Started building my '34 Chevy's chassis

So far very cool! Great job.

 

Mounting the engine and transmission

I can't believe I'm already at the point of mounting the engine. It feels like I've reached a major milestone.

The engine is a Chevy 350 and the transmission a TH-350 from about 1971. Both will be freshened up a bit to make this car go reasonably well. Nothing extravagant as I don't have a major budget to work with here.

First off I cut a piece out of the center cross-member wide enough for the transmission. The transmission mounting will sit on that lower portion of the cross-member. I then cut pieces of 3mm flat-bar to close up the gaps again.

Next I bolted the transmission to the cross-member. As this was a week evening I didn't have much time to go further so I put a piece of wood across the frame and under the oil-pan for the engine to rest on 'till I could do the engine mountings.

 

This morning I let the front of the engine hang from the engine hoist while I got it to the right height and got it centered. What a mission! One would'nt think it could take so long. Measure, move, measure, move until you eventually have it there. In the end I didn't really have to go through all that trouble as my measurement for the engine mountings were spot on. I did however have to confirm that first before assembling the mountings.

The first photo shows the left mounting fully assembled, bolted to both the engine and the chassis brackets. The chassis brackets which were tack welded to the frame once I had the mountings tacked and bolted to the engine. That way you ensure they are in the right place.

In the second and last photos the engine now rests fully on it's new mountings. To be honest I'm quite chuffed with how they turned out.

Yes, the engine does seem to sit a bit high but the whole idea behind that is so that nothing sticks out below the chassis.

 

It was time I worked on this poject again. I am now not too far from finished with all my major fabrication on the chassis.

Seeing that the rear shock mountings have been done it was time to do the front. First off was to fabricate two shock towers to place on the chassis next to the grill. Nothing too fancy was needed so I came with this fairly boxy design.

The first pic just shows the three pieces of 50mm x 5mm flat bar that make up each shock tower while the second shows where I tack welded them together.

In the third pic they are tack welded to the chassis with an old (mock-up) shock fitted. My next entry will show the shock mountings wishbones on the wishbones a bit closer up.

 

These pics just show the front shock mountings that go onto the wishbones. The second pic is a close-up of the one where the front panhard bar will bolt to. That one will be the left rear of the shock mounts. The panhard bar's other end will then be fitted the the right shock tower.

 

Although I'll only be welding the fish-plates onto the chassis a bit later on I also cut them while I was busy with the plasma cutter. I managed to get those lines so nice and straight by using a piece of masonite as a guide against which I could "slide" the torch. It actually makes for some very nice cuts.

I also made the rear panhard bar's axle bracket while I was at it. The smaller top hole is where the panhard bar will be bolted in. As you can see the welds still needs to be cleaned up a bit.

 

wow, I really llike your coil cover.
Make any extras?
r
r

 

No, unfortunately I didn't.

 

I finally got to doing the panhard bars for both the front and rear as shown in the first photo. The longer one at the top is the front bar while the shorter one is for the rear.

The second and third photos shows the front bar installed between the right shock tower and the left wishbone.

The last photo shows the rear panhard bar and bracket installation.

 

During the week I went parts hunting and amongst others came home with this speedo cluster. It was labelled as coming from a Hudson. After some research I identified it as coming from a 1954 Hudson Jet.

 

I like the coil cover idea

 

Thanks!

 

I had the radiator support laser cut and cnc bent earlier with all the other laser cut parts. It's the bottom item in the first pic. They just couldn't bend the two ends in also. The second pic shows where I bent the two ends myself. After that I welded up the seams on the corners to make it stronger. In the last pic it's installed between the frame rails right behind the spring perch. You'll also notice I welded fish-plates to the inside of the frame to sort of hide them from view. I then drilled and tapped two holes in each to bolt the radiator support in place.

 

Made another milestone! Got the body on the frame before year-end...

This was the very first fit and I did the final lowering at about 8:30pm last night. AND, I did it all by my lonesome self. That's where the gantry and 1.5 ton block and tackle comes in very handy.

The planks you see it resting on gives it the 4 inch channeled height I want. Even if I can say so myself...I think it's going to look awesome when done. The height and the 3 degree rake is just perfect.

Yes, it doesn't look 100% right yet but that's because the body needs to be moved forward by about 2 inches or so. That'll close up the gap between the firewall and engine a bit.

I also couldn't resist taking the photos with the front of the proposed grill shell in place and the '39 Chevy headlight bucket as the air-filter scoop. Next on the list is to get a set of wheels on it but the front will have to wait till mid January when I can have the front hubs made.

In the mean time I'm going to started getting the body squared up so I can build the floor structure and get bracing in it for the chop.

 

I finally managed to get to the machine shop to pick up my new front hubs and rear spacers and I must add they came out very nice.

The front hubs will allow me to convert to disc brakes using the stock wheel bearings as I had the internal dimensions machined according to the original '38 Ford drum. I tried to keep the external dimenions with regards to the wheel mounting surface in relation to the wheel bearings the same too. The bolt pattern was also specified to be a Chevy bolt pattern. The brakes I'll be using are from a 1980's BMW 528. Once I've got new bearings and got the hubs fitted I can go and fabricate the brake calliper brackets.

The rear spacers are 30mm wide to push the rear tyres away from the body that little bit.

 

great fab work,that coil cover is bitchin!

 

I have now had the rear wheels widened from 5" to 8". This pic is just to show the difference between one of the widened rims and a stock rim. Now I need to send them for powder-coating, most probably red.

 

Hi,

I'm starting on my '34 Chev sedan next month.
Another one in SA! I'm in Cape Town

Steve

 

Thank you! Proof at last that you can build a rod in South Africa without bloody Jag suspension!

We know all about Jag IRS in '70s T-buckets, but where did this Jag IFS with a live axle thing come from? You just can't convince some guys.