I am going to run a 1957 ford truck pedal assy and use its brake and clutch master cylinders along with a '62 chevy slave cylinder. This last weekend I built the clutch slave cylinder setup for the tranny.
He has them correct. That’s the way the late style go. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
With all my projects I love telling the story as much as showing the car. Context is very important. You made my heart stop asking if I had the bones on upside down. Then I remembered I actually did install them upside down the first try, but the rod ends ended up way to low and I re-installed them the way they are now. LOL Thanks for the memory! They are '47 rod ends if I remember correctly. I have a friend "Corky" that had an uncut front wishbone hanging up in his shop. I traded the hairpins for it. He is the only reason I had the courage to wade into this car. I know absolutely nothing about this pre 1950's stuff and would not have attempted it without his guidance and knowledge.
I just bought this '52 F100 drive train from a friend of mine that is doing the crown vic swap into this truck. This is significantly accelerate my project. The engine I have had in my project was just a stuck engine used for mocking everything up.
I have got to admire you for tackling such a project. I've drug some pretty bad stuff home, but your project made mine look good. Congrats lookin good and it is lucky you were persistent about buying.
Just found this. Good job and please keep the updates coming. They say you can't make a silk purse from a sows ear, but in an old car guys eyes you are.
Thanks for the encouragement to everyone who has commented. I thought I had been building cars for years before this project, but I had only been restoring cars in reality. Or modifying them. I had no idea what goes into building one of these. I had no idea just how custom each one is. It's probably good that I did not really understand. I might not have jumped in if I did. But now I am hooked. This weekend me and Corky brought the "new" engine to my shop and set it in the chassis. This is the first time the entire drive train has been installed. Crap! I managed to build my drive shaft about 3/8" to short! I still don't know how. So I spent the rest of the weekend moving the engine and tranny back to match. I had to put the steering box and headers on to check clearance. Everything still clears! Thank God!
Well I got my shocks mounted. They have more angle than I would like. I did not want to put a lot of heat into welding the radius rod ends directly to the bell, so I welded the radius rod ends to a section of leaf spring and clamped it to the bell. After this picture was taken, I then tacked the U-bolts to the bell in several places around the bell. These are pretty heavy duty shocks from a large Chrysler product in the 70's. Even working at an angular disadvantage I think they will stop the bouncing. I am now working to get the body back on. Building the front body mounts tonight. Everything had to shift back that 3/8" due to my error in cutting down the drive shaft. I cant wait to see it back together, looking like a car again.
Great job. A lot of your pictures look awfully familiar to me. Your skills will come, by the time I got done with mine I could almost weld.
Stretching the wheelbase (frame) a little bit is good, making the firewall hoop to radiator distance longer is not good for the overall look of the car. Proportions are what separate really pretty hot rods from those that are just mechanically adequate. I wish you'd talked to a few more experienced guys before opting to not cut or reverse your firewall. You are locked in at this point and can't move your radiator back to the stock position which would have really helped the proportions of your car, especially since it's chopped and channeled. What you can do to help improve the overall proportions with a nose that is longer than stock is to tilt the body slightly to the front on the frame, drop the front of the car so that the frame has an approximately 4 to 5-degree rake instead of the more common 3-degrees. You can cut the radiator shell so that it is approximately 1" to 2" lower than the cowl, and you can run a heavy big 'n' little tire/wheel combination. This will give the car more of a "wedge" look and help minimize the Pinocchio look that to my eye is not all that attractive. Look at some real old school builds - not modern interpretations - and see what I'm talking about. You may not agree with this advice, after all hot rods are about beauty in the eye of the owner. But perhaps you will, and in that case I have done my "graybeard duty" of offering advice when its not asked for. Us old guys are like that. Great build!
Ya, I might be able to weld by the end of the program as well. I agree that anything I make from this effort will be better than were this crust of a body would have ended up without me. MissysDad1: I didn't know I had a Pinocchio problem? Sometimes ignorance is bliss!
Thanks Tutashen! I am having a good time building this car. Every time I go out to my shop I cant believe my eyes. Never thought I would have something like this going on.
Been working on building the floor and also decided to raise the front end of the body (firewall end) up about 1/2". Now the hood (If I had one) would be setting level.
I like what you are doing. I would rethink those rear shocks. They will do nothing for you like that I'm guessing. Just a thought.
Most tube shocks will not work if upside down, unless a certain one is designed to be mounted upside down. It's the internal oil pickup location that needs to be at the bottom, not the top.....Think of a bottle jack that will work as designed, but it will not work if it's upside down when using it as a porta-power tool. It won't take long to disconnect the top end of one of yours and then push it up and down to see if it feels like it's not dampening at all, or feels like it has no fluid in it.
The Jalopy Journal
