(Sheesh, such attitude from one whose not been in the garage for some time, the documentation of which is the primary purpose of this blog). Anyway, now that we're past Christmas (although New Year's is lurking in the wings), and I'm over my seasonal cold, I had the chance to work in the garage tonight.
I had to cut down my rear axle spring hangers from 2-1/4" (Model A spring width) to 2" (Model T spring width).
Here's another shot comparing the shape of the Model A spring (bottom) with the Model T spring (top).
My first thought was to clamp the hanger in the vice, and just use the hacksaw, with the top of the vice as the guide to cut straight. Except that I have pipe cleaner arms and the steel is apparently pretty tough, as it should be, to support the spring, etc. So after laboriously cutting the first one with the hacksaw, and having to do significant clean up work with the file, I opted to use my favorite pneumatic tool: the cutoff wheel.
So three more rounds of measure twice, mark, cut (noisily, and intermittently while waiting for the compressor to catch up) got me to the results you see below.
Next step for the rear spring is driving the shackles in these spring hangers, then disassembling, greasing, and reassembling the spring. Installation will have to wait until we get an approximate drive angle after transmission installation, which will be the next major step.
While waiting for my friend who still has my distributor, flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate (it's a long story), rather than wait to assemble my motor, I'm going to instead finish assembly of the transmission and bolt it to the mock-up block. Then, I'll use the mock-up block and my transmission to finalize the motor mount and k-member locations, and the drive angle for the torque tube and rear end. If I play my cards right, I might get this done before New Year's. We'll see...
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