What body do I have?

[BilWilVegas]

Good evening all,

I bought my bucket on Bring-A-Trailer just over a year ago. It is a great looking car but it had some major wiring issues and a few safety / brake related items. I had a local guy (who works out of his garage) spend some time with it and sadly that just made things worse . . . like WAAAYYYYY worse. So then I got busy with life and some of our other cars and the t-bucket just sat in the garage. I pulled it out a couple weeks ago and decided to have a pro shop go through the whole car and redo everything for me.

He has the car stripped down and is redoing all of the wiring and replacing the 8" ford with a 9" rear end, making a lot of "adjustments" to the suspension and chassis. We are adding a T-bucket trunk because I really like the look of them. lots of other stuff. One thing we do not know is what body type this is. I want to do a whole new interior and I am wondering if it is a Speedway body which would simplify some of the interior work (or am I better to just drop it at an interior shop and have them build it from scratch??)

The frame is going to be repainted so now is the time to do any major changes I want so I need to figure out if I can swap the current vertical steering column for one that passes through the firewall at an angle, to allow more foot room.

Is there a way to tell what body is on the car? Can someone tell if the angled steering column can be installed with a new steering box?

Thanks in advance for any insight you all can provide.

Bill

Here is the car on the day it was delivered to me.

Test fitting the Speedway bed at the shop working on it now.

Pulling the old interior

 

[LongJohn]

Hard to tell body manufacturers. Really doesn’t matter. Most of them are copies of somebody else’s anyway. Rear suspension looks homemade. If bars are welded to the housing swapping out makes sense. Wiring can be a real can of worms. Best to start over if the new guy knows his stuff. Try to get in touch with National T Bucket Alliance and see if there are any members close that can help. Questions here are usually fruitful. We all love helping new bucketheads!

 

[BilWilVegas]

Hard to tell body manufacturers. Really doesn’t matter. Most of them are copies of somebody else’s anyway. Rear suspension looks homemade. If bars are welded to the housing swapping out makes sense. Wiring can be a real can of worms. Best to start over if the new guy knows his stuff. Try to get in touch with National T Bucket Alliance and see if there are any members close that can help. Questions here are usually fruitful. We all love helping new bucketheads!

Thanks @LongJohn The new bed is from Speedway and seems to line up fairly well. I have a bow kit coming from Speedway as well so hoping that it will fit without too much modification. The frame and suspension that were on the car are definitely handmade. If you look close you can see the right rear shock is at more of an angle than the left rear shock. The shocks were completely compressed for ride height and there was no suspension. The rework will handle all of that.

I am a member of the T bucket alliance so I will check for local members over there.

Thanks!!

 

[lincolnuT]

I always find a Upholstery person cause I just can not handle that part of the build. Now about that steering YES you can change the column to one thru the dash/firewall. I would suggest the Half Rack steering.......

That is all I can help with cause I can do wiring but I hate it.........

Mike