Another build thread? Yep, my track-style T

[J. Robinson]

Good news; I finally had the roadster running long enough to get the thermostat open and get the coolant circulating. The engine seems to run good, no smoke, and no unwanted noises. The bad news is it won't idle. I have checked for vacuum leaks and played with the timing to no avail. Apparently the old junkyard carburetor has an internal problem and will need a rebuild (or replacement).

With the engine in running order, I have reached the point where I need to keep tabs on what's happening internally, so I need to get the gauges mounted and working. That means I need to fabricate the dash panel! I could build another wood masterpiece like I did for my coupe, but this track-T is supposed to replicate an old race car and back in the days of the "Roaring Roadsters" the interiors were very spartan. Often, the cars only had an oil pressure gauge and some had no gauges at all! As the roadsters evolved more and more toward sprint cars and the engines became more radical and expensive, gauges became necessary, so dash panels of some sort became common. Certainly, a dash panel would be utilitarian and therefore made of steel or aluminum. Since the beginning of this build I have intended to make the dash from aluminum and engine turn it to match the firewall.

I began by making a pattern from my good old standby template material, poster board. This Dave Koorey body has a dash in it that is pretty narrow (measured vertically), so there is limited space for fitting the gauges. The problem here is compounded by the under-dash support structure that I built to accomodate the cowl steering; everything has to be mounted to the right of the steering column. Therefore, the gauges have to be clustered near the center of the dash panel. After a lot of cut & try fitting, taping my mistakes back together, and cutting again, I finally arrived at a shape I like. The first pic is the finished pattern taped in place. Next is the pattern being transferred to the back of the .063" aluminum (You can see all the taped mistakes on the back of the pattern here). the last pic is the aluminum panel with the gauges fit into it. These are Dolphin gauges; black face with curved glass similar to old-time Stewart Warners.