Projects Modified Lakester Build (THUNDERCASKET)

Hang in there, you are making more progress than I am and have a lot to show for it .

 

If you need inspiration, I will be seeing Bud Hinnman this Sunday. North of 80 and still going strong!

 

Blew my Saturday hacking an old suicide perch off of an old piece off an old T-bucket because I thought I might want to use it and needed to get moving on SOMETHING. The idea was to replace the front crossmember with a piece of 3" angle iron and put this perch on the front somehow. The problem I kept seeing was that I didn't think the angle was going to resist the force with that kind of leverage on it, even at 0.25" thickness, and it was a lot of effort to make it work.

Sunday it occurred to me that I would save myself a lot of grief flipping the iron around and drilling it to take the spring. I've seen cars with perches made similarly and I think I can more easily support this setup to take the load on the front spring.

 

I saw Bud last Sunday (09-22-19) which was the 50th anniversary of his Mid-State Speedway track championship.
I told him he is a hero and a legend here. He said "Someday I will have to get a computer and see what this H.A.M.B. is all about."

 

@patmanta, I’m liking where you’re going with the angle iron & the stock cross member. Sometimes simple is the best answer. Trim it up to look pretty and you’re on your way.

 

I'm actually more likely to get a new piece of angle. I can get a piece of 4 x 3 x 0.25" which will give me room to put all 5 holes in the piece instead of having the U bolts exposed up front or needing to weld loops on.

The original crossmember will be removed and I will put whatever hangers I need for a radiator in its place once I get the steering working again, hopefully without relocating the box but whatever I gotta do I gotta do.

I'm not committed to that yet and I'm going to TROG this week so there's time to mull it over and look at a bunch of other cars in person for ideas.

 

Back from TROG 2019, had a great time, got some ideas, inspiration, & encouragement from other hot rodders, the cars, and the races. I'm going to press on with the plan I outlined above, see where I'm at, maybe move the steering box or torch the pitman arm if that looks like it will get me down the road (or the beach) in this car. I'm definitely keen on wrapping this unending era of basically just mocking this car up over and over and over in favor of driving it.



I posted my pictures up in the T.R.O.G 2019 WILDWOOD photo thread:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/t-r-o-g-2019-wildwood.1167483/



We also met Gene Winfield which was pretty cool



Back to work soon.

 

Glad you had a good time, and met Gene Winfield, but it looks like Timothy Leary puked on your belt.

 

It's actually a vintage horror style belt, not a psychedelic motif.

SO, FINALLY got a bit of good time back in the shop after weeks and weeks of other things taking up my time. Halloween was good but I'm still cleaning up from it outside. I took the week of Thanksgiving off to give myself some ME time to putter around on my lawn tractor and work in the shop. I did get a couple bottles of propane this weekend and fired up the heater in there.

So, on to what I actually did. Mostly it was a lot of moving things around and staring at the car but to get there I finally finished what i was working on when I left off, which was tacking that angle iron on and putting the spring over setup under it.




I'm not over the moon with the results immediately but it's pretty close to the limits of what I think I can do without moving the steering box or going back to a side steer setup. I'm not down as low as I was with the spring behind setup in the existing crossmember but I'm forward a good amount. I am going to wheel this beast out and LOOK before I do anything else this time.

To do that, I gotta get my buddy's Tudor I've been dicking around with since the spring out of my driveway finally.

I have more pictures but I'm having some trouble transferring things today so these two will have to do for now.

 

Well, I tore the car apart and cut on the nose some.

The subframe needed to be ATTACHED to the frame for me to get anywhere, so I spent most of a day nudging, bumping, and measuring until I got the subframe as centered and located as close to where I thought it belonged and put some quarter inch fasteners through the frame to lock it down for now.

The nose was made to sit on the 32 style crossmember, so I had te relieve it to fit over the straight crossmember. So I did an OK job on that for now. I have been mulling a rework or a total remake on my nose lately anyway.



My uncle died this morning. My neighbor died this year. My best friend died just shy of 4 years ago now. I have been dicking around on this car so long that none of these people got to see it run. So I may just do whatever it takes to get it running and still enjoy the process from here on out. The hood is wavy and janky. The nose isn't as straight as I'd like. The firewall is a mess. The steering is no longer ideal. The headers were eating all my time and getting nowhere. The list goes on. I think I'm just going to make it work any which way I can now. I may end up with the naked radiator look for a while, who knows, that's better than it sitting in my shop while I obsess over sheet metal.


This pic is from before I blew it apart and cut on the nose. I was enjoying my day in the shop that day.

 

I think you're on the right track, get it put together, primed and operating. Then you can redo things as you get time. That's the traditional way and what this forum is supposed to be about. You don't need to start with a reveal of America's Most Beautiful Roadster. Git 'er working before you get too old to enjoy it because you never know when that will be.

 

Agree with McGee, get it running or atleast making some noise to get the blood going and figure out where to put your efforts, in a very do as I say, not as I do kind of way Looks like im about 45 minutes away, (Weymouth/ Abington) if you need someone to doddle around and get in the way some day. Sorry to hear about the recent deaths

I know the feeling

 

Thanks guys. Yeah, That's how I'm starting to try to progress. When I go in the shop without a plan, i spend a little time trying to identify what is a roadblock, such as the body not being mounted and just shifting around.

I am now working towards getting the body panels attached to the subframe. Since the subframe turned out to be from a roadster, I've got a little extra work to do to get there but it's really just a matter of making some 18ga wedges to guide the panels. I made the decision to trim and weld the center and rear quarters together; they have always been a bit of a hassle to align otherwise.

I spent some time making some paperboard templates for new B & C pillar feet also. That will go a long way towards getting things done and giving me small projects to chip away at.

Once I get the body together, I'll be shortening the pedals 2.25" so I can figure out the floor. Then back to the steering and firewall mess. Then I suppose it is time to start thinking about the plan for brakes, electrical, and getting the engine back together. I got a Stromberg 97 that had come off a runner from a buddy of mine recently, so I could end up just running the stock intake with that if the triple 94 setup becomes a hassle. I also picked up a set of late wishbones with the upward sweep if I run into trouble with the bones I've got on there now. I'll finish the frame boxing in there somewhere also.

I suppose this car doesn't really have all that far to go.

 

I've moved my build to a friend's shop where three of us will attempt the assembly. Just a couple of days there have forced me to make some choices that now let me see the roadster at the end of the tunnel more clearly.

 

I wish I could work this car that way but I just can't effectively express my vision enough on it usually since things seem to shift so much every time I move something where it needs to go and something else then has to move, etc. I really should have just built the most complete and affordable Model A that I could get my hands on back in 2012 so I had a project car under my belt to drive and enjoy before tackling this particular Adventure in Scope Creep! When guys come over to visit my shop, we usually spend most of it talking, sometimes even about the car, or on good days, eyeballing things and tossing ideas around for it. My shop is small anyway.

I made the mistake of thinking I could whip that Tudor into rolling shape with my buddy in a few weekends this spring too. That was an adventure in One Missing, Damaged, or Incorrectly Sized Part Costs You Another Week and so it just left my house last week, LOL. We did an awful lot more talking than working in the process. I enjoyed doing that but it did take up a lot more of my time and energy than I bargained for, so this build as well as my 29 AAV8 build saw a little neglect.

 

One of the friends helping me has been building hot rods since the '60s and was part of the Southern California rodding scene back then. He has great vision and knows where I want to go with mine build. The other guy is an engine builder and is doing the assembly of my gathered and much modified 4 cylinder Chevy. I am very happy with how they are following my plan even though it is not in some cases what they would do. Their experience is already helping to avoid some problems. I'm very lucky. Bruce is putting his roadster in storage so we have more room in his shop to work on my car.

 

Last weekend before I had to leave the state, I started work on fusing the center and rear quarter panels.

I am not exactly satisfied with it. I am starting to think I need to make my own B/C pillar and form these panels to that instead of trying to get these hodgepodge panels to behave with just the original pieces. Yet another setback I don't need on this car but it's just not right.

 

Wishing you all following along a happy new year a week or so late.

I have not set foot in my shop for a month between my Uncle's funeral and the holidays. All that has just knocked too much wind out of my sails to the point that I didn't even want to play in my shop on the time I had all to myself.

However, yesterday after narrowly dodging being impaneled on a jury, I made my way over to see my neighbor, Paul, and talk about our builds (he and his sons 34 pu and my two builds). I ran my ideas about making the new pillars and my issues with the sheet metal not laying right and he agreed I was on a good track.

 

Sorry about your uncle. Sometimes life makes us take a break, not necessarily a bad thing. As long as you are thinking about it and talking about your mind is working on it. Maybe that is why it's good to have more than one project.
I'm making some progress beyond just planning and parts gathering on my roadster but I woke up this morning thinking of a major new direction. I'll see how a feel later.

 

I've finally gotten some work done that I'm happy with and should advance the build considerably. Having something other than a bunch of floppy panels held together crooked with clamps has been a pox on this project for years and I made the decision that I needed to get that under control to get any further. SO, I made up a template, got my band saw back in action (I ended up having to make a tensioner knob for it), put up new shop lights, and set about cutting on some 2" box tubing I've had for ages.




Originally I was going to make one and cut it down the center to give me two but I liked how sturdy the piece felt that I made a second one to match. I'm pleased with the level of precision I was able to get on these. They are close enough to identical to give me a good shot at some semblance of symmetry on the body.

 

Now yer back in gear. Go Man!
Art

 

That is major progress and nice work. I love tools! Symmetry ? You can't see both sides at once. Don't get picky now.

 

I have started trying to put the body together. It is a challenge, but I haven't been outright defeated. I have one side on where I think it looks right.

I started mirroring my work to the panels for the passenger side so I can get everything working together. Hopefully I don't need to section the rear panel I made to get the width right.

 

Roll on buddy!

 

I'm nearing body assembly and I know what you are going through. There is such a difference in a mock up that looks cool and an assembled body that functions. Keep going!

 

I got the body tacked and clamped together this weekend and even started figuring out the floor and rear shock mounts (since they both interact with and influence the design of the body). And so after a little over a year, I rolled the ol Thundercasket out for some pictures to see how I did in fixing that tiptoed bucktooth dragass look I had going.

I think I did it.



Sh*tbird's eye view (my toilet makes a good seat to shoot these):



I will be making some sort of chin piece to finish the front end off and either fill the sides with pipes and muffler or some roll pans to cover the exposed frame under the body.

So, here we are (please excuse my messy shop and driveway).

 

Rewinding a bit, here is where I was on Sunday, still in the shop and playing with the roll bar, which I have decided that I think needs to be either cut down or replaced with one of my own design and manufacture.



Fast forward a bit to when these hooligans @JVK54 & his buddy with the Seneca swung by for a visit and some chatter about shock placement.



Fast Forward again to when the sun is getting low, my neighbor, Paul, came by to jusdge my progress for himself and we started playing around with those long tube mufflers I picked up a few years back. I had been pretty dead set on building the huge, modular, bottle muffler setup, BUT, since I stalled making the tube headers for now, I may go with these for stage 1.

 

Good to see it pieced back together and outside where you can get a good look at it.
I have some of the old wood and one quarter on my frame. After seeing this I think I'll set the cowl and doors on and get some pictures before I tear all of the wood out of the body panels. Just for some inspiration photos if nothing else.

 

Great Hotrod taking shape Pat...that profile looks pretty darn spiffy to me...

 

I had intended to do some side by side comparisons earlier but had too much to do. So here is that. OLD as of April '19 (Posts #619 & #620) vs. NEW as of February '20:

3/4 front OLD

3/4 Front NEW


Side OLD

Side NEW (I didn't get a great flat on angle for this one but it's close enough to get the idea)



3/4 Old

3/4 new


Overhead OLD

Overhead NEW

Hard to see a difference but there is one!

Dramatic angle OLD

Dramatic angle NEW




Fixed the pictures in post #687 too BTW.