Projects From Rat Rod to Hot Rod - Another A Tudor Build

hey neighbor, im likin this.glad to know when im on the hiway i have one less dangerous ride coming at me.that gas tank set up was damn near suicidal! by the way, if your buddy wants to have more fun i dont live to far away lol.

 

Interesting work! Go-kart technology.

 

As long as it's not this Randy



Nice job on the rebuild....

 

Good going,keep it up,looking up

 

Looks good!

 

it blows my mind what some of these guys who build ratrods think is safe.not saying all ratrods are not safe..iv seen some that were.. but i have to admit iv seen more that were not. and they take pride in it. like its a excuse to not make it safe... ie.. spend money!!
trippy, concept.. throw everything at a car but the kitchen sink and see how long we live.
i think id rather take my chances with a bottle of whiskey and a bulldog
chris.

 

Thanks for posting the progress of your car. I have got a lot of laughs so far...kind of scary at the same time...that fuel tanks is something else.

 

I like the taillights. Nice work so far!

 

Thanks for the kind words and the encouragement, guys.

I was told the character who "built" this car has a body shop somewhere in eastern Tennessee or western South Carolina and builds a car each year to sell at the Shades of the Past show in Pigeon Forge. It's scary to think there are more of these on the road.

 

You're hilarious.

 

Just stumbled on this thread. That is some of the scariest s#%t I have seen. Some people just should be allowed not build cars. Hope the original builder doesn't build aircraft too! Good on you for doing the job properly.

 

It's hard to believe that it has been two years since I last updated this thread. I don't get a lot of time to work on this project, so progress has been S-L-O-W !!! But some progress has been made.

The front brakes that came on the car were Mustang GT discs circa '67 or '68. The spindles were '42-'48 Ford that had been turned down to accept the Mustang hubs. Off to eBay the whole mess went.

After a couple of months scouring local junkyards, I finally went back to eBay for unmolested '42-'48 spindles and '55 F-100 brakes and hubs.



The next order of business was to redrill the hubs and drums for the GM bolt pattern of my five spokes. After checking with a couple of local machine and speed shops, it turned out to be cheaper to purchase one of Rotten Leonard's drill guides than to have the redrilling done. The drill guide worked like a champ, even on my sloppy old Harbor Freight drill press.

 

I wanted to drill the '48 axle that had come on the car. It was badly bent as well as twisted and would require straightening so I decided to drill it before having it straightened. If I screwed it up, I would not have wasted the repair money. I followed scootermcrad's thread on drilling front axles, http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=416208, and it turned out well except for the fact that the holes were too close together for my taste. I would have to live with it.

 

I then set out to find someone to straighten the axle. A local truck shop took it assuring me they could do it. After six weeks they had been unable to straighten it but still had some other things they wanted to try. I brought it home. Expanding my search to Birmingham, Nashville and Chattanooga produced no better results.

About this time a friend mentioned he had a forged dropped axle he had won as a door prize at a show and said he would make me a good deal. I liked the price, the fact that the axle was 4" narrower and would pull the front wheels in, and the extra drop would let me lower the rear and keep the desired stance. It also solved my problem of finding someone to repair the old one. A big no brainer!

I was not going to repeat my mistake of drilling the holes too close together, so I made some paper "holes" and stuck them on the axle in different configurations until I found one I liked.

Then it was back to my Harbor Freight drill press for drilling with the trusty Home Depot hole saw. There is so much slop in the bearings of the drill press that the resulting holes were very rough and I spent more time polishing them than it took to drill them initially. But the results were worth the effort.

 

Of course we all know a 4" narrower axle requires a 4" narrower spring. And naturally I would have a 2" narrower spring in my storage shed, but not a 4". And no way could I log onto Speedway Motor's website for a new axle without also getting shiny new clevises, spring perches, rod ends, etc.

With all of the shiny new parts in hand, I again ran afoul of the original builder's superb engineering skills. While one of the hairpins fit fine, the other was 'too long' and could not be shortened enough to mount. A tape measure confirmed one hairpin bracket was 3/4" further forward on the frame. The idiot had bolted up the spring and the bent axle, mounted the hairpin to the axle, then used the other end of the hairpin to determine the location of the bracket. Fine if you keep the bent axle, but not for a straight one.

So I had to cut the bracket off the frame and relocate it. With this done everything fit nicely.

 

Finally down to the last step of frame prep - filling holes, removing extraneous brackets and adding new ones, cleaning up welds, etc. Then off to the sandblaster.

Randy has access to a body shop's paint booth on weekends, so one Saturday we load the frame, front and rear axles, and other suspension pieces and head off to the body shop. We get everything hung in the paint booth, cleaned and ready for spray when all the lights and fans in the booth go out. But that's another story.

The frame is now painted and finished. All of the suspension pieces have been fitted and painted and are ready for final assembly. It's now time to tackle beefing up a substructure under the body, which currently has as much structural integrity as an empty beer can.

 

Hey nice job fixing this disaster, keep up the good work!

Andy

 

Thanks for the step by step redo of a shot rod.This is why I am so pokey about my work.Do it right the first time.Do the research.Learn some skills.Also,know your limitations.Call for help when you reach a roadblock.

 

Common sense goes a long ways............ The original builder had none............ You sir are a craftsman of common sense...........

 

Awesome larryj. Not too far off from you. Good looking build so far!

 

You've done some good work since last i checked in. Keep it up!