Projects 1957 Oldsmobile: Jaguar XJ6 IFS/IRS

I agree, the history and applications of the Jag stuff is better suited over on Dogfight

After everyone left on Saturday, I cleaned up my mess from welding the clip to the frame and swung the engine and trans in place to set up the Olds/Jetaway trans mount. The engine and trans are from a 58 and I'm thinking they are a slight bit different than the 57 at least in the trans crossmember anyway. The set up before was much too high and the trans was against the floor, now I have clearance to drop it down where it belongs.

When I was putting it in place, the right side exhaust manifold hit the new frame rails. I jumped off my forklift and tried to remove the manifold just as the lift ran out of propane! CRAP-E-OLA! Go figure, right. Saturday night, no chance of getting a forklift tank filled. So with levers and wedges I got the engine placed and prybared the lift back a few inches then called it quits.

This morning Dr Marvelus and I discussed a plan of attack. Centered the engine up and leveled it out where I wanted. Then he installed the Olds trans mount and preloaded it so we could dimension out the mounting holes. This afternoon I will plot those holes in my final frame pieces and install them.

 

I got deleated asking about jag ifs in TF truck!

 

Steve are those new rails 3/16 inch thick?

 

The rails are made from 10 Gauge Cold Rolled steel sheet.

Advantages of Cold Rolled sheet

 

Cool!

 

If I ever win the lottery Steve is gonna build me a chassis!!

 

Setting in the rear. If we weren't trying to get this car as low as possible this would have fit without notching the frame.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

Keep us updated when you can.

 

any updates ? I wanted to see how you were going do the shock mounts.

 

had to pause on this build. Finishing a full build for a customer wanting to take his truck to the Barrett Jackson. I will have some more time next week to get back to the Olds

 

Thankyou, great thread.

 

Any updates on this, Steve?

 

Just finished up the truck we were working on Friday. Right now I am getting caught up on the mail order, but as soon as that is done I will be back on this.

 

Steve,

I am looking forward to when you're back on this project...

Quick question, for the front sub-frame mounts I know that they were set up in single shear with the frame mounts (at least on the XJS I got mine from), is there an advantage to that vice double shear with a mounting bracket on either side of the front sub-frame mount?

I appreciate the time you take to document this stuff for all of us.
Thanks,
Jeff

 

Packaging and ease of assembly I suppose.

 

Great work as usual Polacko!

 

Sorry to leave you guys hanging like that but all sorts of crap happened. That Orange truck became a minor nightmare for me ending in repo-ing it from the painter...

Anyway, to the point where I left off. You saw the frame graft and stock Oldsmobile transmission crossmember getting installed but no engine mount. I did that, attached it to the Jag crossmember with one of my mounts and a pair of Energy Suspension polyurethane isolator mounts. Then went after the shock mounts. Most of you guys kept complicating things on the shock mounting bit and the more I thought about it the more sense it made for me to utilize the stock Jaguar shocks. I made a pair of 3/16 thick stands in the stock location oriented to the OG Jag.







So then onto the rear, I wanted to keep it in the cradle all rubber mounted. The owner, Ray, is an older guy and has quite a lot of cars and I wanted to give my best shot at a car that will blow him away in ride quality and NVH. So everywhere I can I am bolting things together and replacing as much rubber as possible.

To get the car to sit close to where he wants it (LOW) I had to tunnel the rear up in the back pretty far. If I ditch the stock gas tank it would go up further, but this is also sort of a budget build and I didn't want to open up a huge can of worms. It took me a bit of figuring where all the mounts needed to go and how to reshape the frame to make using the unmodified Jag IRS fit.

My first template made.



I didn't like area of frame around the front mount, only 2.5" thick there and as I'm trying to add stiffness and solidity to the build, I needed a bigger rail. And the decision was made to cut the body. If you notice in the above picture, the spot welds for the rear seat bracing. There was a pocket between the diff arch and the seat back being unused. So Dr Marvelus and I made a pair of pockets and welded them in.



While I was scratching my head trying to figure out the rear frame, Dr Marvelus set up the front sheet metal and adjusted the door gaps. Also did a bit of clearancing for the shock mounts. Still need to create the core support and radiator mounts as well as install and align the hood. But so far we have everything fitting with two fist fulls less body shims in place!

 

Thanks for the update. I too am using the stock cage and mounting rubbers on my build, so this is useful stuff....

 

I finally came up with a design I liked. Took me quite a bit of measuring to make this right. This car was prangged pretty bad at one time and is a bit curved where it shouldn't be. Flattened my drawings, turned the plasma on and burned out some more 10 gauge. Bent it up and welded it out to get these.



Dr Marvelus and I did some more careful measuring and cut out the area of frame where these would go, then MIG welded them in place. A blast of primer and install the rear so we could figure out how to mount the stock trailing arms.









We machined up a cone shape that matched the stock mounting lug and burned out a zig-zag of 1/4" steel to attach the arm to the side of the frame. Worked out pretty tits!





We went to pull it off the table yesterday but the forklift ran out of propane right at 5pm. But this morning with a fresh tank the car came off the fab table and is in position on the car lift to finish out the steering and brakes.





Sits pretty good, about 5" or so under the frame just behind the wheel there. Once the bumper/grille goes back on it won't look quite so gasser like. Oh, and the wheels are just my rollers, calm down. The owner is supposed to be getting some silver steelies with baby Moons and white walls. It's a cruiser afterall.

 

Cool man! Good to see you back on it. From what you told me about the orange truck and the body shop it SOUNDED like a nightmare.

 

You could say that,

shit


Remember, this is a six figure build and it was done before this happened.

 

Jesus dude, I see the bike reflected in the background - is it still at your place?

Side note: A bunch of us are meeting at George and dragon for dinner at 7:00 wanna join us?

 

The bike in the fender reflection is Tobins. I would like to go, but I gotta go home. Thanks!

 

Been occupied with tons of mail order and other doo-dadd whatever work.... (ratrod work, ahem) and finally getting back to this project.

Ray ordered a new set of wheels with the correct bolt pattern from Pete Paulson, I gave them the dimensions but the wheel hub centers were about an 1/8" in diameter small to fit over the Jaguar hubs. So a quick pass under the Bridgeport, they fit very nice!







and the stance ain't half bad either. There is no interior in the car and missing a ton of engine compartment gear. The front should come down another 1 1/2" and the rear 1" to final ride height.

 

Looks good! Good to see it down on the floor.

 

That is looking good!

Excellent craftsmanship as usual.

 

This is such beautiful work! Too bad you have to cover it up with fenders and a hood. Is it just me, or does that front wheel look a bit too far forward?

 

Without a straight on side view, how could you even think that?

 

Camera weirdness, wheels are dead on. Because of the extreme sweep of the fender line, the wheels are always going to look a bit far forward. When it's at full weight and a bit lower, it won't look so obvious. Plus the bright colors aren't helping. Should have been a darker/richer color.

 

Do let us know how this rides and handles. Outstanding build.