MTFCA Forum

Hello,

If we were back in the era of the Great Depression, and you had to turn your Model T into a Bennett Buggy / Hoover Wagon / horse-drawn vehicle, what would you do with the front and back radius rods once the engine, transmission, steering, and driveshaft had been removed?

My husband and I are trying to take a 1:25 scale model kit of a 1925 Model T and make it into a 1:25 Bennett Buggy (named after Canada's prime minister at the time, R.B. Bennett). There are not enough photographs around of the underside of Bennett Buggies to give us an idea of what people did with the rods.

For example:
Would you attach some cross-members to to the frame and attach the radius rods to those?
Would you connect the front and back rods longitudinally? If so, would you attach the connector in some way to the frame’s cross-member?
Would you take the radius rods out altogether? To turn the car into a horse-drawn carriage, would the rods still be needed?

We would appreciate any help you can offer!

All the best,
Vicky Burrus
Toronto

The oilpan is left in, wish bone attached to it in front and rear end attached to it at the rear.

Do you really need radius rods?

Looks like a sort of a horse wagon fifth wheel apparatus to steer the front wheels.


Here's an open car wagon

Stuff:
https://www.ivccarriage.com/collections ... e-hardware
Consider contacting the Carriage Association of America ( https://www.caaonline.com/) and inquire about information in their archives.

This one is a bit hard to see what they did.
https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/5 ... 1474853020
Each "craftsman" used his own ideas.
I have seen the rear radius rods bolted to the frame with different brackets or even bailing wire.
We found many of them and should have taken pictures.
Rich

I suppose, if you already had horses, and your engine gave out, you could use them to pull the car. However, they are not as fast as a car and also the horses continue to eat even when not using the wagon. They also leave their biscuits along the way
Norm

In the picture they have used aunt that attached to the front axle and had a double flat plate on top.the bottom plate was part of the piece attached to the axle and there was about a 5/8 hole thru both plates and bolted together for a turntable. The top piece extended to the rear and was clamped to the tie rod causing the spindles to turn with the tongue.. The top piece also extended forward and in this instance angled up a little then had a pivot so the tongue could move up and down? I see a single tree attached to both harnesses i and the tongue in front of the horses. Normally you would have a double tree attached lower behind the horses and the tongue attached there and the horses could turn easier without the tongue between them.
This unit looks like they cut off the frame and moved the front crossmember back. I do not know if the horses could pull the front axle out if the wishbone was removed but they may have rigged some way of attaching it. There was no torque on the rear axle so the radius rods there could be removed or attached some way to keep the axle straight.
I wonder if the left the emergency brake lever in and hooked up?
Normally when the T chassis was used as a trailer the pan was left in and the front radius wishbone was left hooked up as a tractor would have a stronger pull against the axle. The tongue then pivoted up and down just in front of the axle.
.I have a unit in the attic somewhere that I took off a front axle that was used on a 4 wheel trailer.

In my last post it should read a unit not an aunt.
If you have a front axle with a 5/8 hole thru the web in the center of the axle it was probably used under a 4 wheel trailer.

All of this has been wonderfully useful! Thank you so much!
It's been useful not just for ideas about the radius rods, but also for the hitch. Now I can make sense of some of the photos I've seen.