[dlshady]

John Lennon once said "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans" and after the past couple months I can attest to the fact that truer words have never been spoken! Between an insane workload, Daniel starting the 7th grade and a number of other outside distractions there hasn't really been a lot of free time to spend here on the internet. In fact, when I logged on tonight to post this update I noticed that the end of July was the last time I visited FordBarn. So I guess it's really true what they say about good intentions..... This past summer flew by so fast that I still haven't really figured out where it went!

Having said that, all of the chaos of daily life hasn't allowed us to devote as much time to the speedster project as we'd hoped, but we've made a bit of progress nonetheless. Daniel and Dad made some good progress on the rear section of the body buck, but after getting the main station profiles worked out they decided that it was a bit too flimsy so version 1 ended up in the kindling box and version 2 was born. The back section is pretty well done but it still needs to be sculpted to smooth out the sharp edges. Here's a few photos of the first and second designs:







Here's how it ended up:







On the days that he wasn't working with Dad on the body buck he worked on getting the engine running, and we did manage to get it fired up without much drama. Unfortunately, once it was running it didn't take long to figure out that we had a much bigger project ahead of us that we'd originally hoped. The motor was pretty noisy, which itself isn't too big of a deal, but we also found that the block had previously been welded along the driver side water jacket and the welds were weeping water. I suppose that it could be re-welded but since I had another motor laying around we decided that it'd probably be best to just build it instead. He spent a couple days tearing it down and it's been delivered it to the machine shop for cleaning. Once we get a final gameplan of the work needed, we'll have the local machine shop do the boring, decking, valve job, etc. and then deliver it to Robert Carden in Newnan, GA for the babbit work. Now I just need to get the little stinker to put the parts back that he robbed off my '13 to get his running....
















In addition to the body and engine work, he also worked on some miscellaneous piece parts such as a the coil box and front axle components. The coil box is primed and ready for paint, the wood is assembled and the terminals are all soldered, so that's checked off the list and set aside.



He conned me out of my only pair of 26/27 spindles, then he installed new bushings and we had the local machine shop hone them to match the new spindle bolts, so they're done and put aside as well.









And here's a photo of our best Craigslist find so far. An elderly gentleman in Columbia, TN had put these aside 30 years ago for a project that never materialized, and we were able to pick them up for a VERY reasonable price. That left him with a total of 9 wire wheels so he got to learn how to go about picking the best set.





So we're making a little progress. Kind of like eating an elephant, one bite at a time.... I think he and Dad are planning to devote some time next week to the body buck, so hopefully we'll have another update soon. Stay tuned!