Anybody from Pomona remember this gasser?

here are some of the latest photos of the progress on the car, Cliff Krafta is building the engine and we will test run it on his dyno....interesting to see what it pulls...hey Royce did you run the original engine on a dyno? if so.. what did it make then? my hats off to Laurie Peterson( Canada Customs) and Wayne Thomassen! they have been working on it as well.

more photos when i finish the 7 gal. moon tank and fuel lines

 

........also ran the shifter cable and finish mounted the b & m series 60 shifter

 

out standing ! i cant wait to see her doing a burn out again

 

awesome read!!!!

 

WOW! what a story.....good to see your keeping the Olds power

 

Thought I would add this picture, I love the looks of Stud. Gassers.

 

I went back and read through this thread...............what a great story and I wish you luck with your build and hope the reunion comes about for all those involved.

 

More kudos for 5w32. He recently turned me on to someone who is building a '40 Stude coupe gasser just about two miles from my shop right here in Rancho Cucamonga! Met with him and discovered a very interesting guy who is now following this thread, and is currently contemplating obtaining a '40 4door Stude sedan. 5w32 may have initiated a rebirth of Stude gassers all over the country. I have talked to two other people who have logged onto the H.A.M.B. and say they are actively looking for '39-'41 Studes to trick out. VIVA Studebaker! Personally, I like the Stude coupe more than the Willys, because it looks so much bigger and brutish.

P.S. Another car I wish I still had is the early '60's Lark 2 door, factory stock 259cid, 2brl carb, 3spd stick I used to match and bracket race at Irwindale prior to "Great Balls of Fire" being born. It was called "Little White Lark" and beat many a stock Mustang 289cid, 4brl, 3 or 4 spd stick.

 

here is the thread i started to try and locate the original engine...


1969 455 olds Engine search......................in the 70's there was a truck called "the junkyard dog" , The truck had an earlier big block Olds in it that apparently went south. They were supposedly based in Fontana and got some sponsorship from a local Oldsmombile dealer, but the dealer would not pony up a complete engine. the owner bought a 455 olds and th400 from Royce Hunt at Garey high school and installed it in a 57? ford truck that they used as a match and bracket racer.
that engine is from my 40 stude gasser and i would like to try and find it and the headers again......hey..you never know.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=6103005#post6103005

 

Mr.Hunt, all i remember was that that panel was Kuhl as hell,as far as Keeping up with ricky Potts, i did for many years,but my work dragging me all over the country, i lost track. Somewhere i have a picture of the "Roadagents" with a old firetruck behind the shop class, i think it was for the school yearbook, maybe 70/71, do you recall that? also i have noticed that you haven't gave any thoughts to the color of the stud! my would be the torched flame red!

 

Dog Breath,

Yes, I remember the antique fire truck. A gentleman in south Pomona bought it from the Pomona Fire Department about 45-50 years ago. Do you remember how the rear wheels were driven? We did a lot of maintenance and repair work on it for him. In return, he allowed us to use it as a parade truck for special school events numerous times.

 

This is an awesome piece of drag racing history. You should really be proud. Can't wait to see it all finished up.

 

heres some school rivalry according to Royce...We ran a match race against a car from Chaffey Community College as an exhibition between rounds .The Chaffey car was set up for Bonneville, so we blew its doors off (too tall a gear). Sam Contino was the Chaffey auto teacher, and the first, to my knowledge, to run a race car out of any school program. I believe the car was reasonably competitive on the salt flats.


this from a Hot Rod magazine story:

1969 Ford Mustang Chaffey College Project - Where It All Began
1970 Magna Cum Loud

...Ak Miller was involved in a Boss 302 engine buildup that found a home in a '69 Mustang built by Chaffey College. Went to the salt and set records, then swapped in a 351c and set records for that class. Then this car, or another one like it, ran some Trans Am with Dick Guldstrand driving....

This month's photo is an outtake from Eric Rickman's coverage of Bonneville in 1970. The kids in the groovy threads (we'd love a pair of those Moon-Equipped sneakers) were students from Southern California's Chaffey College actually earning school credits by racing on the Salt. Chaffey offered a race-car technology course, and one of the class projects was a '69 Mustang that the students built into a land-speed race car.

It looks like an engine swap is going on in the photo, and a caption from Rick's Nov. '70 story explains why: "Ak Miller tooled the Chaffey College Mustang to records in both C and D Production using 351- and 302-inch Ford engines respectively. We'd say the class graduated 'Magna Cum Loud.'"

Miller, a pioneering hot rodder and longtime Bonneville racer, no doubt was a big help to the Chaffey effort, sharing his hard-won expertise on the subject of speed. And since he did some performance consulting work for Ford during the '60s and '70s, we'd guess he was probably able to liberate a few factory speed parts for the class, too, to make sure the kids passed their Salt Flat curriculum.

Miller passed away late in 2005, and our story about his life at speed appears on page 74 of this issue. You can still take race-car technology at Chaffey College, though the class has become part of a bigger automotive technology program.Drew Hardin

 

Mr. Hunt you are a great teacher that helped your students think, then create. I bet the majority of your students that worked on that car are productive citizens today. I used to day dream in my english class about cars and boats. Mr. Phillip Smith ( West Covina HS) being an english teacher was a basic gearhead, taught me that english worked with building cars. I never thought reading a repair manuel had anything to do with my english class. But great teachers bring the best out of their students. My writing skills still lack but I can build just about anything I need thanks to some great teachers. And Steve, glad you found the history behind you car. Ton of work huh? Mr. Hunt this is what happens even after forty years of great teacher inspiration

 

Mr. Hunt, not sure what kind of shop you have now but if you are in need any welding you can put on a bench I'll have it taken care of for you. I'm retire but still have my own shop to work on my toys

 

today i got the 7 gal. moon tank mounted and all the fuel lines finished , hows this for an appropriate license frame ...i have had this one for at least 30 years and never used it until now.

 

I've been looking for one of those forever.

 

Thats pretty groovy!

 

heres the early 60's battery bon installed.... finally everything is ready for Wayne to wire the car front to back

 

Great Story! How about some details of the new Olds engine build?

 

Love the 'barn' find. Shame they stripped the car. Value today is in finding an untouched racer. My bro found his '41 Willys Gasser in an airport hanger. It had been parked there after it's last race in 1967. EVERYTHING was as it was back in the day. Tires were flat but with a clean-out and a new battery, the injected small block fired right up.

Ernest McIntyre, editor
GASSER Magazine
www.GASSERmagazine.com

 

here a still from the latest 8mm video found , sorry ..cant post the video, i'll keep trying

 

here is the youtube link to the latest 8mm video that Royce found and transferred to dvd, enjoy! nice clean pass at irwindale and prepping the car for the blue paint scheme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqtQuKOyy8

 

LMMFAO......brainiac......

 

Dang, that's pretty cool.

 

i still think the" torch flame" paint job looks the best,the stud is looking great, are you going to have it ready for race this year.

 

it was a chain drive i believe. the video is great! what kind of shop do you have now, did you retire from garey, or some other school?

 

when i first got the car i thought it was strange how there were straps connecting the traction bars to the third member and wondered how they could work , Royce then informed me they were call "chrisman bars" , named after Art Chrisman ...they help stop the rear end from being ripped out and were mandatory at some tracks after a serious mishap ( at lions i recall)

 

The Chrisman straps, or bars, were initiated as a safety device back in the days when drivers in dragsters sat behind the rear end (front motored cars) with their legs going over the axle tubes. The purpose should be very obvious. If the rear end came loose from the chassis, the differential rotated up and back with the distinct possibility of emasculating the driver.
The first rear end we had in the car (if you haven’t read the entire thread) was an aluminum center section factory hot rod unit from Oldsmobile. The axles were not strong enough and we broke several before the accumulated stress caused the rear end to disintegrate. The aluminum center section did exactly what the Chrisman safety device was designed to eliminate. It rotated backward when the axles broke, both at the same time. It created two problems. As it rotated backward, it ripped the axle tubes out of the third member. This caused the tubular bridge lift bar assemblies to jump upward causing the front of the left bar to penetrate the floor and smack the bottom of the driver seat. My buddy, Rick Mabry, was driving. As the car came to a screeching, swerving, halt, both rear wheels were cambered in about 25-30 degrees at the top. Luckily, the brake lines were not severed, as we ran no front brakes. The door slowly opened, a startled Rick stuck his head out, looked back at the starting line, and screamed “what the hell was that all about.” You would have to know him to get the full effect of the scene. He was, at that time, very easily agitated.
That is why you see solid aluminum lift bars on the car now. When we installed the Dana 60, I figured a slight increase in weight added by the aluminum bars was much better than getting smacked in the butt again. Another safety device shown in the right picture is a drive shaft retainer loop. A second loop is located behind the front u-joint. The rear one can be seen in the picture on the right. If you have never seen a car lose a front u-joint at freeway speed, it is not a good thing. That reminds me of another story for another time.

 

i was sunny today...got it outside for a "step back and have a look"