The wood. It always comes down to the wood.
Unfortunately, with a sedan body from 1917 to 1923, there are no plans for wood construction available on the free market. Therefore one has to, in the words of Blanche Dubois, "rely on the kindness of strangers." There might be plans in the Benson Ford Research Center, but that avenue has never been explored.
One never ending quest is to nail down the measurements from reliable sources: other cars/wood pieces. This can be daunting as there were no less than 2 body makers for the sedan during this period.
So, we are left with a sort of "guessing game" of what these pieces looked like and their approximate dimensions. Here, we will examine two examples.
The first is the Front Body Mount. This piece is SEPARATE from the actual body sill, being attached with two screws from the engine side of the wood. Those screw holes are established by the dashed lines running top to bottom on the trapezoidal wooden shape. The first screw is placed 8 and 1/8th inches from the left and the second is placed 3 and 5/8th inches beyond that. A 1/2 inch hole is drilled approximately 1 and 5/16th inches from the first screw on a line 1 and 1/4 inches down from the top of the wooden piece. These measurements are as of my revision of 9/9/2022. The 1/2 inch hole MUST align with the first body mount on the frame. Doing this will make the inside face of the body sill parallel to the frame at 2 and 3/4 inches the remaining length of the frame. It has taken one year to finalize these measurements, and no final wood has been cut. Currently the incorrect body sills on my Centerdoor frame are parallel to the frame at 2 and 3/4 inches.
The PILLAR COUPE notch on this drawing is exactly the same size as the one on my original body sill piece, shown in a subsequent photo.
This photo shows a pattern made from cheap wood for the front body mount.
This photo shows the relationship of the front body mount to the body sill. The "L" bracket screws to the sill and the PILLARS COUPE and is bolted to the frame through the 1/2 inch hole.
Our second piece of wood that we need to create didn't exist with the body wood I got when the body was given to me. It had to be drawn from a set of measurements taken from another car. That car is located in St. Louis, Missouri. The board we need to replicate is for clearance of the sediment bulb. You can see that clearance hole here. I could not measure the car that my friend who lives near me owns as that board has been replaced with an incorrect opening.
Also seen in this photo, is a slat that runs from the heel board of the back seat, through the middle of the underside of the floor to just behind the front floorboard opening. That piece is also missing on my car, but I have about a 12 inch piece that remains.
The board is 6 and 1/2 inches wide by 29 and 3/4 inches long. The distance between the body sills side to side, including the rabbet in each, is 29 and 3/4 inches. That measurement is also correct on the sills currently on my frame. The access slot for the sediment bulb is 3 inches wide by just a little over 9 inches long. The center of the circular cut-out is 7 and 1/4 inches from the driver's edge of the board. I've included a dashed line at the top of the circle, as you can see in the next picture (of a different car), that hole is squared off.
Other interesting tidbits can be gleaned from the floor photos. Between the floorboard and the sediment bulb cut-out, there are three boards. The first and third are tenoned into mortises in the body sill and are attached with two screws on each end. The middle board is attached with three angled screws on each end to the body sill and screwed to the slat that runs under the floor. That board is removable. The passenger seat front legs are also inlet into this board and the permanent board in front of it. The gas tank sits on top of all of these boards.
Comments