MTFCA Forum

Starting a build thread to track the progress of a “new” speedster build by an enthusiastic 16 y/o, his dad who will document the process (me), and his Model T part supplier & MTFCA past prez grandfather (@tmdltim).

First step was a trip to Texas and home of Cast Iron Automotive where 95% of the parts were pulled off dusty shelves and laid out on the shop floor.

The heart of the car is a restored & running 1913 engine from the late Prestley Morris. Already 060 over, it will get a high compression aluminum head and specialty carb.

Congrats this is going to be fun! Thanks for letting us follow your progress. Best John

Step 2 was driving all the parts & pieces 19 hours to North Carolina. There, the parts will get the usual prep, paint, and assembly.

But not before the method of dropping the frame a few inches is determined and fabricated.

Parts arrived home and work is ongoing (at least until school starts in 3 weeks). Follow along here or on Instagram @diyluke

Glad to see the younger 1's taking a liking to the T's!

Going to be a fun series of posts. Keep em coming!

Looking forward to seeing the progress!

Rough mock up continues. Aux transmission will get a custom bracket and married to an already shortened drive shaft. Lowering steering column angle next priority.

Front spindles coming together. Sanded, primed, painted, clear coated, and new bushings installed.

Remind him that he will be most comfortable if he tilts the seats back about 10-15 degrees. Wish I had done it with my speedster.

Thank you for the post. I will enjoy reading it.

Laying the seat back helps, but it still needs to be positioned correctly for the individual driver's comfort. If it is a bucket seat installed individually on the body base, you could consider more than one set of mounting points so it can be shifted at will.

Allan from down under.

Glad to see the next generations build. Carston are having so much with "Nuthin' Special" his little ' 23 rpu. Check out his build thread under Nuthin Special for some inspiration. Dad and Grandpa good on you guys passing it on!

Great looking build. Will check out your thread!

More gears! The speedster will have a Muncie aux transmission. Luke cut, welded, and painted a support bracket.

The spindle arm nut should not be tightened onto the spindle until after the front suspension is assembled. The tie rod's bolts will dictate the position of the arm on spindles. Tightening before final assembly will guarantee binding.

Luke & Alex if you have not planned to put auxiliary brakes on your speedster, I strongly recommend you do so since you are putting in an auxiliary transmission. Using period auxiliary transmissions or rear axles make it imperative to do so. If they jump out of gear or your locked out from shifting into a gear puts you in a bad situation with no real way to stop. I’m enjoying the build & progress keep up the good work.
Best John

Great to see the younger generations get into the hobby. I built a 1966 Chevy pickup with my granddaughter best time ever!!! Muncie as a great
choice, with reverse you can eliminate the low peddle & lower the steering column even more. I hate to be a stick in the mud but I would figure
out a trans mount the will allow the frame to flex more than that one will, There should be a drilled & taped hole on the underside of the Muncie
tail shaft that will work very well. Model T frames flex a lot I find it best to not try to stop them from flexing.
Craig.

JTT3 wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 13, 2024 7:56 pm

Luke & Alex if you have not planned to put auxiliary brakes on your speedster, I strongly recommend you do so since you are putting in an auxiliary transmission. Using period auxiliary transmissions or rear axles make it imperative to do so. If they jump out of gear or your locked out from shifting into a gear puts you in a bad situation with no real way to stop. I’m enjoying the build & progress keep up the good work.
Best John

Great advice. Yes we heard that there is risk of moving and unable to get back into a gear. We have a set of new Rocky Mountain brakes that will get painted and installed.

The engine - a ‘13 - will get an aluminum head upgrade. Machine shop cleaned it up before install. New copper head gasket ready too.

Fantastic stuff!

Thank you for taking us along.

The speedster will get a set of wires to accompany its later model running axles. We are ready to make it a roller. But before mounting the new tires, we need to pick a wheel color. Unfortunately these two shades of green aren’t it (left side vs right side).

Either of this two shades of green would go well with a vivid yellow body colour.

Allan from down under.

Driveline assembled tonight. Luke got the shortened drive shaft bolted up to the Muncie and the rear end. Added new 600W in the process. Fun to see the axles spin with the turn of the hand crank.

The biggest new purchase so far is the birch firewall. Stain and polyurethane added before it gets bolted up to the chassis this weekend.

First wheel mounted. Decided on black color. Three more to go then we will have a roller.

Alot easier to mount tires on wire wheels whilst on the car !

Fitting tyres that way gives valuable experience. Now he knows how to do it, he is well set.

The even easier way is to have a tyre shop do it. My fellow puts a little electrical tape on the four "grippers" to protect the paintwork. The mounting head goes around the wheel 1/8" above the outer edge of the rim, so no paint damage there either. 10 minutes per wheel, done and dusted!

Allan from down under.

Except for a couple modern cars with weird modern shallow rims very hard to do without a big expensive machine? All my life I have done nearly all my tire work myself both antique and modern. People often ask me why? I tell them that usually, I can do the entire repair myself with my basic tools in less time than it takes to drive them to the tire shop and wait to fill out the repair forms and drive home, then return later to pick them up.

Always wise to not be too dependent upon others anyway!

I do a lot of our local clubs' tire mounting - the knees don't appreciate the floor much anymore so I purchased this manual machine for motorcycle tires - works on wires, clinchers & split rims.

A few random progress pictures.

Love the speedster - the Stearman 75 ain't exactly chopped liver either!

Weekend progress pics

And more pics.

It’s finally a roller. Major components installed. Still planning to “z” the rear frame to align with the drop axle.

Progress continues. The firewall has since been lowered and moved back and steering column lowered.

Maiden voyage of around 15 miles. Stopped by our local hardware shop where lots of the small hardware pieces were sourced. Then lunch. Ran great.

Action shot

This is great to see! Enjoy!

Thanks for sharing the journey.

Can I suggest this method for cotter pin install:

Or the US Military way:

The summer goal for Luke was to build and drive the speedster to his high school auto club car show this Fall. It’s got about 100 miles on it so far.

Luke has lots of plans in 2025 for the speedster. One included testing out a “speederator”.

I like that speederator - it seems so simple. Does it attach to the hand throttle too? Or just foot throttle?
Great to meet you both a couple weeks ago!

Yes it does connect to the throttle too. It has a slide feature so you can drive with either the peddle or stock throttle (ignore the stacked nuts for spacing). It also came with tabs that once mounted touch to other peddles and act to disengage foot throttle if you press the other peddles. Luke hasn’t installed those yet. First drive tonight and he said it worked fine.

Oh and yes great to meet too. We are returning in May for the CARS events. Looking forward to it and saying hello again.

The speedster has been racking up miles. While interning at a Ford dealership, Luke took the car for show & tell.

Luke swapped out the Holly carb for this unique Rayfield (Pat. 1911) and intake manifold. We don’t know much about it. The needle tip needed repaired. Lots of adjustment options but it’s running and driving well with it.