MTFCA Forum

Are the cross shafts for the shifter/emergency brake the same design for each year of model T, perhaps excluding 09?
Mine has a bit of wear under the pillow blocks. I might try to find a better one.

Barry Loucks

The cross shaft is the same - the clutch throw-out arm/leg or whatever you want to call it was cast into the late ??? teens - later production was stamped. Some "early" brake lever handles utilized a key & pin.

EXCEPT. Dont accidently get one from a TT. Cam is quite a bit taller

Perhaps an easier fix is to braze the worn sections on the shaft and file them back to fit the pillow blocks. That way you will custom fit them to each other and you will have a bronze bearing in a steel carrier, like having a bronze bush to take the wear.

Allan from down under.

"EXCEPT. Dont accidently get one from a TT. Cam is quite a bit taller"

And some are a slightly different angle I discovered after cutting a TT one down for one of my cars! I was able to heat it and bend it enough to correct the issue, but confirmed the difference with another TT cross shaft I had. It did make adjusting the clutch interesting.

Also, Ford began replacing the cast cams with stamped ones in 1915, although cast cams continued to show up for quite some time.

Thanks for the feedback. I’m tempted to try the braze and file fix, just don’t have a good record for making anything round with a file in my hand. The pillow block has some wear too, I forgot to mention.
I’ll watch swap meets when we go back, and keep an eye out for the TT style.

Barry, this is one fix where precision is not called for. Besides, if you just file to get a start, then add some paint/blue to the brazing, the pillow block will then show up the high spots. You jut need to keep filing off the indicated spots until the block slides over the bronzing. Let the block be the guide. That way wear in the block is compensated for too.

Allan from down under.

What Allan said. As a past customer once said to me when I was welding up some worn out Link Belt dragline track pads, "It's just a f*****g old dragline, not a Swiss watch". Words to remember when trying to over think things. Dave

Don't forget the handle! The early ones are shaped different.