probably because of the noise it was making?



I'll have to wire brush a bit to really inspect and measure those, but they all look about like this one. No rivet grooves or bad pitting or other weird wear jumping out at me (except for the previously mentioned scoring on that one rear drum).



This is the passenger's side front. I won't attach a picture of each corner, because they are all about the same, and look pretty good to me. I'll tear them down to clean and grease everything, of course. Bearings and races look fine, too. I'm not sure how thick the linings on the shoes should be. They are very uniform all the way around, and the rivet heads are still well below the surface, so I'm tempted to run these.

One concerning thing is that the rear axle nuts were barely tight. I think they are supposed to be torqued to around 200 foot pounds? Again, it doesn't seem like it was driven much or hard like that, because the keys and keyways all look very nice and undamaged, so maybe I got lucky there. Sure made pulling those rear drums easier, so that's a plus. After rebuilding the brakes on the old Model A axles, I was anticipating another ordeal.

The plan for now is to get these brakes cleaned and lubricated and back together. I'm going to have to buy 4 new cables, and then I can start trying to adapt them to the Model A pedal and actuating rod. Hmmm.

 

In case you haven't noticed, I'm not one of those people that finishes things in order. I'm back to the steering dilemma. Turns out, the steering box pinion on a 8n Ford tractor has the same splines as the 1937 to 48 passenger car boxes do, so the pitman arm from one of those will fit my car. It's a pretty beefy object, but it is longer by almost 3".





These things have 4 sections where they didn't mill splines, and those match up with corresponding flats on the shaft where they milled the splines away, I guess so you have to put that arm on center. The alignment of those on the tractor arm doesn't match the car shaft. Here's one of the flat spots:



All I did wast mill those flats down with the edge of a file until they were lower than the bottoms of the spline grooves.



Another issue is that the tie rod end that went in this arm had a larger diameter tapered shaft than the car stuff uses. Makes sense, I guess. Some of you may balk at my solution, and it may well turn out to be temporary, but I just wrapped some masking tape around a tie rod shaft to make a pattern, and transferred that to some brass sheet. I had previously wrapped the tapered shaft with various thicknesses of wire and tried it in the hole to find out how thick this shim needed to be. Bent the shim more or less round and pressed it into the arm with the vise, then hacksawed the extra off and pressed the tie rod in to get it fitting tightly. Took the rod back out and sanded the brass flush with the eye in the steering arm on both sides.





Out to the car to check. Before anybody calls me on it, I know I don't have the arm pressed all the way onto the pinion shaft. That's because I'm not ready to assemble it fully yet, and I don't want to have to wrestle around with a puller under there.



That last shot makes it look like there is a clearance issue with the pitman and the crossmember, but it's an illusion. The crossmember dips in the middle, but that part is past the arm.

The fore and aft angle of the drag link is much better now. Compare this to the last picture in post #1164



In that side view, I like that the drag link end is on top of the pitman arm. It was underneath on the car arm. Hopefully I won't have any ground dragging issues under there, but I'd much rather have the nut hit than the drag link end. Looks like the oil pan will hit first, anyway, which is better than steering stuff. Anyway, that's possible because the longer arm moves the drag link into the channel in the front crossmember. What luck. (Yes, I did check at full lock both ways, and the drag link is still inside that channel).



Once I get everything tightened up, I may have to do a little heating and bending on the arm to make sure the drag link and tie rod are parallel when viewed from the front, then I'll do another bounce test and see what I've got. That's all for now. Waiting on brake parts to come in.

 

Jumped again. Brake parts are still in transit, so I fooled around with the body evolution. First job was to bend some 1/2" conduit rails that will be permanent parts of the body skeleton. Notice my high tech tubing bender.



Laugh if you want to, but that works surprisingly well. That's a Camphor tree, and the bark is soft enough to deflect under the conduit a bit. I didn't have any kinking at all. Just bent one to shape, checking it by holding it up against the car, then bent the other one to match.





I'm building this body by eye, no drawn plans or anything like that. Just got a picture in my head. I clamped those rails to the radiator shell and the seat sides at a level that looked good to me, then ran a batten from the shell to the firewall and notched it in to give me a rough cowl height. Then it was just a matter of drawing in a semi-final curvature on one side of the top of the firewall and cutting it out. I cut carefully so I could use the cut-off to mark the other side .





I ran a few more battens on the passenger side so the steering wheel wouldn't be in the way and marked a masonite pattern for the dashboard. Trial and error got me there.



That cut-out is for the steering column, so I could check the fit on both sides. Then off to the Camphor pipe bender to bend up a frame for the dash, checking against the pattern. It was a bit ticklish to get it bent and cut at the proper angles, but I think it will be alright. This piece doesn't have to be a perfect shape. I'll make a wooden frame to screw the dashboard to, and it will be attached to the pipe framework and define the final outside shape.





The firewall is the same deal, it will be framed with wood as well, so I have some wiggle room with it, too. And yes, I have tried this thing on for size. It's going to be snug in there. That side conduit is up under my armpit, just above elbow level, but I like the way it feels. Like I imagine an old WWI biplane cockpit must have been. I do think this car will be like a Model T, get in and out from the passenger side. There's just no room at all on the left side of the steering wheel for your leg to slide past.

 

I'm really enjoying following your conversion thread.
your tubing bender is brilliant.
I can already see how great it's going to be.
I'm excited.
Greetings Harald

 

Another great update!
I use the same "tree method" for breaking branches down at the fire pit, and I just used it to bend the rebar for the footer of my garage build.
Great lines - I love how this is shaping up.