How to Cut Doors in Model T

I've been busy working away on the T, the details will follow shortly. What's more important is that I found this scan of an old issue of Hot Rod Magazine detailing how to add an opening door to a fibreglass body. With the work I'm undertaking at the moment, I have realised the great need for a door, climbing in and out of the car is very difficult for me, and it's not going to be getting any easier until I cut a door in the bucket.

Hot Rod Magazine Dec. 1966

Riding Shotgun

After collecting my freshly repaired manifold Rob captured a little bit of the journey back to his place, it's a pretty cool little recording so I thought I'd share it with you.

Pump Conclusion and Weekend Cruising

I found the seat riser I'd made a little too high for my liking, I felt like I was sitting on the car instead of in it, I didn't feel safe at all, I liked the angle for my leg position, but hated it for the excess pain it gave me in my back, so Friday's job entailed altering the angle and dropping the height, it didn't take long at all, but, it has made a huge difference to the over all comfort.
After my last post I went out for the weekend cruising down to some buddies' workshop to hang out for the day and then off to a show the next. When I was running down to the shop the T did puke  a bit of coolant again, I can only assume it was levelling/burping as this did not happen the next day nor has it occurred since.

Frinton Flyer / Gonzo Customs' awesome pedal and electric cycles

I picked up Rob of Gonzo Kustom fame, and cruised on over to a guy who was going to repair the intake he said he'd be able to tig weld it for me. I was going to attempt the repair myself, but decided against it in case I made a mess of the job and it ended up being more expensive to have someone undo my work and repair it properly. Then we blasted some back roads down to hang with Marc and Rob at the Frinton Flyer shop, much fun, laughs and innuendos were had by all. These guys build some insane pedal and electric bikes, the likes of which most of you would never have seen before, they are truly stunning, should you be in the market for anything custom and bicycle these dudes are some of the best in the business. I also had the pleasure of meeting Danny of Maddanny Pinstriping, who was laying down some stripes on one of their new builds, he's an all round great guy and one hell of an artist, I'm certain I'll be enlisting his services once I have an idea of what's going on with the paint on the T. At end of play, we headed back to collect the manifold, which was repaired astonishingly well at an even better price, dropped Rob back of at his place stole a coffee, bought one of his kick ass trucker hats and blasted home.

Gonzo Bars Trucker Hats

My freshly repaired intake, a huge result with a tiny investment.

Sunday was another pretty early start, I had invited an old friend to come out to a car show with me, Spring Break 2015, so headed off to pick her up and cruise to the show. Sadly the drive was laborious, aside from the company of course, there were road works and average speed cameras almost the whole way there, luckily the weather was stunning with the sun beaming all day long. We arrived at the site, after a little searching figured out where we were supposed to be going.
I thought that the entry price was fairly reasonable at £7 per head, paid up and we were ushered in to the show arena, I'm not sure why, I can only guess it was in order to not offend me or something, the T is far from a show car, and even further from show quality, but I did as I was asked. We parked up and went for a hobble around checking out the cars, then headed for the stalls, of which there were about 6, I can't say I was overly impressed seeing as the trade stands were free of charge, I needed to have a seat, so grabbed what turned out to be one of the worst cups of coffee I have ever drunk in my life, had another look around and decided that there was little reason to stay, and headed home.
Although it is very early in the season, the show was pretty non event, sure by the time it came to leaving there were quite a lot of cars to see, but that was about it, next to no stalls, dreadful coffee and time to leave, it's pretty local so I'll probably go again, but I'll be hoping that it grows a fair amount next year.
But hell; the sun was shining, had some great company, saw some cool cars and got to go munch some miles in the T, I've got a new comfy seat base, no more worries of over heating, even got the obligatory hot rod sun burn, its not all bad... Now, where's that aloe vera gel?

My T at Spring Break 2015 courtesy of the lovely Heather

Water Pump Continued

While I was waiting for the pump to finally show up, I decided to fit my new headlamps, the old ones were incredibly cloudy and caused the "light" to be very poor

Before and after

I flushed out the cooling system a few times until everything ran clear, it took a fair while but that was to be expected having sat for 4 years with no antifreeze in it, I de-scaled the thermostat housing, made a new gasket and fitted a thermostat after I'd drilled the bleed hole in it.

Eventually the water pump arrived, as you'd expect it took mere moments to fit, popped the rad hoses back on, filled with coolant, burped the rad etc, I had a little time left so I managed to tweak the carb a bit and sort out the Idle speed/mixture. 

On the way to a local hot rod meet it puked coolant, self levelling I can only assume, but it appeared to be running a lot hotter than it had before I did the work. A little way further down the road it was high up on the gauge so I pulled over to let it cool, I did notice that wherever I placed my hands it wasn't really that hot. I refilled the rad with the coolant that had gotten spat out earlier just in case it wasn't levelling and it was an air lock, but soon after I set of it puked again. I just carried on up the road to the meet.

I had a nice conversation with one of the guys there about the troublesome journey and was beckoned to sit down with my friends have a nice coffee, burger and fries, followed by a coke to wash it down. We stepped outside and more conversations ensue about how none of it really made any sense other than the mild restriction of the newly fitted stat could be hindering the cooling and the little rad couldn't keep up. I set off and got home just fine, it was still showing a bit warmer than I'd have liked, but didn't smell bad and was running well, so I continued home. Once back at base I grabbed my laser thermometer and found the highest reading was just 85 Celsius, not too hot at all, I can only assume that the gauge is lying, that the sender and gauge aren't matched and the car has been running very cold since I've had it. 

This morning I decided to take a look at the remaining cooling components, first I found that the fan was attempting to work against the air flow, so would have been doing nothing but slowing the incoming air, so I reversed the polarity of the fan and made if flow the right way. One of the chaps at the meet suggested that I move the license plate to beneath the grille as opposed to behind it, which made perfect sense an couldn't hurt, so that has been done too.

With any luck this should be the end of the cooling issues, but we'll see there was a considerable amount of emulsification found under the oil cap when I changed the oil yesterday, this could be from it standing for so long, or could well be a lot more sinister. I can only hope that it's due to standing, otherwise it'll be time to source a new, bigger 4.6 litre engine.

Water Pump

Yesterday I decided to take a look at why the rod was idling too high. Once it warmed up I began to tweak the carb, something started squealing and I realised what I thought was a little sprinkling of rain was actually water droplets being flung off of the water pump pulley, I shut it down. I went back up the front to take a look and could see little evidence of a water leak, until I moved the pulley and a stream of water ran out from behind the pulley. On closer inspection there was what appeared to be a grease mark on the lower rad hose, that I wiped away to leave a clean spot, which must have been water. When draining the rad I found no antifreeze, just rusty old water. Clearly the previous owner hadn't used coolant, which had allowed the water in the system to eat away at the water pump bearings, and waterways by the looks of the water colour. I pulled the pump and the thermostat housing, suspecting that there was no stat in there, my suspicions were confirmed, the stat housing was just home to more dirty water.
I have a stat knocking about in the shed, which will be fitted today, after I drill some bleed holes in it, and give the cooling system a thorough flush ready to have the new water pump, which should arrive today, fitted, all filled up with water, drained again and replaced with a healthy dose of blue ethylene glycol antifreeze/coolant. While the coolant is draining I'll change the oil and filter as I assume that it is going to have the wrong grade and quality for the engine.

The Drag Header Deal

A little while back I managed to source myself some kick ass, used, open drag headers. Ever since the delivery dude showed up with them I've been longing to get them fitted, as usual pain, time constraints, priorities and sensibility got in the way and I still haven't got round to fitting them.

A few days ago I was hoping to manage a couple of hundred mile journey to Wheels Day, a "season starter" type event where many rodders shake down their new builds for the first time, and even more blow the cobwebs off of their cars, dip the oil and cruise on down.
It dawned on me that, should I make such a journey with open headers, I'd be near deaf by the time I got to the first gas stop, the joyous charm of headaches and the chime of tinnitus would be with me for hours. After a little consideration I left the headers in their box. It turns out that I never went to the show but the headers remain boxed regardless.
Back when I was riding motorcycles 24/7 I had a number of bikes with straight through exhausts, but due to UK law I always wore a helmet, which certainly muffled the rumble of open pipes. While I was reminiscing I recalled a type of baffle that I'd fitted to a number of customers bikes, that helped keep their neighbours a little happier.

I scoured the internet for some of these baffles and I managed to find a store in Germany that stocks the little beauties, they haven't changed a bit since I used them last. At two inches in diameter and four in length, they should help me to have the look I want without the headaches, tinnitus and police attention. All you have to do to fit them is drill a hole for the retaining bolt, de-burr it, slide them in and fit the retaining bolt, this also lends them to being removed pretty quickly for any RWBY, run what you brung, events that I may attend in the future.
I'm still waiting for them to be delivered, but seeing as it's Easter it could take some time. Once they're here, and fitted, those headers will be going straight on, and with any luck should sound just as good as they look.

Swap Meet Intake

Sure the title is a little misleading, but I couldn't find a way to say the carb, intake, seat box, saw, welder instalment, enjoy.

In the last post I told you about how Soph and I went to the NSRA Southern Swap where I picked up an Offy intake and the 390 Holley for the T Rod. I have come to realise why it was quite so cheap.
I set about rebuilding the carb and luckily only found one missing part, the accelerator pump needle valve, which by all accounts is very common. That's not a big deal, they're about 91p or so. The carb had clearly been apart and not worked for quite some time, the floats were completely out of whack and would have flooded instantly and there were tons of gaskets and seals missing etc.

If you ever have to rebuild a carb, something I like to do is to use four bolts and 8 nuts to make a simple and stable carb stand to make working on it a lot easier, you don't have any interference with the throttle mechanism and can open up the butterflies and not damage anything, I think I used M8 x 100mm bolts but could be wrong, you can see how it works in the pic above

The bigger issue came when I started to clean up the intake. I soaked it in degreaser and let it sit for a while thinking it would be better to get the chunks of gunk and dirt off of it before blasting, as I scrubbed away and started to clean up the mating surfaces it became apparent that what I had purchased was more of a paper weight than a performance part.

Please excuse the quality of the photos, I only had my laptop webcam to hand in the shed. I'm going to attempt to repair the crack with HTS-2000, a low temperature aluminium repair rod, not dissimilar to brazing for aluminium.  If, for whatever reason, it doesn't work then I'll have to pay a visit to an engineer friend and see if he can TIG weld it for me.

I've been pretty busy this last couple of weeks. I've also made up a new seat box. New probably isn't the operative word, what I have replaced was actually a very basic 2 x 1" wooden frame that served very little purpose. What I replaced it with on the other hand is a series of 11 mm OSB triangles 4" at the front tapering to nothing at the back, this should help alleviate the knee and lower back pain I was experiencing when driving the T Rod.

As with everything I started by measuring the width at the front edge for the seat to determine the width of the front of the riser, which is the part resting on the bench. I then cut out the triangles where the top length will be the depth of the seat, the height is the 4" that I want front to be raised by and the remaining dimension, the base, was pre determined by the other two measurements and the angle of the front board. To assemble the cut boards I used parts of the cut up old frame, glued pre-drilled and screwed together and left it to dry with a brace keeping the back end in the right place, that's the nasty bit of wood at the top of the picture with some right angle brackets on each end.

I left the basic frame to dry over night, it was getting late and I was getting very sore, so I decided to call it a day. The next evening I got back out into the shed and made the top, again from 11 mm OSB, a glued and screwed construction boxing all of the joints and adding a lot of rigidity to the seat box. What you cannot see is the additional 2 x 1" bracing I have cut to fit with matching angles at the upper front of the box and along the sides to add more rigidity and a sufficient enough structure for me to attach mounting brackets. I cut out the bases of the driver and passenger seats in case this works out as well as I hope. This will enable me to attach seat webbing to the base in the future so I have the option of re-upholstering the seats and replacing the current foams etc.

For a bit of added protection, and to disguise the little bit that pokes up above the carpet, I painted everything in a black metal paint, a no name Hammerite alternative, which is also suitable for use on wood, I simply applied a very thin base coat and an average top coat to ensure I had good adhesion to the board.

At the beginning of the seat box construction, after just a few cuts with my circular saw, I had a bit of a strop. I've been in need of a decent, by DIY standards at least, table saw for quite some time and decided to throw down my tools, check the net, place my reservation and head out to the tool store and pick up a saw that I have been lusting over for a good few months, the Evolution Fury5, with the added bonus of a £20 discount.

The Evolution Fury5 is a 255 mm table saw that not only cut wood but also up to 3 mm steel. The only real issue was that straight out of the box the saw was set up very badly, with over 7 mm of run out in the blade angle, it took me quite some time to square the blade, I ended up having to remove the grille on the bottom of the saw and undo 4 allen bolts that mount the saw, align the blade and attempt to keep it there whilst tightening the bolts. I had to leave one of the bolts out as when tightened, even slightly, it would move the blade out of line. Eventually I managed to get it all lined up right and it now cuts a two foot length of board with no run out at all. It is a shame that it wasn't this good straight away, but I'm happy that it works so well and made making the seat box a pleasure, and a damn sight easier than using my circular saw.

As we were heading to the tool store Soph and I were chatting about whether I should buy my new welder while we're there or leave it until it was needed, I came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave it for another day, not wanting to tie up cash in something I don't need just yet. I had decided that I'd just walk in, go to the counter and collect the saw that I'd reserved, not look around, just get in, get out and get back home to assemble it and get the seat box finished.

As I went through the door I had that "kid in a candy store" type feeling and went against my decision and had a look around, attempting to convince myself that I don't need loads of shiny new tools, I turned to Soph and said, "Nearly done, we just gotta go check out the cheap bit, always worth a look." The store has a section, at the back, set aside for returns, refurbs, ex-demo, ex-display tools, boxes etc. I'm glad I changed my mind. Sitting in the corner, on the bottom shelf, was a little Clarke 151EN Gas/Gas-less welder with a huge £80 discount, it'd been used in a demonstration at a trade show, or an in-store demo and was in excellent condition, having been fully tested just 12 days prior. I was devastated, I had only bought enough cash to purchase the table saw. As I was grizzling that I'd left my cash card back at home, Soph piped up that she had her purse in the car and was happy to loan me the cash to buy the little welder. Needles to say, I walked away a happy man. With welder and table saw in hand, well... carried by Soph and on a sack barrow by one of the guys that worked at the store, they loaded up the car and away we went.

I'm still finding it all a little too coincidental, how I had my sights set on just getting the saw and getting home, not buying a welder, waiting until later etc. Then going against everything I'd said and finding exactly what I wanted, at a much lower price, with no more money in my pocket, to be rescued by a friend with a money card, and come away with my new welder. I guess life's just like that some times, and that day, I won and in the end that's all that matters.

A long time coming

It's been a fair while since I've written anything here, I have been spending far too much time searching for parts and sorting the sheds and getting side tracked with general house/garden maintenance, which I'm sure no one wants to hear about.

So lets get on with some updates... this might take a while...

I dragged my trailer up to Boston in Lincolnshire to go and collect my front axle and leaf springs. There have been times where I can be pretty patient, but, having waited since before Christmas for the axle to get bought down to my place, I decided to go get it myself. It turns out that with the best intentions, my cousin just didn't have the time to bring it down here, but he didn't want to let me down, he's a good guy like that. I thought it best to ease the burden and drove up there to pick it up myself. The journey, as usual, was pretty uneventful, which I guess is a good thing all in all. We had some minor trailer light issues before leaving, that reared their ugly head during the trip, but with no tools to rectify the issue, I just stuck on my high level fogs and kept on trucking. The following day a couple of friends popped over and pulled it out of the trailer and stuck it away in the big shed out of the way for now.

I finally managed to find my thread cutting sets and determined the thread of the wheel studs on my back axle to order up some new wheel nuts to get the Rocket Racing Strikes fitted, it turns out that they are 7/16" UNF thread which is used on many UK Fords so the choice was plentiful and I managed to bag a set of 10 for just £15.50 to my door

I had a friend, Soph, accompany me to a local swap meet, over here in the UK its one of a few hot rod specific swap meets, most of the others consisting of old UK built car and motorcycle parts, with the obligatory, awful market stall, snap in one use type tool stands.
I hadn't attended the NSRA Southern Swap meet for around eight years and man has it got big, I'm sure there were twice as many people as my last visit and a lot more stalls, yet after talking with some local rodders I'm told it was quieter than last year, I can't possibly imagine how busy it must have been. I was a little upset that I wasn't intending on running a blown small bock Chevy because there were thousands of SBC parts all over the place, but sadly that's just not going to keep me in budget.
Luckily I did manage to come across a rather reasonably priced Offy inlet manifold and a little 390 Holley carb for my Rover lump, picking it up as a package deal for just £175. Granted I'll have to shot blast the manifold and rebuild the carb, but seeing as Holley Trick Kits are only around £40 and I have some media for blasting aluminium I think that was a bargain.

Soph has also assisted me in removing the rad shroud and that awful brass winged fake temperature gauge thing that sat on top of it, along with fitting my new wheels... that have been sitting around in the tool shed since the tire dude came round and fit and balanced the tires for me.

While we were having a bit of a tidy up I came across a handle bar mirror from the very first motorcycle I built back when I was just seventeen, eighteen, I couldn't help but replace the useless botched up 3" peep mirror that was fitted on the T. With a quick re-thread (from the newly found tap and die sets) and enlarging the hole in the mirror bracket, I have a good use-able mirror. What's more it's one that I don't have to angle by hand every time I want to see what's behind me, and the added bonus of a little bit of personal history for good measure. Sure that may be a little sad to some but that's the reason that I keep all my old junk laying around, the bike I built is long gone, as I sold it to a friend who promptly blew the motor beyond economical repair. But, I still have a little piece of it to remember and keep with me now, and I like that.

I ordered a few mundane things, a new vernier calliper, some welding magnets, new chuck key for my pillar drill etc. but nothing too interesting.

I found a cool little steering box/column to use with the F100 axle. I'm keeping the car right hand drive, it's a UK built car using mainly UK spec parts so I figure it's the right thing to do. The box/column is from an old 30's Austin 7, I choose it mainly because it's tiny, and it was cheap, should I choose to build it in a cowl steering type set-up it will take up very little room, and if I go for a regular side steer design it's size will be a great help seeing as there isn't much room down near the starter motor. I can't go into great detail, it was advertised as being in good use-able condition, but I haven't even got round to opening the box to find out for myself, but parts are readily available, and there is a lot of adjustment in these boxes so it shouldn't be an issue anyway.

Finally I found some lever arm shocks on-line, which should be arriving today, they were originally removed from a  Ford Anglia 105e I believe they were manufactured by Girling and fitted to numerous vehicles over the years. They look to be in great condition with no pitting or excess oil all over them, and I'm told they have good resistance so in theory they should be as described by the seller and in a, pretty much, ready to fit condition, they even come with the drop links, which is a bonus. If all goes well they should just need a light clean and maybe a splash of paint and will be ready to be incorporated in the design.

That little lot should bring you up to speed, I apologise for the lack of updates Soph and I have been very busy sorting out my mountain of tools, scrap metal, parts and trash trying to get me straight again for when the time comes to start really getting into the build.

Next stop wheels for the F100 axle and some sheet steel to collect from a local rodder...

The Shed Build Continues

Still having loads of help from lovely people running around and helping me out to get the little tool shed finished. It's coming along nicely, I really must take a photo or two. With any luck the flooring, wall boarding and shelving should all be finished on Thursday and I can start moving the tools etc across.
I have purchased a new to me "exhaust system" open drag headers from a real life tried and tested drag car which I think is pretty cool, plus the sum of the parts involved to make my own were far far more expensive than buying some with a bit of history, which i like. Seeing as I haven't even opened the box that they arrived in there is no real update about them, but once they are opened I'll fill you in.

The Shed Saga

I've had a couple of friends spending a lot of their time over here helping me out with the shed build and clearing up a load of my junk, and there's a lot of junk. The shed is now fully insulated, and all joints have been taped. The doors have not been insulated with the foil coated bubble wrap and will be insulated with polystyrene to help add a bit more rigidity and thickness. This should enable me to fit more effective draft excluders instead of the stick on strip of foam type that eventually just degrade.
I'm waiting on their next visit to have them come to the store with me and load up the sheets of wood that we will be using to board out the majority of the shed. I'm thinking about using some more substantial sheet over the bench area to enable me to hang french cleats to utilize for more shelving, tool hangers etc.
I did have a message about the front axle assembly that was supposed to be here before Christmas, that it should be getting here at some point in Feburary, still no major rush as we aren't anywhere near finished with the tool shed.
Hope fully there will be more interesting updates coming in the not too distant future, but for the mean time, sheds, health, family commitments and the imminent arrival of chickens are taking president leaving me with little time.

Which Welder?!

As you may have gathered there is going to be some pretty serious fab work to be done on my build, and in order to do it I need a new welder. This puts me in the horrible position that has been faced by many before me, which welder should I buy, gas or gas-less, how many amps do I need, the list goes on...
Most automotive welding will only require a relatively cheap, low amperage, machine. Anything around 180 amps will be more than capable of tackling almost every job you need to do, unless you intend on shortening axles or similar heavy work.
Welders often (if not always) come with a cheat sheet, a settings guide, you just have to view it with a pinch of salt, and add some artistic license. Similarly a lot of manufacturers seem to over rate their welders, stating 1mm in excess of its true maximum settings capability is common place and needs to be taken into consideration.

Following a lot of research before and during the Christmas period I have decided which welder I will be buying for my occasional, hobby uses, more specifically, this build. It is the very same unit that I had been considering a little over ten years ago. It continues to get good write ups and recommendations, and is still on the market, I can only assume that it is capable of doing what it is supposed to and is of sufficient quality.

Machine Mart's Clarke MIG 196 No-Gas/Gas Mig Welder

This particular machine has won itself a place on my shopping list, for numerous reasons, the main ones being, there's no need to shell out on a hugely expensive setup for a single build, occasional or hobby use. It has received consistently decent write ups, and are said to be one of the better options in this and higher price brackets. It is possible to find this machine for little over £200 and seeing as it'll do all I want and a bit more the choice has almost been made for me.
These little 180 amp welders are supposed to do very well for the money, and should be man enough to weld up to around 5-6mm with a bit of prep work.
The ability to be able to use flux cored or regular wire is a huge plus point for me, having to do a lot of vital welds out in the open.

I previously owned an incredible machine, a Murex Tradesmig, but it took up an awful lot of space, it was never designed to run gas-less wire, which seeing as I do most of my welding outside was a huge downfall. It just didn't work properly with flux cored wire, it didn't have the correct roller profile and you couldn't reverse the polarity.
In the not too distant future I will be the, hopefully, proud owner of a nice new little welder, though it will be a while yet, I don't see the need to have money tied up in something I wont be using until I have amassed a satisfactory amount of parts.