Projects Romeo and Juliet - A 1950s Period 28 roadster build.

I'm following along.

 

All good stuff and a great story, looking forward to seeing more.

 

Great story and congratulations on the engagement! Thanks for the link to this thread in your other thread, too.

 

If I said you have a nice body would you hold it against me? The car I mean...that's one of the most straight rust free roadster bodies I've seen...also Congratulations!

 

hahaha The car is very straight! Only thing wrong with it is it was originally a rumble seat car and someone was in the process of making it a regular decklid but never finished. Other than that its ready to go. I feel bad for having to cut the subframe when I step the rear..

 

"I'm in the camp that believes wherever the front axle ends up, the radiator and grille must be directly over, just my cup of tea."

Me, too. The radiator and grille should be centered over the front wheels. And for some reason you gotta have a 32 grille, it needs to be lowered a little -- so the hood (or even without one) line doesn't look like it's running up hill.

I've often seen hot rods with the motor moved back so far that they've added a fan extension to get it up to the radiator. Without a hood, these look like something's missing between the engine and the radiator.

 

Gotta love a "drop-dead-good-look'in-babe".....who digs hot rods!
Congrats and enjoy (both!)
6sally6

 

Awesome, congrats on both the engagement and the roadster! This is going to be an awesome car and I love the direction you're taking it. Have fun!

 

Mock up day!
Today we bolted the front axle back in and rolled the car forward to give us some working room.

We then set the engine and trans in the car where it will need to sit. I marked the frame where the body sat in the stock location and then slid it back 3”. This gave us almost enough room for the engine but the firewall will have to be dished about 1-2”. With the frame stretched 3”, the proportions still look good (it will have the wheel base of a 32 now) but we decided not to go beyond that. In these pictures the body will come forward another 1-1/2” and the rear axle slides back. Tomorrow the axles will come back out and the car set on jack stands to figure out the ride height. More to come!

 

Looks like a cool project!

 

Much better!

 

Life and car show season has been getting in the way, but we have nonetheless been gathering parts and ideas for this little roadster. We moved the body to storage to clear space for the frame work and tore down the front end. Originally we were going to send the axle off to get dropped but I found a nice 4" dropped model A axle this past weekend at the roundup.

 

Cute chick who digs hot rod roadsters. Doesn’t get any better than that.

 

Congrats on the engagement & certainly looks like a great project! I too will subscribe & follow along!

 

Just to let you know, that T bird motor has some T bird only parts that you may be better off getting rid of. The thermostat housing can replaced with one that points up, a truck style. and the T birds have a spacer behind the water pump that is not needed and without it you can get the water pump back back about an inch or more. Also the T bird guys would love to buy these items.
I have heard some say that that water pump spacer also makes the cooling system not cool as well as without it.

The oil pan and front cover are also T bird only but they should not cause any problems, in fact the rear sump T bird pan helps a lot.

 

Great info, thanks! I will definitely be removing the spacer and using the truck style thermostat housing now. Im new to these Y-blocks, I only really know flatheads and a little chrysler HEMI stuff so any info on Y-blocks is appreciated.

 

Great story and cool build congratulations

 

I am following this build thread carefully because I think you had the right idea at the beginning, but have lost your way somewhere along the path.

You are not the first one to stretch the wheelbase rearward in order to gain engine clearance, but it looks almost as goofy this way as stretching it to the front. The goal in my humble opinion is to create enough room for the motor without changing the cowl-to-radiator relationship.

There are a lot of quick and dirty ways of changing the car to allow an oversize motor to fit, but they all involve changing the car's proportions. The real challenge - and the one that has been met by many builders of "timeless" hot rods - is to get the oversize motor in WITHOUT changing the external proportions.

As I mentioned earlier, there are many who simply accept changing the proportions as acceptable behavior when building a hot rod...and will argue that point from sunup to sundown. And that's fine - for them. And perhaps for you, too. I just don't want you to build a really nice car and then, when it's finally finished and painted, to have you stand back from the car for perhaps the first time and say to yourself, "man, it just doesn't look as good as I had hoped."

Good luck, great project!

 

Creating space for oversized engines without messing with the wheel base usually involves setting the engine back in the firewall too far or pushing the radiator forward which in my humble opinion looks as goofy as a car thats too long and also losing foot room. I see what youre saying, and I agree but im not stretching the frame liberally. This engine will be a shoehorn fit with firewall modification and just enough space between the fan and radiator for a belt. I am stretching the frame but only 3" which matches a 32 wheel base. The cowl to radiator relationship for a model a on 32 frame looks great to me. Of course, this will be the absolute maximum Ill allow myself to lengthen it as to not make it look dorky.
I Appreciate the interest, Im definitely being careful with this one and I think the finished product is going to be a fine example of a hotrod!

 

Some good points by 46International. I do remember from my time working at a T-bird only restoration place that the damper/bottom pulley setup on a T bird is different than a passenger car, and also highly sought-after by restorers, maybe due to the water pump spacer that was mentioned? In a hotrod, you could just use a regular passenger car one, it gives no performance advantage but a T-bird guy who needs one might pay a small fortune for those pieces. Would add a few bucks back to the build budget for sure. (assuming that's what's on this one, I could never tell them apart)

 

Yes, if you are dead-set against cutting the firewall you have no other choice. But...what is wrong with cutting the firewall? You hear all the blah-blah about keeping the firewall intact, but to what purpose?

It's only been recently that not cutting the firewall has become important enough to sacrifice the proportions of the rest of the car to avoid. Does that really make sense?

The "footroom" argument doesn't hold much water either, especially in a hot rod roadster in which you are going to move the seat to the rear anyway. Just move it back more, that's all.

My honest fear is that you've been listening to the "virgin firewall crowd" too much and are going to redesign and re-engineer your hot rod to make them happy rather than doing what makes sense.

Your T-Bird motor will fit just fine in a stock wheelbase '29 roadster. Leaving the radiator in the stock location, simply make the engine as short as possible and mount the motor/transmission where it is comfortable in the frame. Then mount the body around it, trimming the firewall wherever it interferes. Then mount your pedals and steering column. Lastly mount your seat wherever the seat-to-pedal distance is appropriate.

Great project, good luck!

EDIT: Take some time to look at the "Roaring Roadster" track roadsters of the late '40s and early '50s to see how they did it. They were some of the most beautifully proportioned hot rods ever, and some of the best performing cars as well. They knew the fastest way around the track was to mount the engines as low and as far back in the wheelbase as possible. It is true that some of them went to extremes, but these basic principals were followed and still apply today.

 

Juliet came to the shop with me this weekend so we decided to start the real work. First things first the frame step. With the body moved to storage we cleared a clean space to work on the frame. Ive seen people just weld an x brace on these model A frames then chop them but I had some I-beams laying around so I decided to go the extra mile to make sure this thing stayed square. Juliet cleaned some spots on the frame and the beams to get a clean tack on. With the frame tacked and leveled to the beams it was time to get cutting.
This slant cut is where Im getting the extra 3” from.




Ive heard mixed things about boxing the backside of frame steps, but I decided to box this one just for peace of mind.
Its 95° and humid here in East Texas so we’re taking a break. More to come later after it cools down!

 

Next we split the wishbones and I welded in the bungs. I lost about 2 gallons of sweat today. Im beat.

 

You are making good progress. It's looking good!

 

Great project and very cool she's in there getting sweaty and dirty with you. Looking forward to the updates

 

Cool

 

Back from hiatus! Between wedding planning, summer events taking up almost every weekend, and 100°+ Texas days; we just haven’t been able to get any work done on the roadster. Now that the Summer is winding down and the temps are dropping (sort of), we are able to get back in the shop!

First thing was to take the water pump and lower pulley off to shorten up the front of the motor.


The Ford engineer that designed the T-bird lower pulley must have hated mechanics but with a little heat persuasion we got it off.
Next I tacked in the motor mounts and started measuring for the motor cradle bracket thingy. I used a 3/8”x2” bar stock and bent it up in the press to the shape I desired.

 

I then turned down some pieces to make “pads” for strength.


With the Cross member trimmed and motor mounts half way welded in, we set the engine in.


The bracket will get ribs top and bottom for strength, but wanted to see the engine sitting in the frame. More to come later!

 

Today Juliet cleaned the grime off the rear end, and I got to work tacking the wishbone brackets on.



Next will be to mount the transmission and figure out the pinion angle so we can weld on the rear spring hangers, but that will have to wait until next time. Back to the real world we go

 

Many hands lighten the load. I dig the T-Bird mill!