Finally got to the place where I could open up the boxes of wood from Custom Wood from Greensboro, NC. I am impressed with the quality of this wood kit! Nice white oak, everything labeled, most seems to fit with tongue and mortar joinery, predrilled holes to locate the metal braces. Do wish that they had a diagram of what goes where, though. Guess I will have to cheat and use the drawings from Cubel's website. Tried to get an answer from then for the kit, but two years later, I am still waiting for an answer back. Steve Cannon wanted the business more and puts out a first class product. I know that there are a few others here on the forum that are tackling the body wood on their cars so thought this insight might be helpful. Both companies state that they will sell individual pieces if you get in a bind trying to do it yourself. Hopefully this will get mine on the road a couple of years sooner and I won't have to learn as many new four letter words in the process.
Hello Dale,
I had to replace most of the wood framing on our Fordor over twenty years ago. I was lucky there was enough of the old framing to use as patterns. I have quite a few pictures of the progress. Your Fordor will have some differences to our 1924 Canadian Fordor.
Here are a couple of Forum Threads from 2009 that may be helpful.
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/87573.html?1240056635
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/88157.html?1239940417
Regards, John
John, Thank you for the links to Ray Elkins rewood thread. It will be a great help since I 1)didn't take enough pictures and 2) even though there is virtually no rust through in the sheet metal, the wood was rotted away so bad as to be almost useless as patterns! The pictures will help me to remember where all those metal brackets and braces go!
Dale over the years I have built 2 T's using the wood kits and using a partial kit for another.
I have used both wood kits from the suppliers you mentioned.
I soon realized that it takes some refitting and minor resizeing to get things to work. I wondered why and found that Ford used different body makers and the bodies had minor differences.
This is why some kits might not fit as well as you might think.
When the kit builders used wood from a paticular car to use as a pattern to make the wood structure pieces it was from a car that was built by a paticular body maker.
So if your car was built by ANOTHER body maker things might not be the same as your paticular body.
This is not the body wood makers fault. Chanches are that their isnt a foolproof way to know which one is which.
During the 17-22 years Ford could have used as many as 5 different body builders so their we go!
The other years could vary also.
The wood pieces will generally fit but it might take a little refitting here and there.
Same goes for the sheet metal body parts that are made today.
Hope this helps.
Dale,
Your profile shows a 1926 Canadian Fordor. Is that the Fordor you will be rewooding? If so, it may have been made by a Canadian body maker and/or by Ford of Canada rather than USA. So there could be some additional differences from the USA body.
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The following are all Model T Touring car examples of differences between USA and CA tourings please skip if your are only interested in Fordors. John is correct there were approximately 5 different body makers 1915-1920ish producing the open cars for Ford and during that time Ford began to produce bodies also. For example with the touring cars the Canadian 1909-10 cars had a different construction for the front and rear seat backs and had a seam running vertically to cover that joint the USA cars did not have that. And of course the USA touring cars had the false front door while the Canadian touring cars had four functional doors from the first removable front doors in 1912. Later during 1915 (possibly as late as 1916 for one of the USA body makers) the USA touring cars went to the metal front seat frame and metal back seat frame. Those USA cars with the metal seat frames from 1915 to 1920 used a carriage bolt just in front of the rear door to attached the body panel to the metal front seat frame. You can easily spot that carriage bolt on the later 1915-1920 USA cars. [note even when some (not all) of the USA body makers went back to the wooden seat frames front and rear during the 1918-19 they continued to use the carriage bolt in the side of the car in front of the rear door opening. I wonder if those were Ford produced bodies as the wood seat frame parts 1918-1919 are listed in the Price List of Parts book. And the Price List of Parts does not list the metal seat frame parts for 1918-1919 even though at least one outside supplier Beaudett -- continued to produce the metal seat framed touring during 1918 and possibly 1919? ] But the Canadian touring cars continued the wooden seat frames much longer than the USA production. To my knowledge, Canada production never had the carriage bolt in the side of the touring body in front of the rear door opening. [If anyone knows of an exception(s) please let us know.] And when the Canadian cars went to the metal front seat frame they continued to use wooden style rear seat frame they had been using since 1914/15. There were also different body suppliers for the Centerdoor, Fisher who also supplied touring bodies and Wadsworth. The coupes bodies were also supplied by different body makers etc.
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Back to Fordors:
Based on the example above and others, there could easily be some differences in a Canadian Fordor compared to a USA Fordor. Good news the wood kit should be readily adaptable to the Canadian Fordor. I.e. the chassis mounting locations are the same between USA, UK, & Canada. The overall design might be identical (I dont know on the Fordors) or vary just a little from the USA.
IF it is a Canadian Fordor, I would encourage you to check and find out where they used the square drive Robertson screws in the body. They actually drive easier than the original USA slotted style or the commonly available Phillips head screws. Ford Canada also used some slotted head screws in their cars but Ford USA did not use the Robertson screws.
Dave Sosnoski at http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/315083.html has been actively researching the 1924-25 Coupe bodies. During that research he has uncovered information which indicates to him that by 1925 [Dave feel free to put in a better date I based that on the discussion was about a 1925 Fordor] Ford USA was producing all their own bodies with the exception of the Coupe. For the open cars Trent Boggess stated that Ford USA was producing all of the open cars from the time of the high cowl 1924 models introduced during calendar year 1923. I do not know where Ford of Canada obtained their Fordor bodies. Does anyone have a 1925-27 Canadian Fordor that they could check for a stamp in the left main sill, near where the driver's left foot would be placed (assumes LHD car). According to Dave the only stamped letters he has seen on the Fordors is the HP joined together which most likely stands for Highland Park. Dale was that piece of body wood still in your car or was it already gone?
Note Don Booth recently rewooded his Fordor and is working to document the process he used. See the thread at: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/319674.html
For those wondering where the illustrations you mentioned please see Cubels at: http://fordwood.com/ .
Since you are a ways off from these areas -- you may want to save these postings. Sometimes a forum is lost. Fortunately it hasnt happened in a long time but if you like what they say recommend you right click, copy all, and save them to your disk or thumb drive.
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/28607.html http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/316991.html
Sorry for the rambling but several thoughts came up as I was thinking about this one. Including please document your work so it can be easier for the next person. The eaiser it is the more likely a few more Fordors will be restored rather than the chassis made into a speedster or the cowl becoming the front for a Hack. Both of which are funs Ts but hopefully a few more Fordor bodies will also be saved. Since you already have other Ts you do not need to consider putting a temporary body like a speedster on your chassis so you can enjoy the T. But for someone without another T to drive that might be an option they would enjoy while they rewood the Fordor body.
Respectfully submitted,
Hap l9l5 cut off
Hap, yes it is the Canadian Fordor that is being rewooded. The wood was in poor shape, but I have saved it all, including the splinters, until this is completed. I will look for any remnants of stampings on the main sills. Currently trying to remember to take the pictures. Does anyone know if Ray Elkins got back to his Fordor and if he has any more pictures, or if he got the CD produced? Right now I am coating all the parts (except glue joints) with Minwax ebony stain/sealer and will start final assembly after finishing a four day run at work.
Dale,
A key word mentioned by you is that you have most if not all of the tin.
There are two ways to go about it...do the wood up nice and tight, plumb and square, make sure the doors fit, and then figure out how to get the rest of the tin to fit and hope it all goes together clean.
The other is to dry fit a section and then verify that the tin piece 'fits' without an edge needing to be reshaped in order 'to' fit, with a little scooch here and there to make it happen working from the door pillars back as your datum.
May not be a problem for you either way and you might get lucky with the first way, but I learned this little tid-bit from a guy named Dick Petty of Elgin Illinois when he was still alive and taking piles of T-junk and making show cars out of them for people. His shop had stools and a coffee pot, and he 'visited' while he worked He said until he learned that later trick, there were times it would have been easier and quicker for him to have made new tin for all the grief it caused him.
Just passing it along...
George that is some very good information to pass along.
This and other information is lacking when you buy a kit from the body makers and this website is a really good source to fill in the blanks.
I would mention some info that was helpful to me.
First is to lay out the wood structure pieces in the proper location of your sheet metal panels to get a proper fit BEFORE you put the wood strcture completely together.
You can lay them out on a bench to do this.
This worked wonders for me and would have saved a lot of time if I had did this first.
Another tip is getting the wood frame rails STRAIGHT AND LEVEL to begin with.
The use of flat washers under the frame mounting brackets to level out the doors after you have gotten things together really helps in door closing and alignment.
Hope this can be helpful.