No progress since spring time. He's moving the project to his new shop and should be back at it before it snows. I'll make sure he keeps at it so it hits the streets (strip?) next spring.
No new progress. My move to a new shop has taken a lot longer than I expected. Moving and organizing a 30 year collection of projects and parts is a huge undertaking. But I am real close. Probably within the month I'll get back on it. Anyone have any 15 x 4 or 4.5 wide magnesium 5 spokes (any bolt pattern) they want to sell or trade? They'll look great on this car!
Summer activities have gotten in the way of serious building, but here’s a report of where I’m at and pics of some goodies I picked up for the car. The frame has been boxed and a new center X-style member has been installed. I’m retaining the ’61 Vette posi rear with the goofy coil spring setup and straight ahead pointing ladder bars. I probably shoulda changed it to an original spring, inward angled ladder bars, and a 57 Ford 9”. But that is what’s there and one of the ways they used to do it. So it stays. The location of the ladder bar ends somewhat drove my placement of the new X member. Unfortunately, this requires I remove the nice original under-seat drop floor pan from the body. Shrug. Deuce guys will know what I’m talking about. But this is a Hot Rod so sometimes things have to give. I was able to make a dropout crossmember so if I ever have to remove the Muncie, it should come out fairly easily. Since I am using an Ansen swing pedal setup with a hydraulic clutch, I didn’t have linkage or under floor pedals taking up space. Plus, my headers hang real low (a bonus of having a nose up car!) So there was room for me to get a F1 steering box in there without having to cut the flange off and move it closer to the frame rail. An angled shim on the back of the box was all that was needed to get it to fit right in the rail. It is moved forward a little from the stock location too. I still need to fab up the front shock mounts and split wishbone brackets. Then it’s on to small stuff like brake lines and exhaust hanger mounts. Then maybe I can shoot some paint, get some stuff chromed, and start putting it back together. The injection unit might eventually make its way onto the car, but I’m going to start off with a dual quad (Offenhauser intake/AFB carbs) to get it on the road quicker. A couple of the pics show my 14 year old son drilling and deburring some access holes in the boxing plates. I think he’s more excited about this car than I am. I’ve let him drive my Y-block/4spd Model A on some deserted 2 lane blacktop, so he knows how much fun a manual trans car can be. And this car surely will be more of a handful than my Model A. I may have to hide the keys.
How about a few update pics? A little bit of progress has happened this summer. Lots of fabbing, cleaning, parts collecting, and chroming.
I’m slow. I know it. I was working pretty steady on it last spring getting all of the little chassis things fabbed up until Back To The 50’s, Des Moines GG’s, the HAMB Drags, and other summer activities got in the way. Then when I got back on it this fall I got temporarily derailed by the purchase of a new project. But basically the chassis is blown apart and all the pieces are in process of being painted or chromed. So it’s not really very impressive looking right now. Give me a month or two and hopefully I will get the chassis together as a roller. But since Alchemy wants to see a picture of the progress, here’s one of him pretending to have done some serious work. But don’t let him fool you… I’m the guy who’s still shaking the sand out of my boots.
There was a narrowed 40 dash that came out of a 32 5 window here locally. Sent from my SM-J727U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I thought about putting a 40 dash in it, but decided that wasnt racey enough. I need lotsa room for a bunch of gauges, so its going back to a 32 dash.
You'll be able to have a hellava drag race with the 32 and Vette.... Looking forward to more pics of both
Here is an update. This fall my son and I sandblasted the frame and components and then shot some paint on them. The chrome on it is mostly old parts that has been collected over the years or came on the car, but there are some pieces I had plated. I’m still waiting for the tie rod ends to come back from my chromer, but they should be here well before it hits the road. The front axle is seasoned chrome that my brother got out of the stash of a local old-time racer about 15 years ago. The front brakes are vintage showcar crazy. They had EVERYTHING chromed. The insides of the backing plates were polished as much (if not better) than the outsides. The cylinders, dust covers, lower tie bars, drums, hubs, and even the springs are chrome. I put cap girdles and ARP ring gear bolts on the ’61 Vette 4:11 Posi before installing the center section. The axles got new bearings too. I hope this thing holds up. It would be a real pain to have to swap it out later. We put the chassis together and installed all the plumbing. The body went on this past weekend. It is good to see it starting to look like a car again.
I heard he wants to chrome all the internals of the rear brakes to match. Mr. Showtime. Better hurry and finish this one off. There are more in line.
The Jalopy Journal
