The torsion bar and arms are very much like a Fuller car . Check with Rice man and send him pictures he may be able to help on who built the chassis. Re do your photos and turn them up right to help us see the car. dwrfab Don Ross
Howdy Folks. I'm the guy who is responsible to rob this beaty from your country! I was working in Hays, Kansas at 2007 and noticed an add about the dragster at Tulsa craigslist. I had a weekend off and I was planning to go see some Nostalgia Drags there at weekend so this made the driving well wort of it. Except when i was at Tulsa (after 400 miles) i called the seller he told that he was not at Tulsa, he was at Greenville. I said OK, i have a GPS (sorry everybody). After i notised from this plastic brain that there is no Greenville in OK, i called the seller again. Well, he told he's at Greenville TEXAS!!! Not too far, only 240 more, so thats where i'll go. Seller, Mike (if i remember correctly) was kind enough to come to show me the dragster at sunday morning. We made the deal, with the transport to Hays, KS. He came as agreed and i took the dragster with original trailer to my work site and packed it to the 40' conex for shipping to Finland later. He told me that he bought it from the heirs of Mr Crow. Ha also told that Mr Crow had died at -84 (or -83), 1 week after he last time raced with the dragster, at round 80 years young! Trailer has last sticker at tag from -84. The heirs, of course, wanted to sell it right away but ol' lady said that you can sell it when she is gone. And she passed at 2006 (or 07). And that was the point when this guy got the thing. He told me that it had a sbc with mech injection and a clutch-flite. I did get the motor from him, but it was totally crap (as he told me already). Pistons were really ''grown'' together with the cylinders, probably caused by the methanol left there after the last race. This is the story what he told me, also he promised to send me some photos from the time when they went pick up the traile/dragster but i never recieved those. I was supposed to get the tranny also, but at the time of the transport it was at sellers friends place. We agreed later that he will send the the tranny to me with somebody who was going to Nebraska thru the KS, but a had to leave to my next work assingnment. So i never was able to get it, i wasn't too happy cause i'm a big clutch flite fan. (I have 3 of those) The tranny and intake i purchased from Turkey Run swap at Florida couple years later. I got The tranny and another case, and it's made by Fairbanks / B @ M. The intake story was that the seller told that some company made these in Texas at early 60's, and at somewhere round 63-64 cover of hot rod magazine have a FED with samekind of intake on it. The square intake runners are cast, and welded together with that kind of manner which i can tell (I used to be a welder) that it's really ol'skool (no skool?) welding. Barrel valve looks really weird to me, it doesn't have a return side at all, like there is normally at barrel valves. I can't tell has it been at gas or methanol use. It is definitely a home made piece, not any kind of hilborn/kinsler/etc piece. It has 2 piece cast alu housing with grinder marks on it. I have a TF Harley with mech injection so i know something about these systems, but this is really something what i've never seen. Is is possible that it works with ''original'' fuel pump? What i mean is like a round 7 psi pressure? Thats only what i can figure out, right now. Sorry about the long post, but i had all this in my head and if i stop i dont know what comes out next.
Howdy Gremlin, i am clad you got this all out of your head, i know what might happen if it stays there too long... heh heh by the way, i just payed the taxes for your triumph. they robbed me, 11,90€ ps: if you wisit swapmeets in USA on your holiday, let me know isto
i can verify this as mr. crowes car. ran at alton and mar in the stl area. we line dup against him many times. he ran in jr. fuel and later in comp elim. wound up as a c gas later in the 60s. competitive little car. so glad to see you restoring it, very nostalgic to me. so happy that it is a survivor. I WILL TRY TO FIND SOME PICS FOR YOU. MY AUNT OR MY MOTHER MAY HAVE A FEW .im so so happy that this car found a new home. finland is a fine place for it to end up. good luck.and it ran on both gas and methanol at different times.ran in high 9 s if i remember right
hello again, i fainally got home ol´crow trailer and here is some pictures of it. plywood is really wet and whole trailer smells like there is lot of mold. roof is total crap and i haveto rebuild it totally. iwe been thinking that it would be much easyer to buil new but its not the same. ill try to save as much as possible form the original trailer. hope the walls are not as bad as roof because i want to save old paintings. they are so cool with crow riding dragster and holding his hat... isto
Yes, trailer roof went really bad since it was a winter outside, and got lot of snow and rain during those months. I was working abroad during that time and agreed with my buddy's that they will pull it in before the winter, which of cource never happened. My plan with the trailer originally was that i just remove the original sheets from the wall's and make a complete new trailer and install the original walls in to it. You need to change the axle and the hitch connector anyway cause they dont approve those at Finnish ""DMW""inspection. Make a steel frame from square tubing, then make the wall's from 1''-2'' thick steel/alu plated insulated wall panels to be same size as original. Then install original wall sheets to it. Quickest and easiest way, at least on my opinion...
This is very cool. I will forward this link to a friend of mine that raced dragsters at Alton in the 60s alot. See if he remembers anything about this. Keep at it.
hello there, here is some new photos of my project! The frame has been bent littlebit from here and there and there is couple of cracks on frame rails. pushbar is also bent. i am putting the frame on a jig next week and pull it staright and put some new tube where the cracks are. only problem is that its really difficult to find 1"3/8 tubing from here. iwe been asking around but all frame builders use different size. i think ill haveto ask from sweden. Iwe been told that framebuilder has been Jerry Dawson. take a look at the mr.Crows "firesuit" its made out of a cotton and painted with silver exhaustpaint... might be difficulties with safetyrools nowdays??
Aircraft Spruce 1-877-477-7823 www.aircraftspruce.com They have international reps and sell world-wide They will sell c/m tubing by the foot and no cut charge 1 3/8 x .058 $4.35ft
I showed the Pics to My Dad who ran at Alton and also Managed the local strip here for awhile. He immediatley said "Looks Like A Stuckey Car" but didnt remember the car or Charlie from there(Alton)
Some of these old cars have thin chrome moly .035- .043. So X-ray and eye fu** everything on it. Some cars also used the frame rails as puke tanks. Bore scope is a good tool to have when checking out older cars. Good luck with it and post some pics.
Never weld up cracks and before you cut, make sure youre able to repair the tube properly. Not all sizes of chrome moly are teloscopic, so when butt welding in a new tube make sure there's a piece inside both new and old tubes for alignment and strength. Look for spots that have grinding marks and repair them. If anyone has gas welded brass or bronze, cut it out and TIG in new material. It's a very cool dragster and I bet A31ModelA loves the rearend it has. Bitchin lil car!!!
I sure do mike. Good pointers. It's getting harder and hard to find guys who have actually been around the old cars that actually have hands on experience repairing and building them. I am sure you guys there in Finland, have resources and experienced welders/fabricators. I am 100000000% jealous that is for sure. Yes that old banjo has my blood flowin in all the right places. I can't stop droolin over this car. Please document the hell out of it with pics and write ups, if there is anything any of us here can help with feel free to holler at us. The HAMB is worlds best collection of auto historians and auto Nuts all in one great place. Thanks Ryan...
hello guys, and thanks for all comments! i just got the frame into a jig and thanks for the tubing tip, Aircraft Spruce has a dealer here in Finland. just called him and tubing is not problem anymore. Mr tigwelder is right. tubing has REALLY thin walls. i havent cut it yet but there is one crack where i can see it. goingto measure it after i cut it and order right size of tubing. and i found one more cracks from under old enginemount. you got that right too. what do you think guys, how many blugwelds should i put there for one joint and how long support tube should i put inside. tube outside diameter is 1"3/8 here is some pictures of the frame in jig. i used plastic clamps for hydraulic tubing to hold the frame in jig. good thing is that those are gentle for frame and leaves no marks, bad thing is that they melt when welding too close...
This car had .035 mainrails that were pretty well beat up on the bottom so I repalced them completely with .058(because no one can tell the wall by looking at it once its welded in). In order to mate the two you must use a sleave. If you are replacing .058 with .058 then one uses the next tubing size down at a 6" lenth, if you joining 2 different walls then one has to start with a thicker piece and machine it the amount of wall thickness. You do it this way because now you split the splice lenthwise and it will expand and act like a roll-pin and take up any slack and line up the tubes.
That is for sure the baddest chassis jig I've ever seen. I looked at that car several years ago at the Salvage Yard in Greenville,Tx. I was suffering from sellers remorse after selling my digger. The car and trailer were really neat from a nostalgia standpoint but too expensive to buy and upgrade or try to trade or turn over for me at that time. It's interesting how these things work out over time. It's great to see it getting a new lease on life and in Finland no less. Cool injector too by the way.
The Jalopy Journal
