Starting to get some paint work finished on Becky's Blue T, sorry for the orange peel texture on the finish, wanted it to look more original on this car. (1914 Hawaiian Island Blue)
Charley

looks fine ta me

Yeah, I wish my paint jobs had that much orange peel!! So why isn't there a reflection of a palm tree in that picture?? Hawaiian color. . . .

Are you going to paint the running gear a different color? I liked her yellow T but when literally the whole thing except for wood or brass was painted yellow it was too much for my taste. I think every car needs two major colors with a 3rd for highlights.

This car will be blue fenders and body with a black frame,running gear, and cherry wood pickup bed, fire wall, stained red.
Charley

Sounds delightful. Is it going to get similar treatment to the first one in terms of engines/brakes, or is there a whole different batch of goodies and tricks planned?

Sure would be cool if it was powered by something fun like a chain or crossdrive high tension magneto.

Looking forward to this one as well

Here's some of Don's handy work, will show some trick stuff Tuesday all laid out before assy.
Charley

It looks like Les Schubert was involved in that front-end setup.

Don had a '14 stored in the warehouse when I was there. Is this it?

No, this is another 1914 he liked better.
You can go back to the last post on the yellow car and see the build up of the new front suspension for both cars. Totally different then the last one you saw.
Charley

Excellent. Looking forward to watching the progress of another quality build.

Nice choice of color. It'll look very pretty.

Seems to me like Becky's going to be verrrry spoiled! I like the blue.

Charles, I really like that Blue! Will you please let us know what the color was originally used on, the color name, and the paint code number?

The 1914 Hawaiian Island Blue, was made by my shops painter, after ten or twelve color tests. It's only PPG powder colors, binder, balancer, with a flat agent all weighted out on a air balance computer.
Becky is a member here you would have to ask her for the exact formula as she paid for the custom mix.
The one thing we noticed is this blue really catches the sun light and clouds on the splash aprons, the first items painted, we took them out side and you could watch the clouds pass by like you where looking into the sky.
Charley

I guess I need to phone Don and talk about the tilted king pins. I'm wondering what he did to the spindles?
The tilted spindle REALLy handles nice and solves most of the front brake issues

Your camera must not have very good resolution! I can't see ANY orange peel. Looks Good
Norm

Les, on my last report on the yellow car it shows the spindles.
charley.

Started reshaping the quarters where they meet the rear body panel, refit door to cowl panel and quarter panel right side, and top of left side sill panel reshaped. Also re-skinned the door to fit wood door frame.
Charley

Charles-
I always "rinse" my new bolts and nuts with muratic acid to eat away the zinc plating. Then rinse with baking soda and water. Then be sure to file off any markings on the heads. The primer will stick better and they will look more correct.

Looking good.

: ^ )

Keith

Charles,
When you get a chance could you please snap a couple of pics of the body mounts for the top. I'm trying to see what the look like without upholstery. I need to find some for my '15.
Thanks.

Alan I hope this is what you wanted, where just starting to fix all the 100 or more problems on this body. So it's dirty.
Charley

Big help, Thanks

Welding the quarter beads to match the rear body panel and changing the rear body panel to arch just a little so its not so flat or cut off looking. Must of had two different workers, working on this body, the work on the left was totally different from the right side. We will get it right.
Charley

First two coats of clear on cherry wood firewall.
Hanging to dry out on the lift.
Another load of T parts in the Booth.
Charley

Work at Don's shop taking on a 7 day work week to get Beckey's little pickup ready for a tour. Here's Don doing his afternoon work out. He don't need no stinkin gym.
1994 Nissan Maxima Brakes
Cut down drive shaft for Warford 2 speed transmission
Safety hubs
Timken bearing at pinion gear.
Want to know anything just ask.
Charley

Charley

A little more work on the rear panel body bead and the door jam opening.
Charley

Charles if you take your time on the paint work you should be able to get it pretty slick !
Wink... Wink...!
All Kidding aside it looks GREAT ! Very Nice work.

Finished the last of the door jam.
Charley

Don has been busy in the shop.
Pre-production of aluminum wheel centers, wheel stud holes to be reclocked 30 degrees.
Charley

UGRAFLot !

Charlie -- You can tell Don that he needs to rotate the U-joint flange which bolts to the Warford 180 degrees, so the grease cup is on the bottom. And he might want to replace it with a zerk. Same with the d/s tube, if it's still on top (I can't tell from the pic). They'll both need to be on the bottom for access, once the body is on.

I'll tell him, I think he was machining a new part for there and checking the fit.
Started the lower sheet metal repair this morning.
Charley

If you want correct bolts for your top irons, RV makes 'em, just like original. No zinc plating on them!

Some more finishing the body work shot's, that Randall,working on the beading.
That's two light coats of a rust defender spray on bondo.
Charley

Added a little color to sheet metal, still really wet, paint starting to flow out, the darker pictures are true to color.
Charley

Out into the sun!
Charley

Beautiful!

Back out in the sun to harden, up the paint.
Charley

Machine work almost done on new wheels, and then some hand work by Don, before coming back to paint shop for some color.
Charley

I love the wheels and fear I have missed the thread about them. Are they cast ur billet? Please post a series of photos of the build. Are you gong to manufacture and sell them?

TH

These are spectacular and would be a wonderful alternative to new hickory wheels. I for one would
love to see these produced and would find the money to own a set.

-John

Getting the little pickup, GPS, and Bluetooth ready. Finishing final detail work on body.
Wheels are billet, Don's not back on them for a few days, but here's a shot of the wheel rims.
Charley

Some more body prep work.
Charley

And a little more getting it running prep.
Charley
PS--I think we need a longer coil wire and another holder to keep wires off head.

A little more T work being done, should be finished pretty quick now.
Charley

Some wheel shots.
Charley

Charley - great pics! Looks absolutely awesome!

I really love the wheels.

Thanks Greg, Don and the guy's have way to much time in them, but better to be safe, very interesting project wheels, I've even learned a few thing about metal, I didn't think I needed to know. HA!
Charley

Impressive. Who did the upholstery? Is it leather?

Don had a guy in Iowa that's a school teacher do the leather and top. Don, trailed the T back and forth, both way's to save time.
I'll find out his name.
Charley

Charley, Those wheels are truly a work of art! But one nagging question has been bothering me for weeks, how are you going to press the wheels into those beautiful rims without destroying the finish? - John

Please tell us how

The centers will be frozen to 40 degrees below 0, Don has built a dry-ice freezer, along with some kind of gas to freeze the centers and using two jigs for the press, lot's of math and thick gloves.
Shrink / heat to fit, 130 degree wheel hoops, 40 below wheel centers, should drop right in.
Due to the cold temp, the wheel centers will be painted last.
Don does this kind of stuff all the time.
Myself, I just watch, and make things look pretty when the time comes.

Correction-----108 degrees below 0
Charley

Here's another picture.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! That hair cut is so cool that my screen frosted over as soon as I scrolled down!

It's so cool it's almost majestic. That isn't a haircut so much as a glorious mane!

Here's some really cold pictures!
Charley
PS--By the way this worked out so well none of us could believe it. We where prepared for any thing in advance.

WOW! What interference did you start with? Reminds me of Locomotive tire shrinking... just backwards!

So does the hole for the valve stem just get drilled later?

What brand of paint did you use on the body and chassis?

I do this type of shrink fit assembly at work. We use liquid nitrogen.

The interference was .030 inches.

Yes as soon as the wheels warm up after lunch the valve stem holes will be drilled.

We are a PPG Deltron / Global, paint shop. All other materials are 3M based products.
Charley

Wheels drilled for valve stems, and back in paint department for refinish.
Charley

And acid washed and acid primed.
Charley

A little rebuilding, of the brass and install coil box with Blue tooth, GPS, cigar, cellphone charger, oil pressure, water temp, fuel pump switch, lights.
Charley

Rebuilt headlight buckets.
Charley

Lol Charles I get all the stuff in the coil box except the blue tooth and gps. Unless those are just a joke?

Should have said power outlets for GPS and I-Pod ready. With the I-Pod, you can put a tailgater stereo system in the bed for tunes at the lake or football games.
Charley

Here's a picture, I use these on my boat also.
Load your I-Pod with tunes and your ready to ROCK!

Here's a little color on the wheels, no striping yet, still trying to figure out the stripe color.
Well back to painting.
Leaning towards a lime silver shade.
Charley

Testing the tunes at the lake all weekend.
You guy's be good, I'll take care of the rowdy crowd at the lake.
Charley
PS--Tough job but someone has to do the testing.

How about starting a new thread? This one is long enough.

Ralph -- If you'll use the "Last Day" icon to reach the forum, all you'll see is what has been posted in the last 24 hours -- in this instance, two posts. You can still scroll up to see older posts if you want to.

Mike, when using that feature, does the software load the last 24 hour's worth of pictures first, or do you still have to wait for all of the earlier pictures to load before you can see the latest ones?

Mark -- I don't know the answer to that. I'm on cable DSL @ 100Mbps, so it takes only a second or two for even a long thread to come up. I'd suggest that you try it and see how it works for you and your equipment.

Charley - this car is an absolute work of art!

The whole crew, Don, Wayne, Randall, Kevin, and myself, love to push the art of the automobile it's really not about the car for any of us, it's always the art of function of movement. With me a car should be like a beautiful woman, powerful, highly maintained, and ready to buck, but smooth as silk to the touch.
Charley

PS--Thanks Greg,the crew needs a kind word every now and then.

Charlie,

The way you fellows have gently nudged this classic design into the 21'st century is beyond art. With grace, subtlety and respect, you have exercised creativity within the bounds of rationality to deliver a masterpiece! I stand in awe.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

Just curious about building a two piece wheel, I really like the concept of aluminum billet wheels, my question is why didn't you incorporate the rim and mill them as one solid unit while milling out the spoke and fellow area.
Was engineering issues, mill capabilities, or preference ?
At any rate I'd love to have a set of them for my self. Nice work!

Thank You John, but it's always Don's vision as the Leader on these T projects that we follow and add the art. It's always fun working with Don and the guy's. As far as Don goes if Mrs. Becky is going to be the driver it has to preform in a safe manner, soon gran kids will be riding along also.
Maybe the next car will be a turbo charged Touring car.
Charley

Hey Steve, maybe if they ever damage the rim (impact with pothole, curb, during tire removal/installation) they can fix it by removing the damaged rim and installing another one. Whereas if you damage a one piece unit you have to replace the whole thing. I'm just guessing though.

Two things on the wheel build, the blanks for the wheels where 2.5 wide, if we built a one piece wheel it would have to have a 5 inch blank or thicker.
All the equipment in Don's shop is old school stuff, so most all of the wheel blanks besides the original water jet cut was done in Don's shop and a friend of Don's with bigger old school machines, the rest of the shapes in the wheel spokes where cut all by hand grinding and flat filing all old school stuff anyone could do in their home garage. But most of all they had to look just like wood spoke wheels, we don't want people to know there not wood, we just didn't want any of the pitfalls of wood wheels on city streets in traffic. Their nice enough to hang on the wall in your house if you like that type of thing, Don's set's a fast pace and demand's we top every thing he can think up, or he's not a very happy camper. And Steve is right, now that we know how to change out the wheel centers changing the rim is a snap fit.
Now if it was my car, the rims would be chrome and those spokes would be highly polished, just so I could drive around the hood and show off those wheels. HA!
Charley

Charles, is there a reason why the top edge between the spokes is chamfered? Was than done post production, and why?

We didn't have an automated machine tool in the shop to cut the radius automated, so we had to hand cut all the spoke shapes and the area where the spokes meet the wheel fellow hoop. Lot more shapes there then just what meet's the eye, but that's the first thing I thought about when they went to all hand finish. One thing about building a T wheel verse a modern car wheel is a T wheel has to be perfect on both side and no one cares what the back of a wheel looks like on a modern car you can't see it normally.
Charley

Well after not making our 90 day build goal and having the Boss (Don) a little upset, we took a break from the Blue T and worked on the T-Bird project. (3 weeks)
But now we are back after it, Don's working hard in the build shop and we are cranking paint work out, last night we drank a little wine (cheap stuff) and got after it.
Here's what was done.
Charley

When you said cheap wine I thought you meant Boone's Farm or Ripple.

Better not talk too much about a turbocharged T unless it is a Model T block. You know what happened the last time someone mentioned using a modern engine in a T.

Becky's car is just beautiful. Tell your crew to keep up the good work and we can't wait to see the final result.

I think the seed is planted a stretched 6 door touring car, 3 sets of seats, maybe a 1913 with a T block with starter, and a roots type supercharger with 2 carb's and of course some type of alloy disk wheels.
I think Becky is pushing for grand kids.
She will need some thing to haul them in.
Charley

How were the hubs installed into the wheels?

The alloy spoke wheels are 6160-AL and have the very same dimensions as Henry Fords originals, so they can interchange with any wheel hub for a wooden wheeled Model T Ford.
Side by side the alloy wheels look just like the wood wheels of Henry Fords, the only real reason for going alloy was the safety factor, and we really like to step out of the norm and advance our art of the building of cars.
Charley

Thanks for the response. With wood wheels the spokes are pressed in which holds the hub so that it doesn't rely solely on the hub bolts in shear to hold the hub in. I was wondering if you had to sool/shrink the hubs to get them in or if it only relied on the bolts. They are amazing to look at - thanks for posting.

I already know how much a new wood wheel costs with new rim, just curious how much would the alloy wheel end up being. They sure are cool!

I checked out the cost of 6160 plate locally,
1-1/4" 24"X24" is about $400.ea material only! Stutzman wins!

Just a quick update!
Re-installed starter switch updated.
And a little stopping power on the front.
And she runs like a top and shifts and stops on the shop floor.
Charley

Wow!

Just a little catch-up on the Blue T.
Charley

What kind of brakes are those on the rear wheels? The drums look stepped like a Model A but the backing plates look like something else?
Norm

Norm, 1994 Nissan Maxima Brakes. See Charlies june 14 post. They look like they belong there!

Charley,
On Becky's YELLOW T, How did you keep the radiator rod from hitting the overhead valve cover? I am doing one now with a RAJO kit on it, and the radiator rod is going to hit the valve cover.
Thanks for any info.
Regards,
Jon

Jon, I sent you a detailed message a few day's ago.
Charley
PS--resend your email address to me and I'll email it also.

Here's a few pictures from today.
Charley

Wow, I'm awestruck, what a beautiful and well engineered machine!

I reckon that'll be Becky's "grocery getter."

She's a Master Gardner, lot's of trips to Home Depot.