Absolutely no strength in this piece of hot rod ugliness, look at me I have the best store bought ,biggest Veed biggest LED filled Shiny Spanky spreader bar . If this is the message you want to convey then this is the spreader bar for you
Just look at a Deuce frame with no tie-bar. Those protruding horns look like 'antennae', or 'feelers', vulnerable and ready to trip passersby. Tie 'em together...but don't have to 'Vee' it...
I've got no dog in this fight but I'd have to agree that most of the time the shiny chrome or stainless Veed spreader bar looks like it is "stuck on" as an afterthought rather than a "part of" the complete car. Still looks better than one of those "I gotta be one of the cool guys" moon tanks stuck on there like a big pussy zit though.
I see it as the 32 has perfect curves and nearly straight lines and the V'd front spreader bar contradicts these line, IMO !! Actually, the '32 grill shell does have a v'ed angle to it. Your Model A with the truck tires in front does not.
I like your car Don,the only think I would change is the name on the title...and maybe the spreader bar once it was in my name! HRP
Best "phony" moon tank I've seen was on a orange 32 from Canada, had bottom cut out carefully two "hoses" come out of it, AND IT WAS WHERE THE BATTERY WAS !!!!! hoses were battery cables.. and it was NEAT !!!
The slightly curved ones are rather nice (the McGee roadster), its the exaggerated V'd ones I think look wrong.. once again just my opinion. JW
Looks like we're about done here and I got my answer + ..... and all along I thought it was a place for a rooster to roost.... learn sumpin' every day !
The car that porknbeaner is refering to was the Doane Spencer roadster, currently owned by Bruce Meyer.
Well, my wife and I recently went to Southern California in our '32 highboy, complete with straight spreader bar, SBC under the hood, a can of wax in the truck, and a 700R4 tying it together. We had no(none, zilch, zero, nada) trouble in 4000 miles. I am too old to work on a car on the side of the road, hence no flathead. My car was BUILT to roam interstates, back roads, wherever I want to go with no trouble. Flatheads are great engines, but they don't have the grit to take serious highway driving, especially with the A/C on. I like comfort and dependability in one ride, and I have it. If this disqualifies me from the HAMB, then so be it.
The only reason for a V spreader bar is for a 1934 ford grill for it too match the sharpness of the bottom of the grill
I had always imagined that the spreader bars were structural improvements to the chassis, made in part because of Ford's use of the V-8, which was a couple of hundred pounds heavier than the four. For some reason, in my mind, the term "spreader bar" suggested that the component was intended to keep the rails *spread,* but now that I'm actually thinking about it, it seems likely (as others have pointed out here) that what the bar was intended to do was *prevent* the frame from spreading under the additional weight of the eight. I looked here: http://www.oldcarmanualproject.com/manuals/Ford/1932/index.htm but couldn't find the mention of them in the Service Bulletins pointed out in this thread. Either way, seems like they can't hurt... I made mine from the 50-cal machine-gun barrel cooling shroud from a B-17.
I'm with Gary Addcox. Our UN-Hambed '32 3 window is not Henry steel and has an "oh my god" GM drivetrain with an "OH MY GOD" IRS and a spreader bar with turn signals! It also has cold AC and it corners like a sports car, which has made it nice for putting 48,000 plus miles on it (including a trip to HRP's deuce run from Arizona last summer). Biggest problem so far is trying to stay below 90 when cruising in some states (like good ol' Texas) and having to stop too often to fill up that little gas tank. I come here to try and learn things and to see some great pictures, but I get real tired of people putting someone else's ride down because their opinion is different. So, like Gary, I'm also HAMB disqualified!
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