A few people have asked why i havn't posted my 32 project on here as they have trouble accessing Webshots sometimes, So here goes . I've added updates before but this time will keep everything on the same thread. I won't bore you with too many details as there are more detailed pics here http://rides.webshots.com/album/551832694OXeiHX The car has a mechanical/rocket theme in it which started with the rocket engine, after watching the original 50's Flash Gordon film my mind started to get idea's Chassis is a homemade 32 frame using Speedway rails, tubular centre section & crossmembers, a lot of the original chassis stuff as been heavily modified as the engine/box has changed from a blown 283/TH350 chevy to a 394 Olds Rocket with dual hydromatic auto, This is a much bigger engine and needed a lot of chassis mods to fit. Body is a fibreglass Rodline 32 roadster and needed a fair bit of work but more about that later. Frontend is an I Beam setup with Aluminuim Superbell axle, Posies spring, Hairpins etc etc, Steering is Vega cross steer. Brakes are Rowdys Rodshop dummy Buicks with Willwood discs/4 pot calipers. Rearend is a narrowed 8" Ford with 3.50 gears and a LSD, Half shafts are Moser, Brakes are 11" Ford drums adapted to the 8" axle. Wheels/Tyres will be Chrome reverse rims & Firestone whitewall crossplys. This is the original artists impression i started with by my artist friend Tootall, A few minor things have changed along the way but mostly its according to plan. Colour is Green metalflake with an off white underfloor & firewall, Interior will be off white with green metalflake vinyl diamond tufted inserts. Folding top is going to be white on a homemade stainless steel folding frame with original style wood bows. Here's the chassis in its SBC configaration. Here we have a hidden disc inside a Buick style drum, The kit originated from Rowdy's in New Zealand and hides a Willwood Caliper/Disc setup inside, As usual with any of these kits it didn't fit straight on and required fettling and modification to work correctly. 1st job was to mount the grp body and add the steel framework to hang the door hinges/locks/strikers from so as not to stress any of the grp. Body, Grille shell & hood mounted Here's the 394 Olds dummied together Here's a pic of some of the steel frame While steeling the body out i got the idea that a 40 Ford dash would be nice so my buddy Tom in Virginia found one and I narrowed it to fit The body turned out to be a nightmare to fit doors too, I can only assume it was taken out of the mould too quick, The doors just didn't fit at all and had to be split into 2 pieces, The rear quarter panel on drivers side stuck out 1.5" further than it should have, It involved a fair bit of work to get it to all line up properly, More pics on link. Here's a door finally fitting Once i had both doors fitted on i moved onto the trunk lid, As per the doors it fitted where it touched !!! At this point i decided to cut the outer skin off and make a louvred panel to replace it. Here's the panel made. Now fitted I really wanted an original cowl vent but my body was plain, Luckily i had a friend with a steel 32 5W so once he had got his body in primer i pulled a mould from it and popped one out.
Now i had the body panels sorted i moved onto the rolling frame, here's the motor/trans mocked up in place. The front motor mount is mounted on early Ford rubbers and is in the shape of a pair of rocket wings, Its made from 10mm Stainless steel so will be polished. I will add a few lightning holes later. Headers are homemade stainless lakes style which will connect to a polished stainless under car system just as soon as i get round to making it. Rearend is mounted by homemade stainless ladder bars/panhard rod and coilovers, All are fully adjustable. Here's how the car sits so far, I may drop the rear slightly but i do want a 60's look. Here's some pics of the exhaust system, for some reason i never took a pic of the complete system. I was using original 32 stainless headlamps but have now changed to these, a bit more work as i need to sort out the rims to suit the 36 lenses and they are rare, My mate Keith is going to try to duplicate them in brass and i will get them chrome plated. Both ltype of lights fitted for comparison.
My next job was to paint the frame, first it was sand blasted and epoxy primed. Then basecoated in green mettalic Then 2 coats of forest green flake were applied. Then 3 coats of lacquer were put on, Looks shiny now This was allowed to kick off overnight and next day keyed up with a grey scotchbrite ready for the next 3 coats of lacquer. This was allowed to harden over night and then flat & polished next day. _ Now i had a painted frame the nice part of fitting up started The autobox is currently being rebuilt so engine can't be put in yet, so first job was to install the stainless brake lines and fittings and front motor mount. Next up i fitted the exhaust system that i had already polished. Next up was the frontend assembly and steering box. Front brakes were next after recieving a good dose of green flake. Can't make my mind up what to do with the drums at present, I like the cast look but i think it don't go with the painted & polished bits, 3 different extures don't look right to me so will probably flake the drums and polish the fin tops. Got the rearend painted and now in place. Well with the forum down i found time to paint the rear tailights & finish off painting the diff. Well thats as far as it goes at the moment as i have to wait for the rebuild kit for the autobox to arrive from the states 8-( Once i have the rolling chassis finished i can wrap it in plastic and paint the body/panels, I have to do it this way as i use the same workshop for painting as where the car is 8-( Will add more as i find the time although i might not be in the order it was done.
Nice work as always Steve, looking forward to seeing the grand unveiling. Wheels day or is that too soon? P.
Wow,man thats going to be sweet when its finished,hell,everything you have done to this point looks great,please keep us posted.
I made this up and put a little flake on it then gave it to my mate Ian (bigbossman) who applied the letering to his usual high standard, script is the original Ford. Rear number plate surround made from 20mm x 6mm flat bar. Iron Cross brake pedal pad Dashboard pic Now ready for paint Hood side panel stainless steel spears Arvin heater Rocket fuel block to feed the 6 carbs These are my alternative headers i will be using from time to time. Stainless battery holder, there are 2 of these as i'm running a propshaft driven alternator, If after a few months on the road i find the 2nd battery is not needed i will cut the top off and gut it and use it to store some tools. Firewall mounted fuel pressure gauge. There will be a few that won't like this click on the pic to see. But i like my music so i'm fitting a decent stereo system that also plays DVD's on a small screen, Amp's will be mounted behind the seat. There is also another version here http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dfpiYTkbePU
Nice job there Steve, I like the profile shot, Maybe a little high in the rear, its an easy fix though. I look forward to seeing it finished. Keep up the good work.
A few people asked why i'm running a prop alternator, the reason the alty runs off the prop is that i didn't like it up front, the engine looks nice and balanced with the 3 carbs either side and if i had added the alty it looked unbalanced so i decided to run it off the prop. It runs off a pulley that is fitted to the front slip yoke, Most prop run altys that i have seen are usually fitted on the rear axle and run off a pulley mounted at the rear of the prop, Didn't like that system as it was ugly and the alty would be subjected to shocks. To eliminate any belt flex i have slightly longer ladder bars so that the joints share the same axis as the front UJ, This means that the slip yoke only moves about 3mm in & out even on full suspension travel, The belt can cope with this. The pulley is an aluminium SBC water pump pulley that i modified on the lathe. The alternator is a 100amp Toyota small job, This charges a 720amp truck battery which has a big reserve capacity so shouldn't be a problem, There is another of these batterys as well which is wired in on a solenoid should i need extra power to start at any time, I don't think it will be needed really so it may get the top cut off it and gut the inards and used for tool storage after a few months road testing. At the engine end i have added a small idler pulley for fan belt tensioning. Here's some pics to explain Here's the block being washed out again prior to being put back together All the block core plugs were knocked out and replaced. Front and rear gallery plugs were removed and carefully washed out with rifle brushes and degreaser. Crank was lubricated and installed in Clevite 77 bearings, The crank and associated parts have had a full balance job. The crank spins nicely pulling just 20ftlbs on the torque wrench. My mate Adam found a nice big bag to cover the engine whilst its being built up. Noticed this a while ago so thought i would sort it now rather than later, the problem was that the aftermarket Finned valley cover was 10% smaller than the original steel cover, i assume that when it was cast they didn't take into account of the shrikage that you get when casting, this was solved by cutting a piece of T6061 Ally sheet 4mm thick just slightly bigger than the cover, this was fastened to the underneath of the cover with countersunk 4mm set screws and now it fits just right with a decent size gasket surface.
Got the pistons/rods in at last. First job was to gap the rings, Ring gap should be 3-4 thou per 1" of bore, The Olds has a 41/8" bore so i set the gaps at 16 thou. First a ring was inserted in the bore and pushed squarley down with a piston, Then the gap could be checked. To increase the ring gap i use a ring filing machine as here, go slowly as it can take off more than you need quite quickly. Once the rings are gapped the can be fitted to the pistons with ring pliers. The ring gaps should be in this position. Once the rings were fitted and the pistons were on the rods it was time to put them in the bores, First 2 pieces of rubber were put over the rod bolts to protect the crank journals, Then we broke out the ring compressor. We dunked the assembled piston into some oil and proceeded to install them. The caps were then torqued in place in 20 ft/lb steps. When you have the pistons/rods installed a good rule of thumb is to put a torque wrench on the crank and see what it pulls when rotated, Anywhere between 50-60 ft/lbs is good, This one pulled 50 ft/lbs Next job was to install the cam, I used a degree wheel here to dial it in perfectly but have no pics as my hands were oily. Once the cam was in the timing dots were lined up and the timing wheels & chain were fitted. With the cover buttoned up i turned to fitting the oil pump, It all stopped at this point as i found they had sent me the 60-64 Oil pump and my engine is a 59 8-( Here's where i am at the moment until the new oil pump arrives
Got my Headlamps sorted today ready for flaking, Buckets are GRP and my biggest problem was i wanted to use 36 Ford lenses as they are nicely rounded but the bezels are very rare, My mate Keith came to my rescue and made a mould off one kindly lborrowed from Andy on here (thanks Andy) and metal spun a pair up in brass, They were then chromed and i made up some adaptor rings for it to all bolt together, Reflectors are also 36 Ford fitted with some halogen bulbs Keith sells to fit the old ford fitting. I think they came out real good, Well pleased. Headlamps finally painted, Autobox now back and ready for paint so hopefully i should be able to drop the motor/trans in early next week.
The Dual Hrydromatic auto is now back from rebuilding so gave it a splash of colour, Hope to get the engine/trans finally mounted in the next couple of days. Its in at last. Finished my propshaft alternator. And made up an adjustable idler pulley for the front. The sump is now painted, I've been looking for a replacement as this one was in very poor condition but havn't found one yet so i welded some patch panels into it and hammered the dents out, It looks reasonable now but i will still change it if a better condition one comes along. The off white is the same colour as the firewall and the underneath of the body. The trans pan had a hard life in the past and was covered in small dents, a couple of hours with a hammer and dolly saw it in much better condition, primed it up and shot in a couple of coats of off white. <!-- / message --><!-- sig --> <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
Got a bit more done tonight, gun finish so will need a little flat & polish tomorrow. Had a few hours spare today so did a bit more today. The 40 Ford dash has been narrowed 1" in the centre, The chrome speaker grill has been narrowed also and also the ends where the ashtrays normally are was filled in (not much point in ashtrays in a roadster) then the ends were reshaped to match the narrower 32 scuttle. the gauges are VDO white faced which are fitted behind a custom made aluminium insert which was CNC'd and fitted with the original 40 ford chrome trim, the guages are then fitted from behind. Grill shell fitted up, the badge was made from a pice of aluminium and shaped to fit in the spoon, It was lightly flaked and then my good mate Ian (bigbossman) weilded his magic brushes and put on my name in the style of the original ford script and a border line around the outside in a darker green. Thanks Ian. If i told you it took over 6.5 hours to fit the dash trim below would you believe me ??? Idler back from the chromers and finished. Bit more paintwork done. .
<!-- / message --><!-- sig --> Trunklid painted. <!-- / message --><!-- sig --> Here's a taster of the interior trim, Trimmer is coming this week for trail fitment, i can't wait !!! My 40 dash has the deluxe trim and glovebox so i really wanted an original 40 ford clock, I didn't realise how sort after they are and even half decent ones reach £200 on Ebay, There is a company in the U.S. doing a cheaper replacement that has a quartz movement but even these are £70 each so i decided to do my own. I bought a chrome front & a repro clock face from Bob Drake for £20 and picked up a quartz battery powered movement for £2 from Ebay. Here's the repro clock face with the quartz movement fitted, I had to cut all the hands down as the were originally 4" long. Here's the repro chrome front. Due to the spindle on the quartz movement being quite long and it wasn't possible to shorten it i had to make a spacer that fitted inside the chrome front piece, this was cut from a lump of 12mm ally plate. Here's all the bits fitted together, Don't look too bad does it ??? Here's the veiw from the rear, When its fitted to the glovebox i will make up a cover to hide it all away. Here its all fitted to the glovebox, I'm pretty pleased how it turned out. I might repaint the face white to match the other gauges.
Got a surprise xmas visit from my trimmer last night who bought over some of the finished panels, this is one of the door cards finished and with the stainless finishers fitted. Wasn't very happy with my clock face so thought i would change it. I cut a new piece of sheet ally and based it in white then added the green flake iron cross by brush, Didn't think it would work but came out just right, Letraset sorted the text Before After <!-- / message --><!-- sig --> Also made this up, I never like to see the sender & the oil pressure switch on a detailed engine so i had a fuel block i made up age's ago but never used so its bolted underneath on the frame and a -3 braided line runs from the oil takeoff to the block where the senders are mounted.
The seat base was made up ages ago in 25mm box tube but the trimmer wanted to get on with the seat so i need to add an apron around the frame to hold the ignition switch, indicator arm, cigarette lighter socket and the heated seat switches. I cut a peice of 2mm ally sheet and basically just followed the shape of the base around, Its held by screws at the moment as somebody borrowed my rivet gun. Once it was secured to the base i marked around the perimeter and removed the excess. Now the trimmer can finish off the base and hopefully i will have a complete seat soon. Decided i didn't like the skull shifter nob i had so i had a rummage through my scrap stainless bin and made a jig and made a much better shift nob. <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
Well my cylinder heads finally came back from the machinist so now i can get a lot of the fiddly jobs finished like the throttle linkage and kick down assembly. When i got the 6x2 Wiend drag star intake the rear water crossover was missing so this was made up from stainless bends. The front water crossover/thermostat housing i have is a stock Wiend type but due to it coming from a smaller displacement Rocket motor it didn't fit the larger vee on my 394, this was solved by adding some spacers to the ends, These will be welded and polished as soon as i get a chance. This is the engine steady i made from some scrap stainless hex bar. Top hose is made from stainless steel bends and finished off with short lengths of rad hose and stainless clips. Well instead of looking at the forum last night i had a go at the thottle linkage. I bought a kit from the states but to be honest its absolute garbage so i will use it to setup and remake in stainless while the carbs are stripped for paint. First job was to make up a mount for the cross bar to fit to, I found a bit of 12mm x 6mm stainless flat bar in the scrap bin that fitted the job just right and drilled and tapped the log intake for it to fit too. Next up i found a couple of rose joints in my box to mount the cross shaft, I also drilled the bar to make it not look so bulky, and gave it a quick polish. All seems to work quite well and not as heavy as i thought it would be, Off now to finish the other side and mount some return springs and make up the kickdown linkage.
Getting closer to fire up, Throttle linkage/Fuel pipes all made and finished. It all went a bit wrong this morning, Had to go to media blasters so thought i would see what the headers would look like vapour blasted, They looked really good until i run one of them over with my daily Bit the bullet and saved what i could and started to make another. Saved the front pipe and back pipe so used these on a new cone. They are a little tricky to make as the pipes have to have a 45 degree bend as they exit the head and the 2 centre pipes are siamesed so the pipes have to have the side cot out of them, this causes the tube to spring open so they have to be clamped slightly to make them round again before the straight bits are welded back on, if that makes sense New centre pipes Got to this stage and run out of TIG gas until monday The rear breather road draught tube was missing from the engine so the scrap bin was raided and the bit welded together and polished.
Cracked on with repairing the header tonight and got everything ready for welding tomorrow evening. Came up against a little problem that the plug wires were fairly close to the headers, solved it by making up some bars that would hold the wires tight to the block, I replaced the bottom header bolts with some longer studs so the bars bolt on here, The plug wirs are held in place by a couple of Adel clamps either side, looks neater as well. Well the replacement header is finish welded and ready for white paint. Had an hour spare today so thought i would paint the carb scoops white to match the firewall instead of the red, Now i'm not so sure, Carbs have yet to be painted green flake so maybe they will look ok then, If anybody has got any idea's i would be pleased to hear them ???
Had a couple of spare hours so thought i would get the kickdown linkage sorted, 8hrs later its sorted Its amazing how long these simple little jobs actually take !!! Main problem was that i didn't want the throttle to be overly heavy and make driving a chore so i removed the carb springs from the corner carbs and decided to go with fairly long levers to lighten the action but this of course meant longer lever throws, another fly in the ointment was that the Hydromatic kickdown isn't a conventional type, its a type of shuttle valve that opens larger ports to let the box pressure increase with throttle opening and has a 2 stage return spring. It would of been a lot easier to make it cable operated but 94's work the opposite way round to most carbs so the throttle arm ended up pushing instead of pulling so therefore had to be operated by a long rod down to a bellcrank which then works the kickdown lever by another short rod. (I hope that makes sense ) The levers were cut from 5mm stainless plate and are 75mm pivot to pivot, some thickwall stainless tube was cut and tapped for the 3/16 unf rose joints, to save a lot of cutting the levers were cut out of 5mm ply to start as some of the holes had to be played with. It all works really well now and has a fairly light throttle action. Managed to get another of those pesky little jobs done last night, I've never liked the look of the oil pressure senders, Even painting them they just don't blend in so i thought i would try a different approach and make a cover for it. I found a bit of thick wall stainless tube and bored it out to suit the diameter of the sender, The ribs were already in it as it was an offcut from something else. A capping disc for the end was one of the holesaw off cuts from my 26T chassis, Glad i never threw them away now !!! The hole was cut in the end and shaped to accept the terminal block on the end of the sender, The disc was then welded to the end of the tube. Plenty of weld was put on so i could linish a nice radius on the corner. The weld was then cleaned off on the linisher. Then it got a quick lick on the polisher. Painted in between the ribs and i reckon it looks just right now. Guess i will have to make one for the other oil switch now. <!-- / message --><!-- sig --> .
Bigbossman sent me a present today to keep the theme going, Its a pair of Rocket pants, I do love his sense of humour, We are all still laughing. <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
Not had much time on my own car recently but managed to sort out my trans cooler, Its mounted under the car out of the way so i've added a scoop to funnel air through the matrix, Also fitted 2 electric fans that are switched on by a 215F switch mounted in the gearbox out cooler pipe. The rest was made from offcuts from my stainless bin. The ally scoop will be painted off white to match the underside/firewall. <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
Hoping for Wheels Day mid April Paul, On course at the moment but you never really know what spanners could get thrown into the works.
'Kin awesome Steve. You make it look so easy, all the extra attention, the finishing details, the little tricks and touches, puts my own efforts to shame. I hope to see it in the flesh again soon as well.
The Jalopy Journal
