I’m not too much writer, but I thought drop a line or two about my T-A-B project. Maybe some of you find it interesting. All started loooong ago, when I tore down my running 28 Tudor to make real hot rod out of it (270 Red Ram Hemi, BW T10 4speed, early Cadillac rear end). Boxed and kicked the frame but never get any further with that one. But that is not the story here. I got whole drivetrain from the Tudor as left overs and I got the idea to build a low budget speedster out of those parts. The goal is to build a gow job / hop up/ or what ever you want to call it, in the way some poor young guy with limited skills and improper tools could have done it in late 30’s. (Easy to do by poor 50 year guy with limited skills and improper tools in 2020’s) But not to be too narrow minded, I will use Carter electric fuel pump, plastic insulated wires and even some metric bolts! The idea started to come reality late 2017 when I found a front half of T Touring and model A frame for sale at HAMB. It was located at Colorado and I happened to have a good friend of mine lived about 6 hours drive from there. With help of seller Banjoguy and Pufff bringing it to his house , he was kind enough to separate the body panels form each other and remove crossmembers from frame and cut the frame rails in half. That way everything was fitted about 4’x4’x2’ box, which was kind of cheap to ship to Finland. When parts arrived here, first I welded the frame back in the shape and started to assemble body panels together. I used ¾” thick plywood on where I fastened bottom of body side panels by wood screws. Then make reinforcement structure by using 1” angle iron on bottom and 1” and ¾” squire tubing on vertical and top rails. While doing that I found a real rusty, but dirt cheap, B engine for sale here in Finland. I was hoping that the cam is in ok shape, so I could use it in my A engine (has little more lift). In my surprise the crank and babbit bearings were better shape than in my A engine, cylinders were decent too, so I decided to go on with B engine. Now I get even counterbalanced crank! Next step was put everything together as mock up. It was plain to see that rear wall of the body need to be about 6” further than original position of T Touring. Other way you could not fit behind model A steering gear. Also I founded out that the frame is too long. At least in my opinion, it looked like 18 wheeler without trailer. After the first mock up it was time to remove body panels from the reinforcement structure and give them a bath in citron acid to get rid of the surface rust. So I decided to shorten the frame behind parking brake crossmember about 8”. The frame was easy, just cut, make some measurements to get it straight and weld it back together. Added a reinforcement plates also, so there should not be a risk of the welds crack during use. The drive shaft was little more tricky, cause I do not have a lathe. But my friend does have and he made cut so that there was a centering pin and hole to get shaft straight. The torque tube is not so accurate, so couple of angle irons and C-clamps did the centering. While disassembling the rear end for shortening the drive shaft I found out that pinion gear is really worn out. Found another rear end missing some parts but having decent gears, so was able to assemble one good enough rear end out of those two. For the springs I found a rear main leaf which has reversed eyes and I did reverse front spring by myself. Just using a hydraulic press and slowly first straihtened the main leaf and then shaped it to the original radius but opposite way. Also removed 3 leafs on both springs. The chassis is still real high, but that it is the way they used to be, at least some of them. I had welded on axles mounts for tube shocks when run them on the Tudor. They just looked too modern for this one, original knee action shocks are too expensive, so I decided to go for friction shocks. I came up with idea to make a set of my own and couple more sets in case if someone else would want a set too. I ended up to make some 30 sets of those. (If you want to get a set, you can buy a set from https://www.mikes-afordable.com/product/A18015F.html or let me know. I’m out of stock now, but if there will be still need for those, I may make a new batch of them.) When frame in correct dimensions it was time to fix the so common cracks on front and rear crossmembers. What is not that common is the way someone had fixed the rear crossmember by welding the U-bolts on crossmember. And welded them in big time! It took pretty many grinding disc before get the crossmember ready for some new welds. While the frame started to get ready it was time to work on engine. There were some cracks found on top surface of the head. Possible is has been frozen sometimes. I did not want to weld that thin casting, I’m think it might crack again. So I did open up the cracks, drill small holes on the ends and filled the crack with JB weld. Might last or might bust, time will tell. At least it passed the water tab test. By cleaning the engine I found out that it is not a Ford engine at all. It is a Russian one, GAZ. But it has been made by license from Ford, completely same except the spark plug thread size, which is 18mm. So I could not care less, will work for me. Other engine work included honing the cylinders, fit the oversized piston rings, shim the bearings using tin fol method (plastigauge did not work with soft babbit), lap the valves and cleaning up the intake and exhaust ports. I have the intake and header by me, which I run on Tudor with single 94, other carb was blocked . Found two Stromberg 81 carbs, cleaned them up and had kits for them. I’ll try to run them both synchronized on B engine. Maybe little too much carb for stock banger, but it is more for looks than best performance. That is what I have got done in 7 years, not too much. But I try to get it race ready for dirt drags in August, this year or some other year… Still on the list: milling the head, lightening the flywheel, brake linkages, fuel tank and lines, wiring, complete tear down for paint and reassembly. I’ll let you know how it will work out.
What a man would not do to save couple of bucks from shipping And i was pretty sure that i will shorten the wheelbase, so i would have to cut it anyway...
Not much to update. Fitted the pedals, kind of tight fit. I had to shim the steering column about 3/8" towards engine, to get it inside T-model firewall, which is pretty narrow. So have to bend brake pedal to avoid hitting steering column and clutch pedal to fit inside firewall and not hitting steering column or brake pedal. Took more than 5 rounds, heat-bend-assemble-disassemble to get everything to fit. Speaking about steering column, i could have bought $50 column drop from Speedway, but i did buy $1 muffler clamp from local hardware store. Something i´m not sure should i be proud or ashamed of....
I keep looking at that clutch pedal...it has many many miles with a foot riding on it to get worn down like it is. The column drop is perfect.... Carry on....
Yes, the tudor had been registered untill mid 60´s and judging by number of paint layers and patch panels on each other on fenders, i believe it has been daily driver untill the end. So it had to have many miles behind. And it need lots of clutching to wear pedal almost razor thin... Tudor as i bought it in 2001
Not much progress with this one, but some anyway. Made seat mounting and anchoirs for seat belt not NHRA approved . Like to have a bench seat some of these days, but right now it will be a race car. That bomber seat is british made, i bought a pair many years ago. Not having a clue where to use them, they just look so cool that i had to have them. But now the other one will have some use. Getting little nervous about the dirt drag race 10th of August. Have lots to do before it. But i ain't giving up yet, let's see how it works out.
Made fuel line and added few modern components. Carter fuel pump, which will be hidden under drivers seat. Malpassi fuel filter / pressure regulator which looks pretty old school for my opinion. So it will be mounted to firewall. Carter 6 volt pump feels to be good quality and is made in USA. Checked that negative connector do not be connected to body of the pump, so there should be no problems running it with postive ground. But talking about connectors, they are straight pins only little rough surface. I do not believe they would stay connected in long run. I soldered short wires to them, so i can add new connectors to the wires. The original bracket did not fit inside frame, so i made a new one from scrap metal found in trash at my work. Talk about recycling! I'm not completely happy how the fuel line runs on top of distributor, but this is the best i can do with parts i have. Malpassi has ports casted , so you can not change direction and i have straight fittings on carbs. By the way, i just registered for Hayride Jamboree dirt drags, so i should start make some progress with this one.... Well we have long nights with almost day light over here this time of year, so i just skip sleeping....
Thanks Lat - you are better than many "Mericans" at writing and infinitely better writing in English than I am in Finnish, Swedish or Russian. Well done mate. Shows that your craftsmanship and initiative is needed in this hobby of ours. Any time you can make something yourself it transcends the "buy now" option. I like it. Mad respect from me for all your hard work. Don't totally skip sleeping, that can lead to a lot of trouble. Always admire folks like you who work extra hard and go the extra kilometer to build cool stuff out of American (and well, Russian) junk. Keep it up.
Maybe look at some banjo fittings for your carb fuel inlets....they will help you move the fuel lines much closer in and off of the dizzy.....I know....you would have already but didn't have "any on hand" Liking your build
Yes, the correct way to do this would have T-fitting in rear carb and banjo in front one. Now i have straight fittings and separate T between hoses. Just have to make sure there is no gas leaks and the hose clamps do not touch those model A spark plug stripes (uninsulated). I feel the danger...
Cool project, thanks for sharing and documenting everything. Nice to see another hot rod project from Finland here on HAMB. Have you seen this project: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/just-a-big-model-t.1276032/
Something little has been done. Try to put a tune up kit to distributor. But it turn out to be a model B distributor. What a nice surprise! I was wondering how it worked so good on my Tudor even it did not have manual advance rod connected. Now i know. Bad thing is that points included in model A tune up kit won't fit, but the old one seems to be OK, so i don't care. Got a "rebuilt" starter long time ago. Didn't work, only some smoke came out. Turn out that someone forget assemble ground side brushes! Added them and starter seems to work now. Have a friend helping me a big time with head and flywheel. The head has been milled 1mm (0,04") on piston relieves and 2,5mm (0.1") on gasket surface. Should be enough clearance to the pistons and calculated CR around 5,3:1 so about same as famous police head. Worth of trouble? I don't know but at least we tried. The model B flywheel will be cut down normal way, still stay with model A clutch pressureplate. It will be around 7kg (15,5lbs) lighter when we are done. And all the mass losed are from outer diameter of the flywheel, so it should make some difference.
Time for some update. Finally got engine assembled, with some hassle with a head stud thread giving up. A helicoil fix that one. Also checked oil pump function to make sure it works (no pressure gauge, nor warning light). Have to sacrifice one flat screwdriver to make a special tool for it. For the chassis i have to change perch bolts. I tried to remove them 20 years ago with small torch and hammer, ending up nothing but messed up bolt heads. Now with rosebud torch and air hammer they broke loose easily. At rear need to add bushings for rear spring and make 7/8" raiser for U-bolts, cause spring has only 6 leafs . Not a pretty one, but works (i guess) Messing with rear spring is always scary. espesially with my lousy spring press tool i made long ago. Should make better one some of these days, but it works this time, again... Then it was time for a long waited first start. Did not have radiator yet, so no tune up was made, but seems to run fairly good so far. So next it is time for brake assembly, try to get radiator leakless and some other minor things. 3 weeks to the raceday, should be able to do it.... i hope....
Today it was first time to get it for test run. Almost 100 year old iron, just assembled together. What i will do, go with full throtle of course ( what a moron).
Here are couple of runs. As you see, it got pretty wet over there. I was almost slowest one and lost all races, but oh boy sure i had fun! And i did not break the T-A-B either, so i bet i'll be back next year. https://youtube.com/shorts/ezilQS9OZxM https://youtube.com/shorts/_ErNj98RY1w
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