Projects 1950's Tube Frame Sports Car

Thank you......thank you......now back to our regular programming !!

 

I love your enthusiasm to restore someone else's dream. I too have a "homebuilt" car that was another's dream car, my father's. He actually began the project with sketches and research done during the WWII time he spent as a Govt. machinist doing sonar work for the Navy. Post war hot rodding exploded in So Cal where he lived, so his pavement racing chassis design became a test bed for a small Dodge hemi, supercharged at times, with visits to El Mirage dry lake and Bonneville. Over the 40 years of my ownership I created a new nose and hood reflecting the late '40s look of track racers and I was blessed to have been invited many times to the most iconic vintage track racing venues. Dad raced to a best top speed of 151 mph in 1958 and was able to run equal track times against other period race cars of the same era. Best of luck with your car and I am pleased you could connect with the original family.












I also enjoy making headers and I don't run mufflers either.

 

I really like it! Do you have any pics of the frame or any that show the whole car in it's original black version? What did the nose look like then?

How has the Ford trans held up to the Hemi?

 

Sorry that my posts are such random topics but I'm trying to catch you guys up on things I've been working on.

My brake/clutch "master plan"

One of the things that the guy who helped build my car was the proudest of was the fact that they had hanging pedals in 1953. I want to maintain this. Here's a group photo of what I'm gonna do. I'll explain below. Obviously the pedals they used will have to be modified.


I also want dual circuit brakes but there's no way to make a dual style master look the period. What I've settled on is running two 1" diameter 49-52 Chevy Powerglide master side by side with a homemade balance bar setup. I make custom pushrods that have swivel bearings. Think Wilwood Racing 50's style. There'll also be a swivel bearing that rides in the balance bar sleeve. That sleeve will be welded into the reworked brake pedal.


For the clutch I want to go hydraulic since I may switch back and forth to try different trans setups and don't want to have to reconfigure the linkage every time. The clutch master will be the 38 Chevy master cylinder that came on the car. I saved the stop slug/travel limiter from a late 50's IH truck clutch master cylinder. That'll be installed in the master so I don't overstroke the slave.


The slave will be a vintage slave I got from @cactus1 here. It's a Wagner Lockheed one like Moon Racing sold in the late 50's early 60's. It's obviously some sort of big truck oem one but they milled the numbers off the casting so I haven't figured out exactly what it is yet. I'll turn up and thread a new rod to fit the clevis from the Ford clutch linkage. There will be a brakes to mount it to the side of the trans probably to the shift cover bolts. Or to the pedal mounting bosses should I switch to the big Buick box.

The pedal pads will be repop Ford ones. I radiused some pipe couplings so they can be welded onto the pedal arms and the pads screwed on.

 

The frame is gas welded 4130 tubing. It is 2" dia x .090 wall and has never had a crack. The upper a-arms are gas welded 4130 plate (.090) with bronze bushings.
The rear axle is shortened model A axles and housings with a magnesium Halibrand quick change. I have a complete set of change gears from 1.9 to 5.10.
Ahh, the weak link, the '39 ford tranny. I did tear a tooth off second gear on the cluster gear doing a burnout. And ouch, it was a Zephyr cluster too. Lowest price I found was $500 and that was 1991. So tranny is 100% '39 Ford and the weak link is the thrust washer which takes end load from second gear during deceleration. This causes the shift fork to kick gears into neutral, really fun on the race track.
Luckily, the Chet Herbert roller cam my dad used has great low end torque and I could minimize shifts, almost like driving an automatic. I really enjoy letting my young GenX friends drive the car on the street to let them know what no power assist anything is like.
In the second year of vintage racing I was more courageous on the track, until the brakes faded completely at 100 mph. I was faced with a 90 degree right hander in a vintage street race which ran through Palm Springs downtown. Slid the car sideways into a huge used tire catch barrier, cracked a little paint and dismounted my tubless rear tire from the rim. I was very relieved about the wheel as they are Halibrand magnesium from 1950 and are unobtanium. I purchased spun aluminum modern type racecar wheels for rest of my racing years.
I am 70 yrs now and my health prevents me from driving it, but my adult kids and younger hot rodders will drive me around to car shows. BTW, engine has never been rebuilt, leaks more oil than it burns, not much really, and it still pulls to 6 grand. I hope your life will be full of great memories too.

 

What a great story. I'm glad you kept it and that you have kids to pass it on to! Thanks for sharing!

 

x2!!

 

Put the axles in the lathe to check flange run-out and polish the seal diameter before pressing the bearings on. They seem about as decent as you can expect 70 yr old axles to be.
I also need to make a centering ring to press on the end where the brake drum pilots. The early Ford drums have a larger center hole.

I almost have my safety hubs all drawn up.

 

I like your detail , on looks great as usual!

 

LOVE your car! Gary

 

Got the new bearings and retainer rings pressed on.

 

Haha, as you age, just hope the beer accumulates on your belly, not your butt. I can still sit in a sprint car seat I used in the 70's, but my shirt size has gone up somewhat. Good looking seats.

 

...and best of all, you didn't forget to put the retainer plates on the axles first.

 

Lol yeah I was worried about that!

 

Finished the slave pushrod.
@cactus1
Started with a 7/16 fine thread grade 8 bolt.
Cut the threads longer (ignore the other part for now)-

Added a grooved brass collar to hold the front end of the boot and radiused the back end to fit into the piston seat


Boot slipped on the collar

Assembled

Now I need to make a bracket to hold it alongside the trans.

 

Nice work!

 

Looking great again!

 

Decided that I better pause and sleeve the 37 master that will run my clutch as well as the slave. When I looked at them closer they were both pitted in the bores and would have caused trouble.
I bored them out and sleeved them with bronze bushing stock.
Sleeves are a light press with Loctite sleeve retainer applied.

Also the master has a foot that had been cracked off. I built it up with braze and ground it back to shape.


For paint I was told that VHT caliper paint is resistant to brake fluid if you follow the directions and cure at 200F after it air dries. Jury is out on that but I decided to try it.
Ready to finish hone the bronze sleeves and reassemble.

 

Very clean work. Happy to see the early parts being saved.

 

Thanks. The 37 one came on the car and the two 50 Powerglide ones are NOS. It's more work but fixing the stuff is half the fun for me. Here is a picture of how it looked when I got it.

 

I finally got my front engine crossmember replaced today. The original was a combination of angle iron and strap steel. It used the original Olds vulcanized rubber mount. You can sort of see it in this picture.


I decided to replace it with a round tube one.

On the rear mounts I used some round pucks that are similar to early small block front mounts. The originals were soft rubber and had more or less disappeared as you can see from the following photo.

Here are the rears after I reworked them.

The fronts will use the same biscuits. They are made by energy suspension so they're very stiff and should work well with the heavy Olds. The diameter was just slightly two large for the bolt spacing in the Olds mount so I flatted them so they'd sit closer together.


The front frame of the car tapers at 10.5 degrees per side. To cope the tube I used a hole saw in my milling machine.

Part of the original Olds setup is reused but the two holes where the rubber mount studs used to pass thru are slotted now. That way my fore and aft location of the crossmember doesn't need to be quite as dead nuts.


I welded square nuts into a chunk of square tube that straddles the round tube and gives the rubber pucks a flat spot to sit on.


I'll have to maybe do a little more welding on the ends of the tube when I take the engine out eventually. Access wasn't very good with the car on blocks and the engine in the way.

With all the mounts replaced the top of the carb is now level.

 

A few pics of my brake balance bar that will connect the two brake master cylinders. @brigrat It's not adjustable like the Wilwood setupsbut I did make one of the pushrods slightly longer as my front circuit will have larger wheel cylinders. This will probably result in that master stroking further. You want the bar to be straight when you are standing on the brakes.

 

Dang! You fancy!

 

All scrounged up odds and ends. Just helps when you have a machine shop.

I decided to sleeve the slave I got from you down to 1" so it matched the master diam. The banjo fittings I got from a trailer brake supply place.

 

What a fantastic project!

 

Man I love this thread!

 

Throw out bearing mods:
Needed to space my throw out hearing ahead .135 since the Olds with the adapter plate was that much longer than a flathead when measured from bell to friction surface on the flywheel. @alchemy verified the dimension on his engine for me. Figured since the adapter plate is supposed to make the Olds look like a flathead that was the thing to do. A couple guys told me that sometimes the clutch would be grabby when used with the adapter plate either because the throw out bearing holder had to slide too far forward on the input shaft bearing retainer or due to the fork rotating too far forward. I made a .135" spacer ring but had to add length to the press diameter. Brazed it up and turned it down.

Brazed and turned back down.


Spacer ring slid on.


Pressed together.

 

When I painted the trans last fall it turned out almost John Deere green. Decided to respray it before it goes back in. Dupli-color, racing green, engine enamel. Seems a pretty close match to the old Ford green.

 

I have a cam! Bought this NOS Isky. It's a 601-282 hydraulic.


What the numbers mean starting from the top according to a tech at Isky:

-Cam was ground 3rd quarter of 1977

-9P is the code for the guy who was running the grinder that day

-08 means 108 degree lobe centerline

-56 is the machine it was ground on

-282 Hyd is obviously the grind 282 degree duration for hydraulic lifters

-601 is the cam blank for the 56-58 Olds

I figured it was ground after 1969 since it shows up in that catalog


I'm pretty excited to find this. One more piece of the puzzle...

 

I've been dealing with some alignment issues getting the trans ready to go back on. I stuck a Ford hogshead on to check alignment and found .040 total runout.


Not hard to figure out why the guy who built it said it never shifted real well! I made some offset dowel pins to correct it but haven't installed them yet.