1928 Ford Model A Sedan- Drag it til the wheels fall off…

This is nothing new.

The first serious UK drag race rail, Sidney Allard's Hemi powered FED, had to run Lotus Eleven front brakes because there was no drag race organisation yet in the UK.
And the road race organisation it fell under mandated them.



If I wanted to know what is and isn't helpful as far as safety equipment on the sand, I'd go talk to the people who run ( or ran ) the beach races in Guernsey.

That rear spring looks huge! does it really need to be that big?

Most of the MSA regs are pointless. It’s one of the reasons I largely avoid motorsport, cos they’re sticking their noses in everywhere.

Probably not, but that’s how they did things back then.
It’s actually a lot cleverer design than most people give it credit for, as it was basically designed before dampers/shock absorbers were a thing, or certainly a particularly effective thing, so the spring is to an extent self-damping due to the shape.
They’re also sort of more than one spring, the 3 distinct separate curves mean you have a soft section on each side that acts sort of independently, then a stiffer section in the middle that takes out of the big hits from both sides.

Probably why I’m not particularly phased by coils on anything, compared to pretensioned leafs They’re a doddle!

Some further historical stuff.

The front suspension is based around 1930s ford. The front beam axle is ‘32-‘36, which is essentially the same as a model A one but with an inbuilt 1.5” drop.
The split wishbones are ‘36, with the spring-forward mounts removed, then flipped upside down (cos they look better like this) with the front end piecut to correct (and increase) the castor angle. They are a good bit longer than model A ones so still run back to the firewall, so there isn’t a disjointed gap between firewall and suspension.
The chopped off original spring mounts have been recycled into headlight mounts.

This is then sprung by an essentially stock (but reverse-eyed for more lowness) front spring on a stock front crossmember, but mounted sideways to the wishbones to drop it down considerably, rather than over the top of the axle in the ‘normal’ position.

I don’t have a lot of photos of that, and it takes some explaining to someone not familiar with the type of suspension to be honest. But what it means is it’s long and low and capable fo going fast without wandering.



It previously had ford f100 11” bendix type self-energising front brakes, on ‘42-‘48 ‘square back’ spindles, as can be seen above.
But it now has ‘42-‘48 fully floating ford ‘juice’ brakes with 12” Buick finned ally drums, purely because they look ridiculously cool. I’ve also gone to the more visually appealing 40-41 roundback spindles. They’re called ‘juice’ brakes as ford was actually fairly late going over to hydraulic brakes compared to other manufacturers, they didn’t do it until 1939, well after most other manufacturers, so they were regularly used an an upgrade on earlier cars as with some minor adaptation they fit all the way back to ‘28. To do so was ‘juicing’ your brakes over the original mechanical setup.




For scale, that’s a 16” wheel...
As you can see the backplates have also gained some speed holes. They actually have even more now.

The steering is ‘cowl steer’, as in the steering box is mounted inside the cowl of the body instead of to the chassis. It then sticks through the side of the cowl and has a big long drag link that operates the steering arm on the spindle.
This is the structure that hides behind the firewall and supports the steering setup.
You can also see the ‘Z’ (step) at the firewall that further lowers the front of the chassis.
I'm going to be changing the steering box to something with a more self-supporting column, but otherwise this will stay about the same.

The body itself, apart from the hefty chop and channel, and not having any fenders, running boards or a hood, is fairly stock.
It used to have caddy rear lights, a narrowed impala dash and recessed firewall, but I’ve put all that back to stock. My thinking is the car is pretty radical as it is, so doesnt need further gaudiness. In a way keeping some stuff bone stock only emphasises the extremes of the rest.

One thing I have done is fitted a 30-31 model A screen visor instead of the plainer 28-29 version. The earlier one looks distinctly home-made to me, it’s just a bit of bent tin. Whereas the later one has some beads and swages to make it look a bit more ‘proper’. I’ve punched it full of big swaged holes otherwise they boom in the wind as speed. They also require a custom header panel to take up all the gaps and make it fit the earlier car properly, so I made that custom with some holes in as well.

You can see there it now has a standard model A dash/dash rail/fuel tank(the cowl is the fuel tank) although the tank won’t be used.

It’s also had all the stock framing wood replaced with steel to stiffen it up and make it less wobbly. This is a pretty standard thing to do on a hot rod.

It’s got a 30-31 grille shell as they’re a touch bigger so allow a little more radiator to fit.

As a further illustration of the channel job and how the engine effectively sits raised because of the chassis Z, here is a stock firewall. The motor/bellhousing usually fits blow the bottom edge in the centre, and the. Feet usually sit on the chassis rails.


This is it modified to go into mine-


And fitted-

I always try to. I’ve never been interested in doing average or sub-par work just to pay the bills or whatever. I always try to do the best I possibly can, and if you’re not doing that for yourself then why even bother doing it at all.

What is the story with the Lanchester LD10 outside the door?