Progress!

Sorry for the miserable image.  It was a little dark under the car when I shot this at 11p with the cell phone (my only digital camera; analog rules).

Anyway, after 7hrs of busted knuckles, pinched skin, skinned knee, bonked head, perspiration, blood, grease, and swear words, I got the Model T spring hung!  Hooray for measurable progress!  Quick rundown of what transpired: had to move the rear end, tried simply placing the spring in the rear crossmember - too tall for my desired ride height.  After butchering out the old non-compliant spring bolt, I removed the top two leaves of the spring and replaced the spring bolt with the one from one of my Model A rear springs.  This was AFTER I had to repair the spring bolt after beating it out of the A spring and trying to beat it into the T spring before realizing I had to first drill out the hole in the main leaf because the hole was made smaller when the main leaf was welded to repair a crack (oh, please don't break whilst in travel, Mr. Spring).

Then futzed around with the spring hanger bolt things, and discovered they didn't fit as I desired, so I dug out a can of old Ford parts I'd cleaned up years ago.  Found and ended up using a pair of similar-looking hangers, despite one being a '35 and the other a '41 (apparently), but they are shaped in such a way as to better fit the narrower Model T spring (1/4" narrower than Model A).  Had to grind the hangers to fit snugly in the crossmember.  Hung the spring only to notice a gap between the hanger and the spring.  Had to tear the spring apart to add back one of the two leaves I removed earlier.

To cut to the chase, I got the spring hung and the garage cleaned up about 9:30p or so.  Just another day in the garage.  The nice thing is I had a vision while lying on my back under the car: my date with setting the pinion angle just got easier because of something I realized.  Since I have just a bare transmission case and engine block in the frame, I can fit the '34 drive shaft to the pinion and have it poke right through the transmission.  All I have to do is have the rear end in proper height in relation to the spring and frame, center the drive shaft, and my pinion angle is set!  I think I can hook the shackles to the spring and spring mounts, and tack the mounts in place!

Also, by doing the driveshaft this way, I can use it, or a piece of PVC pipe, with a real transmission (one with a U-joint or output shaft, at least) to determine how much to shorten the drive shaft and, in turn, shorten the '34 torque tube (I think I'll use it it instead of the '40 because the '34 has a pretty taper, and the torque tube will be pretty visible on this high-riding hi-boy).

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