MTFCA Forum

I just wanted to take a minute to introduce myself and post a pic of my TT project. My name is Mike and I'm located in the western UP of Michigan. I recently acquired this 1925(I think) TT frame. I have scrounged and borrowed wheels to make it a roller for now. I recently purchased a ‘22 engine that is complete and turns freely. My goal is assemble this truck using as many used (read CHEAP) good used parts as possible. I live remote and when finished the truck will be a daily user for cutting firewood and local hauling. I want to leave it in original working clothes and have no intentions of ever painting it. As you can see, Im going to need a LOT of pcs/parts to finish it! Let the journey begin…..

Welcome! Looks like a fun project. I think you will find the forum to be a wonderful resource.

Hello Mike
Since you’ve got the beginnings of a TT the engine would be the first thing to check out and get going. You said it’s a 22 and any history about the condition? T engines have babbitt bearings so hopefully the babbitt mains and rods are still good along with the crankshaft. Finding an engine that the babbitt is still good would be a good thing. If it is your good to go!
Have you got a Ford T service manual? If you don’t you need to get one along with the other service manuals that’s available from the T parts suppliers.
Keep us posted!

You mean it's not BURIED in snow yet?
Western UP Mich. is notorious for tons of snow, but I don't have to tell you that!! 'Course it is early yet!

Neat looking TT there, looks like it's gonna need new rear tires, and also looks like they're mounted on the "infamous widow-maker" LOCK ring rims, not to be confused with "two piece rims". Big big difference. Hard to know the condition of them from the pic, but on the outside, they don't look too good. A lot of tire installers won't touch these old, rusty rims for fear of losing life or limb. Just giving you a little heads-up on that, from my own experience.

Sorry, when I wrote "two piece" rims, I actually meant the "split rims" commonly found on the later wheels, typically 26-27 model year and some late '25s. My brain wasn't in gear yet!

Come to MA - I have the dump bed you need for firewood, rocks, dirt, snow....

Thanks for posting this. I admire your choice of leaving it in "original working clothes". A lady at the gas station looked at my rusty Coupe and said, "Looks like your baby needs a new dre-ass". I like your phrase.
Have fun with it and post pictures of it as you go.
Rich

It will certainly be buried by tomorrow!

Those rears are borrowed to make the project a roller as opposed to a “lifter”.

Mike nice to see your project I only been surfing this sight will need to post my project in near future after seeing yours.

That is a neat find, look forward to progress photos.

A little out of chronological order but still appropriate. A nice BEFORE pic. What was I thinking…….

I give you LOTS of credit Mike! Gotta admit if it were me staring at that hidden "mess" I'da shook my head, shed a bit of a tear, and walked away! You'll do the right thing there!

Hey Mike I think it’s great you are going to save it! I would do the same thing and often dream of finding one in a fence row some day. What kind of rear wheels are on it? And it looks like in your last picture I see steel tractor wheels. Would that be a tractor conversion axle or the remnants of something else? Looks like a lot of treasures sitting around! Very good
Bryant

What a history your TT could tell before it ended its days under all the brush! Nice to see one being brought back to life! A little at a time and patience.

This period photo was in another thread:
You are practically there!

Hey Mike, Might be hard to find some 10” rims and tires to fit the front spokes……

I swapped the $350 “sawmill” engine into my frame yesterday. The power unit apparently ran a small sawmill up near Oscar, MI. Just North of Houghton. After pulling the head and pan cover, I was very happy to see a very good condition standard bore engine. Valve stems are sloppy a hell and will be replaced with OS valves. I will pull the block today to then check all the bearing clearances and babbitt condition. The transmission bands were all removed and the mill apparently used in direct drive with the clutch. I have a set of quick change bands on the original tranny that I will reline and install. A hip replacement at the end of the month will slow progress down a bit. Does anyone recognize the gas tank mount on the sawmill power unit as anything Model T?

It looks pretty cold in some of your pictures. I would suspect the MI is for Michigan? There are several states which start with the letters Mi, so I will guess. Do you have somewhere inside with some heat where you can work on the truck during winter? I suppose you could drive it as is if you had some tires on it and a few parts in the drivetrain. I don't know whether you would like to sit directly on the gas tank.
We have a member in the San Diego area who has a pickup. He had a buggy seat on it when he first got it, but now has a c cab body on it. He has been working on it for many years adding things to it as they became available. He does not trailer it to tours but has, many times driven it as far as 30 or more miles to the beginning of a tour or parade!
Norm

The gas tank appears to be a stock oval tank.

Yes, In the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We had 0 deg this morning. Im working in a garage heated to 50 deg, which is short-sleeve temp for me. Winds gusting to 20 today as well.

I removed the hogshead today to see what is hiding underneath. I see the slow speed drum is cracked right thru to the face. Hopefully the drum off the original is good.

Appears quite clean in there - no safety wire on the driven plate though !

You may want to hope the other drums are good in your original engine. In addition to the cracked drum, the others look like they have deep scores which will destroy the bands quickly.

Welcome to the sickness, from Grayling Michigan. Looking forward too following this! -Ed

If all the drums are good in the original engine it might be best to use those with the triple gears too. That way they would be all matched.
Another option would be to use the complete transmission from the original engine but it will depend how good the condition is overall. Sometimes when using a single drum it might be a little noisy because it’s not worn in exactly like the others are. Been there and done that.

Thanx for the input John. Ill tear into the original transmission later in the week. I will rebush all the drums and triple gears if needed. Thats easy work for me. I want to get the block off and assessed. The pistons on the Oscar engine seem loose for clearance while still in the bore. The bores are 3.752”. Thinking I will just bite the bullet and bore for new OS pistons. Are most of you running hardened valve inserts in your T’s?

Mike, rebushing and reaming drums is not as straight-forward as it appears on the surface. It is also a very rarely needed repair.

As far as triple-gear bushings, I have fine results using my clearances and methods. However...they can be fraught with trouble and a source of early failure if done according to many accepted repair procedures. I would suggest a thorough study of why you can likely leave the drum bushings alone, and then contact Dan McEachern to purchase his triple gear pins and his needle bearing gears if you conclude that they need looking after (and they may well need it). They have a very good record over the years and have been well documented and discussed. They are the way to go and will be for me, too, on any future projects.

Have fun.

If you look at the brake drum very closely, it looks like a crack a little to the left of the crack in the low drum. Fortunate you found it because, an exploding drum can stop you in your tracks where you cannot even push the car off the road!
Norm

Ill look at all the drums closely when I get them cleaned up. Apparently, the sawmill was still being run in 1946. This penny was in the nose in a bunch of dried caked sawdust/grease.

That’s cool! Keep it in the vehicle. I love things like that.
Bryant

We hit 28 deg. today so I wire brushed the frame prior to prime and painting. I found this stamp inside both frame channels up near the front. I assume a suppliers ID. I l

Now is the time to spend some time leveling things up on your stands and working with some string and a ruler to verify that the frame does not sag (it does) and that it it is square (it is likely not).

Don't wait to find these things out after painting!

Scott,
Diagonals on hard frame points are within 1/16”. Im happy with that. Betting the tolerances on frame rail oal exceeded that let alone the assembly.

I’m down state if you need any parts for your project. Contact me via this forum and I would be glad to help if I can.
Mark Eyre

1 look at that frame photo and I can tell it is straighter than most.
The transmission.It is all across the board as to how to repair them. Ideally you send your old transmission to a professional and spend 1000's and install and drive your car.
From a realistic stand point,budget wise maybe not. For me,the challenge was worth the effort. and I can go fire up my pickup and take it for a spin in just a few minutes,and I repaired that transmission on a piece of plywood on 2 sawbucks in my back yard .Using brake cylinder hones and and TIME.
using all the best parts from 3 transmissions and a bushing kit from 1 of the suppliers. Oh my goodness,it has a tiny whine in reverse! no biggie,it has been whining since 2008.
Take on the challenge,and enjoy your truck.I haven't had my TT out in a couple years,still had a issue with it cutting off for no reason after a ton of effort to fix it.

Tdump,
Thnx for the inspiration!

This morning I set up the shackle halves in the lathe and turned 90% of the eccentricity out of them. They finished at .625”. I will bush the rear leaf spring eye with with 660 bronze reamed to .625” ID. I will also make new spring perch bushings out of steel.

The machined set. I still need to turn down the OD of the bronze bushings yet. The steel spring eye bushings were nearly worn thru.

I finished rebushing the spring perches this afternoon. Both the spring eyes and perches were drilled and tapped for 1/8” NPT grease zerks. Im pretty happy with the results. It sure tightened things up!

Its been a while. I had a full hip replacement 3 wks ago and have been cabin-bound until a few days ago. I was able to maneuver enough on crutches to get the new brake quadrant riveted on today by myself. It feels good to be making progress again!

Hope you heal fast. I am following your build and enjoy seeing them come together.

Thanx Dallas,
Im definitely on the mend. Im off grid in Michigans Western UP with very limited shop resources, so the restoration is particularly challenging. Im guessing not too many others have hand driven red hot rivets while balancing on crutches…….alone. Its frustrating, but I am happy to be putzing after 2 weeks inside. Knowing that I may be “stuck” out here the remainder of the winter, I bought a huge list of things from Snyders to keep me busy. Next major item is finishing the riveting of the front crossmember braces and then the crossmember to the frame itself. T-Springs has pulled the plug on making any more springs and I was lucky enough to get the very last TT front spring assembly that he had on the shelf. I am having an absolute ball researching and building up this TT. I can hardly wait to get the recent purchase home and inside next to this project. I bought a pretty nice closed cab out in the Dakotas. Ill be looking for a set of doors for that cab. Intent on the current project is a full and very detailed mechanical/frame restoration topped with very straight but rusty original body parts. In aircraft speak, I will 0-time the frame mechanicals to factory new or better.
Heres a shot of the parts depot.

Its aways exciting to get parts delivered. It took me 2 yrs to rebuild my TT. That included the Martin Parry wood cab and 8in1 wood bed. I rebuilt and installed Twin Hasslers out front last year and have a set of restored TT rear Hasslers to install next when time permits. We have a cabin north of Newberry in the U.P. On my list to take the RPU up there and run the back roads. I look forward to more updates on yours.

Dallas,
Let me know when you hit the cabin this summer. Ill either drive or fly over for the day. I like old planes too. Here is my 1940 Taylorcraft Model B. We just finished some improvements on the old Two Hearted strip north of Newberry on the Big Pond.

Looks like a real bush plane Mike

Still healing up from a full hip replacement in late Dec but I have been trying to pick away at the TT as pain allows. Today I managed to finish riveting the replacement correct front crossmember. It took me several hours to make the different back-up bucks that fit tight between the rivet head and opposite frame flange. I had to do this as I work alone. I brush painted the entire frame using RustOleum gloss black with the TSC enamel hardener catalyst. I am anxious to see how it drys now as this is the first time I have used that hardener. I am excited to start hanging parts now!

I am excited to start hanging parts now!

Have you had the rear springs out of the frame? A lot of TT's have broken spring leaves from overloading. You don't see it until the springs are out.

Steve Jelf wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 05, 2023 9:30 pm

I am excited to start hanging parts now!

Have you had the rear springs out of the frame? A lot of TT's have broken spring leaves from overloading. You don't see it until the springs are out.

Steve,
I completely disassembled the rear leaf assembly and found them to be fine. I did find broken leaves on another TT rear that I disassembled for parts.
It seems that I’ve got a lot of machining and repair or welding to do every time I start on some sub-assembly. Both firewall to frame brackets were cracked 75% across at the logical fatigue point. As flexible as these TT frames were, its amazing to me that they lasted as long as they did. You can bet most were severely overloaded as a regular practice.

Here’s a TT truck that had a 6 speed transmission in it to haul those heavy loads! If its set up that way the truck must have been a slow mover that was getting the job done. And maybe it could go uphill doing it?? I wonder what happened to the company that made the transmission.

This advertisement shows Universal to be in Seattle. McCauley-Ward of Waco, TX., must have been an authorized dealer. These company's certainly weren't shy about embellishing the power. Ive seen claims of triple the power and load hauling capability!

I spent the entire day slowly resurrecting the lower steering on the TT. I re-bushed anything that needed it….which was pretty much everything in hindsight! It gives me great satisfaction to save and use parts that very few others would. I ruined two turned steel steering arm bushing mandrels before I made another of 4140 and hardened it. Almost unbelievable how tight those old bushings were in the forging. I still have to line-ream the new spindle bushings, but everything else is 001” or less. The tie-rod shown in the before pic has been underground for 20+years. I buy Kroil by the gallon.

Nice to see parts being restored and not simply replaced. Good for you, and nice results.

Another good day in the shop. I have almost everything in the front end restored and tightened up. It takes several pounds to rotate/swing the connected spindles by hand. I am sure this will wear in quickly with use. The before pic really doesn't do justice as to just how bad this front end was. Its starting to look like its gonna roll on its own soon! Next is the oil pan.

A better pic of the before…..

Mike, I have had both hips replaced, one in 2000 and one in 2008. I did not do the exercises I was set for the first one. By the time I needed the second, I was aware of the consequences of ignoring the exercise regime. The later one works well, with full movement and rotation. The first one lacks rotation, because I did not work it. Just a heads up. You look to be doing well on it.

Allan from down under.

Nice have alot of extra TT part drop me a line good news they are all good or better bad news way out west

For what its worth, we have the better part of a TT Universal Transmission available if you need one. Or if anyone else needs one. The gears are pretty nice. There seems to be a small eccentric operated brake drum in this trans- anyone know what thats all about?

The small internal brake may serve the function of a clutch brake to assist in quick shifting.