Hot Rods Cheatin' The Reaper

Nice work!

 

Great job.

 

Awesome work and well thought out. Looking forward to watching your progress.

 

Went to a swap-meet over the weekend and bought this for a whole $5:


Which now looks like this:


And puts bends like this in metal tube. These are aluminium, the top one is 5/8", the bottom 1/2"


Not strictly part of the project I know, but will help a lot when it comes to making the hard lines..

 

So back with the IRS lower arms, these are now welded together and within a few thou of each other in length.
I cut the shock tubes from the original arms and smoothed them off ready to weld back in.

2632256e1098a7b360 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:23 PM

The tubes are welded back in exactly on the weld lines. As there will only be the front shock there will be a bracket which bolts between the shock and the lower hub pivot and takes the rose-joint for the radius arm. More of that later.

2632256e10998d2a4a by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:23 PM

2632256e109924b203 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:23 PM

I'm quite happy with the result so far.

 

Nice work. Rare car too. Does it have the wind out front screen?

 

Yes it does have the wind-out screen, but I've decided to put a 'solid' screen in it.

 

Nice fab work, that chassis is way stout. I like how you were thinking ahead for running the brake/fuel lines and electrical. Interested to see how you will shorten the half-shafts.

 

Nice project, look forward to more updates. Bob

 

Narrowing the halfshafts:
I've only got a small-ish lathe to use, so had to come up with an plan that would work without me killing myself with flying shafts!
So stuck shaft 1 into the lathe and turned these two areas. The left-hand side is turned to 32mm, the centre to 28mm:

2632256e64895304e3 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:23 PM

Then hack it into bite size lumps:

2632256e648a822b30 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:23 PM

Then turn the short yoke internal diameter to a nice interference fit on 28mm:

2632256e648bc4731e by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:23 PM

Cut off the 32mm diameter revealing the 28mm internal bore, then press the yoke onto the shaft:

2632256e648c2a7ba9 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:23 PM

This took around 10 tons of pressure, so it's a proper interference fit. Not sure I needed to weld it, but I did anyway:

2632256e648d8a7aa7 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:23 PM

And here it is next to it's unmodified brother:

2632256e648d16e0c4 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:23 PM

The other shaft will be shortened the same way.

 

Just awesome! Top-notch work!

 

You got MAD SKILLS for sure...I, for one, like the wheel choice for this style car. This body style begs for the strip look. Good stuff here.

 

I love watching well thought out and fabricated work, especially when it's unique. Will you be running the brakes in board? I was also wondering why you made the driveshaft hoops oval when you are running irs? Are you thinking you may go 9" in the future?
I like these cars, I just wish I could fit in one!

 

Nice work - will be following...

 

nice toy you have - good luck

 

I wanted to make the chassis 'future-proof', so if I do decide to go live axle the structure is already in place.
And yes, I will be running inboard brakes.

 

Thanks to all for the kind words.
I've wanted this shape of car for as long as I can remember, and I can't remember the last time I was this enthusiastic about a project.
I've now managed to secure a manual gearbox (can't say which one as it may upset the purists!) and a pair of wide rear fenders. I'm really looking forward to putting the body on the chassis for the first time which should happen in the net couple of weeks. Rest assured I'll have my camera with me.

 

I CANT believe you would use THAT gearbox...unbelievable!!!!!

 

Great work!

 

Chassis out in the sun for the first time. Stage one on it's journey home to meet the body.

2632256ec8662c0bdb by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 4:24 PM

2632256ec8655adbb3 by Legendlives posted Jun 4, 2016 at 4:56 AM

2632256ec86493c917 by Legendlives posted Jun 4, 2016 at 4:56 AM

 

And just to prove it wasn't a fluke, here are all of the narrowed rear suspension components:

2632256ec907541ad8 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:23 PM

 

An amazing chassis!!

 

Whilst the body and chassis are waiting for their matrimony I thought I'd have a dabble at the dashboard:

2632256f22a47ed880 by Legendlives posted Jun 4, 2016 at 5:01 AM

2632256f22a4f282e6 by Legendlives posted Jun 4, 2016 at 5:01 AM

It's a stock, steel '38 dash.
The car was always going to be LHD, so my initial thought was to just fill all of the holes and leave it smooth, ready to add the dials on the 'new' drivers side, but part-way through this process I decided that it would be nice to have a glovebox to put all of the fuses etc into.
So here we have it. The slots in the bottom are for the wiring to pass through, there is also a slot at the top just in case there is no room to turn the wires.
It's customary in my builds to use some domestic appliance somewhere in the build (my first drag car had steel from a tumble drier, my 105E Anglia had the engine bulkhead made from washing machine sides and my last car the dash was made from steel taken from an old cooker), so the mods on this one are made from a fire surround :shake:

I'll make a hinged aluminium door for this to make look more 'factory'

2632256f22a5bb10dc by Legendlives posted Jun 4, 2016 at 5:01 AM

And the (almost) finished dash:

2632256f22a556b7e8 by Legendlives posted Jun 4, 2016 at 5:01 AM

2632256f22a62c52d9 by Legendlives posted Jun 4, 2016 at 5:01 AM

 

Donation from the boss.
We've just put a new 'chute onto our Topolino Altered, so the old one is destined for the back of my little Ford

 

Glovebox lid - had an hour spare so knocked this up:

2632256f373d264c61 by Legendlives posted Jun 4, 2016 at 5:01 AM

2632256f373ca70519 by Legendlives posted Jun 4, 2016 at 5:01 AM

It's in 1.6mm aluminium with returns around the entire perimeter. It's also compound curved to match the dash.

 

Nice project. I've got a '49 three-holer going together. Interesting that the '38 had steel instrument panel (later were Bakelite) and apparently a one-hole grille (later were 2- and 3-hole). Good luck.

 

Bitchin!

 

Anyone familiar with the Jaguar back axle will know it needs a rear lower tie-bracket to help hold the two wishbone pivots together in higher power applications, so after a bit of head-scratching, cutting, drilling and grinding I ended up with these parts:

26322570201586665a by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:26 PM

Which after welding together looked like this:

2632257020173df252 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:26 PM

263225702016d508d4 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:26 PM

2632257020166baf1f by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:26 PM

263225702015fba9f7 by Legendlives posted May 28, 2016 at 9:26 PM

It's now a 4-function bracket:
1) It ties the wishbone pivots together and wraps underneath to pick up the bolt-holes on the underside of the pivot brackets.
2) The large aluminium boss in the middle is the parachute pick-up.
3) The two circular brackets on either end are for tie-downs to be hooked to (it will undoubtedly spend some of its time on a trailer).
4) it will provide a strong jacking point.

The rear panel, parachute brackets, tie-down eyes and underneath reinforcement are made from 5mm steel, the under-bracket is 3mm steel, the 'chute boss is T6061 alloy.

 

Looks very well thought out, ought to work perfectly.

 

Yes, very well planned.