Front floor boards

Thanks for the link! Lots of good stuff there.

I sent a query to Lang’s and was told 1" clearance from the bottom of their floorboards should accommodate the Ford Faithful without having to relieve any wood, so now I have something I can measure and proceed accordingly .

Unfortunately your car is wood framed with the sheet metal nailed to the wood. Over the past 90+ years the body has settled, eliminating the clearance that once existed. Various methods can be used to gain back the proper dimensions. You need to decide how to fix it.

I measured the clearance between the transmission door and a piece of wood I fit to simulated the bottom of the floorboard. I’ve got 3/4" clearance and need 1" according to Lang’s
Any suggestions?

Mulling this over I’ve thought of four possibilities

  1. shim the body 3/8" maybe. Not sure how to do this but I could eventually figure it out probably This sounds like a daunting task,

  2. reinforce the current floor boards and cover with carpeting so I don’t have to look at it. This explains why the floorboards had the old indoor/outdoor carpeting. The old gal really deserves better though.

  3. install new floorboards and relieve the bottom wood 1/4" where the oil line ties into the transmission door. This won’t solve anything if the body continues to settle, eventually pinching the oil line closed or cause a rupture and that can’t be a good thing.

  4. replace the Ford Faithfull system with an original oil line and transmission door and add a screen.
    I’d lose the extra oil flow to the #1 bearing but …but…I’d lose the extra oil flow to the #1 bearing! The plumbing would return to the original configuration however…

Any thoughts, recommendations or suggestions?

Lots of folks shim the body to compensate. It’s not too hard to do. The real question is what you will use for shims. Aluminum, rubber, steel or wood?

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I see that Lang’s has body/frame shims.
I’ll have to find out more about them.

Another thought—why solve a problem I don’t yet know that I have?
All the doors open and close crisply and without issue, so I’m not convinced 100% that shimming will cure the problem without maybe causing other issues with the body.
I think my next step will be to order new floorboards and see if they provide enough clearance since the current floorboards are obviously messed up.
If there’s no clearance with the new boards, then I’ll have a problem and I’ll shim or replumb or something

The shims from Langs are wood. I would use steel washers from the hardware store.

Thanks for the advice!

The new front floorboards for the Fordor arrived, They’re definitely a different shape and size from the one’s I took out of dad’s T. I need to get some brackets to install them to see if the new floorboards will clear the Ford Faithful Oiler —the old floorboards were held together with only one bracket.

Well, this is getting stranger and stranger, I found two more brackets hidden among the stuff holding the floorboards together. The brackets, and the handbrake lever trim are held in place with copper rivets.
I made a mistake— there is no draft deflector on this car—I get confused easily.
The old floor is made up of four boards, two are held together with the brackets.
The new floorboards from Lang’s, consist of three boards,
I’m assuming that four boards weren’t original and three boards are?
Two of those three boards are supposed to be supported and held together with brackets according to the directions that came with the floorboards. Those directions say to screw the brackets in place with #10x5/8" flat head wood screws.

I’m guessing my next step will be to cut or grind the copper rivets, salvage the three brackets and get this put together.

Sometimes the floor boards split into more pieces.

From what I’ve read online, bodies were built for Ford by various contractors, which might explain the variations. I’ve also read that Ford had his own forest to supply the lumber used, so could I assume that he supplied his contractors with the lumber to build the body frames?

The old and new floorboards are side by side on the coffee table so I can study them.
I’d better move them before the rest of my family wakes up!

Ah yes, I see now. One of the new floorboards came apart so I do have four new floorboards to put together,

I’m looking at the old brackets from the old floorboards. Apparently they were drilled out to accommodate the copper rivets used to install them so reusing these won’t be possible since the instructions say to screw the brackets on with #10x5/8" flat head wood screws, which would be too small for the holes in the old brackets.
Figuring out what trials and tribulations a 99 year old Model T must have gone through over the decades is downright Sherlockian (but fun!).

Mystery solved! :grinning:
I had the old floorboards on the work bench and had the new floorboards sitting in the car, thinking to myself I’ll either shim the body or just put the old floorboards back in. Replumbing wasn’t an option because the new floorboards wouldn’t even clear the transmission door!

I decided to try one more thing— pieces of old wooden ruler had been glued and tacked on to the flange that holds the floorboards as a “shim”, and a piece of the old indoor/outdoor carpet was still glued on the passenger side of the cowl, so I figured I’d start with the blank canvas, so to speak, and try fitting the new boards one more time. I pulled up the tacks and fragments of wood ruler, and removed the remaining piece of indoor/outdoor carpeting, and
shazam! The new floorboard fit precisely as it should!

A little paint and install the trim and I can call the front floorboards “good.”

Perseverance and patience pays off. Nice! Glad to see you got it figured out.

Apparently the wood and nails were enough to change the geometry so that the clearance decreased(?) I still don’t understand how that could happen but I’m grateful that the boards fit and clear the oil line now :smiley:

Nice! Feels great when something works.