Projects Haulin' ass in fiberglass

I hear ya. With all due respect to the HAMB, what is considered "traditional" doesn't work for my builds. In this car's case, I'm building a street legal race car with a vintage appearing body. There may be traditional elements included, but functionally it isn't. Hat's off to those that can build a traditional car, but I can't leave anything alone and often go off on tangents when I build.

 

Tie wraps it is. I have to get some Molex connectors in before I can finish the dash harness, but can at least lay it all out and finish up my home made schematic.

 

Here is a little trick I picked up somewhere, if you take your soldering iron to those trimmed plastic wire ties you wont lacerate your hands when you reach under the dash to change a bulb some day.

 

Great tip, thanks. I'm toying with the idea of making the whole dash panel pivot at the bottom so when the top bolts are removed the whole panel folds down. The days of me rooting around under dashes are long gone......

 

I'm hip to that!
I hinged the fuse panel on my roadster to fold down, no standing on my head under the dash since I had two vertebrae fused in my neck.
That's a great idea.

 

the wiring looks great. real pro. i am just going to say this because you probably know it already but gauges need to grounded because 'glass won't.

 

Thanks. The black horizontal wire in the pic is a 14ga ground wire daisy-chained between the gauges. The water temp and oil pressure are mechanical, so those grounds are just for the gauges lights. I'm using a LOT of LED's in this car so I can use 16ga for most circuits and there's very little draw from all but the major circuits.... headlights, water pump, cooling fan and ignition. Even those are using relays so the circuit controls are low amperage.

 

Here's what I did. Wire ties and grouped the wires in three main groups and installed plug ins to make it easy to pull the dash if needed. The dash is from a 31 or 32 Studebaker modified to fit.

 

The wife's '31 is done and ready for her to show, so it's back on this. Been going back and forth about what diff carrier to use and decided screw it I'll put a lightweight spool in it to get it going.
The body is unbolted, but before I could do that all the BS square tube reinforcing the previous owner welded in had to be removed. A couple hours of fun with the cutoff wheel and sawzall and the body's ready to come off. After that the trans and block will be married and put in place to set drive placement and angle. After THAT'S done, out comes the sawzall again to cut out the firewall and front of the floor.
I'm itching just thinking about it......

 

YAY back to MORE POWER build.

 

Pulled the engine down to bare block so the body can come off to set the placement and drive angle. The piston's .020" in the hole, so it'll need to be zero decked, but there's time for that.
Spool and gears came so it's fun with differentials time this week......

 

I really wouldn't enjoy doing this without a press, but glad I don't have to.
First step is take a carbide stone to the face of the ring gear and spool to make sure there's no nick, burrs, etc. Glad I did.....

Pressed the bearings on the spool and mounted the ring gear.

Checked runout and I don't think I can get much better than under .002".

 

Gonna be a big weekend. Body comes off, diff goes in and first stab at placing the engine and trans. I'm flashing back on the YEARS there was a bare '31 frame on the other side of the garage........

 

If I’m not mistaken bluey the bible car in how to build a trad hot rod is glass.. so..

 

Again in English?

 

If you don’t know mike bishop and Vern tardel wrote a book called how to build a traditional ford hot rod that allot here hold in asteam.. the model a roadster featured in the book turned out pretty great imo and it happened to be glass.. I believe mike called it bluey because it was shod in blue paint.. I may have been gently needling some inconsistencies in philosophy..

 

In the beginning of this thread I addressed "traditional" and my builds. You should ignore my posts, 'cuz this won't be. I don't follow well either. I build what I want and am not constrained by building other people's interpretations. Read more HAMB before your 6th post........

 

That wasnt meant as a slight towards you at all more towards the purist who praise the book and throw in the trash what isn’t authentic..

 

We have separation! Engine and trans are roughly where they need to be, so now to modify the reinforcements and get the mounts in. I'll finish setting up the diff and get it in tomorrow so all the angles will be set.

 

End of the first real weekend of work. Diff is set up and installed, eng/trans is in position and 2 hours spent removing the rear brake drums the PO PRESSED on the axles. The oxy/acetylene set paid for itself today. I'll be going rear disc sooner than planned.
This week will be fine tuning drive height/angle and cut/trim motor mount brackets and tack them in place.

 

So, I have the final placement figured out that'll give me 3* down on the engine and a good driveshaft angle. Problem is, the brackets that come with the motor mounts don't give me a warm fuzzy feeling when it comes to keeping 700 horse in place. That means it's off to the metal yard for some 1/4" steel plate to make up my own brackets. My plasma cutter isn't up to plate that thick so looks like it'll be fun with cutoff wheels.

 

I've been looking at fuel cell in-tank pump modules and can't see spending $400 or more for something I can make myself with spare parts I have around. I think this will be one of 2 projects I'll start this weekend. The other is making and tacking in the 1/4" steel motor mount brackets since the plate will be in today.
Pics later....

 

Progress on the motor brackets. Severe overkill, but want to make sure it'll hold up to 700 horse and more if I throw it at it. Driver's side is roughed in and motor positioned. Passenger side tomorrow and tack it all in.

 

how about motor plates?

 

Not in a highboy.

 

Finished fabbing the brackets. Gotta do some beveling and tack them in place, but good enough for a weekend project.

 

Got the brackets tacked last night and put the motor down on the frame. The right level, but crank centerline is off 1/16". I'll do the finish welding tonight but I'm already starting to itch just thinking about cutting out the firewall......

 

Done! Engine is on the frame and sits exactly where I want it. I'll tack the brackets to the frame and do the finish weld when the engine comes out again.

 

Started the "bodywork" tonight. Thought I'd break out the sawzall and see what obstacles there are to cutting out the firewall. Need to reverse the previous owners idea of B pillar reinforcement, then I can finish cutting it out.

 

Did something tonight I haven't done before and something I was trained NOT to do...... take a sawzall to a car. Sounds stupid to many of you, but my background is in engineering and there's not a lot of call for them in what I did years ago. That said, I can't say I didn't enjoy it
The firewall needs to be set back about 4" to clear the rear of the driver's cylinder head and there was no advantage to making a recess the way I did on the '31. Cut it out, move it back and re-glass it is the plan. I'll be making a few changes to the frame and reinforcing to accommodate the roll cage, seat bracing and fuel cell frame.