1929 Ford Model A Speedster

Used a set like that from speedway. It will be interesting to see what you come up with as an alternative.

Motor mounts:

It's amazing what two guys can accomplish with just eighteen bucks worth of steel and several thousands of dollars worth of shop tools...

nice job.

Woody wrote: It's amazing what two talentedguys can accomplish with just eighteen bucks worth of steel and several thousands of dollars worth of shop tools...

tuna55 wrote:

Woody wrote: It's amazing what two talentedguys can accomplish with just eighteen bucks worth of steel and several thousands of dollars worth of shop tools...

Yeah...if I had access to shop tools like that and had fabrication skills of that caliber, I wouldn't have even thought twice about making them myself.

Heck, at the moment I have an angle grinder, a sawzall, a hand drill, and a 110VAC MIG welder, and I wouldn't think twice about making those myself. ;-)

I saw a 1928 Model A Tudor "AR" at a car show today. The car was for sale. I tried to buy the 18th Amendment plate, but he wouldn't sell it.

18th amendment plate is awesome.

The less popular counterpart for sale: Uphold the 18th amendment

Prepping the Deuce K Member using the drill press that I inherited from my grandfather. The drill press is at least 60 years old.

Building a hotrod requires almost as many clamps as building a boat.

For some reason, I really like this photo. I drilled through two pieces of steel. One is over 80 years old and the other is brand new. Once you start making chips, it all looks the same.

I don't have any really good before and after photos of the front crossmember. The original is a beautiful (and heavy!) piece, but it needed to get chopped down to clear the front pulley of the Flathead.

This piece of metal did not wish to be cut.

If I ever need to make a small gusset plate for the chassis, a bridge or warship, I know where I can find a good scrap of metal...

This is my favorite build going right now. Something about starting with two bare frame rails and ending up with a car. I'm still not sure why it's not in the build thread part of the forum, but I love seeing it pop to the top of the main page.

mazdeuce wrote: This is my favorite build going right now. Something about starting with two bare frame rails and ending up with a car. I'm still not sure why it's not in the build thread part of the forum, but I love seeing it pop to the top of the main page.

Whoops! I never realized that. Sorry.

Mounting the motor mounts:

The challenge that I was up against here is that I needed to attach two hand made motor mounts to an eighty year old tapered frame, and they needed to be level, equidistant from the center crossmember, centered in the chassis, and the centers of the holes had to be 20 inches apart. Complicating matters is the fact that there was a poorly executed gas-welded frame repair, exactly where the left mount needed to be. I started by smoothing out the old repair to make room for the mount.

I decided that the easiest way to get the mounts where they needed to be, and keep them there, was to tack them to a scrap piece of 1x1 steel. This would keep them level and square. I could also be sure that they were spaced exactly 20 inches apart and I could easily center the assembly in the frame. Once the mounts were welded to the frame, I would cut the tack welds off the square tubing and remove it. As a bonus, it also made it easier to get a coat of weld-through primer on the inside of the mounts while they were easily accessible.

There were two existing holes on each side of the frame where the original hold-downs for the hood were riveted in place. These were directly above the new motor mounts, so I drilled them out a little larger. Once I was satisfied with the location of the new mounts, I clamped the assembly into place and then plug welded the mounts to the frame through the holes. Then I cut the tack welds on the temporary spreader and removed it.

At this point, the welds are strong enough to set the engine and transmission in place and allow us to mock up the transmission mounts. Once we're certain that everything is going to work together, I'll go back and do some finish welding.

A bit of (somewhat relevant) inspiration:

Sorry for the crappy pic. There are some folks nearby who run a business rebuilding Model-T carburetors, and are very active in the T community. They have a couple hand-built T racecars they run at the Newport, IN hillclimb each year, but this is their "touring" car.

Meanwhile, back at Dave's place...

The front and rear suspensions are starting to come together. We never expected that you would need a spring compressor for a car like this, but that seems to be the case. In order to fit into the shackles on the rear axle, the spring eyes need to be spread apart, which is effectively what happen when you compress the spring.

Dave built a tool that would accomplish this. I'm kind of glad that I wasn't around for this part.

Since the back end of our car is going to be so much lighter than it was originally, the stock spring pack would be way too stiff and the car would have far too much rake. The springs were disassembled, several leaves were removed and then cut to be used as spacers and then it was reassembled.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this or not, but we've chosen a color...

And yet you continue to keep the color a secret from us!

When is chasis assembly?

Woody wrote:

mazdeuce wrote: This is my favorite build going right now. Something about starting with two bare frame rails and ending up with a car. I'm still not sure why it's not in the build thread part of the forum, but I love seeing it pop to the top of the main page.

Whoops! I never realized that. Sorry.

I just moved it

I know it's an 80 year old piece of metal, but that rear axle/spring assembly looks so damn racecar I can hardly stand it.

JoeyM wrote:

Woody wrote:

mazdeuce wrote: This is my favorite build going right now. Something about starting with two bare frame rails and ending up with a car. I'm still not sure why it's not in the build thread part of the forum, but I love seeing it pop to the top of the main page.

Whoops! I never realized that. Sorry.

I just moved it

Thank you.

Woody wrote: I'm not sure if I've mentioned this or not, but we've chosen a color...

I hope its blue

Dark blue was on the short list.

I am with Seth. This is my favorite build right now (Fergus is 2nd Keep up the good work Woody

Billy_Bottle_Caps wrote: I am with Seth. This is my favorite build right now (Fergus is 2nd Keep up the good work Woody

Thanks, but don't forget Dave!

Rear bakes:

Rod actuated brakes? Cables? Surely not hydraulic.