1915 turtle box removal

[dr1960]

My winter project for my 1915 runabout is to remove the turtle box and install one of the accessory wood truck beds. Turtle box removal with just 4 bolts, right? Unless one of the previous owners decided to braze the top of the box in several places to the back seat metal. Uhg. I was trying to do this and not disturb the paint too much. Now it looks like I have to cut the brazing out with a die grinder or my dremel. The sides are free. Anyone have pictures of how the top fits to the body? Don’t want to get too aggressive. Thanks.

[Don D]

David,

I just did this to a 1919 Roadster. There were 6 bolts into the back of the sheetmetal. I needed a flashlight to see them. After removing some of the seat back cushion, I was able to unscrew them. I purchased black plastic push-in hole plugs I found online to fill them.

See the attached photos,

Dom

[Wayne Sheldon]

I know I have never seen everything. One thing I have never seen is bolts between the turtle deck and the seat back of a 1913 through 1922 T runabout! Of course, I haven't seen many brazed to the seat back either, except for a few hotrods. My February 1915 runabout was in pretty nasty condition when I acquired it. Someone had even begun to turn it into some sort of bucket T thing. They experimented with some sort of wire-feed/electric welder and altered the door jambs, closing off the latch openings. Someone began bodywork, some of it done fairly well, some nasty. Even the front cowl piece had been changed. The wood had since had enough time to deteriorate beyond salvage. But it did provide some patterns to help guide me in re-wooding the body. As rough as it was? The seat back was in pretty nice condition. There were NO holes anywhere that could have indicated the turtle deck was ever bolted to the back of the seat. Just four bolts through the T-deck's wood, and the wooden body sills.
Also, I borrowed a friends nearly perfect original turtle deck to help guide me in straightening mine, and I carefully copied his T-deck's original wood. Still nothing to indicate it had ever been bolted to a seat back.

All that said. A lot can happen in a hundred plus years. Probably a lot of them got altered, bolted, or even brazed onto the seat back. So, certainly, look for such alterations. In my years in this hobby, I have seen some bizarre things done many years earlier. But I really do not think Ford ever bolted those pieces together.
I do know that the 1926/'27 trunk was bolted to the roadster seat back. As for the 1923 through 1925? I never worked on one enough to know.

[JEC]

picture of my 25 bed