Hot Rods I'M GOING TO BUILD AN ALTERED.

Don, This chassis is more along the lines of what you had in mind. It belongs to a friend of mine, he built it nearly 20 years ago. A very consistent runner, I updated the cage a few years back. It's heavy and with the small Desoto, it has still run around 9.30's.

 

Here's a fiat my buddy has done

 

All of those pictures really help, thanks Guys. Helps me formulate my design in my head.

Today was the day to pick up my new body and Richard from Suncoast came through. We met them at the Bradenton Drag Strip and took possession. He promised me two weeks ago they would have it done and they did, and it really looks good. Typical glass body that will need normal finishing to prep it for paint, but otherwise, no problems at all. I am very pleased with the results.

Dan and I dropped it off at our shop but I forgot my camera, so when I go back there tonight I will shoot some pictures and post them. I won't really be doing much until after Turkey Run because I don't know what parts I will find there to buy, but I might start mocking up the frame out of 2 x 4 lumber to get an ideal of wheelbase and width, but that will be about all the progress until after Thanksgiving.

But I feel getting the body is a big piece of the puzzle and it will allow me to move ahead now to the next step. Once I get the frame built I am going to contact Ron at RPM for my front axle, hairpins, and stuff like that.

Don

 

I'm following along Don. Keep the camera handy as you know we all Like pics. I'm sure Ron will hook you up...

 

Always nice when a company delivers as promised.

 

We all try to deal with local guys when possible, but sometimes it doesn't work out. This time was fine, and I am glad I went with Suncoast...........he treated me well and the body looks good.

As for Ron Pope at RPM, every company should do business the way he does. I have seen report after report from happy customers on various forums, and his rating on Ebay is spotless. I don't know how he sells the nice parts he does for the very reasonable prices he does, but he somehow does it. I am going to have him make a straight (undropped) tube axle for me and some other parts too.

Don

 

Don, you've always shown that you know what you're doing, and I thought I'd pass along a couple things I learned with my altereds - the first one I had was the old Groundshakers Jr. "T" - the 91" wheelbase Woody Gilmore chassis car. The lesson I learned there is that it handled much better when I flipped the torsion bar arms forward and made it about 103". I guess what I'm saying is the longer the wheelbase you can live with the better - The newer car was a rocket funny car chassis that got rebuilt after it crashed in Colorado, one of the nicest things about it was it came with a bulletproof full floater rear end and was very light. I took my single 4 bbl / flat tappet 427 BBC out of my 51 Chevy Sedan delivery and put it in the altered (I got the "T" body from Sherm Gunn) and ran high 8s and low 9s (in the 80s) without hurting anything. Very low maintenance. I don't know if there's anything you can use from a pic of the newer car, but here it is. View attachment 2745974

 

The 63 Corvette body I bought from Richard @ Suncoast was the 2nd worst fiberglass body I've ever seen. It looked good as far as being slick, with nice gel coat, all hand laid, real light etc. However the doors had to be cut in half and laid in about 3" at the top, in order to fit into the roof line. The body itself had a twist in it throwing the rear wheel openings off about 3 inches. Almost none of the bent bars in the so called "chassis kit" were bent to fit reasonable tight to the body, so I bought more tubing and bent it to fit correctly. It's a pain when you buy something that you have to cut up and rebuild before you can use it. I hope his quality has improved over the the past 14 years but he couldn't chase me fast enough to give me another one, if it was free.

 

Don, I'm glad you're using some of Ron's wares. I've dealt with him and his parts and service are above the bar. His story is a true, American small business success story. I can remember when all he sold was gas tanks that he designed and built to customer specs. Great guy.

 

don i am sure your experienced enough to be able to tell the over the top or reasonable cars people have. if you are going to go 10 seconds or slower, most of what people like to tell you is just to keep you safer, cost more money or get it certed. when you go that slow a motor plate really isn't needed. they are to stiffen the whole thing. just use solid mounts. you don't need a center steer either that cost hundreds of dollars. just put it where you would put a corvair on the frame and use u joints to a center steer.. longer frame and the motor more forward will make the joints work better. also you can use just about any of these type of boxes by reversing them or putting them under the frame. i have used vw super bettle and chevy luv truck boxes under the frame. i am building a '50 chevy bobed truck and used a nisson box on top of the frame. i built my brothers 302 ford T that goes 10.90's like this 5 years ago and it's still a ball to drive. if you want to save some time, just buy a speedway t kit and shelve the rear suspension and mount it solid and build the cockpit and cage and your good to go. about the only negative thing i hear from the lemmings is "did you build this yourself" i have found most people are so conditioned by all the media and people with money, they think you can't build anything unless you buy their stuff and then you will have a nice car. you know my car, bantam flathead. i have been driving it for about 24 years now. and i have never had anything serious go wrong in all that time. my brothers car has been running for 5 years and it has never broken anything serious. we race in the anra 4 events a year and every t & t we can. here is a pic of his and mine in 1/25th scale and 1-1 racing each other.

 

What happened to the old Ground Shaker Jr??????

 

Wouldnt want it, really thrashed, thats why Glenn built a new chassie

 

Thanks, Guys, I'm soaking in all the tips and suggestions you are all posting..........especially the pictures.

I got over to the shop today and shot a couple of pictures of the body. Nothing special, just a glass Bantam, but it will work fine for my purposes.

Don

 

Nice looking body!

 

Here is some inspiration from me

 

Wow Bruce, the Ground Shaker Jr original chassis is still here. That's a cool piece of history. Could the chassis be used to build another Woody Gilmore Fuel Altered cackle car? I new you that build, but I thought the old chassis was gone.

 

Glenn, you've already gotten me in trouble. You were the one who told me I could find a body right here in Fl.

Don

 

Well ,.......... Geeeeeee Don ............. "I fully accept the responsibility for your new found Happiness"

 

glenn, what a nice looking altered. what kind of times did you get with that? my brother and i ran a injected 324ci olds in a '29 ford at lions back in the days. it ran in the 12's. fun car.

 

Another option for Steering boxes:

http://secure.chassisshop.com/partdetail/C42-390/

Stiletto has a slightly improved internals over the older worm gear type box. I replaced an SPE box that looks similar to the Strange. You gave my steering set up a critique on my HAMB thread in May '13.

See you at Daytona.

 

I just seen a new bantam body for 300 bucks to get it out of their way. It was on Pittsburgh Craigslist if anyone was inspired from this thread.

 

That is the new chassie

 

How about the old one is it too far gone?

 

Yes

 

That's too bad, but the new one is AA/Freaking Awesome

 

Between watching this thread and finding this body a couple weeks ago that could possibly be bought cheap, it's got me thinking.........

 

Those pictures give me lots of inspiration and ideas...........thanks, Guys. One thing that I am kicking around is to actually glass in the firewall with a sheet of plywood (thin, maybe half inch) and then put an aluminum skin on it for appearances. I think it would add some stiffness to the body, and rather than relying on that small lip around the perimeter of the cowl to hold bolts for the aluminum, it would have a much stronger base. It wouldn't add much weight, and it is the way I have done T bodies in the past with good results.

You guys are finding all kinds of abandoned Bantam bodies laying around, bet you can score them a lot cheaper than I did. Maybe we need to start a low buck Bantam altered class? We could call it LB/BA.

 

I like that low buck/ bad ass.
Your first pics of the body show you how to paint it.

 

More inspiration.....