Projects Dragmaster Dragster Found Hanging On A Wall.

I bought a Stewart Warner military oil pressure gauge on e-bay. It's the same as a civilian gauge except the bezel is military green instead of chrome. The gauge was sealed in it's original packaging and the box was dated June 1960. I couldn't resist mounting it with a zip tie just to get a look. I like the green bezel.

 

That is such a nice offer, especially when you see what they cost. When I dropped the engine off at Dodes on my second trip he had the guide plates, rockers, pushrods and screw in studs. I appreciate the thought and your offer. Charles.

 

And in the same spirit, in the event you do need v/c spacers, I have a set that I don't need, you can have 'em. I'll even pay the freight

 

I would like to see that please.

This dragster build is amazing, really enjoying it.

 

John made the bracket for the Moon gas pedal, and these are the seat belts we're using.

 

The side view with the new rear wheels. You can just make out in this picture the top left frame rail has three small guide tubes we're guessing were for a cable support. We're using them for the Enderle
fuel shut off cable. Check out the number of holes in the front engine mount plate, and the rear bell housing plate. It looks like it had some different combination's in it's life.

 

It is packed away from when I moved to my new shop. I haven't unpacked everything yet but when I do I will try to remember to post it. I cant bring myself to build it since its been untouched for so long.

 

The Moon pedal's in place. The on-off switch and pull cable for the fuel shut off fit the holes in the original bracket perfect. The seat and head rest were built to fit the snap fittings that were original to the frame. When you look at the pictures when the frame was at Turners Salvage there is one piece of headrest material still snapped to the frame that was black, so we went back with black.

 

This is my favourite thread at the moment, I'm loving it all.

 

At the same time we were building the engine mounting plates a friend of Dodes sent a picture to my son's phone of the blower and related parts. Don Hampton built the blower with the correct end plates, Verne Tomlinson got all the Hilborn pieces including the original vintage pump seen in the plastic bag. A friend of Dodes, Jay Carpenter found the correct intake for the build, and Dode told me he replaced the gold anodized bolts on the blower end plates with bolts that had a regular finish.

 

We had a Wedge M/T scatter shield and an old distributor on this engine block to use as a measurement guide when we made the front and rear engine mounts.

 

Are you kidding me? You guys have a board tracker too! Anything over there I shouldn't be jealous of?


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It's a 1916 Indian board tracker. Since this picture I've finished the two drive chains, mounted the rear bobbed fender and most of the linkage for the controls. It's close to finished.

 

Must be nice having money.

As soon as I got a race car, I never saw another hundred dollar bill.

 

We made a firewall out of poster board for a guide to where the engine would mount in the frame.

 

We decided at this point to have the driveline built to line it up before bolting the engine mounts to the frame. I wanted to modify a PTO, I discussed my ideas with a company that builds driveshafts and decided on this. I had a PTO built with a hardened shaft and had the standard driveshaft face left on until everything was measured.

 

With the PTO in place we used it's centerline along with the centerline of the pinon shaft to set the rear height and also center the engine in the frame then bolted the rear mounts in place with just one bolt in each mount to allow the engine to pivot if the front needed to be raised or lowered to set the final angle of the driveshaft.

 

How is that PTO drive work? Looks an interesting idea


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I first saw one 30+ years ago on an irrigation engine, their used to engage and disengage the pump drive using a hand lever. It simplified the work for our direct drive. Here's a picture of an irrigation engine with a PTO.

 

While the PTO was being modified and the driveshaft built, we moved to the front engine mount. We were going to use what I suppose is a fairly standard front sbc mounting plate except the arms going to the frame were too high. We made a design using the standard plate as a partial pattern to build one with lower arms that better fit the frame. All we had left to do was tig the angled ends to finish the mounting plate.

 

Are you and your son both going to politely share driving duties? Or will there be arm wrestling, coin flips, calling shotgun, pulling seniority, tests of ones love/respect for the other, and outright not getting out of the seat?


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That issue was laid to rest just after we got it. It was so tight when I wedged down in the seat back in the roll cage, legs over the rear end that John had to help me get out. My exact words to John when I got out, "To Hell With That". It fits him perfect, so the gas and clutch pedal were mounted to fit him.

 

While we were waiting for the driveshaft and PTO, Dode sent us a picture of his progress on the engine. The picture was taken by his friend and although it's blurry I thought I should still post it. I called Dode the same day and he told me everything was going good at his point, that the rockers were just sitting in place while he tried to work out a way to fit all this under the stock corvette valve covers.

 

Better to bolt the plate to mounts on the frame itself, welding onto 6061 alu draws the heat treat down and you are dealing with a part thats loaded

 

The Driveshaft builder called our parts were ready to pick up and check the fit. They machined the driveshaft side of the PTO to fit the yoke flush. Because of length restrictions the driveshaft at this point was basically a slip yoke. It was left that way so if we made any minor changes and it needed to be a little shorter or longer we could adjust it. Once the exact length was set they would weld a small diameter tube between the yokes keeping the slip joint in place.

 

We explained how the engine plate was going to be used with the welder so he welded the ends on the plate using 4043 filler wire and then we had the piece heat-treated.

 

This is the shield for the driveshaft. The plate is the same shape as the PTO so it is held in place bolted to the scatter shield. The round plate with the lip bolts to the face of the M/T third member. We cut the tube in half with a plasma cutter tacked the brackets on either side and clamped it in place. Using the rear end plate as a guide we lined it up and tacked the ring to the plate bolted to the scatter shield. With all the pieces lined up and tacked in place we took it apart and welded everything up.

 

Well my wife is giving me the look, she say's I've been on the HAMB long enough. I'll try and sneak back here later.

 

What a bitchin' thread! Thanks for taking us along for the ride.