Making a not-so-tall T his own

Jeff Halstead couldn’t have been happier with a car guy’s gift of a lifetime, a chopped 1927 Model T coupe, a real old-time hot rod.

“My wife bought it for my birthday two years ago,” he said. “I drove it twice, then I tore it apart. There were some things I wanted to change. I wanted to make it my own.”

How did that go over?

“Brenda and I have been married for 27 years. She has stuck by my side through all the drag racing cars and motorcycles,” Halstead said. So Brenda wasn’t all that surprised that the black coupe immediately became his next project car.

As a “thank you,” Jeff has since turned over the keys to an LS-powered 1951 Chevy to Brenda.

The problem with the Model T, in Halstead’s eyes, was that the car truly had been built with an old school vibe in mind: the frame rails and front suspension were painted silver, the wheels and valve cover details red, and there was a huge Maltese cross painted on the deck lid.

“It was done like a traditional hot rod,” Halstead said.

“Some old man had started the car 10 or 12 years ago in Wichita. But he died before he finished it and I never found him. I would like to see if he has family, maybe a son or grandson, that would be interested in seeing the finished car,” he said.

The car had been bought by a third party, who put it away, planning to finish it. But that didn’t happen, so it was up to Halstead to pick up the assignment and run with it.

It wasn’t long before the 5-window coupe body was separated from the chassis, a Russ Nomore Streetrods frame, and the 350 Chevy V-8 and the TH350 automatic transmission were removed.

“I lowered it another two inches by re-arching the leaf springs. It already had a drop axle in the front, with hair pins (radius rods),” Halstead said. “It has a triangulated 4-link rear suspension with a 9-inch Ford rear end. I put a set of 3.73 positraction gears in it.”

Halstead installed a bigger Comp Cam camshaft in the engine, but retained the Demon 750 cfm carburetor that came on it. The valve covers and the big blower-style air scoop were toned down with charcoal gray ribbing detail replacing the red. More subdued wiring was added to the Mallory ignition system.

But the wild “zoomie” style Sanderson headers that jutted out from either side of the engine caught Halstead’s fancy, so he kept them. They constitute the entire exhaust system and are equipped with a removable baffle in each pipe.

“I took them out one time, for a trip into El Dorado, and I put them right back in,” he said.

If there was one thing that Halstead probably would have left undone, it was the 6-inch top chop on the Model T’s body.

“I like those tall tops, but it came that way,” he said. But the top chop was expertly done, with a full metal roof grafted into place after the door pillars were shortened up.

“The body did have some places that needed fixed, the whole left side had scratches down it where something had fallen over on it, and then there was that Maltese cross on the deck lid,” Halstead said.

So he took the car to his longtime friend, Lonny Moore, who runs Lonny Moore’s Collision Repair in Park City. Moore was able to perfectly match the jet black paint on the coupe and Ron Pinkston applied some of his distinctive pinstriping to the ’32 Ford grille shell and the now-pristine deck lid.

The headlight shells were coated in truck bed liner and had to be smoothed out and painted to match, and a set of 1950 Pontiac tail lights look right at home on the rear panel.

Inside, Halstead had Morgan-Bulleigh upholster a custom-built bench seat in high-grade simulated red leather, moving the seat back an additional 6 inches to give him more leg room. There is also a 4-spoke sprint car steering wheel that can be removed with the pull of a pin “so an old fat guy can get in and out.”

An Auto Meter tachometer is complemented by a set of Dolphin white-faced gauges in the slim dashboard, with the sound system located above the windshield in an upholstered overhead console.

A Vega steering box and front wheel disc brakes make the car handle and stop.

Halstead chose to retain steel wheels on the car, but painted them black to match the bodywork and to contrast with the wide whitewall tires. A set of 1948 Ford pickup hubcaps completes the look.

The front tires are Coker 165/R15’s, while the rear are hefty Defender 255/70R15’s.

Halstead is baffled by the fact the rubber nubs are still in place on the front tires after 500 miles, while there’s no sign of nubs on those fat rear tires.

We think we may know what happened to them.

This story was originally published March 27, 2015 at 3:37 PM with the headline "Making a not-so-tall T his own."