My roadster pickup project

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2014: My roadster pickup project
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Rothrock on Saturday, November 22, 2014 - 10:39 pm:

I'm working on what my late father called his "Hoopy". He had overhauled/pieced together a ~1924 chassis from his boyhood farm wagon with a 1926 engine and transmission, but it had already been sitting for a few years before his death in 2012. Starting this fall, I decided to add a body and truck bed. Working to low cost, I used the cowl and a bit from a 1924 cutoff touring and spliced on an old Chevrolet touring rear seat section to make a roadster of sorts. My brother and I built a truck bed from pine sawed from a tree my father had cut down in 2010. More to go, but I think it will be fun when I get done.Hoopy


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jack Daron - Brownsburg IN on Saturday, November 22, 2014 - 11:07 pm:

Looks like a lotta fun,about to begin.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Willie K Cordes on Saturday, November 22, 2014 - 11:19 pm:

Looks like a fun project. Fenders and headlight bar look 1927.
Sometime the exact year is not as important as getting a running car to drive and have fun.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By John P Noonan on Saturday, November 22, 2014 - 11:29 pm:

Looks great Mark, best of luck and keep us updated on your progress.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Rothrock on Saturday, November 22, 2014 - 11:47 pm:

Right Willie. The front fenders, splash aprons, headlight bar and running boards are 26-27. I think the headlight buckets might be Dodge. I remember my Dad buying them at the Hoosier swap meet for about a dollar each. Not sure what the rear fenders are, but they will work. The windshield is older, maybe 1915-16? I have a rough set of 1923 or earlier top irons that I will have to modify a bit, since the prop nut is about 3 or 4 inches aft of Ford location, and the Chevrolet section is another 3 or 4 inches longer to the back also. Maybe front and rear touring irons would work better. Pretty roomy compared to a normal T runabout seat, since it is about 2 inches wider also. I'm planning to leave the patina all over for that Beverly Hillbillies look. I will need to find a 1925 hood rather than the low hood on it.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Steve Jelf, Parkerfield KS on Saturday, November 22, 2014 - 11:51 pm:

It's a car show judges' nightmare. Love it. :-)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Wayne Sheldon, Grass Valley, CA on Sunday, November 23, 2014 - 01:23 am:

Nice! Something that you can have a lot of fun with!
Drive carefully, and enjoy, W2


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By G.R.Cheshire on Sunday, November 23, 2014 - 08:29 am:

Pick-ups are a lot of fun and besides it is always more fun to drive them than to show them. don't forget battery access under the bed you can use the trap door or do like Mark Strange and I did make it dump it is easier to get to things that way.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Strange on Sunday, November 23, 2014 - 08:41 am:

Great car, I second the motion for a dump bed: :-)

car


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Rothrock on Sunday, November 23, 2014 - 10:32 am:

Fantastic looking pickups, G.R. and Mark! Great idea; I didn't think about a dump bed. I am moving the battery holder to access under the seat, since my gas tank is only about half width of the car.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Hap Tucker in Sumter SC on Sunday, November 23, 2014 - 07:20 pm:

Looks like it will soon be a fun car to drive. If you (or others) haven’t listened to the Johny Cash’s song “One Piece at a Time” in a while – it seems appropriate see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1-zzJnKtDg

Yes the windshield brackets and hinges are for the 1915-early to mid 1917 Model Ts.

This is one of your first few postings so far. So welcome aboard. While it doesn’t matter what year or for that matter what make parts you use, it is important that you enjoy your car. And there are some known safety items about the Model T that you should check out before you start driving it. (If you are driving slowly on a farm where it doesn’t matter if the brakes fail, the spokes fail, car turns over, etc. – then you can ignore them all). If you have been around Model Ts for while you probably already know about the pitfalls. But if not, I would recommend you review them so you learn about those issues second hand rather than first hand experience. Getting an experienced Model T person to help you learn about your car can save you lots of frustration and possible expense. For example if you fail to retard the spark and you push down on the starting crank at the front of the car to start the car, you could easily break your arm. That is a known safety issue with Model Ts. And it isn’t dangerous as long as you understand what causes it [spark lever advanced [that is the left hand lever on a left hand drive car] it should be pushed up], commutator adjustment rod installed wrong or bent improperly so that even with the spark lever up, the spark is still too far advanced, shorted wire on the commutator, etc. . And if you use the electrical starter that your car should have – if the spark is advanced and the engine back fires – it can damage the starter and/or bendix drive. For additional details please see: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50893/68644.html?1224126132

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50893/69444.html
and there are other related threads.

Some other safety related items:

And be sure the car is in safe working order. An engine that burns oil is not a critical safety issue (at least not in my book) but the front end castor if it is set up negative can flip the car. If the rear axle still has the original babbit thrust washers you can lose your normal service brake. Those and similar items are well documented "oops" for the T. But if you have never been around one -- they are probably new "data points" for you. Some of them are listed below – not to scare you but to let you learn from others rather than discovering all the lessons on your own.

Safety Glass is nice: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50893/72116.html

Use safety wire and not lock washers or cotter pins on the two studs holding the wishbone to the underside of the engine.

Lots of safety items http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50893/69429.html

Over center steering – shouldn’t happen on the later Ts (yours is a later T)– but if someone replaced your later teens steering gear housing or rebuilt it without the lock pin – or installed the wrong length drag link it might happen: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/86345.html as well as: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/300409.html

Types of safety wire: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/41859.html

Example of loss of brakes caused by drive shaft failure: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/47804.html

Top T tips – many of them are safety related also: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/85208.html

Tour safety check list: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/44331.html

And if you have a gas hot water heater in the garage – be very very careful. The float in a Model T Carb will sometimes stick (or trash in the valve) and the carb will leak gasoline. Not too bad if there are no sparks – several homes, garages and cars have been lost when a gas hot water heater was near by and someone started the dishwasher other item that caused it to turn on the burner at the wrong time. Note gas fumes tend to be heavier than regular air …. so they tend to hug the floor. If you adjust your garage door to let the mice in and the air out – that is a temp work around. But replacing the gas fired hot water heater with an electric heater or having the gas one relocated away from the garage is the best thing

Even with a perfectly good and properly adjusted front steering system – if you back up quickly, the front wheels can go full left or full right and pull the steering wheel out of your hand – so remember to back up slowly. It is caused by the caster of the front wheels similar to the casters on the front of the shopping cart – designed to be stable in one direction but not so stable in the opposite direction. Since you have already been driving the car you probably do not have the following problem – but you might still want to check. If someone rebuilt the front axle and it is was really difficult to keep the car going straight they may have inadvertently swapped the front spring perches. There is a left and a right spring perch that tilts the axle so the bottom of the axle is slightly ahead of the top of the axle (5 1/2 degrees positive caster – although there is some discussion that it is a little less but still positive for the balloon tires like you have). If it has negative to neutral caster it can cause a wild ride and also could cause the car to flip even at a slow speed see: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/80333.html?1233523419 that shows the spring perch installed incorrectly and how the front axle looks then. Also see: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/40382.html Note even with the spring perch installed correctly a bent or shortened wishbone could cause neutral to negative caster.

Also the rear axle thrust bearings if they are babbitt (originally bronze in the 1909-1915 cars and then switched to babbitt on the cars during 1915 ref: http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/P-R.htm#rax3 see part number 2528 ) can fail with minimal warning leaving the driver without the normal transmission brake (the main regular brake on a stock Model T). See the discussion at: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50893/78685.html?1233159025 If you loose the brakes and you are on a flat area with minimal traffic – it is not nearly as bad as loosing them while going down hill towards a busy intersection. See the rear axle babbitt discussion part way down in the following thread: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/277093.html?1332591272

Wood spokes work fine – but they need to fit tightly, not be split or wood rotted, made of quality wood (pine is not a good choice and yes some folks have offered pine spokes for sale) and the bolts etc. need to be tight without too much wobble in the wheel. see: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/179374/248594.html?1322326314


Again a T is a faithful servant but it has some known issues that the driver needs to be aware of and to take proper precautions about.

I would also encourage you to check out the local Model T Ford club(s) near you. See: http://www.mtfca.com/clubpages/chapters.htm and http://www.modelt.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&Itemid=15 They can be a real source of encouragement and help you as you learn to maintain the car. Steve Jelf has an excellent set of books he recommends for new owners on his web site at: http://dauntlessgeezer.com/ with the T section at: http://dauntlessgeezer.com/DG52.html and the recommended books listed at: http://dauntlessgeezer.com/DG80.html Note there are also free “how to books” on the internet such – see: http://books.google.com/books?id=uKVAAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:xR 56bbT2W68C&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tdpWVMi4PMOjgwSAhoC4Ag&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=fa lse and there are others – but I didn’t see a 1926-27 one. And the Ford Service is online at: http://mtfci2002.readyhosting.com/manuals/Model_T_Service_Manual/mtsm.html and does include the 1926 -27 “Improved car” features.

Good luck with your project and welcome to the forum.

Respectfully submitted,

Hap l9l5 cut off


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