Son and I have worked together on several other type of projects over the past years, dirt bikes, race cars, airplanes, construction as well as in business. This will be our first attempt at building a street rod ! We have some fabricating knowledge that will come into play on this build. We will try and keep posting as we progress along and welcome all comments good or bad. We have gathered up a lot of ideas and help from the HAMB site and not sure this build would happen without all of your help. We have a few ideas for this build that will be different, hope you like them. More on them later ! We started gathering pieces about six months ago, first part to hit the shop was a 29A sedan body. We settled in on this body as it has NO rust, bullet holes or dents, just a slight layer of "patina" rust ! Most of the glass was still in tact ! According to the seller it came to AZ from S. Dakota barn ? First item of business was a 6in chop, a terrifying thought for two newbies. Thanks to all the posts we visited here it seemed doable ! The backhoe came in handy getting the body from the trailer onto the rolling cart. Once room was made inside our overcrowded home shop we began laying out the chop/cut. We braced the body up for stability and started cutting. Didn't take long before the roof was off and the 6 in of excess metal was gone ! The re-attaching of the top went pretty much as we had hoped with a lot of time spent on getting the angle of the "A" pillars correct and also the rear corners of the top. With the top welded back in place we set the body aside and made a trip to the local steel yard to gather up material for the chassis. Right now the chassis rails are under construction and eventually will be the platform for a suicide style front axle, Jag rear, 200R4 trans with a Hilborn fuel injected (converted to EFI) 392 Hemi ! The engine is due back from the builder any day .
Cool project man. Myself I would go early ford or maybe a 9" for the rear axle but that's just me. We don't really build "street rods" here. Or the dreaded r@t r@d that is left rusty on purpose. No son here but a daughter I've been raising by myself since she was 5. She's 17 now and we still do stuff together (several other addictive hobbys like collecting vinyl records) 2-3-4 days a week. You said "comments, good or bad". This is the Traditional Hot Rods forum. Doing stuff the old way, building a car like would have been done in a specific time peroid. It's not an easy discipline to stick to, you have to really want it. Street Rods don't really fit that definition. Really low, slammed to the ground cars sometimes can look pretty cool. I can tell you from experience, after a while they lose the cool factor when you bottom out every 10 feet. But again, maybe that's just me. Enjoy the project.
Fantastic. Y'all do your thing. Basically you can DO just about anything to your ______ rod, just don't SHOW & TELL anything that is not traditional. It really is that simple! Just don't talk about efi, or Jag suspensions . . . put them in, absolutely (you will have a much more reliable driver, we all know that), but stay focused here on what is or what looks traditional. Of course, that means anything that shows up in an exterior photo better look just right. Good luck, very cool! Edit: did not even notice which forum it was in, I'm one of those HAMBers who just surfs the big board. Of course it will get moved, no big deal (like Fred said below)
That's a wicked chop. I hope you guys did a test fit, before hand. Yea, as stated, the HAMB, is about traditional hot rods, so this will probably get moved to the general section. No big deal. The main focus of this build, should be a dad and his son sharing the joy and pain, of doing something together. Everything else is "what ever".
Thanks for the comments F6. Maybe my using the "street Rod" phrase is not correct for the build, or, possibly I started off in the wrong forum? Definitely don't want to go outside the box ! You can be proud for raising your daughter by yourself, I know, I raised my three the same, they are now 45+ !
Thanks and same to you. I hope I didn't come off as an ass. Sometimes what you type doesn't come across as you would speak it. Like the other guys said it will probably get moved but no big deal. It will be a cool ride I'm sure. I mean, it's an injected early hemi, that's a great start. Plus, there's always the next build to drive your selves nuts trying to stick to a period and searching for hard to find stuff you just HAVE to HAVE. Lol.
I has been slow going on our project but some progress has been made with a chassis. Spent some time making a frame table so everything starts off square etc. We chose 2X5" X .120 wall square tubing for the rails. Built in a slight "Z" on the front and pinched the rails. No "Z" on the rear as the plan is for the rear axle to be mounted on top of the frame rails . The notches at the rear of the rails is for axle travel. We are going with a suicide style front axle, most of the parts coming from Speedway. We got it mocked up with adjustments for the castor at 7-9 or 11 degrees. Front axle is a Super Bell with a 5' drop, Posie spring. Left the front end set for awhile waiting for more parts and began fabricating mounts for the rear axle. After taking some rough measurements it looks like we will need to widen the rear axles and arms about 2 inches per side for adequate body tire clearance. We didn't anticipate this but it shouldn't pose any major fab problems ! Will post more pix when we finish mounting the rear axle. The plan is to have a roller in the next week or so, time or other projects permitting
The Jalopy Journal
