Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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Yeah my 3 speed tranny out of the 66 is a pretty tiny unit so I think it would possibly work. I am small as heck though guys, and doubt I will get any bigger for a lot more years. I am about 5'5" and 110 pounds haha. Skinny as a twig but my feet are big and I have to have wide shoes as well. At work I have to sometimes drive a few old Vette stingrays and such and I have to take off my right shoe or else my foot gets stuck under the brake and wont fit between the pedals. Haha. I have too many projects right now (3 of them) so something like this wont happen for at least 2 years. I am going to get to work on the 48 in about 2 or 3 months and see what happens with that, I might end up selling it and if so then 27 roadster here I come!!! Ok sorry to take over your post Don.

Ok sorry to take over your post Don.


You didn't. All the questions and stuff you brought to the post really helps it. I'm very happy that you guys are participating in this thing and planning you next builds too.

I can't wait until there are a lot more of these posts on here, like the thread Brian is doing on the windshield, and Pat is doing on header fabrication. You couln't find this kind of info anywhere if it weren't for these forums.


Keep it coming.


Don

I really didn't feel like getting knee deep in any serious work on the T today, I just wanted this weekend to chill out a little. I did want to do something, so I decided to finish off the headlight bar and get it mounted to the frame.

As I mentioned earlier, I like to use early Ford headlight bars and modify them to hold the headlights, rather than buy some of the accessory aluminum ones most people use. There are two reasons for me liking them. 1) They look old timey, and 2) The headlights don't shake going down the road like on some of the aluminum brackets. MY buddy had a T bucket with the aluminum mounts, and when he would follow me when we were out cruising his headlights were constantly shaking when he hit a bump. Not all of them do this, but enough that I don't like them.

As for the old timey aspect, back in the early '50's hot rodding was sort of in it's infancy, and there weren't many places to buy hot rod parts, so we made most of the stuff we used. I'm not sure who the first guy was to use a stock Ford headlight bar on a fenderless roadster, but it was a pretty smart idea.

Here is a picture of a stock model A headlight bar, uncut. The reason I like to use the '32 bar is that the shape is rounded on top, rather than straight across like the model A. Visually, the straight bar seems to sag when you look at it, whereas the '32, with it's rounded top, seems to flow better with the lines of the car. By the time I took this picture I had already cut up the '32 bar, so I am only posting this Model A bar for reference.

To make it work on a fenderless car, you simply cut off the ends of the bar, right outside the little pockets where the headlight bucket bolts on. They look like this when cut off.

To get this part to fit the flat frame topside where it gets mounted, you have to grind off the two bumps on the bottom, then heat the base with a torch and hammer it flat. If you don't so this, it is humped up in the middle when you mount it, and there will be a gap under the center.

Sometimes you can get away with leaving the middle portion of the bar as is, and the width will be fine (That is the way it is on my '27) but on this car, the bar was 5 inches too wide, and would have hit my steering arm, so I cut 5 inches out of the middle and welded it back together. Then I ground the weld smooth, and will finish it off with a little hi build primer to make it smooth.

Finally, I welded the cut off ends back on the center bar, but faced the ends to be in line with my frame ends. I cut a groove in the ends of the end pieces to make a tight joint before welding, and ground it all down when I was done.

I drilled and tapped four 3/8 holes into the top of the frame, and used some grade 8 bolts to fasten the bar to the frame. I know grade 8 is overkill, but I have a bunch of them, and I do like the strength factor, even if grade 5 would have been ok.

Here are some pictures of the finished product.