Final Assembly of the T-Bucket begins

The pre fitting is all done and we’re ready to take it apart once again

The pre fitting is all done now, the engine is in its final resting place, fenders are on and sitting as we had designed, everything has past our inspection before we take it to paint.

• It took three months for the frame and body to be built
• It took us one and a half months of pre fitting and assembly of the Rod
• And now it’s only taken us four hours to unassembled it. 

almost assembled

The frame is back from the paint shop and our 1966 Ford Mustang Rangoon Red is exactly what we wanted. We chose the unit to be clear coated as well. There’s just enough orange in the red to give it that fun car appearance. In my mind T- Buckets get all the looks at any car show - just watch the crowds and you‘ll see for yourself. I prefer bright colours to get the attention.

The Final assembly now begins - WOW what great fun, we’ve been waiting for this day for some time now. We were careful to wrap the jack stands with felt and foam sheets as to avoid damage to the fresh paint.

Notice we decided to paint the frame instead of Powder Coating. Even though Powder Coating cost less it doesn’t take care of the welds like paint does. There is a lot of work filling the welds and corners to get that plastic-like look we wanted – you could say its show quality.

The T-Bucket has an exposed frame so if you want it to look great I think paint is the way to go – especially if you want to have the paint colour match perfectly with the body. The Powder Coating people would not guarantee the colour match.

Up until now it’s been installing, take off, refit, install again and so on. It’s exciting to finally begin bolting parts to the frame permanently, and of coarse every nut has to have Loctite, after all we are building a reliable vehicle and don’t want things to fall off or get loose. I did however find out that red Loctite is for engine parts (heat sensitive) and the blue is most everything else so off we go again to the parts store to get it. Remember if you’re using red Loctite you’re going to have to use a heat gun to remove the bolt unlike the blue.

Installing the Master Cylinder

Installing the brake lines and attaching it to the frame – holes are already pre-drilled and fitted

Next we install the chrome front end – we still have a problem to overcome and here and that is establishing where the shock is to be mounted on the shackle – will keep you posted.

Installing the chrome transmission mount

Transmission mount is in place and to the right you’ll see the chrome brake pedal mounted next to the master cylinder.

Here we are installing the Transmission cooling unit and positioning it beside the transmission well hidden from view. There’s no room on the radiator of a T-Bucket – it’s got to be hidden some place so might as well be here tucked under the frame.

We’ve got the shop rigged with production lighting so we can film the entire build.

The body arrives in a few days so hopefully we’ll have all the necessary parts installed on the frame by then.