Projects Slammed 31 A coupe....FINISHED!!

Sent you a PM from where I got my rad. I used my original grill shell and sectioned and narrowed it to fit the rad perfectly, (it fit O.K without narrowing) then I made one from scratch in my beadroller. I will be making another one since I accidently closed the garage door on the first one I made.

 

Found a local pinstriper to come out and start on my coupe he came today and got a nice start on the car. So far the valve covers are done and most of the lettering on the dash I made though it will get striped once the lettering is done.

Here are a few pics from my shitty Iphone.









Here is a bit of striping he started on the headlight buckets, we are going with two colors for the striping on the car. Right now we have chocolate with white on the buckets, we are thinking maybe orange striping with the brown instead. What do you guys think, white or orange as a contrast color

 

1 vote orange with the brown. The white is hard to see (at least in pics). All three would look great, too.
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Dean, I think your idea about the orange striping is right on. The white against the cream doesn't stand out. Orange would have the punch that line needs. Orange would work over the brown as well. Why don't you also try a yellow as well, especially against the brown, it should stand out without shouting. Best Regards and Good Luck with all you endeavors, KB.

 

The white is hard to see, in fact, from 3 feet you can hardly see it. We did throw down a lick of orange on the headlight bucket and it really popped so that's the direction we are heading. He's doing my cowl top now with the brown and orange so we'll see soon. Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for the feedback, orange is the direction we are heading for the second color but very minimal, just as an accent, as for the yellow, the color that is on the valve covers and dash is ivory so it should look nice with the chocolate.

 

Looking good.

 

So, what did you use for a radiator? Thanks, Looks Good!

 

Love what you did with the paint/body. Don't see too many people paint the original body line scheme. As for wheels did you ever consider running a set of Kevin Lees spun covers?

 

I just found your thread, this is an awesome build and the car looks great! Your '29 was sweet too!

If you're doing the orange striping, you might want to consider an orange stripe around the outside of the wheels if you're painting them the engine colour too, to tie everything together? Just a thought!

 

Thanks

I used a chopped aluminum rad from Superior. Had to modify it to work on my car though.

 

Thanks. He makes nice covers but I like the exposed wire wheel and a small cap.

Thanks man.

 

Some impressive work...Great build! Hopefully I get a chance to see it up close at one of the show'n'shines next summer.

 

Nice

 

Thanks man, there's a good chance you'll see it somewhere next summer.

Thanks

 

You own that Simmons bedding? in the photos wonder if there is any relation to Gary Simmons The Cobra that played hockey for the Kings.

 

Dean, I've been enjoying your build from the beginning of it. From the frame rails up you have shown us you are an imaginative and daring individual as well as a talented fabricator. I was jarred awake by your casual comment about needing to take a couple hours to make a new grill shell, like it was nothin!
Your willingness to incorporate an airbag suspension setup is another example of your outside thinking. You won't get any criticism of that from me, I'm using an ACCUAIR setup in my 36 five window. In fact I would like to discuss with you many of the aspects and implications of retrofitting air into our rides. I've had mine out on shakedown cruising for the last two summers and I'm very happy with the ride and handling. Before installing mine I spent a winter studying all the info I could find on them. I don't mean the sales hype but technical characteristics, system requirements and what have you. In the case of my 36 coupe I found that a 5"or6" "double-do-nut" style bag would carry way too much weight to give adequate deflection for a smooth and comfortable ride. Consequently, I utilized 4" airshocks in the rear that have a more linear deflection characteristic. Even with these the ride is quite stiff so I have also added gate valves and 1 gallon accumulator tanks to each corner for a softer suspension when I want it. You see an air bag is very non-linear in its deflection, it doesn't deflect an inch per 100lbs like a steel spring, the pressure in the bag increases with each inch of deflection until it becomes as solid as concrete and thus next to zero deflection. The reason I mention this is because I'm afraid you may have a hardtail ride with your light rearend and those large bags. The only thing they may do is adjust your ride height by my estimate. Hopefully you can swap bags to find suitable ones for the rearend weight of your car. Also,because you are in Calgary, your weather is not unlike ours here in Alaska. We have to cope with things they don't in the warmer climates. With our air systems the amount of water that the accumulates through condensation amazed me. Our systems will freeze up in the fall and early spring. I'm about to install a remote drain for my air tank so I don't have to crawl under it all the time. The late 50's GM AirRide systems utilized closed air systems that recycled the same air from a "low pressure" tank and a special valve with a dryer for make-up air. I'm thinking we may need to adapt some of these features to have trouble free air bag setups. Anyway, these are just some thoughts I've had and wanted to share them with you. I hope they are useful.
Best Regards and Good Luck with all your endeavors, KB.

 

Thanks a lot for that, you've provided some excellent insight. I won't really know how the car rides until I take it for a shakedown run, too much snow right now for that, lol. I know it will ride a heck of a lot better than my sedan did but that doesn't mean I'll settle for that. If, after I run it a bit and I need to change something with the rear bags for a better ride then I'll definitely look into it.

I love your 36 BTW

 

The larger the bag, the less pressure it takes to support the weight of the vehicle, and return to center.

The idea that a smaller air volume would create a softer or smother ride is the opposite from true.

When my customers come in complaining about having to run excessive pressure to keep the car at ride height, producing a harsh ride, I always find a bag installed that is too small.

The only way that something so small as an air shock could work it WITH a 1-gallon (or larger) accumulator.

What the accumulator does is increase the air volume of the bladder, just in a remote fashion. By adding an accumulator to an air shock, you have done the exact same thing as installing a LARGER BAG.

I am 15+ years into this (331 cars/trucks, 11 bikes, and a few "other" vehicles). I have no dissatisfied customers.

 

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I don't want Dean to get headed in the wrong direction. In Our comments we have both have been using the words large and small rather loosely when referring to bag size. The air bladder characteristics of "volume", "load piston" area and "force piston" area really need to be taken into consideration. If one studies pneumatics or hydraulics they will discover that force ratios(power factor) are congruent with the ratios of their piston's areas. The first example to describe this physical phenomena is a hydraulic jack, where a very small piston with a long stroke makes a small displacement on a large piston with great force.(a compact auto hydraulic brake system.)
Pneumatic systems work in the same way disregarding the air's compressibility. A typical 5" or 6" double convoluted air bag has equal force and load piston areas. This implies a 1:1 transfer ratio to start with until the air's compressibility comes into play. This type air bladder contains only a small amount of volume so when the piston plates are forced together the internal pressure goes up very rapidly (exponentially,and non linearly).Meaning the bag gets really stiff really fast. If the bladders volume is increased while pistons remained the same size, the air's compressibility would allow more deflection of the plates before pressure increases make more deflection impossible for the amount of force applied. Such a bladder has a less non-linear characteristic. But a suspension on a Model A with 5"or6" piston plates would need much more volume and very large diameter bladders (not the pistons, the overall bladder)to have sufficient deflection characteristics for a comfortable ride.Perhaps 12" to 16" in diameter. The solution is to use a smaller piston so that there is less volume displacement per inch of deflection by the piston. AirRide and others are now making air/shocks with bladder diameters of 8"6"&4" while the displacement piston is the shocks diameter of approximately 2". This bladder to piston area difference provides the area ratio required to make the air bladder behave in a more linear manner and eliminating the need for large or high volume bags. The early GM (4500-5000lbs Cadillacs) air suspension systems utilized a curvilinear-cone deflection(force) piston. That allowed the most minute of surface irregularities to be absorbed by the tip of the cone while large bumps could cause the piston to grow with deflection to as large as 4" diameter. Those bladders were the approximate size of a 2# coffee can. Double convoluted bags still have their applications, like on the front of a full-size car, supporting a cast-iron engine and as overload bags under a 3/4 ton pickup. I hope this helps explain small and big bags.
Best Regards and Good Luck with all your endeavors, KB.

 

really nice work. i cant wait to start mine and this certainly has got me anxious.

 

Sneak peak of pinstriping, almost done. Liking the orange vs white as a second color much better, it really pops.




Dash lettering done, still need to add a LITTLE bit of striping on the dash which will be this weekend.





Plugging away at the flooring over Xmas break and hope to fire it finally before I go back to work in January.

 

Wow!

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Stripes looking good.

Jake

 

GREAT HOTROD, like the colors!!

 

amazing work

 

Love it

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Thanks guys. The pinstriping should be completed today.

 

Those colors go great together, are you sticking with whitewalls. Looks badass either way.

 

Thanks man, the whitewalls are staying, the wheel color is changing to rootbeer to match the engine.

 

Pinstriper finished on the weekend. Pretty happy with the end results.

This was the grill I made that got crushed in the garage door, lol. It fixed up o.k, may make another one down the road but not a priority right now.


Decklid with 49 Monarch handle, not sure if I'll do a third brake light underneath the handle yet.



Dash finished



As it sits: