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

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Well, I did it!!! I FINALLY got to drive the T!!!

It was just around the block , but all I can say is WOW!!. I feel like a kid with a new toy. I can’t wait to drive it some more. I took my wife, my mother and my dad for rides. Everybody had a good time.

It has been a real thrash for the last few weeks, but it was worth it. There haven’t been any build updates for a while because I just didn’t have time. Between work and the T, I’ve been putting in 16 – 18 hour days to get it done in time for the upcoming car shows. The farther I got, the more I kept finding that needed doing and the longer my punch list got! Pretty frustrating to work all day and have the to do list longer than when you started. I didn’t want to rush and throw it together, so I just kept at it. Then it just clicked and everything fell into place.

Wiring was the real time killer. My keen powers of time under-estimation were working perfectly. What I thought could be done in 3 days turned into more than 5. I changed the air system controls at the last minute and added full manual controls (up, down, left, right) in addition to the auto controls. Except for AC and a radio, this car has about as much wiring as a Cadillac. Leave it to me to take the simplest of cars and make it complicated. Everything appears to work as it should, though.

The engine is running great. It pulls a solid 20” of vacuum at idle and is very strong and smooth. I couldn’t get on it very hard, but I think it’s going to be pretty stout. It was chirping the tires going into second and I wasn’t even trying. Actually, I was trying to go easy so Johnny Law wouldn’t take an interest in me.

The upholstery is finished. It just needs to be installed. That’s not going to be bad, because this car has a very simple interior.

I still need to glue the windshield into the frame and get that on the car before I can drive it very far.

I need some mufflers too, to keep local gendarme off my tail. It sure does sound good without them though (has a nice small block crackle). I have to go back to work so it looks like I have a few more late nights, but it looks llike I'm going to make my deadline.

I’m working on build pictures and I’ll get them up ASAP. In the meantime here’s a picture of a fat happy old guy with a bad case of roadster hair (what little of it there is)!!!