MTFCA Forum

Well, I'm finished with what I can do here at home on my project; now I await delivery of my repaired touring body by Ray Wells with a brand new leather interior by Ernie Romano. I sure can't wait to start the assembly!

It's exciting and already beautiful!

Did I miss something? What's with the "repaired" body & "brand new leather"? Didn't you have the body already, or was that someone else's project?

Bill,

I hate to be the one to tell you this but model T parts are not worth much these days. I guess if you just want to clean out the garage I could help you out and wont charge you much. I could be there by 9am with a trailer.

Jerry, I did have the original body, but there was significant rot at both rear corners as well as both wooden side rails. I tried to mend it, but in the end I decided the damage was too far gone and at critical points (directly beneath the rear seat - not good for passengers) so I took the body part and sent both seats and doors to Ray Wells and he fabricated a new lower platform and married it to my original parts. I sent him all my original door hardware as well as all body brackets, etc. I also gave him the Brewster Green color code from a place in California that I think is pretty darn close to the original all-but-black dark green. Then Ray convinced me to have a new leather interior installed by his friend Ernie Romero. I was toying with the idea of installing the interior myself, but leather isn't cheap and with an early brass car like this I didn't trust my limited skills so I bit the bullet - and I'm sure glad I did! From the photos Ernie has sent me, the car looks absolutely magnificent! The man truly is a master in his craft, as is Ray Wells. I really, REALLY didn't want or plan to do another frame off restoration but it is what it is, and I'll be glad when it's finished. I'll try to get those interior pics from Ernie downloaded to my computer and post them as well.

Ray Wells does a fantastic job and makes it seem easy and fast. Unfortunately he is getting up in years and is thinking of slowing down and or retireing all together. But Ernie Romero makes the upholstery look like a million dollars car. The smell of the new beautiful leather even two years later is fantastic. Both of these guys are holding onto a lost art. Your car will be beautiful Bill, just have patience. Frank

Here are some body pics from Ray and some from Ernie.

BTW, can anyone tell me how to upload photos so people can click on them and zoom in??? Every time I post pics, they cannot be clicked on.

Belliott3 wrote: ↑

Thu May 28, 2020 12:10 pm

BTW, can anyone tell me how to upload photos so people can click on them and zoom in??? Every time I post pics, they cannot be clicked on.

I'm just guessing, but I had similar issue with eBay photos. Problem was the photos weren't high resolution. I switched my camera from VGA to 1 megapixel, problem solved.

On the old forum we had to resize the pictures down to a smaller size. I can still post the same pictures here and you can not click on them but if I post the original larger picture you can click and see it full size. I think in this case size matters.