Projects An Amateur Chops a Brookville Coupe & More

Really like your work. Your fabrication skills are excellent. I've been a fabricator for over 40 years and am looking at the air compressor bracket and thinking that since you cut the notch for the spark plug you may have created a weak spot. How about a leg down from the front edge of your bracket to the motor mount bolt on the block. I've seen some incredibly heavy air pump brackets fail under the stress of a tight belt and the starting and stopping of the compressor. Not being critical, I'm an over builder.

 

I think we should just call him "Hack". What do you think?

 

I actually anticipated having to add more bracing to the compressor bracket, but after mounting the compressor I was surprised how sturdy this bracket is. The piece with the spark plug cutout is 5/16" thick, I can grab the compressor and try to bend and twist the bracket but there is almost no movement. I'm confident in my welds and I feel that this will work fine as is.
I do appreciate your input.

 

I work at a firearms company with some top notch handle turners and have to say - that is amazing!

 

Nice trans tunnel!
Did you give clearance for removal of the trans-to-engine bolts, or are you relying on the trans tunnel being removable?

 

I didn't consider leaving room to get to the trans bolts. My main concern was to keep the trans tunnel as small and compact as possible. I was worried that a larger tunnel would take up to much foot space and make it hard and uncomfortable to use a firewall mounted throttle pedal. The trans tunnel will be bolted in so it can be removed.

 

What is the thickness of the steel you use to fabricate the tunnel?

 

I used 18 gauge. My slip roller had a hard time forming the cone shapes, If I was to do this again I would use 20 gauge.

 

Super impressive build!!

 

I built my floor and tunnel out of 10ga. Hand formed over an oxy bottle. Crude by most standards, but it’s ridged

 

I see that you used a 30-in steering column - do you think your steering shaft angle was would have been cured by a 32-in column? In my case, with a small block Chevy, I think I have more clearance around the steering shaft because my engine is more narrow and my exhaust ports don't stick out like the Olds. I'm 6 ft 6 in and am trying to squeeze every inch out of my seat mounting situation to get room in the passenger compartment. With the price of everything going through the roof right now, I'm considering buying a steering column without mocking it up... Some people say to get a 30-in, some people say to get a 32-in.
Thoughts?

 

I don't think a longer column would help with the steering shaft angle. I'm 5 ft 8 in. and I like to drive while sitting close to the steering wheel. A longer column would have placed the steering wheel to far back and to high for me.
I followed other peoples advice and set up the seat and pedals in the car and used the pvc pipe to test different positions until I found what was most comfortable for me. Then I measured to find what column length I needed. This also allowed me to find the best spot to go through the firewall. You will have an easier time getting past a the SBC head than an Olds.
Take the time to do a mockup you don't want to wind up with a column that doesn't fit or makes driving uncomfortable.

 

Thanks for the advice - I work in product development and see the current supply chain issues & shortages first hand (before it will affect consumers). The price of Limeworks columns has nearly doubled and I'm already running into issues with getting my hands on a lot of the parts I need. By Christmas, this problem will be dire.
As such I'm racing to get the parts to complete this and may just buy a 30" column.

 

I've been making progress on the coupe build, but haven't had time to keep this thread up to date.
I had clearance problems connecting the fuel lines to the in tank electric fuel pump. I started another thread a while ago asking for advice on what to do. Here is a link to that. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/32-ford-gas-tank-fuel-line-clearance-problems.1239114/
Since the work I did to fix the problem is part of this build thread, I'll include the photos here also.
There wasn't much room between the pump inlet and outlet and the trunk floor to make any connections as you can see.

I decided that the trunk floor above the pump had to be cut out and moved forward for more room.

You can see how close the fittings are to the trunk floor.

Here is the cutout piece moved forward a few inches.

I filled in the sides and extended the top to the rear of the trunk.


I followed everyone's advice and added a round access hole for the pump. I made a simple round cover plate with a stepped section around the edge to locate it in the hole. I made a press die out of 1/8" plate to form the stepped detail in the cover plate and smashed it with my 20 ton press.

I used a piece of flat stock to make a cross bar to hold the cover in place.

 

I got the brake lines and part of the fuel lines installed.
Here are photos of the brake lines. I used 3/16" OD stainless lines from Earl's. They make very good tubing for brake and fuel lines. The tubing is seamless (no weld seam on the inside) which makes it ideal for single 37* AN flares and it is also annealed which makes it easy to bend.


I used thru frame fittings to connect the braided brake hoses to the front drum brakes. This is not the correct length hose, I just used a spare I had laying around to get an idea on how the hoses would be routed.

Since I am using an in tank electric fuel pump, I needed to have a pressure regulator in the fuel supply line to reduce the pressure to the Stromberg carbs I'll be using. The fuel tank and pump are from Tanks Inc., and they recommended that an Edelbrock bypass regulator should be used. The regulator comes with a mounting bracket, but I couldn't use it in my application.

I made a new one from a piece of aluminum angle cut down to fit.

Here is how I ran the supply and return lines from the regulator to the tank.
I need to order clamps to hold the lines in place.

Here is a view of the tank connections through the access hole in the trunk. There is enough room to disconnect the fuel lines and remove the pump.



Next up I'll be running exhaust pipes from the lake headers underneath the car to a pair of mufflers and out the back. Stay tuned.

 

Excellent attention to details. Neat and sanitary.

 

Any thought as to how you are going to adjust that regulator once the body is in place?

 

Where's the exhaust pipes going to go?

 

You're right , not enough room to adjust the set screw on the regulator. I will replace the set screw with a hex head cap screw so that it can be adjusted with an open end wrench from underneath the car. Or I may just tack weld a nut onto the end of the set screw.

 

I'll be connecting the exhaust to an outlet on the bottom of the lake pipes, then run under the front wish bones and frame. In order to be able to route the exhaust over the top of the rear axle and out the back, I have to eventually go under the front mounting points of the rear ladder bars and run the pipes and mufflers between the ladder bars and driveshaft.
I have the route planned to have good clearance and allow full travel of the rear axle.

 

Got going on the exhaust over the weekend. The first thing I needed to do was make a connection on the bottom of the lake pipe megaphone for the 2 1/4" stainless steel exhaust tubing I'm using.
I wanted to use a flange joint to connect the exhaust to the header. The header is made of mild steel and will be ceramic coated and the the exhaust pipes and mufflers will be stainless so I needed two mild steel flanges and two stainless steel ones. I wanted to keep the flanges as small as possible for the right look, and I could not find any ready made ones in the size I was looking for so I decided to make my own.
I liked the look of three hole flanges and also they can be made smaller in length than two hole flanges, so I made a template for the flange in a size that should work and not look to big.
Here is a photo of the template and the flange blanks being drilled for the three bolt hole pattern. I drilled 1/4" holes that will be enlarged to 5/16" later.

This photo shows how I tack welded the mild steel blank to the stainless steel blank. This way I can drill and bore the pieces together so they match. I bored the centers to 2 1/4" for a tight fit to the tubing.

Here I use 1/4" dowel pins to locate the template on the blanks and scribe the shape of the flanges on the pieces.


I bolted the pieces together and rough cut the flanges out on my band saw. I used a belt sander to clean up the rough cuts down to the scribe lines. I wound up with four matching flanges.

I used a 2 1/8" hole saw to make the bottom outlet hole on the header.

I used a short piece of the 2 1/4" exhaust tube to space the flange off of the header. I used a 3 1/4" hole saw in the mill to make a 10 Deg. fish mouth cut in the tube which gave me a very nice fit up.

I only welded the inside of the flange to tubing to keep the flange face from distorting and also to give the outside a cleaner look.

Here is a mock up of the first part of the exhaust showing how it will be routed under the rear mount of the wishbones.

That's a start, I'm happy with the way this is going. It will get harder from here on back. I'll need to make a few odd angle offsets and bends to get this exhaust run to the back of the car.

 

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude. WOW!

 

Amazing as usual!

 

Really nice fab work!

 

Sano man

 

Thanks guys, I forgot to add a photo of how the flanges look like when seen from above.

They turned out real nice, small, compact and they don't stick out farther than the header megaphone section.

 

I needed a way to accurately miter the 90 deg. fittings to the angles needed to route the exhaust pipes under the car, so I came up with this simple cutting fixture to use on my bandsaw. I bolted a stack of wooden circles that match the inside radius of the fittings to a piece of plywood. I marked out angles every 5 deg. on each side of center to help set the fitting to whatever angle needs to be cut. I added a piece of flat stock with a stop welded to it so that once set multiple fittings can be mitered to the same angle. Another piece of flat stock across the top of the fitting is tightened down to hold it in place.
I added a piece of flat stock to the bottom of the plywood to ride in the slot in the table.
I made a few cuts with it and it works well, the angles are accurate and the fitting ends are nice and square.
This works best with a fine tooth (24 tpi) bandsaw blade.

 

That's way cool (you have a metal bandsaw at your house!). I hack away at mine with a cutoff wheel with a four inch grinder, MIG everything together, grind the welds out with a 40 grit flap disc and then Cerakote the exhaust.

You could easily sell a more production-friendly version of that jig.

If you clamp 2x4s to the underside of the frame rails with quick grips, then lay everything out on the 2x4s with a sharpie It will really help route the exhaust and get everything level and parallel. I got 3 in blocks from a 4x4 and glue them onto the 2x4 on the lines I've laid out with the sharpie. It becomes like a giant jig and makes the exhaust fabrication much easier.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, they would be helpful. I spent 36 years as a pipefitter and the last three of those years at a brewery doing sanitary stainless piping similar to this exhaust. I'm used to laying out piping systems in tight spots and making them fit. This is one part of this project that I'm not an amateur at.

 

Here are some progress pics on the exhaust. It got a little tricky with the odd angle offset I needed to make to keep the exhaust heading in the direction I wanted. The mitering jig I made paid off. I needed to use a 58 deg. fitting and a 32 deg. fitting to make the rolling offset. I was able to get both from one 90 deg. fitting.