Projects Haulin' ass in fiberglass

What kind of welder are you playing with? Looks like your off to a good start.

 

It's a Primeweld TIG225X and got great reviews. I don't need a production machine, just a good, reliable unit I can built my junk with.

 

If it makes a proper ark, that is all that matters.
Get were your good when comfortable, then work on getting good when your uncomfortable.

 

So my last post was just before we broke ground on the new garage at what WAS "The River Party House". Absolutely nothing has been done on the'32 due to lack of space in the old garage, but that will change soon. We're a couple weeks away from signing off on the new garage, then escrow starts on the "old" house. We'll have 30 days to move all the cars and equipment to what will now be our full time place at the river. The 2 car hoist will be here soon so we can store 2 on top and park 2 under them. A 2 post lift will also go in near the unlit room in the pic.
Electrical is done and I'm happy my lighting design came out perfectly. 5K LED lighting totaling around 250,000 lumens with no shadows.
The '32 will be in progress soon......

 

Wow! There will be no more excuses for not getting things done working in this fantastic garage!

 

The '31 is here now, lift is assembled and the Deuce will be here Sunday. The wife's cars come in the next couple trips and then the '32 gets blown apart..... again, to finish the frame work.

 

Very nice shop.

 

Nope, it's a jet and that 4 cylinder? It's actually built and over 460 ci. If it was a whacker or I/O you'd expect the wheel on the right. You must be from the East Coast......

 

Thanks. Would've liked to have built bigger, but used every inch code would allow with this. Was actually out of room before the ink on the plans was dry, but will have to make this work.

 

Brought the next load in. The mess is starting, but don't have the benches here yet. Gotta do some organization today...

 

STOP! Before you move another thing in there get the floor epoxy coated! Once everything is in there it’s too late. If you coat the floor now every time you have to get down on the floor you’ll come up cleaner. It’s also brighter and spills clean up so much easier. Uncoated concrete makes its own dust, it’s never clean. Ask me how I know, I’ve broken the rule twice and now have so much stuff in my shop I can’t ever get it coated. Just my .02 worth, YMMV….

 

Absolutely no to the floor epoxy. If you do any amount of welding or cutting you’ll destroy the coating.
Fab shops have bare concrete floors for a reason.

 

Since I offered my opinion on coating your floor I have been checking out a build on Garage Journal where the guy used a product called a concrete densifier on his floors. His choice seems to be the modern way to go as it hardens the top surface of the concrete to stop dusting and makes it water and oil resistant, but it’s compatible with the large amount of fab and welding work he does in his shop. I’ve got more research to do, but from the few YouTube videos I’ve watched, it looks pretty simple to apply and works great! Best part is that I can still do it after all my crap has been in the shop. So, yes, if you weld and cut in your shop, Blue One is right.

 

Absolutely the right way to go. In 2003 we did a 32 x 48 foot floor in my dads shop. We had the concrete guys add some bags of hardener to the mix and then we used a bunch more bags scattered around on the surface of the floor while the concrete was still wet and they then sprinkled it liberally with water while they power troweled the surface.

There are lots of colors available, we used a red color and the floor turned out a beautiful shade somewhat like antique red brick.

Smooth and hard and really tough and has been really durable and easy to clean.

One example of a product.
https://surecretedesign.com/product/concrete-color-hardener/

 

When my shop was built 25+ years ago, I put on what I believe was called a "sealer". It was a long time ago so I don't recall the product, but it was quite thin, clear to perhaps a bit milky looking, and I applied it with a squeegie. The concrete finishers power-trowled the dickens out of the floor so it was really smooth and oil didn't soak into it with the coating. The floor was polished so slick by the finishers I only used about 1/2 as much product as it suggested I might. I will stress that it was not just a "topical" coating, it soaked into the pores of the concrete.

I ran a fabrication business out of 1/2 of the shop, so that side it pretty scared up after years of dropping and dragging things around, but the outer areas and the 1/2 that I used for "storage" are still quite nice.

If memory serves, I bought the product from a paint store that sold Sherwin Williams products, but I don't know if the sealer was a S-W product. If I were building today I would try to seek out the same or similar product.

Lynn

 

A long time ago I had a friend that was a Lincoln man born and bred. His daily was a '64 suicide more door. One thing that he liked about his Lincolns was the bank vault door sound as opposed to the tinny sound of a "cheap assed Ford" [quote my old friend].

So one day he decided that he really wanted a hot rod Lincoln. He rounded up an old coupe and a 430 (guess the Lincoln Y block was just not enough motor for him). While he was building the car he decided he did not like them tinny sound of the original doors. So he cut the inside of the door off and leaded the inside of the doors then welded the door structure back on. he worked the latches until they were smooth enough for him (this was pre bear claws). When he closed his doors that closed with a quiet thunk. Did not sound Henry steel at all.

 

While that can work for a nice floor, it’s not what I was explaining or describing.
Here is a better explanation than I can do….
https://royaleconcrete.com/what-is-a-concrete-densifier/
I really am excited to try this stuff as I hate how every time I get down on my shop floor I come up dirty, even though I try to sweep and mop it often.

 

Okay well now you’re talking in circles as the stuff I described does exactly the same thing.

In my dads shop you could lay down on the floor in white coveralls if you chose to and there’s none of the typical concrete dust.

Not that the shop is always that clean however you get the point.

 

All good feedback. The cool part about building it from scratch rather than adapting someone else's is the little stuff. The slab was poured to channel water down the middle of the 16' door. I can hose down the whole garage in a matter of a few minutes and very little broom work is required. We installed a water filtration unit with a spigot inside to wash down the cars and boat as well.
With how the garage will be used I'm best off with plain concrete. The "show" parts of the shop will have flooring, but at the end of the day this will be a working garage.

 

Sooo, starting to get back on the '32 one piece at a time. The new air compressor won't be in until next week, so I'm not real functional yet, but am making a few changes in the build.
I have a spare block I'll be building and since there's no real street duty planned for this car it'll be considerably higher CR than the current plan (10.5:1). The intake and carb I currently have for it will hold back the new engine, so I'm picking up parts more suited for it (and possibly usable on the current). I have a Torker II and 950HP now, but they'll leave alot of horsepower on the table with more compression. Got a deal on this 1050 so spent some time detailing the crappy castings. Will this give me more power? Maybe not, but air doesn't like to flow over casting flash and bumpy surfaces, so might as well.
Now on the hunt for a Victor intake.

 

So after being sidelined for a year and a half to build the garage and get moved (promise no more garage stuff), I finally got the trans crossmember trimmed to fit. Now I'll get the bracket for the tailshaft mount fabbed up and blow all this apart! The broomstick is where the strut tying the front 4 link bracket to the rail will go. Am I the only one that uses broomsticks for layout?
Feels good to be moving forward again. It'll be even better when the compressor I ordered gets here... in December.

 

Ready to come apart after getting the seat mounts done. Have to weld the front seat mounting nuts in before the crossmember gets welded in.
The cars previous mission of being street legal is evident in these shots. If it had started out as strictly a track car I wouldn't have used '32 rails, square tube, power brakes (under floor at that), etc. Looking more and more like I'll be building a more purpose-built car after this one is done.

 

That is cool, I have never even heard of a lift that was two cars wide let alone seen one

I notice a couple of unicycles too. I was just getting pretty good(ish) with mine when Covid hit ... I am not interested in a hospital visit until the virus is controlled so I've stayed off it

 

The lift was the best money I spent on this garage. Was out of room before the ink on the plans had dried, so it basically gave me half the garage back.
Started riding over 50 years ago and it's like riding a bike... you never really lose it. What you DO learn at my age is how to fall without injuring yourself too badly! Small wheel is for stu nts and the big wheel is for speed.

 

Just put a lot of travel in the foot feed.

 

Been a long year. Garage done, compressor finally came, lift is in and operational.
Time to finish this thing up....

 

Geezus... FINALLY some progress. Drive angle is set, trans crossmember was fabbed up today! On the monumental scale this probably doesn't seem big, but it means I can now blow all this apart, finish the engine build, rollerize the C6, finish weld the frame and start fabbing the roll cage.
It's all downhill from here...

 

Ordered the driveshaft today. Gonna be interesting to see your responses when you see what it'll be!

 

Bet on carbon fiber

 

Not gonna be CF, this is a REAL budget build now. It's steel, but the type of driveshaft is a bit unconventional for drag racing. It'll be interesting seeing how tech inspection deals with it...