Projects Modified Lakester Build (THUNDERCASKET)

Pat, your clutch pivot is upside down! HAHA JUST KIDDING!

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PSHEW! GOOD THING YOU CLARIFIED THAT!

On that subject, since I'm bouncing between 3 things on the front half of the car at this point and that's one of them, anybody know if there's a stand alone stud that works on these old ford clutch arms?

I measured mine at 0.085" 0.85" and it has a small cylinder on the head to engage the spring and center the bushings.

I have one and I COULD use it, but it might work out better if I just had a threaded stud since my wishbone mounting bracket is pretty close to the mix.

 

What are you talking about stud wise? I don't really know what you are talking about, and 0.085" is really small- a little over a sixteenth.

 

HAH, that's a typo which I will fix; 0.85" is the correct measurement.

I've been poling around a bunch but I haven't found anything comparable that looks any easier to use than what I've got.

I've got one of these here:

 

I'm digging those shock mounts too! The headlights look right at home there

 

THANKS! Yeah, I'm pleased with the general location. I'm still going to try a set of 35 headlight mounts out and see if I like them better. First I'll plant them on these flat plates and bring the lights up a few inches and see if I like that. Then I'll see if I can mount them horizontally and see if I like that.

But what I think I'm going to end up doing is to run them off the nerf bar / bumper I'm planning to make based on a mini sprint / dirt car rear bumper like this:


With mounts like these incorporated (so it looks cleaner if and when I run without the lights for racing):

 

Started trying to get a handle on the steering run yesterday. Only got so far.

I'm using 3/4" dowels, duct tape, toilet paper rolls, and cardboard, but so far I've discovered I need to get the firewall going as a part of the process because there's not enough of it in the right places.

With 2 "joints" I'm coming up with a 45º hub. I'm shooting for 30º since that's what I'm accustomed to in most of the cars I've driven and I'm going to be pretty laid back and low in this car. I'm going to have to devise a better jig and system for getting this all dialed in.

I've also gotta shorten my pedals (any advice?)

 

More fiddling around with steering this weekend. It was so steamy that the wood dowels were not much help from the swelling. But I've got things fairly well figured out now after making a tool out of a piece of flat stock cut at 35º to give me a better idea what I'm looking at when I play fiddlesticks.

I made a firewall template too and soon discovered that I'm probably going to have to put a recess in it to accommodate the firewall/shaft throughput nicely.

I also did a little mockup and got the wheel where I think it's comfortable; 25º and 2" over from the stock T location. I also know that my 53 truck gauges will fit now AND clear the shifter.





Getting In and Out is proving to be very difficult though. I've got a detachable wheel hub now, which helps, but I'm considering bolt/welding the center panel to the driver's door and locating the latch at the back of the center panel where it meets the back tub section (which had a striker plate on it previously anyway) and cutting the panel where it's currently got a seam between my sheetmetal and the patch panel I used.

 

I was planning on a top for my T this winter and also lengthening the doors but have since decided to leave the T alone and get back to another project thats been sitting FAR too long. I could find something to do on the T every winter without much effort if I wanted. Seems they are never really "done"! LoL
Gonna be watching your progress with interest.
Not much fun if you can't get in and out easily!!!

 

If I had this to do over from scratch, I would have removed the center panel from the Touring body, cut 2" off the meeting ends of the front / back doors and welded them together to make a long door. This would have been perfect and I will probably do this on the next T I do (other than the other one I've got going now).

 

ON THE SUBJECT OF HEADERS:

I've gotta start mocking my headers up because of all this steering wizardry. SO, I'm looking at buying bends now.

Question is, WHAT SIZE, 1.75" or 1.625"?

Or BOTH with the center tube oversize? I swear I read somewhere that was a good idea, SOMEONE PLEASE CHIME IN ON THAT.

 

Nothing much for photographic progress, but I got two of my three 37-48 steering boxes disassembled, my Borgeson steering stuff arrived, and I started working on my dashboard setup.

I'm trying to keep the dash a bit minimalist.

 

Another week of nothing really good to document in photos. I did a reassembly on one of the boxes. I seem to have damaged the threads for the pitman retaining nut so today I'm in search of a die to fix it so I can mount it up. I think I'm going to need new bearings and seals but the gears look and feel nice.

I decided to go with the 1.75" tubing for the headers. The speedway flange I have needs to be opened up a bit to take them. I didn't want to do it with a die grinder and the world does not seem to make any 1-3/4" step drills BUT I did find 45mm step drill bits online. That will give me a nice clean cut that I can control the depth of and will self center. I discovered that I need some 45º bends too (also not easy to find in 1-3/4").

 

Pat, go to the swap meet and buy a couple sets of $20.00 bent, flattened, hammered, and rusted headers and make 'em yourself. You will be glad you did.

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I tried that with the SBC last year, remember when I bought 3 sets? I didn't get too far before I decided I would be better off with a clean, fresh flange. I ended up getting some cheap offshore stainless headers for that car and moved on to other projects.

For THIS car, I am making my own! I just ordered some 45º and 18º 1.75" bends from mandrelbends.com to get me around the steering linkage, the frame, and down to meet the header on the expected -2º downward rake. I also got some 0.188" tube to transition the 1.75" into the 2" from the first port bend into the collector tube.

This is where I'm going with it (from page 15):


The Speedway tubes, while cheap, only gave me a 90º and a 180º which just were not going to work back there without a lot of cutting and frustration because of how my rig is set up.

 

Aha, so you are making rear tire warmers

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FOR TO DRAG WITH!

LOL, nah, I'm going to put turnouts back there. The idea is to make they system modular so I can run open headers, headers/turnouts, or headers/mufflers/turnouts. Summit carries nice flanged 3" stainless turnouts for a good price.

I may need to keep some silicon oven gloves behind the seats...

 

I've been keeping busy on the steering/exhaust issue and finally started making some progress after throwing some more money at bends.

I put one of the sides mostly together and managed to get around the steering rod with a comfortable half inch of clearance. Now I just need to get from there to the collector tube.

QUESTION: Do I NEED to put more of a sweep/angle into the tube and do I need to dump in farther away from this center port dump in?

 

That looks like a pretty smooth transition to me. Mine ended up a bit tighter than that and nobody has shit on me about it (at least not to my face). Haha.

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I always look forward to your updates. This one is no exception. Nice work.

 

I guess I'm just a little concerned about backpressure from the back cylinder pushing up into the center pipe AND creating a really hot hot spot with there being 3 cylinders dumping gas so close on that part of the pipe.

Opinions?

THANK YOU! That kind of encouragement really means a lot; I was just getting down on myself for being such a slowpoke and not immediately being a master of every new task I tackle on this journey, no joke! Thank you!

 

You are moving much faster than me. I'm like e the snail that crawled onto the tortoise's back and yelled
'WOAH!"

 

YOUR ENGINE is DAMN SURE cleaner than mine!

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...6-chevy-roadster-build.1027114/#post-11639227

 

But that is where it is today. But soon...I just found it under a pile of junk in the shop a couple days ago. I'm trying to get the shop ready for a winter assault on the roadster. The weather is BEAUTIFUL! But it won't last long. I was minutes away from having the stove pipe repaired when the ladder decided it needed to be somewhere else. I don't bounce as high as I used to but I came out in a lot better shape than the last section of stove pipe. I stopped on the shed roof and the pipe went all the way to the ground. I'm done for the day headed to the bar to watch the Series....Go Astros!

 

I'm slower than you......enjoying the adventure your taking us on...

 

Thanks guys! I am actually hoping for a little cooler weather, honestly. It's a bit easier to work when I don't go from low 40's to mid 70's throughout my day! It's been a warm fall up here and it's got me all out of whack.

I just got a new exhaust cutter and was finally able to renew my Alliance Membership, so I'll be making more progress and updates soon!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 

BA-HUMBUG!!!!!

 

I DID SOME THINGS!

Namely, I got my steering connected (about 75%) for the most part. I still need to sort out the column and the stuff under the cowl but I have it sitting at my target 25° and the intermediate is well under 35° to get me there.

AND my exhaust clears the U joint by a half inch! I feel pretty good about myself for not having to throw anything away so far and nailing most of my lengths on the first cut in this process.



I've got my tubes laid on there and it looks like I can get back to around the port location on the collector tube without much fuss.



I angled the whole setup out more to the edge of the rear tire. I had it following the body, but this just did not look right to me at all.



I also put clothes on my dog to give myself something to chuckle at while I was doing all this.

 

Lookin' good!! Keep at it with this pace and it'll be zoom-zoom time sooner than you think!

 

OK, so, not a lot of forward progress lately. This tool I got turned out to be crap. All 4 wheels won't stay true and it lays 3 or 4 separate cuts into the tubing. This may be acceptable for cutting old pipe out (which, to be fair, is what it is marked for) but it's not good enough for cutting fresh tube on its own as it sits.

I also picked up the HF notcher jug and a 10/5 amp DeWalt corded drill (the cordless just doesn't have the grunt sometimes).

I learned that the HF notcher will not cut a 60° 2" notch into 1.75" pipe so far unless I don't mind cutting the band clamp too.