Thread: I couldn't build it for $3 K either!

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I have '39 tail lights on my '29 roadster that are dim at best, even with Halogen bulbs. I sprayed the inside of the buckets with "chrome" paint, and that improved them quite a bit. I also have blue dots in them - I don't whether that helps or hurts visibility, but I really like the look.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions on the lights.

I might have to try them. The regular 1157 bulbs look pretty good on the bench, but that doesn't mean they'll be OK on the car. I do know that the LED conversions Speedway sells for these lights might as well be invisible!

BTW J.R. How is your T project coming along? I may have missed a few of your posts. I've been kind of stretched thin lately.

Mike

That's surprising about the Pontiac lights being dim. Don has them on the back of his T and when we were following Dan driving it the other night, both Don and I commented how bright they are. They sell some "bright bulbs" but I have never used them, but I did paint the inside of the '47 Chevy lights on my '27 with silver paint, which helped a lot.

Don

Driving at night is not the issue - you want them to be seen when someone is behind you with the sun at your back. I've had the police do me a favor and stop me under those conditions to let me know that my brake lights weren't working. The lights were fine - they just couldn't be seen in sunlight!

As a result, I don't trust people to see my turn signals during the day, so I use hand signals for turns. I think that is still being taught in driver ed, even in the new millennium. In the 16 years this car (shown at right) has been on the road, I've not had any problems/accidents, or even close calls.

Dorsey is correct. My lights are fine at night and the blue dots show up nicely. It's daylight that is the problem. I have '48 Ford lights in the roadster with glass lenses and they are really bright. Both have 1157 bulbs...

Hot Rod the car is looking fantastic, minor things to finish aside you should be very proud of a finely built car that looks really cool, well done.

How tall is Dan, Don? I am thinking that is him in that shot? Fine shot by the way! I am curious pushing 6'2" myself and wider every year how low a big feller can seat himself in a T body. We have bugs here that will knock your head off at 60 mph and they fly in swarms! June bugs alone are the size of marbles! I love the way you are seated in yours Don.

Hi everybody! I've been MIA for a while.

One of my other interests is my motorcycle and it has been taking up most of my time. I sold my Kawasaki Nomad and have been concentrating on the GL1500 Goldwing I got from my dad. The wing sat for a long time and the carbs were in pretty bad shape. My wife and I rode it to Missouri last year, but it just didn't run quite right. It stumbled pretty bad on take off and stalled easy if you weren't really careful with the clutch. This year I pulled the carbs and went through them. Not a job for the faint of heart, but well worth it. The old bike purrrs like a kitten now. We took a little trip through New Orleans and down the Gulf coast last week and it never skipped a beat.

My bucket project hasn't been completely at a standstill though. The good news is that I did get my serial number and plates from the state. It had to be registered as a 2008 assembled vehicle which I didn't like, but so far no one has said anything about emissions. Louisiana doesn't follow the SEMA model that allows replica vehicles to be registered as the year they represent. I hope that changes in the future.

Buying a title for a T would be pretty risky here since the state workers make sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed. You would probably still need a notarized bill of sale from the person listed on the title since Louisiana will not accept a witnessed title transfer. If any "red flags" go up, you will have to get an inpection by a state trooper from the "Towing and Recovery" department. Getting the registration I did is not ideal, but was less risky.

It's still a very convoluted process that has taken over a month and 2 trips to the state office in Baton Rouge. As an example of how persnickety the state is, my insurance card had my car listed as a "2008 Ford T Bucket", but the state would not accept that. I had to get new cards that listed it as a "2008 Assembled T Bucket"! While I was there, I ran into a guy trying to get an assembled motorcycle registered. He was on his 4th trip and didn't think he was going to go home with papers. I can assure you that very little "rule bending" will go on. Worse yet, the lady that processed my stuff said the rules change so fast that they have a hard time keeping up.

I had been given the numbers for Towing and Recovery before I started building and the trooper had told me what kind of paperwork I would need when the time came. I have a long temper, but got very frustrated a couple of times. I knew that getting an "attitude" would do me more harm than good, so all I could do was sit there and say "Yes, mam" and "No, mam". You are completely at their mercy.

I've also been contemplating an engine change. I picked up a '66 283 and have it at the machine shop getting checked out right now. If it's rebuildable, then it'll be my new powerplant. I'm thinking something along the lines of a 300HP 327 cam and better heads than the old Power Pack units that it has now. Maybe bump the CR as high as I can on pump gas. Should be good for 250+ HP and really sip gas with the 3X2's.

I've also just got started doing a little sanding and body work.

Mike

Well, the machine shop called today with some bad news.

The block for the 283 that I was going to use is bad. There are some rust pits in a couple of cylinders that probably won't clean up at .060 over.

I know that .120 was acceptable years ago, but I really don't want to take a chance on that much overbore.

I'm going back to the original plan and use the 350 I have. It will have a late model Vortec roller cam block and early camel hump heads. I had trouble finding a decent pair of Vortec heads. They might flow good, but the Vortecs have to be the weakest heads Chevrolet ever made! I'm going to use a mild roller cam(Comp XE258HR).

Too bad, I think the 283 would have been perfect.

Originally Posted by J. Robinson

Dorsey is correct. My lights are fine at night and the blue dots show up nicely. It's daylight that is the problem. I have '48 Ford lights in the roadster with glass lenses and they are really bright. Both have 1157 bulbs...

I have to run super bright 1157's in the Harley tail light. It has a thick glass lens on the tombstone tail light, that cars can't seem to see, when I'm braking during the daylight. I tried a led bulb that cost 29 bucks for a replacement, but same,problem, so now I just use the super brights, and carry a spare as the vibration of the softtail seems to eat bulbs!

Mike,
Years ago, 283's were commonly bored .125" over to make what we called a 301. They were commonly used in sprint cars, dirt track modifieds, and all kinds of drag racing classes (as well as on the street). The 283 had enough meat in the block to withstand the 1/8" overbore with no adverse effects and little if any increased cooling problems. The short 3" stroke made them real screamers; with a good balance job, they were consistenly wound up to 7,000 rpm with a stock bottom end! I've been told a large number of 265's and 283's had forged crankshafts.

If you do the math, it actually figures out to 301.66 cubic inches. When Chevrolet finally did what hotrodders had been doing for years, they called it a 302... (1968 - 69 Z-28 Camaro) Look at it this way - .125" over pistons cost about the same as .060" over pistons... On the other hand, parts for a 350 are the least expensive of all... If I lived closer, I'd take that 283 off your hands; I love those things...

Originally Posted by J. Robinson

Mike,
Years ago, 283's were commonly bored .125" over to make what we called a 301. They were commonly used in sprint cars, dirt track modifieds, and all kinds of drag racing classes (as well as on the street). The 283 had enough meat in the block to withstand the 1/8" overbore with no adverse effects and little if any increased cooling problems. The short 3" stroke made them real screamers; with a good balance job, they were consistenly wound up to 7,000 rpm with a stock bottom end! I've been told a large number of 265's and 283's had forged crankshafts.

If you do the math, it actually figures out to 301.66 cubic inches. When Chevrolet finally did what hotrodders had been doing for years, they called it a 302... (1968 - 69 Z-28 Camaro) Look at it this way - .125" over pistons cost about the same as .060" over pistons... On the other hand, parts for a 350 are the least expensive of all... If I lived closer, I'd take that 283 off your hands; I love those things...

I agree, in mid 60's my brother had one in his daily '55. Only thing back then was the stock starter would not start it after motor warmed up. I think he ran 12.5:1 comp. (this was long before high torque starters). A co-worker used one in a modified production '60 vette drag car. those motors would scream.
Some of the blocks would not pass the .125 bore, almost all would however. I'd bore it out if it was mine. One of the best small block setups going. One of the reasons Chevy went that way for the Z-28.

I'm still not convinced that this block is that bad. I'm going to keep it and have it checked by another shop since it had never been bored.

I'm going to build the 350 right now just to keep this project moving. The 283 will have to be a future project.

JR - I agree about the little motors being real screamers. I had one in a 64 Chevy when I was a teen.

Mike

I thought it was time for some more updates on my progress with the T. Between work,car shows, hurricanes and a few honey-do jobs, I haven't gotten as far as I had hoped, but I am moving forward. My car show and cruising season is pretty much over, so I won't be taking it to any shows this year, but that won't stop me from driving and enjoying it. I sure did want to take it to Cruisin' the Coast, though. The weather was fantastic and a roadster would have been a blast. Oh well, maybe next year.

I hope to post several updates over the next few days. My camera died(they do that when you drop 'em on a concrete floor!). I have a replacement, so I have to take some pics and get them resized.

While at CTC, I did find to someone to do the upholstery.

I realised after my last update that there were still several things left to be finished. Mostly small "detail" type things, but still time consuming.

One problem area showed up after pulling the body off the frame and sitting it on the floor for a while. A crack developed in the door jamb where the interior section was glued in. This area didn't have enough material overlap to form a good glue joint and apparently had more stress than I first thought. This spot is where I installed the adjustable brace during the build. Stress isn't a problem when it's on the frame since the brace takes the load, but it still needs to support itself. So....I had to put the body back on the frame, realign the door and the reenforce the offending area. A couple layers of fiberglass cloth and some filler and everything was OK. Trouble was, it was in a terrible area to finish. No power tools, everything had to be sanded and shaped by hand. Getting this one small area smooth enough for paint took way longer than I would have thought! Sure makes you appreciate a DA sander! I finished the rest of the door opening while I was at it. Sorry no pics of this, wasn't very photo worthy.

Smoothing the glue joint on the top of the body went pretty good, except for a couple of places that didn't line up well. They had to be built up with fiberglass. At least I could use power tools. I had installed some threaded steel bars in the wood frame of the body to eventually hold down a top. The jig I made to relocate them after glueing everything together worked perfect

I'll try to get pics up ASAP.

Mike

I didn't want to wait to the last minute for the wiring. It really can't be completed until the car is finished, but it's never too early to figure out how it's going to be laid out.
I had originally thought about putting the switches on the front of the seat frame, but came up with another idea. I made a small panel to mount behind the dash on the steering column drop. This puts the switches within easy reach and keeps them fairly well out of sight. Keeps them out of the weather too. I didn't like the look of the signal switch on the column so I made a mount that puts it under the dash with just a short section of the handle showing.

I fabbed an aluminum panel to put on the firewall to mount most of the other electrical stuff. The fuse panel is an EZ wire mini fuse 12 circuit unit. The junction block is off an S10 Chevy. I cut the flasher block off an old glass-type fuse panel I had in the junk box and made an aluminum bracket to mount it. The signal switch I'm using only needs one flasher for the main and hazard circuits.



Yea, I know that's a lot of relays! Four of them are for the air suspension alone. The large area under the relays is for an MSD box. If this car didn't have a door, putting this stuff behind the dash wouldn't be practical, since you would have a hard time just changing a fuse! Since the dash doesn't hold anything but the instruments I can put a simple plug on the wiring harness and pull the whole thing if needed for serious trouble shooting. It is only held in by 6 scews and can be removed in less than five minutes. With the switches mounted on the other panel, I don't even need the dash to drive the car(just won't have any gauges).