1928 FORD MODEL A SEDAN- belly pan.

well, its long but it aint got much girth

I can fit a 4 foot-ish prop on the bed, this one had a fair bit of room but the one for the pickup was pushing it, the tailstock was half hung off the tail end!

the through-diameter of the chuck is only about 3/4" though, so no I didnt pass it through. it was actually marked out with some careful marking and measuring with the dividers from the existing machined surfaces on that end of the prop- with a little skill and care, you can mark stuff out pretty acturately this way. theres zero runout anyway

as the clutch pedal is all sorted now bar for the plumbing and making a much better looking pedal arm with different pedal pads, I thought id crack on with getting the brake pedal up to the same stage, and start making the bits to fit the pedal pads.

the brake pedal needs modding, as ive decided to go for twin cyls over one big single one, for a number of reasons. firstly, everyone knows dual circuit brakes are safer. so thats the first plus point. secondly, the large 1-1/16" master cyl I would need to use is only fitted to certain american fords (f1 and f100 pickups having the one thats easiest to source- ive actually already got one that needs a rebuild). but one of these new is still around 80 quid by the time its shipped, even a rebuild kit is 40 quid, and would cost more if I was in need of one in a hurry and had to buy within the uk. I would then need a proportioning valve as well to dial the brake bias, which is at least 40 quid for a good one. so quite an expensive setup, and if it was ever to blow/leak, id be waiting for parts to arrive from the states. I prefer to not use obscure/difficult to souce quick parts for stuff like this, preferring wherever possible to use easily, cheaply available parts to prevent any future problems.
the equivalent of one 1-1/16" cyl in terms of piston area is two 3/4" cyls. I'm using the girling type, as used on most aftermarket bias pedal boxes, and conveniently fitted to every land rover from series 2 right up to current defenders! so, if I need a master cyl I can go to the nearest motor factors (wherever I am in the world) and get one brand new for about £15-20. or carry a spare if I'm on a big trip. or if I'm feeling really stingy, a seal kit is £2.50!
to go with these to obtain the bias adjust I will need, I'm going for a standard aftermarket bias bar setup.
I bought a supposedly 'new' one off ebay with the remote adjuster for 25 quid, which I thought was a good deal as usually just the bar setup without the remote cable is that much, then the cable another £20+, but it has turned up and is obviously used, has a part missing, and the knobhead charged £11 for a courier then sent it by royal mail for £2.70, so hes going to loose his 100% feedback. I'm going to have to make the tube to weld into the pedal cos its missing, but I don't have any tube the right size, so ile have to bore out some bar.

I made up a plate to mount the m/c's on at the right spacing-


and after a lot of farting around, measuring up, figuring out what clearance id need, cutting and shaping back, I then welded the plate into the cut-down landy pedal box-



I'm pretty happy with it so far, itll need a bit more bracing, but I cant add that til the bias bar assembly is done and ive tried it back in the car to see what clearance I have.

then, I had an idea for mounting the pedal pads, so went off and did that instead. these are the pedal pads some ©unt off here gave me a few years back as he thought they'd be perfect for it

he was right you know.

first, I trimmed down some 3mm plate holesaw holes to fit inside, then drilled out and countersunk them to accept a couple of 1/2" unf scimitar wheel studs I happened to have kicking round. I cut two 'sides' off the countersink to leave a gap to weld into, then stuck em together and smoothed em off-



you can kind of see there where the welds are^^.

then I took a couple of the corresponding bloody hugely long scabby old 1/2"unf scimitar wheelnuts, and tuned them down so they were round and clean with all the rust and old chrome off, then decided to make the back end a bloody big spike, just cos I can really
I wanted the back to be capped off so you cant see the thread there.
a pair of the spikes with one of the donor nuts in between-


the stud thats now attached to the pedal pad then screws into this, and will eventually have a 1/2" halfnut added as well once I order some cos I cant find any 1/2" bolts to turn down, which will mean to can lock it off with the pedal in the 'upright' position easily, cos things like the pedal rubbers not being straight would annoy the hell out of me!

here it is together, the bit spike bit will be welded to the top of the new pedal once I get round to making it-

FYI, the have both a integral reservoir and remote, one of each. ones clutch and ones brake, cant remember which way round though. they both use the same seal kit and pushrod setup- i know, cos ive got a box full of em!

the cars getting a lot of interest now its getting towards being done, my mate was saying only the other day he wants to come up from plymouth just for a look!
hopefull itll be out on the road soon enough though (albeit in a quite unfinished state) so ile be able to start getting about it it so people can see it!

Couldn't you just rotate the rubber pad around the metal disc?!

Nice work as always.

You're welcome.
Tosser ;D

'nother update.

start with this-

the 'new' used bias bar assembly off egay.

i had to make the tube the bearing slides in cos it was missing.
its here on the left-

along with the original main pivot tube cut out of the original pedal, and its oilite bearings. plus the new pedal arm below that.

heres the new arm next to the old one, before i chopped it up for the pivot-

as you can see, ive changed the shape and slimmed it down a bit. youll see why next update.

after an inordinate amount of swearing and pi$$ing about, i had it all welded together with the tubes true in all directions, and reassembled it all, with the bias bar, then marked up and cut down the pushrods.
lots of pics of the 'finished' assembly. finished in that it works. jsut gotta make it look good now-








and in-situ. this is the 'up' position- pads sit upright, and a bit further back(which is technically forward) compared to the original arms, giving me a bit more legroom.




and all the way down- the pedal should never actually reach this position unless osmething has gone wrong, but even then it still don't hit the firewall-




hopefully next update theyll look a lot better that this, then theyll truly be finished.

Sterling work as ever.

It's always nice to see proper engineering/fabrication being done.

This is gonna be a very nice motor

indeed it is. only problem is i cant fit the remote adjuster cos theres a chassis rail in the way

so i don't know if I'm going to be fitting it now!






cheers very much, i often think most people simply don't understand the work that goes into this thing, as theyve not experienced doing anything like it. as you say, theres a hell of a lot of fab and engineering in it.
its getting to the point where I'm starting to tie everything together now, so i can see the look of the finish article. i recon youre right, a nice motor it will be

have some more pics.
today, of me making the pedal assembly look nice-







hopefully the shape of the top bit makes more sense now. a added some 1/8" plate cut into strips that taper from top to bottom, welded on to make it an I-beam. looks pretty nice i think. the pics make it look messier than it is for some reason, the welds are quite neat. now i look at in pics the holes i drilled look too small though. i might bosh through each one a few mm bigger tomorrow i think. need to have another look at it really.

but, here it is all done-


you can also see ive been messing with putting the piece of floor i cut out back in, but with flared holes for the master cyls. unfortunatley it hasnt quite worked out how i had it in my head, as the cyls sit a bit too low, and are a bit too close together so the flares overlap. i think i can make it look right with some hammer work, I'm still not sure on the cyl height though...

i was thinking something like this might work, but they cant be plastic so id have to make something-
www.jjcraceandrally.com/race/brake-master-cylinders-accessories/raceparts-integral-master-cylinder-extension-reservoir
problem is they don't appear to be a standard thread form, so I'm not sure how id make them screw on.
ive got a couple of other ideas that might be more fruitful yet though, i need to have a play with some parts and see.