I have not updated in a while, but have been on this car after work and on weekends. Rear Brakes are together now.
This what I have mostly been working on lately is this firewall situation. One of the previous owners welded the top cowl to the firewall. The firewall was also cut all up for a set back motor. I am at the spot where i want to mock my cowl to get my motor mounts spaced along with everything else, so i tackled this issue. I wanted to save the top cowl, which I may ditch, due to most of the lip being damaged as I removed the bead from the weld. I did the best I could and don't love the results, but a top cowl piece is not too expensive and maybe I will switch it later to a nicer one. I was able to grab a cheap firewall from a swap here outside of Houston.
Like i said its ruff, but coming together, so many folks on here are masters of there craft, it is hard to post crappy welds and horrible cuts.
We can’t all be Flop. Post pics of your progress. I’m sure someone will speak up if there is a safety concern otherwise you’re just showing what the rest of us are doing too.
Since you have the firewall out anyway, it may be a good time to reverse it. Mock up that engine, see if you need the room. Just a suggestion. Walt Outsiders CC
Thank you, I’m mocking up this weekend. I’ll post photos this next week. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Started my mock up. I don't have a sub-frame yet so the cowl is sitting directly on the frame so this is not the correct height. It is very tight of course between firewall and radiator. Looking around here on the HAMB, I see that most folks running 8BAs switch to early gen/fan mount pulley set up, and water pumps. I really don't want to flip my firewall. I have seen a few folks that push the radiator a lil forward, which looks a little odd if the grill is not centered in the wheels. Other options I have tracked down is moving the body back, which sounds like a mess, but maybe a little of everything is the route? I am leaning to cutting a little more out of the front cross member and moving the radiator forward maybe an inch. Changing the gen/fan mount and pulley and machining off the crank outer pulley will also free up some room and seems pretty easy.
Also picked up this dropped axle from another HAMB member recently. One on top is a model A, which I will run the drilled one I picked up from a swap meet while ago as i was grabbing parts, but the perches were too far apart must be a later axle.
Got my Leafs all assembled, may still take one or two out depending. I realized this weekend I have the wrong U joint, must be for a truck. So mocking up for engine and center cross member were halted. The end doesn't fit on my trans, I purchased another one from a member with some photos to make sure I get the correct joint. Axle looks good in the frame. Im mocking with the Model A banjo to get some torque tube/center cross member/ engine placement down. I have a question, when deleting leafs from the pack, do you take them out completely or shorten them so they fill the cross-member still? I read in the Tardel book or video of his, adding two small pieces of shim to the bottom U bolts plate can get the packs up in the cross-member if space is needed to fill. Last photo is just my dog hanging with me in the Garage.
glorydime, she's coming along! Always nice to see you HAMBers helpers too!...brEad, sorry about your buddy.....my wife and I keep 3 dogs , a young one a middle aged one and an old one! My oldest " buddy" is 16 and really slowing down....when he passes we will get another " rescue " dog or a " pound hound" ......
My son moved back in last week with his 5 month old (55 lb) mutt. I’m getting my dog fix on a regular basis at least for the next 6 months or so til he finishes his education. Looking forward to the next update here.
I realized I have a truck U joint so it was too big for the spline of the trans. I was able to get another one from a HAMB member so i am good to go there (if anyone is in need of a truck joint let me know). I had to change out the tail of the 39 trans to a 42 to 48 rear trans mount, so i can use the F1 cross member. I have slowed down some on the car due to clearance issues in the engine and radiator area. I have been researching around on here and chatted with a bunch of folks at Round up about this issue. I was able to purchase a 36 pulley that has the fan mount holes on it. Once option is to machine out this pulley and re key it to fit the 8BA gen. Another option is to purchase a 35/36 generator that would be used to mount the fan too. This will save room in the engine area. For this option to work I will need to lengthen the generator mounting stud and make a spacer to keep the generator in line with the water pumps. My water pumps are truck 50 pumps so I should be good running the single wide belt and keeping the distributor in stock placement. The 2nd option is going to be more work so I am going to try to go with the early pulley on later gen. this last photo is the spacer i am talking about, RobertDIP sent me this and i will be trying to recreate this if need be.
Tried the early fan mounted pulley on the 8ba generator today. Machined it out and it rubs on the casing of the gen. Tried taking a lil off the cooling blades but seems like this route won’t work for me. As I take more n more off it keeps getting closer in on the generator. Also read these generators were not designed to carry the weight of a fan. I won’t completely give up. Saw a post were a guy did this with a more modern generator and mated it with a speedway after market fan driven pulley. The 35/36 pulley I have tapered some on the back side so when I had it machined out it lost most of that tapered section. Might be going with the 35/36 whole generator.
I think I am going with RobertDIP's route and using the full 35/36 generator set up. This route will require extending my generator bolt, which was a cinch with some all thread. I am in the process of purchasing a small milling machine off craigslist to use for the spacer that i will need. I will post more photos of the spacer as it comes together. Here is the result of the all thread.
Being that I am waiting on purchasing a small milling machine I have been slowly tackling my cross member. I went with a F1 cross member i purchased from a H.A.M.B. member. I followed the exact route a few others have show on here, not using anything but the metal from the original cross member just reshaping and shrinking. First photo is what a stock cross member looks like. I cut it into three sections, which you will see below. I then cut three more smaller pieces out from the middle to get it to fit between my rails.
I cut the sides down to fit in the rails and then tack it all together to mock. I have mocked this piece at least 40 times to make sure I have it correct.
love it, jealous! theres a 20 yr old kid on youtube who built his entire frame from scratch. check out macro machines, thats his channel. if he can do that im pretty sure you can make yours true. awesome ptoject
From here I kept using the pieces I had cut off/down to reassemble the cross member back together. it is all just tacked together, besides the three main sections, next I need to lengthen my wishbone and create a cup for the attachment on the bottom. So many others on here have done this so much better, but I am happy with this progress.
The Jalopy Journal
