Hot Rods Southeast Gasser 65 Comet Super Stock Wagon

Got the Ok to cut the ok to shock towers for header clearance. Time to slash.

 

Very cool project

 

Watching this thread. Looks like a great project, plus i like gassers.

 

It's not a gasser ,it's a Southeast gassers super stock. It will not have a straight axle.

 

In the 60's i went to Lions drag strip every weekend. More FX's, super stocks, than gassers. I should clarified. Sach's and Son, comet was a crowd favorite. Smoking the tires the whole 1/4 mile. Then throw in the Thunderbolt fairlane's and you had quite a good show.

 

Hopefully by next year it will have an FE and look the part and not a Windsor.
Tied the subframes together. Still need to run some stringers to the rockers The plates that are welded to in the back are the start of the rear leaf spring mount when I move the leafs inside the frame rail. Still soaking the leaf spring bolts to get them out.

 

How much do you gain by moving the springs inboard? I thought about doing this on a 57 Ford but the amount you would gain is around 1"-1.5" without a mini tub. Just wasn't worth all the fab work, for me anyway's.
This a cool build you got going on here.

 

Having extra doors sure makes the interior work easer.

 

RmK57 I will gain 3 inches of Tire clearance and more if I mini tub it which is really easy with a station wagon.
I am going to square off the bottom of the spare tire well and make it the bottom of my battery box.
they want relocated batteries hidden so put the spare tire cover on and you have a sealed box.
It also gives me a place to put my battery shut off switch.
I will be stretching the front of the rear wheel well almost to the edge of the door. the trick is to make it look like it came from the factory that way. If you look at Don Nicholson's factory 64 Comet Wagon it was done to add clearance for the slicks.
4 doors sure does make it easier to get things done inside the car. With all of the rain and having to work outside I can get in the car and close the doors and still work. I will leave the floor pans out until all of the chassis work is done. Still trying to decide whether to put a roll bar in it. It is not required, but legal. the car should be fast enough to think hard about it. It only takes one screwup to wish you had put one in.
These cars can be a little evil if you don't get the front end right. It's hard to get enough caster in the front end. Remember a lot of Thunderbolts were wrecked in top end crashes.

 

again - i must ask - i was told NO to any wheelwell radius/change - even just at the leading edge - i questioned it because i was concerned about the spec tire fitting - they directed me to the fastback '65 that was already running in the series as an example it could be done - i didnt ask about mini-tubs, but assumed they were out too.

edit - i just re-checked my emails - he said a small trim on the inside (lip) of the leading edge would be ok......but the exact words were "any radiusing of the wheel wells is a no-no"

 

Liking what your doing there SouthCross!
Go ahead and move those rear tire forward a couple inches while-your-in-there......won't nobody notice!!
The way they prep these tracks now days.....getting lots of traction ain't near as hard as it usta be.
6sally6

 

ididntdoit1960 do you think all of the super stock champions and stock eliminator champions in the past 50 years called NHRA every time they did a modification to their cars ?
Hell no they did and hid it so they didn't get caught. You can't just hack the car up and show up at a race. You make subtle changes to get the most out of your car. That's how it's always been done.
How many tri-5 Chevy sedan deliveries came with a small block with 2x4 barrels and a 4 speed hydro ? Probably none , but it was in the books and they used it to dominate back in the day.
I was always told it's easier to get forgiveness than permission.
6sally6 I thought long and hard about making this car an A/FX car and making it a 2 door wagon by
using 2 door doors and moving the rear end forward and putting a straight axle under it with a stack injected FE on alky.

 

Nah.....I would love to see a period correct SS Class grow..and it will be nice to see another FOMOCO product out there...

 

Due to an unexpected settlement of an issue I had I will be able to purchase almost all of the parts needed to complete the car .
So it's full speed ahead and maybe by the time this corona virus scare is over the car will be setting here ready for testing. Some good news has to come out of all the depressing news that's out there these days.

 

Well I am using up some of my scrap roll bar tubing to brace up my subframe connectors.
Something that most people don't do when building these flimsy unibody cars.
Since I can't put a chassis under it I need to make it as stiff as I can.
The roll bar will help a bunch too .

 

That is a great idea. We didn’t do that with our ranchero. But I like it!


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Nice progress..can’t wait to see it progress

 

Ordered my front bumper from Crites this morning. Supposed to ship next week. My original was tweaked and has bad chrome. We will see how much lighter it is.
Won't be able to use my original bumper jack. Oh well maybe somebody doing a resto might need one

 

Did ya get the brackets too?

 

No I know how to lighten the originals down to where they weigh about nothing. I can save that money for other things. Remember I have way more time than money. Especially now. I also know how to make fiberglass molds to make my own.
I would have made the bumper ,but it was twisted pretty bad.
Placed an order with Summit today. Next week will be like Christmas.
Danged rain , lost another day today. Worked on rebuilding a hot dog steamer for the golf course I work at. Got to do some silver soldering on the stainless. Haven't done that in a while so it was all good.

 

Not sure about SEGA rules or your roll bar plans but as far as I know NHRA calls out the need for diagonal roll bar to subframe connector tie-ins on uni-body cars.
My Nova is not a race car but I did it anyway considering all of the other work done.

 

Yes it will have the diagonals to the subframe connectors. I am doing an 8 point bar.

 

Christmas in March yesterday as my parts showed up from Summit. Fuel pump/ regulator ,filter , fittings and fuel lines. Battery shut off switch. I ordered a pre bent roll bar to save time as steel prices are getting stupid . However with it coming from Alston chassis in Cal. I don't know if they are shipping. Summit is checking. Slicks should be by next week.
Only have to work one more day this month at the golf course so I should be able to have my fuel cell and fuel lines in and my electrical wrapped up by next week.

 

UPS came today and brought my seats. If anyone is looking for some repop ford A/FX seats and have been searching the junk yards for some A100 or Econoline seats that will need new upholstery and new foam plus all the work of taking them out and rebuilding them.
Just look at the 68-72 Jeep stock seats. They are available from 4wd hardware . They are the same seats.
$ 109.00 ea and free shipping.

 

Do those cars really have so little of a wheel well that you need to move the springs in for a 7 inch tire?

 

What a find. Thanks for sharing. I don’t need any at the moment, but I bookmarked them.

 

Planning for the future. While I am building. I might want to run some other stick shift races that allow a different tire.

 

I can see where clearance on the leading edge of the wheel opening might need to be cut a little.
I looked up the 67 rules and it said only the inner lip could be trimmed.

 

SC if it has leaf springs, move the rear back 1" on the spring perch by re drilling hole. Then you may not have to touch the ww. And it is barely noticable. I do it all the time.

Pat

 

Got my pressure plate back from Spec clutches. A shout out to those folks. Great service quality parts.
Look them up when you get ready to buy a clutch kit for your car or truck.