Projects The Levee Leveler (A Single Seat Racer Circa 1934)

Thanks man! Yes, once I saw my buddy's Kurtis I knew what I had to do.



I deliberated a lot on what to do to get the frame a little lower in the back. That will be the next installment...stay tuned!

 

I do not know if "cactus1" related but he is in right area of country for "bob Lawrence's links" - a great site for old single seat racers in middle of the country. Check out the "big cars of the 1930's at Hutchinson, Kansas". Great pictures and tons of history.

 

This is our 30's Race Car. All aluminum body, Model B Engine with McDowell OHV, dual Winfields, Model A Driveline. Newest part is probably the front axle, 38 Ford V-60.

 

Speedster: Where did that radiator shell come from? Beautiful aluminum work on the body, just excellent!
Can you tell me the details of the rivets attaching body panels to external sub frames?
{Source for (aluminum?) rivets and tools to peen them?}

 

Mike:
I can take no credit for the workmanship, it was built by Joe Gertler, years ago. I purchased the car from his son.

He made the shell, and the center insert can be removed (to clean the radiator?). It is similar to a "Miller" style, popular at the time.

The Hood Sides, Body Panels and Radiator Shell are "bolted" to the frame rails along the sides, bolts through the frame, with chrome acorn attaching nuts. If you expand the picture larger, you can see them along the top of the frame. Everything fits very close, and the frame is very narrow. The lower part of the engine fits snugly between the frame rails and uses a Model A Multi-Disc Clutch with a old, aftermarket bell housing to fit inside the frame rails, that connects to a Model A Transmission. There is no room for a starter....anywhere.

I don't know of a good source for materials or assembling process.

I will try to answer any questions, if I can help. The car is in my other garage, covered up in a corner, as my son took over the space with his Camero.

The craftsmanship is well beyond my skill, sorry I can't be more helpful.

Bob

 

cactus1
I have scanned some old pictures but will start a Thread titled" dechrome sprintcar" so as to not hijack your build thread. some chassis pictures show some detail. I'll continue to follow your progress.
dechrome

 

I am not related and oddly enough I live in Lawrence, Kansas! How weird is that? Thanks for the heads up. I will check it out!

Bob that is a beaut! Any other pics you can scare up would be much appreciated!

Thanks so much for that!

 

For aluminum and rivets,check out suppliers to the home built aircraft hobby.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

So, it was obvious that the back end needed to come down a bit. I looked around at several
methods.


These brackets are similar to pieces that were available in the 30's (according to some old literature I've seen.)






Then I thought I'd make my own...


In the end I just decided to pie cut the frame and sweep it.
I made a template to figure out how much of a wedge to cut and then went to town!


I cut the first side and welded it...


Then flipped the whole frame end for end and did the underside.


Here it is back together. It is basically dropped the same amount that the front went down and maintains the rake that I wanted. I will reinforce those sections either through boxing or some bolt on plates before it is all said and done.

 

Mike you are fantastical!!!! I'm so excited about you putting this together. FOSFTW!!!

 

Thanks Bae! You're the bestest!

 

Merry Christmas everyone! I have a little time this morning and some wifi so l'll put up a couple more pics.

My good friend Chris @2muchstuff came through for me with these mechanical brakes. The car will only have rear brakes operated by a hand lever.


He also had these '32-'34 drums that he was nice enough to sell to me so my brakes are all set!


The frame had one rotten spot that I had to replace. I actually did this before the sweep as it's right where one of the bends is.



Here it is on all fours.

This pic is another reason I swept the frame. I really like this car. It is at Speedy Bill's museum in Nebraska. I need to get back up there and look at it in person again.

 

Merry Christmas to you two!

Nice workmanship!
Now we're all going to want one too.

 

Thanks Kelly!

I forgot the vid...

 

Another great web site (www.emmr.org) & place to visit little north of Gettysburg, Pa. is "eastern museum of speed". Also site of Latimore Fair grounds where some HAMB's always show up ( Jalopy showdown ) to drive a 1930's dirt track & face the mud puddle & wood fence. Nice collection cars & engines. Never been to Speedway museum - on bucket list. Gotta love the dirt....

 

Yes! I've been trying to get to the Showdown for years and it always sneaks up on me! Thanks for the link to the website.

The Speedway museum is a very impressive collection. I would recommend a visit!

 

Subscribed.That is way cool !

 

Looking forward to seeing this develop - very nice work so far!

 

Thanks guys! I'm pretty stoked about this little guy. Should be a hoot!

 

Lunch break so time for another update. This is all progress from the last several months so I'm trying to get the thread up to date. Please excuse the frequent bumps!

Next up, engine stuff! As I stated, this will be a banger powered car as an homage to my late father who got me into all this foolishness at an early age. He had a '28 sedan that he refurbished when I was young. I have fond memories of us driving the chassis up and down the street once he got it back together (I have some pics somewhere I will have to dig out.)

I did some horse trading with @Kevin Lee and he even delivered the motor in his custom F-1! Thanks again pal!



It's a pretty nice little engine. I cleaned it up a bit and freed up some sticky valves. It is already .080 over bored. Everything looks good and I don't plan on tearing it down at this point.





It was missing a pan but a a wanted ad on Fordbarn took care of that.


It was also missing the crank pulley and I got one through Mac's. This is what showed up so I did a little "machine work" (with a hacksaw and file ) ...


And ended up with this. I think it will work!

 

Now that she was sitting on the ground and I had the critical engine parts, I turned my attention toward engine mounts.


I decided to make some simple brackets out of some 3/8" plate I had laying about. It sits on some hard rubber "stoppers" I found at my local hardware store.






Oh, I am running a 'C' head and water pump that I had originally purchased for the T roadster. I made this lifting bracket a few years ago that attaches to two of the spark plug holes. It works a treat!



The fan is on now but I don't think I'll be running one.

 

Love it! Excited to watch this build!

 

Thanks man!

So to make sure the engine was where I wanted it, I mocked up some hood shelves out of cardboard so I could lay out for grille/radiator placement and make sure it wasn't too high. Looking at old pics a lot of the grilles were about the same size as the front tires or slightly smaller so that's what I went with. It should be about 24" high when said and done.





I ended up taking a stock worn out 'A' front mount, trimming it, and adding some material to make a cradle type mount.



I had to trim it for pulley clearance then I stared at it for a while to try to figure out my next move!

 

http://winfield.50megs.com/


pages from a 30s racing magazine

 

I can't see any photos???

 

Yeah sorry I messed up my photobucket . Fixed now.

 

Those are great! Thanks!

 

A search on "K8 special" can find a PDF file with the plans & words on this old design dirt car - great info on old builds.

 

Lots of these were built in New Zealand in the 50s, and raced well into the 70s. In fact some are still being race now in historic events.
Check out this raceday from the mid 60s, when NZ racers would run anything and evrything they could lay their hands on.
I you put the video on full size you can pick out a few of the K8 specials in amongst the other "race cars".

 

Looking good mike! See you in a week hopefully.

As an aside the speedway museum has been enlarged recently by several thousand square feet :0 I plan on a trip this summer I'll keep you in the loop