Hi all you Model T nuts. I can call you that cause I'm one of em. I'm new at this stuff and need a mentor to lean on. I just joined the MTFCA. I am quite far along in my Tudor Restoration. Most of the mechanical is completed except for assembly. Engine and Tranny all done. But need to find someone who can mentor me through the rest of it. I need someone to lean on now and again. I live in North Central Utah around the Provo area.
I need help with knowing just how far to break down my Tudor body to get all the rust out. Should I separate the body sections that are bolted together and then take into a media blaster? Do I grind out the rivets on the inside piece around the rear window to get to the rust on the inside of it? Should I take the whole body to a media blaster and have it all cleaned up or work on it myself. After this, my 24 Roadster. Thanks for all your professional help from one Model T owner to another.
Given the condition the body looks to be in the pictures, I think it would be overkill to break it down any more than removing all the wood parts. If there is some surface rust left on the inside where you cant get to it with wire wheel or media blaster then it's unlikely it'll be malign if you paint it with POR15 and keep the car in a garage when it isn't used.
Be really really careful with the blaster - it can distort a sheet metal panel in no time. Always use as low pressure as possible on sheet metal and never blast at 90 degrees to the surface, blast more like 30 to 45 degrees towards the surface to minimize risk for distortion. If possible, avoid blasting in the middle of a panel without reinforcement ribs.
(Message edited by Roger K on May 25, 2015)
You can also protect the unaccessible areas with cavity wax after the body is painted:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-x-DINITROL-ML-PENETRATOR-RUST-PROOFING-CAVITY-WAX-500m l-AEROSOL-EXTENSION-/320923093883
Ditto what Roger said. You'll open a huge can of worms trying to separate the panels. The T-strips are spot welded to one of the panels and will disfigure and sometimes break when you cut the welds. It's hard not to damage the body panels too.
Make sure the body and frame are straight. The one I did looked like it may have been rolled/flipped. The rear quarters above the wheel wells were bulged-out about an inch and showed damage at the bottom where the axle tubes struck the subframe. And it showed some damage along the top. It took some pulling and reforming to get the body straight and square again.
"Make sure the body and frame are straight. "
Rand -- Take this advice to heart. If your frame is not straight and square, the car will never be right. Use a string along the top inside edge of each frame rail to see how much it's bent, and a tape measure from corner to corner to see whether it's square. Also measure the outside width of the frame at the front crossmember (and elsewhere). The crossmember often is "relaxed" a bit and you'll need to re-bend it. The outside dimension should be 23". I've never encountered a T frame which didn't need some correcting, and I've spent as much as two full days fixing one.
Rand, your body doesn't look like a rust bucket like some of the 26-27 Coupe's and Sedan's wind up being.
Those are the one's that need to be broken down completely to do a good job.
I would remove as much of the rust as possible the way it is. Then use some type of rust inhibitor making sure you get it in the area's where the metal pieces join each other.
DONT get in a hurry and take your time. You'll be glad you did! The body usually takes more time than the chassis with more attention to detail. Good Luck!
http://www.rustbullet.com/automotive
I am a believer in this stuff.
Thanks for all your comments and help. I measured the frame from corner to corner. 107 1/2 to 107 1/4. Is that close enough? Also, I have a hole in the body below the rear window that had some sort of a ring in it. I need to repair it. How do I do it? Mig, Tig, Braze or other? Thanks again for your help. Rand
Hardware stores used to carry a product called OSPHO. Get all the rust off that you can, and spray OSPHO into all the corners and places you can't get to, and every where else on the inside of the sheet metal. I'd then spray paint. OSPHO changes the iron oxide (rust) into iron phosphate. I'm not a chemist or a body man, but, when taking a car down to the metal, I like to wash down metal with ospho before doing all the final body work. Sometimes there are seams etc, that I can't insure are rust free. In FL, bare metal starts to rust almost immediately if not treated with something. Maybe I've just been lucky, but, it's worked for me.
I'd suggest you pull apart any seam that shows any rust. When I restored my Tudor it had rust in the belt line, but no rust through, so I just cleaned it up before painting. I now have bubbles beneath the paint. Water comes in the window and gets into the seam from the back side, so it will continue to rust unless you go inside and kill it. You can see the entire project at www.mtfctulsa.com under member projects.
Larry Young
Some epoxy primers (which I really like), such as DP90 & the other numbers, bond better to bare metal than to treated metal. Read the MSDS sheets for your choice of primer.
Thanks for all your info. I've been out of town for 3 days on a Motorcycle trip to Colo and just got back. I'll take a look at your links..Rand