Well, I found out a week ago that I have to be out of the house we are renting by Aug 1st (landlord getting foreclosed). Neato. I can't seem to catch a fucking break this Summer. There just hasn't been any time for myself. Now I get to move! I almost have my teardrop finished up, so it looks like we'll be getting some use out of it while we wait a month in limbo to get in to our other place. Anyway, I parted out a car and noticed the seat bases looked nice and light weight. I cut them up and set them on the floor. I'm going to have a bench looking seat, but have these be the seat bases. So they will be covered up. They have a nice shape, and I sit in the same seats every day in my daily driver. I have the foam from the front and rear seats so I should be able to carve something out that look like a bench seat.
Well, this will be day 6 of being homeless! I spent the last two day at the shop. It's the first time I have had in two months to work on the car. So sad. I have not had the internet for a while now so I don't get on here as much either. I finished patching the left side cowl panel. It's not as good as the first one I did but it should come out fine. I welded both panels back on to the cowl after a lot of fitting. A bit more trimming and measuring and I had the 35/36 dash tacked in. I had bent a tube a while back to go along the lower side of the dash board. I got that welded in place. It'll tie into the hoop and steering mount later on. I made a filler piece and tacked it to the original cowl thing along the windshield. It still needs a lot of work but I have an idea on how to do this now. And last... I found a killer deal on a '26 Roadster tub. I wish this would have been around a year ago! At this point, I'm sticking to my plan with the body. But the 26 is tempting.
Man, that's a tough break, I hope you land on your feet soon. Are you in the camper? The car's looking good! Keep on your path, I know the feeling when deals that seem better than what you started with keep popping up but they'll just derail you if you go after them. They'll drain your budget, strain your storage and/or set your project way back.
Oh, I bought the damn Roadster tub! A week before I picked up a rolling Model T chassis for free from a club mate. When this popped up for $150 it had to be mine. Luckily the Mom in Law has a HUGE, empty shop for me to store all my treasures in down in Southern, MN.
LOL, good to hear! If you'd have said "$150" instead of just "killer deal" I'd have said you'd be crazy to pass it up! You gonna make a gowjob with the T roller & body when the modified is done?
Nope I'm going to bug the shit out of him until he sells it to me. Car looks great, glad you were able to find time to work on it! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
T roadsters are cool, but I like the looks of the body you built better. I will make a more substantial hot rod when done than the t would, IMO.
Homeless or not, how could you pass that up!? '27 T Roadster build: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=734383
No plans for the T other than burying it in storage and slowly collecting parts when they are cheap and around. I'd like to build something that's 20's inspired some day. But really, I don't want to build something this involved next time. I tell myself this anyway... I did some clean up and on the bottom side the past couple days. I wanted to hide the mess of cobbled old parts that is my floor pan. I got everything as flat as possible, made some tape patterns, and cut some pieces with the Beverly shear. It's not super fancy or perfect, but it cleaned it up a bit. I need to get to work on the trans tunnel and the spots where the channel is over the frame tonight. The advantage to not having a place right now is I go to the garage instead of the couch after work. I like it. How it started- How it ended up. Note, the piece of flat stock are tacked on to the angle as spacers for the frame. I wanted a little wiggle room.
F**K IT! I told work I can only work 4 days a week and I'm starting an apprenticeship with a blacksmith. I'm sick of work eating up my life. I have been plugging away at the car, but being homeless makes internet time spotty. I got a start on my tank mounts so the tank is just about on. I also found a running 215 that is rebuilt with 8,000 miles locally. This means no Winter long engine re-build and scrounging for $$ to make my existing engine run. I'll have a spare to hop up while I drive! One more week of homeless fun. One more week of shitty work weeks. Life is getting better.
I started making these fuel tank mounts a while back. I cut it all out with a band saw. The tank "saddles" are made from an old Model A leave spring. I still have a lot of work to do to them, but I wanted to get an idea where and what it will look like at the height I chose, center over the rear wheels. A buddy of mine bored some holes in the mounts to add some flare and lighten them up a tiny bit. And the final location. The tank has a seam on the bottom so it's tilted forward a tad in the photo. Last night I got the mounts set in place and started to brace a few things out back. I also got a piece cut out and tacked in for the fire wall section that I cut out. The passenger side floor is nearly completed.
I have a Yankee 920 or something for the tail light. It'll be mounted in the trailer hitch. I have been plugging away at the floor. I'm working on the drivers side bracing and figuring out the pedals. I started making the transmission cover. I'm going to make it removable for access to the transmission if needed. Parts showed up today for the newer engine I bought. It was "rebuilt", but not really. Oh well. It was cheap enough. Hopefully the engine will be fired up this weekend.
These pictures are not the greatest but I love Jamie Johnson's 28 Modified featured in the Jan. 2005 issue of Street Rodder Magazine.
I think I over think things some times. 4 chopped up columns, hours of reading and questions, lots of bullshit answers, test fitting and sitting and one picture later... I have my steering figured out. It's just clamped in, but it took me a lot to get to this point. It has no bump steer as far as I can tell. I later tacked the drag link together. It will be replaced later. My angle line up. Minimized bump steer. Using BMX 19mm American Bottom bracket cup for the column drop/mount. Used some old rod bearings and a rod as a start for the drop/mount. This'll be smoothed out later. It's gonna work. The source of more sleepless nights. But things are finally coming together slowly. 6.0" out back With 6.5". Hard to tell in photos. Gonna need a long distance shot for this one. Some day...
I started mounting the radiator shell and door skins this past week. I also got the mount for the steering box made and welded in, and I'm about half done with the steering column drop /mount. I'm hoping to have the body mounts done next week, then I can take the body back off and weld up the skins and start the finishing up the sheet metal on the tub. I also broke the 215 I had forever loose (a couple stuck valves), so I'm back to two engines that should run. I'm almost ready to pull it all apart and start finishing up the chassis.
I have never done any sort of engine work aside from little Briggs and Stratton engines so this is new territory. A friend of mine was nice enough to come over and take a look at the newest 215 I picked up and gave me a rough list of parts I needed. The old timing chain was super worn and the PO didn't do a great job on the rebuild. The intake manifold showed signs of corrosion, so I wasn't able to get it bolted back on. Luckily, I had a couple extras and found one that had no corrosion. I pulled the whole front section of the engine off to replace all the gasket and check things out. The PO mentioned the engine didn't have oil pressure. I read the manual and it needed to have some sort of paste in there to prime the pump. I'm assuming that's why the engine showed low oil pressure when he started it again. I purchase a pump rebuild kit along with it. The PO also spray painted the whole engine silver. So I started by cleaning it off and scrubbing things down. I'll be soaking the rest of the parts at work tomorrow so they are clean. The surface on the fuel pump cam (?) had a pretty bad gouge in it from wear. Is this bad? I'll get a picture tomorrow. Anyway, The engine is looking a bit cleaner already.
Slow going still, but making progress. My buddy told me once that as long as you work on one thing, no matter how smaller it is, you're still making progress. That's better than sitting. I have been doing fab work and learning things from two different blacksmiths in the city. So my shop time is less, but I'm making money and learning some new things from these guys. I have most of the engine back together and I'm currently building a run stand to test run it with the Volvo 240 radiator. While searching Craigslist one day I came across a Buick 215 that had an Offy intake and some adapter parts for a 200r4. It was a killer deal. I gave a friend a deal on the 200r4 and traded the trans adapter parts to a different friend for some Offy valve covers he couldn't use.
Never been much of a modified guy. Watching THIS build has brought me around. Very tastefully laid out and planned. Gonna be a hell of a lot of fun to drive! Spot-on, man! Keep up the good work.
Thanks Marx! They are not everyone's cup of tea. I have the '26 Roadster coming up next. Gotta finish this turd first. I heated up the S10 T5 shifter I had stretched out and put some curves in it so I could clear the dash. It my need a few tweaks but it feels good. I binned the other column drop I had. It looked like shit. A friend dropped off a bin of rods and pistons to melt down. The rods happen to fit the bearing cups nicely. I smoother out the rod and blasted it. The cap shows how it used to look. You can see it mounted in the photo above.
Pack the oil pump full of Vaseline. That'll prime it until it pulls the oil. Worked for me. Nice build, always more fun on a budget. It sometimes doesn't feel that way until after your done. Ingenuity overcomes dollars.
I built a 30 modified with a 215 5 speed,runs sweet with plenty of juice,It drives like a go cart.Weighs in at 1950 lb. Good luck
The Jalopy Journal
