After 10 months of amassing parts, buying a body, buying an old frame, selling that frame and buying another body and tons of research; I had enough parts and idea of what direction I wanted to go. The car isnt 100% traditional, but its no street rod. Part 1: The Frame Build Started with 30 feet of 2x3x.120 Before cutting it all up and welding it, I did a little practice since Im not a master fabricator and I dont do this on a daily basis. Its not professional work by far but I think its safe. Its welded with E7018 at 95 amps with my old craftsman arc welder. Clamping the main engine and car rails together for welding. I'll come back later and weld on a 1-1/2" pie cut piece under the engine rails to give it a tapered look and give it some more strength. welding on the front crossmember pie cut towards the back of the passenger rails to straighten the frame out. The back of the frame will be 38-1/2" OD. Adding a 9" kick up. Setting the body over the frame so I can get the back rail length measurements. Its a fiberglass body that I got for $600. Its not that great but it looks better than a 23 T and has way more leg room. There's the drivetrain. A 396 with some cool fenderwell headers. They'll get baffles inside and that will be it for the exhaust. A 4 speed with an old vertigate shifter and a 12 bolt posi with 4.10s. Its not very traditional, but the whole carat least seems to be staying in a single direction, It kind of has that early 70's build feel to it.
I have 2 vacations days that I had to burn left over from 2008, so I took them today and Thursday. I'll post more pics on Thursday after I get some more done. Next is to cut out the firewall to get the body channelled down over the frame so I can get my last rail measurements and get ready to make mounts for the motor and transmission.
You are making some quick progress.Dont worry about the naysayers. Run that body untill you find a better one.
I could have gone the route of a new one, and i did think about it, but I am running a BBC and that 28 body is actually wider than a regular model A. Its some kind of funky old drag body I think. If I would have used a stock T bucket frame or regular model A width, I would have had 6" of body on each side at the firewall before coming to the frame which would be too fugly. Thats one of the reasons why my frame looks a little weird. Its 28" wide at the cowl and 38" at the back which is 10" wider than a normal frame.
My opinion is that people are practically giving away old glass bodies right now and its a great way to build a cheap beater. Especially a first car. Build the car way you have to in order to get it on the road. Good Luck.
Got more done today on my day off. Definately not as much as I would have liked. It tooke me all morning to make sure the frame was all square. Its really close actually. Got the rear rails done. The rear crossmember is only clamped on and will be that way a while since I don't have all I need to mount my rear yet. Now with the body channelled. At this ride height I can just barely climb over the side. through the trunk shot stabbed in a points distributor for more firewall clearance. Got the engine crossmember located and heavy tacked on. After I saw this picture I started second guessing myself. I welded that engine crossmember in correctly right? The kick out in the tube needed to be on the front side to make room for my oil sump right? Hopefully over the weekend I can get the engine crossmember finished welded and get the firewall cut out to get the body back on.
Got the engine back in, measured for the firewall cut and got that done. It went much better when using the sabre saw rather than the grinder wheel to make the cuts. I wasn't even itchy at all this time since the chunks are bigger and the fiberglass isn't ground into a powder. Now its back on the frame. Its going to be alot harder later in the build when I cant just pick up and move the body or the frame myself. I have room for 3 pedals if I use a hydraulic TO bearing. If I use a clutch fork it's going to be tight. Now with the headers back on and a wheel thrown on for looks. Here I am making race car noises holding my imaginary steering wheel. My rolly seat is about the same height as the real seat will be so at least in this car I will be inside it rather than on top of it like a T bucket. The black wheel has a 29 inch tire on it. I think I like that height rather than the white wheel with the 28 inch tire.
Holly shit! That thing cant weight nothing. It is gonna scream with a 396 and be a handful with a 4 gear. Cool!
Someone should start a thread that's all pictures of people in they're half done cars making vrooom noises. Nice work.
It'll be pretty heavy once I get the K member in, rear braces, 6 point roll cage, and 12 bolt cast iron rear. SWAG is 2600-2700 pounds once fully built. On Wednesday I think I can make it to the steel shop to get another 10' stick of 2x3 to make my K member, then I can set the motor and trans in for good and focus on the rear suspension and figuring out just what the flip Im going to do there.
Not a lot happened with it this week. Got busy and its FLIPPIN cold. All I really got done that has a physical impact is I found the center of the rear wheel wells and got it notched for the rear end housing. Did a lot of staring blankly at my hotrod and research though. Definitely decided to go with 2 link truck arms like Clark does. I got an address of a new steel place and hopefully they carry more than the last place i went to, they didnt even have DOM or CREW tubing. Sold a set of camaro wheels and mufflers so now i gotta go spend that cash!
cool man, i actually like the body, its something different. irondoctor is right that thing is gonna be a handfull. ha! keep us updated.
Haven't posted in a few weeks. I'm pissed at myself for not keeping my new years resolution of working on the car 2 weeknights from 9-midnight..... Got some more done though. Last week I made a trans cross member. Its a little rough. It needs final welding and I'll shape it a little nicer by cutting off the hard angles at 45 or 60 degrees and box it in, but its welded in enough that I could throw the engine and trans back in and bolt them in to move on with the project for now.
Today I got started on the rear suspension. I did a lot of searching, I didn't have enough money for coil overs, stock bones are too weak, and I didn't want to spend money for a pre-built 4 link. Since the rear is was an A body and I had some G body trailing arms sitting around I made some boxing plates and was going to use these.... but them I remembered that my top link for my rear arms was cracked so I decided against it, so I'll have to put these up for sale. So then i started work on a truck arm suspension. I did a lot of looking around on the HAMB, saw a few sets of these that Clark made, and read a few threads and decided that I could make a set with my current skills. I started with 2 sticks of 48" long 2x3x.125. I cut them to 48", it's a few inches extra long which should allow for a little trimming at final fit. I read from the "nascar arms" thread that I should rip the 2x3 into an I beam configuration to allow for articulation. I marked the 2x3 in the center. Then I proceeded to cut 16 linear feet with only a 4.5" angle grinder. It sucked and took 30 minutes and 2 discs, but I went slow and it came out straight. Then I clamped them back together for welding. It's amazing how far they sprung out after I cut them apart. Then I made a couple stitch welds to keep them together. I had to stop after a few stictches because my welds had a few pinholes in it. My 7018 rod spatters bad becuase it must've soaked up water in the last month since I opened the 5 lb box a month ago. I heard this was a problem with 7018 but I like the rod alot. I dont have a rod oven. Can I use a regular oven to bake the moisture of my rods or will the flux off gas into my oven? I cant really afford a dedicated rod oven. If so, what temp and time? After a couple stitches on one side I could at least mock up. The bars run the whole way to the trans crossmember. I triangluated them as much as possible to give the most amount of articulation. The propane bottle is where the rear coil springs will go.
I hope it gives a decent amount of articulation. Should the rear arms be parallel to the frame of should they slant up from the rear up to the trans crossmember? ' I can pie cut the arms so they are level with the parallel with the frame where the springs will be if they need to slant up to the trans crossmember. I plan on using a big set of rubber bushings up front for articulation help. The cheapest place I saw was this guy http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Cust...62QQcategoryZ33615QQihZ019QQitemZ290206554931 If a hamber reading this has a set for cheaper than this PM me. Even though its an A body rear it had leaf spring perches welded onto it for a nova/camaro. I cut those off becuase the body was sitting on them and couldnt sit down low enough. I cut them off and noted the wheel wells and now its starting to look pretty cool.
Not a great pic...but you can see how we located HAMBAndys truck arms (TAs)to give maximum strength and weld area for the locating tabs. The top of the tabs bend in slightly to meet up properly with the tube X brace. The X brace is laid out to follow the angle of the TAs. We cut and flipped the tubing to make I beam as well. LOTS of articulation flex in the arms.
The Jalopy Journal
