Projects Northwest Vintage Dragster Group Build.

Did I miss the evening meal? You guy's are doing a great job.

 

Yeah, shoot i forgot to photo the burgers on the grill in the snow.

 

This is a great build. Guys pooling their talents and resources. If it turns out as good as the seats I got from you a few years back for my Morris Minor hot rod then it will be a good project.

 

fter our phone conversation I now understand the level of craftsmanship that this thread has due to the fact that my chassis was originally designed for a flatmotor and I don't have any one to play with any way gonna save my ford 6 and slip in a280z motor run brackets for the time being. That's the beauty of this chassis design it's adaptable to so many different set ups. If you use the clamp on type of front plate mount someone could run a different class with a quick engine change like some of the guys do on the salt.

 

Hey Horace it was good talking to you the other day. We keep kicking around the idea of drawing up one of these in a CAD file to send to one of these cnc tube bending/notching outfits. Then maybe produce some of the brackets on our plasma bed so a guy could buy a kit with all the heavy lifting done. I don't know if there would be enough interest to justify the effort or not. But it sure would be fun if there were more people to race.

 

I get ask frequently if the SDRA has a blue print for our chassis. I think it would be a
good idea if some one would draw one up as an example to get people thinking. Your
idea of a kit sounds like a good deal.
I like your design. We have build our cars on the main rail design for ease of fabrication.

 

Len I really don't think it would sell azillion units but would definitely fill a large niche for many out there who are dream rich and ingenuity/tooling poor, what we[ and this includes all areas of the sport], is we were brought to this dance by guys in barns and sheds working with limited hand tools that many times were just flat dangerous if someone doesn't start helping develop a means of safe racing for fun that is within reason affordable in all likely our sport as we know it will die. I have felt that was the public venue [ THE H.A.M.B ] that could do that, ever since I first discovered T.J.J.. Sorry for getting so windy but I been in love with this sport a long time and I would hate to see it turn into a few dozen tracks and some multimillion dollar teams that were strictly an entertainment venue for tv.

 

Rob, Just think, you could be the "Scotty Fenn" of the current era !

 

I fell down on the job again this week and didn't get pictures of dinner until after it had been pretty much devoured.....good spaghetti Randy!


We had went and checked out Wayne's progress on the 270 GMC that is going in the second chassis. This motor has a lot of local racing history starting in the late 50's and ended up eventually setting a world record in Ellensburg WA.


The engine had been pulled in the late 60's for a refresh, and never got put back in. It sat under a work bench in a few pieces until Wayne aquired it recently. Of course all of the assembly lube had hardened and turned to glue so it all had to be gone through again, and it was all re-balanced while it was apart.
This motor has been worked over pretty hard back in the day. There has been well over 1/8" milled off the each the block and the head, so much so that they step milled them so as not to cut into the side cover bolt holes. You can see this step here.

And you can see that it has been cut down so much it is past the bolt holes on a stock side cover.


I will finish this update later today.

 

Beautiful work guys!

 

Looks very good guys , maybe time for a new alum side cover ?

Looks like a fab shop & café all in one

DND

 

Thanks man!

Wishing i would have gotten some pictures of the inside of this motor. It has domed pistons and a very impressive porting job for its day. It will be fun to hear it rip again.

Wayne picked up a adapter to go from the 270 to a TH350, check out the neat old aluminum flywheel that was on the motor. Dated 1957. It definatly has some battle scars and would be questionable for use.



Here is the new adapter, nice looking piece.

 

If you notice the adapter came with a 6 bolt flange for the flywheel but the motor has an early crank with only 4 bolts.(actually 2 sets of 4, one set takes 3/8 bolts and the other takes 7/16 bolts) We picked up a new ring gear and I will draw up a new plate in cad to fit and have our local water jet guy cut it out, before having it balanced.


Cut a mounting bracket for the front driveline hoop and welded in with plug welds, it also serves to enclose the bottom of the hoop.




Next we made the other support for the back of the shoulder hoop. I'll tell you one thing don't let you friends catch you sanding rust off a pipe by hand.....
And we added a cross bar just in front of the axle to attach the crotch strap to.

 

I recieved the drive line from Drive Line Services of Lewiston, can't say enough for Tad and his shop. If your in the northwest and need driveline work I would highly recomend them.



Last week a lot of progress was made on 002's bracing. We decided to move the engine and trans back 4 inches as to where they are in the first car. Tad gave us this coupler that comes out of jet boats which will work perfect for the second car.

 

A little progress from the last two get togethers.

We have been working on getting the interior panels fitting,


Also 002 has been coming along nicely





I had an idea while ago for the steering, and had to give it a try. The Model T axle is setup for cross steer, rather tgan have a steering gear up at the front of the car we are going to try a 4 to 1 ratio chain setup.



This will serve two funcions, first take the input from the center of the car and transfer it to the LH side, and also provide some mechanical advantage. In the pictures it is just mocked up and the tensioner idler is still loose but you get the idea. Also it is probably way stouter than what it needs to be but it will be good enough to try out and see if it will drive ok, then i may work on a lighter version. Currently it weighs about as much as a steering gear.

 

I presume that the slots in the lower portion of the seat back are intended for the lap belts. If I am right I would suggest a re-think. The belts should pull down across the driver's hip at about a 45 degree angle so the slots will probably need to be in the vicinity of the point where the two seat panels meet.

Roo

 

We should be able to make that happen.

 

Your shaft's looking kinda short there!



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The work is coming along great but I just gota ask, how wide is the seat and how are you going to get your legs under that bar once the cage is on? Oh! and you guys are starving me to death, where is the food?

 

Story of my life...oops might have been an over share

 

Yeah i think the whole car could be narrower most of the girls i dated in high school could fit in there but were not backing up now. There will actually be a seat that goes in the car on top of the aluminum thats there now.

 

So you're saying he got the shaft


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Chicken and fat pills last night.....sorry no pic.

Some of us worked on rolling the roll bar, i bought a set of dies for my H.F. roller from Swag off road. It's a butt load of work to roll the 1 3/4" on thus thing but it does work.


Marty this is in response to your too tall build.




We got the motor plate drilled for the steering gear output and fabbed some mounting brackets. During the week i had cut the shafts to length and milled the D's for the steering u-joints.


We needed a little mock up, the only wheel we could find was Randy's dinner plate.....

To be continued.....

 

Next up was the steering shafts, Dad had turned a taper into the front shaft and threaded it for the Model T pitman arm, I cut some brackets to mount these 3/4 heims, they don't really have a vintage feel but it sure made simple work of it.



Another bracket was cut to mount another heim behind the front motor mount. We wanted another joint in the middle so the steering shaft could collapse should there be a hard hit in the front



I'll keep posting picts as i have time today.

 

The fellas thinking about induction options


BRAAAAAP

 

You are a master craftsman and engineer and your work shows the pride you take in everything you build.

Thank you for sharing your project with the rest of us.
Jimbo

 

Thank you, very kind words.
So here is the overview of the steering, the steering wheel quick disconnect turned out to be a flop, reading up on them the hex ones seem to be prone to sloppy fits....lesson learned and a Longacre 56605 splined disconnect is on order.

That runs down threw a u-joint to the steering gear, then out of the motorplate with another u joint.


Then to a center u joint to allow the shaft to collapse should it hit the wall hard in the front preventing the steering shaft from turning into a giant spear. The next shaft mounts the factory T pitman arm for the cross steer.


We still need to add a panhard rod and gussets on the wishbones, but you get the idea.

 

Hey - You're getting pretty fancy now by loading videos!

But I have to say that you're doing a great job on the build, both with the build itself and with taking the time to post your progress.

And you've really picked up on the vibe we're trying to create with our dragster class. Looking forward to having you come out and race with us.

 

Assuming the slop'll adjust out, it still looks a bit slow to me, and especially so for a butterfly style wheel. Is this intentional?