Speedster body mounting

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Dennis_Brown
Posts: 245
Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:14 pm
First Name: Dennis
Last Name: Brown
* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: 1926 Roadster pickup
Location: Spring Hill Fl

Speedster body mounting

Post by Dennis_Brown » Fri Feb 09, 2024 10:49 pm

I have the front half of what I believe is a speedster body. At the booth edge it has about a 3/4 inch lip toward the inside with holes spaced along it. To mount it to a plywood base would I build a framework for it and attach this lip to the bottom of the framework and then attatch that framework to a 3/4 plywood bottom. Would that flat base then have metal brackets attaching it to the frame or wood runners bolted to the base and the runners mounted to the original frame brackets.
the cowl fits a T firewall fairly close.

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Craig Leach
Posts: 1906
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 12:22 am
First Name: craig
Last Name: leach
* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: 1919 Firetruck/1922 Speedster
Location: Laveen Az

Re: Speedster body mounting

Post by Craig Leach » Fri Feb 09, 2024 11:35 pm

Hi Dennis,
This really is one of those pictures are worth a thousand words situations.
Craig.


Wayne Sheldon
Posts: 4249
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2019 3:13 pm
First Name: Wayne
Last Name: Sheldon
* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: 1915 Runabout 1913 Speedster
Location: Grass Valley California, USA
Board Member Since: 2005

Re: Speedster body mounting

Post by Wayne Sheldon » Sat Feb 10, 2024 6:33 am

In the model T era, plywood was rarely ever used for speedster flooring. It was not widely available (if at all?) in thick enough or large enough pieces.
Methods of construction varied from one builder to another, but what I have seen a few of still in original bodies was nice long grain wooden boards with few knots. Boards varied in thickness again from one builder to the next, but were usually between a 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. Width of boards could be anywhere from about 4 inches to 6 inches wide. The original surviving wood on the bot-tail roadster I restored over thirty years ago was about 5/8 inch thick, and mostly about five inches wide. Main sills ran front to rear, with cross pieces side to side. There were many other speedsters done differently. The sills and cross piece flooring sat flat onto the frame and bolted directly through to the frame and frame brackets. On that boat-tail, the rear crossmember was raised above the frame rails to lower the back about two inches (body metal was cut out for that). For that reason, the main sills were not a single continuous board the full length of the body.

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CamMan
Posts: 75
Joined: Sat Feb 29, 2020 1:26 pm
First Name: Larry
Last Name: Young
* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: '26 Tudor, '22 speedster, ABC/Rajo
Location: Tulsa

Re: Speedster body mounting

Post by CamMan » Mon Feb 12, 2024 4:00 pm

My ABC speedster body was done in a similar way. I still use the main sills that are about 1" thick. I used some plywood in the restoration but there was none originally. There are a lot of photos at https://mtfctulsa.com/ABC_Bodies/abc_project.htm

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