Fire wall drilled for Right or left hand drive

[Colin Mavins]

I have only seen one of these fire wall and it came off of my Canadian made 1912 touring Is there other cars with this fire wall. What makes it right or left is it has two carb adjusting holes one drilled from each side the extra hole is when covered with the serial number plate.

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[Les Schubert]

Collin
Thank you for the pictures and information. I built my 13 RHD touring with very little information. I’m running a OF carburetor so it wasn’t a issue for me

[Rich P. Bingham]

The factory drawings for the dash board from 1911 and updated through 1914 show boring two slanted holes to accept the carburetor mixture adjustment rod, either side of the coil box, to enable its use on either right or left-hand drive cars. At this late date, there are very few original examples remaining, I doubt if any reproduction dashes made the past 50+ years were bored for both applications.

[Dan Hatch]

Hanging in my shop is an NOS 13/14 firewall. Came out of a closed Ford dealership in Tenn. it is made for RHD and LHD. Dan

[Original14T]

My late 13 built 1914 touring car still has its original factory firewall, and it’s drilled both sides for RH or LH drive

[Allan]

Bill, I would expect that on a Canadian sourced car, made for LHD and RHD markets. I did not expect it to be a feature on US cars.

Allan from down under.

[Original14T]

No I wouldn’t have expected it on a U.S. built car either, Henry must have standardised the firewalls so they could go to U.S. or Canadian factories.
Interestingly the hole for the mixture rod on the left side has the bored angles in the opposite orientation than the hole that is used on the right hand side. This means that on a right hand drive car the entire firewall was turned around before being fitted.

[Original14T]

Left hand side unused hole from drivers compartment

[Original14T]

Left hand side from engine compartment

[Original14T]

Right hand side from engine compartment

[Luxford]

It would be logical that the early Model T's would have had a dashboard drilled for both left and right hand drive. Both T versions were made as far back as 1910.
Initially Ford Detroit was producing the parts for both L&R hand vehicles for Canada and England.
Right Hand for Canada to send to the British Colonies but also from Detroit to send to England as they were also RHD. As Detroit supplied all their T's in RHD.
When Canada was producing their own dashboards they would drill both sides as we know from above posts.
Obviously Detroit would have done some (if not all ) for both L&R hand drive in the early years. if not right up until they forced LHD onto Britain in 1919.
Was there a separate line that did some being sent to England with a dash only drilled for RHD, or did England have to drill the hole after the dashboards arrived? Probably no one has looked real close or few restorations had good original dashboards and made a new one with the holes for what steering set up they had.

English Model T guys may be able to throw some light on the subject if they know and any survive with the original dashboard.

[signsup]

So, if I'm looking at a 1912 to purchase, examining the firewall for this second, unused hole would indicate an original or reproduction firewall?
Would this second hole be covered on one side by a serial plate? But the backside of the firewall would have this hole?

[Original14T]

Yes, on the driver compartment side the unused hole was covered by the patent plate but the hole can be seen from the engine bay side.

[tdump]

Forgive me if i am out of line for asking. BUT if the firewalls were predrilled for either side to be driven from, where are the steering column holes on the other side of the firewall?

[Kerry]

Just turn it around.

[tdump]

Just turn it around.

Ok, thank you,makes sense now.

[Kerry]

I have this in my files, can't remember its origins but only the one hole showing.