After months of preparation and finding a hole in my otherwise busy retired-guy schedule, the ’30 Tudor is on the lift for the Great Transmission Transformation, with a rebuilt steering box thrown in for fun. FINALLY!
At this point, two days in, I will probably have the transmission out tomorrow evening. The steering box is already out and disassembled, with the rebuilt unit already done and ready. But I am a bit ahead of myself.
I drive my Tudor every chance I get. It is a great driver, runs well, comfortable and we love to take it places. Since we bought it in May of 2025, we have turned almost 6,000 miles, mostly around town and to close-by events. We trailered to Penn Yan, New York a couple of weeks ago for the MARC National Tour – great time, and it handled the hills wonderfully. (We don’t have “hills” in central Florida.)
As we do drive it, I looked into the synchronized Model A Trans and the Overdrive from Mitchell. Great products, but a long wait time and a little expensive. So after a ton of research, I opted for a T-5 Five Speed conversion with full synchro and a .72 overdrive fifth gear. It is a bit more work to install, but otherwise pretty cool.
I got the complete kit from Dennis Patrick at Model A 5 Conversion (https://modela5conv.com/) as it is a complete kit with everything you need except the transmission. This company, Model A 5 Conversion, is a new version of Valley Machine founded by Eddie Pruett in Bakersfield, California. We all know about Valley Machine and Eddie from years past. Patrick has made some key improvements and offers everything that you need to do the conversion in one package. And he is very helpful with questions. Take a look at his website for details.
I sourced my T-5 from a rebuilder in Texas who included the .72 overdrive fifth. He also set it up with the cable speedo drive, only found in the mid-80’s Chevy S10 pickups. So that makes it plug-and-play.
I hope to have it on the road at 1800 RPM and 50 mph before mid-June. So far it is going quite well.
STEERING…
My steering was quite strange in my Tudor. At one point I switched to a short pitman arm, but that changed the turning radius to really wide on one side and really short on the other. Not right. I adjusted, got some of the slop out of it, but it was still weird. And stiff. With 1935 16″ wheels and 6.50 tires, turning at a stop was a bit of a chore. THAT is what started the journey that turned into Model A Steering LLC.
So I sourced a new housing and built a new steering box with Model A Steering components. Easy to do since I did not have to remove the worm gear from the shaft and press on a new one – a great feature of the Model A Steering kits. But I told myself that I would not install it until I did the transmission job – all at once, “while you are there,” etc.
I took the old box apart to verify that it actually was a 43″ steering shaft. I didn’t find anything horrible inside, although wear was definitely an issue. I did find something strange with the steering wheel, though.
My steering was set up in the traditional “cross” pattern. So adjustments were done with the steering wheel CROSSED and centered. I removed the wheel and tried it on my new steering box and shaft – and that is when “weird” set in. While most wheels have two positions for the key, mine only had ONE. And it was not in the traditional CROSS position, but in the “X” position. My steering was set up in CROSS, but it was actually an “X”. The wheel was out of position when the car was going straight down the road, which meant that the worm gear was NOT in the center when the car was going straight. Wow.
So upon re-install, I will install the steering wheel in the “X” position, which I wanted to do anyway. I will also be re-installing the short pitman arm – that mystery is also solved.
Lessons learned.
Have a great time!