Projects built lots of cars, but never a 32 roadster...

Started beating my tunnel out today... Instead of making a separate cap for the end, I'm doing it out of one piece - had to slit the middle to get rid of the slack. Tried tuck shrinking, but it didn't pull in enough. Going to hammer weld the seam tomorrow and do some finish pounding to get the final shape nice and even. It's turning out pretty good considering that all I have is a panel beater bag, a plastic Eastwood teardrop mallet, some body dollies & hammers, in the bottle cap for my big mix cylinder (using that to planish). And one of the photos, you can see the half inch tall extruded triangles that I 3D printed and taped to the transmission as spacers. They are ensuring that I have a half inch air gap.

 

Got up early this morning and finished the rear portion. And to keep reminding myself that this is getting covered with lizard skin, dynamat and carpet (no one's ever going to see it)

 

Don't know if you have solved your 1 3/4" column problem yet but I had the same issue when using the F1 column. I had my buddy spin out a Delrin bushing on his lathe which fit up inside my stock model A column drop. It sleeved the 2" down to the 1 3/4" and worked well. I cut a small slot in it with a hack saw. Slid it up onto the column and with the slot in it I could run my tach wires down the column under the dash. Lower A clamp just bolted right on over it.

 

Thanks for the suggestion but I'm going to do what BCap55 recommended back on page three of my build thread. Seems pretty painless and totally solves the problem... The only thing though is that I'll have to cut the neck on the column drop and scab in a piece of aluminum to make it a 5-in drop instead of 4-in - they don't make a 1.75 inch column drop in five inches, 4 is the largest. Limework says the column drop is made of 6061 - I did that on the last car I built and except for a very slight difference in the color of the aluminum, you couldn't tell it had been extended.

 

Trans cover is looking great man!

 

Trans cover looks great

 

Well done on the transmission tunnel, and for the rest of the build for that matter!
See you around this Spring I'm sure

 

So I finally got the transmission tunnel done today.
I got it pretty tight to the transmission bell housing on the left and right sides where your feet go (it's about 3/8 of an inch from the bell housing in those areas).
I'm not so happy with the look of the welds, I'm getting older and my eyesight is starting to get funny, especially with a welding hood on so I burned through a lot of times with the mig and had to fill the holes in. Oh well, it's going to get covered with Herculiner truck bed liner, Kilmat, jute and carpet. I got it looking pretty tidy underneath because grinding the welds out was easy. I still have to do some kind of modification for the shifter linkage, but a buddy of mine is changing the angles on that in his shop, so when it gets back I'll create that bump.

 

Good job, looks great. I like the low profile of the piece over the shifter.

 

Be wary of mission creep.
You've been picking fly shit out of the pepper about how tight that trans tunnel is, now you want all those layers? After all the effort to date, I don't think you should raise the floor another inch. Actually, given the situation, you could have dropped it an inch. At least where your feet are.

 

I hear ya
Herculiner is .040" if you put it on thick, Kilmat is .050'...I'll use the thin Jute 1/4" and carpet can't be more than 1/4'...that's .590". The trans tunnel is pretty tight to the bellhousing where the driver's right foot goes. I'm going to move the steering column firewall hole to the left 1/2" and up 1/2".
Dropping the floor is not a bad idea, but a lot of work at this point...I'll keep that in my back pocket if I can't get this to work in it's current state.

 

Don't speak too soon...the shifter arm is not in there yet and will need a bumped out area for clearance. See where that square cornered hole is hanging out next to the tunnel's flange...well, that's to clear that lever.

 

Scott,
My eyes are going too so I use these, work great. I use a 2.5 diopter
https://www.weldersupply.com/P/1036/MillerWeldingHelmetMagni

 

Never knew they made magnifying lenses for welding helmets… awesome. Thanks for sharing.

 

Here's a tip for you...
I was trying to come up with a way to temporarily attach my spoon gas pedal to the firewall in order to move it around and figure out where it will be located. I acquired a eighth to 3/16 in thick, 1 in in diameter rare earth magnet - stuck it to the back of the bracket on the gas pedal and stuck it to the firewall.
It's amazing how well that works - that thing is not going anywhere and oddly enough, the linkage on the gas pedal is also magnetized so it sticks to the firewall leaving the gas pedal and it's up/at rest position.

 

Haven't made much progress lately, redesigning the brake pedal arms has become quite the undertaking. As mockups in steel were time consuming and unproductive, I ended up designing one in SolidWorks and 3D printing 4 revisions before I got everything right. Waiting for Sendcutsend to mail me the laser cut flat pattern, then a buddy in PA is going to cold bend it in a huge press brake.

 

I did get the car outside for the first time a few weeks ago - it's getting there...

 

Finally took the body off and pie cut the rails out back to close up the 1 1/4" gap between the tail pan and the gas tank.
At first, I tightened both rear corner bolts but that made the gap uneven from side to side. I then loosened the tight side and stuck a socket (that fit in the gap on the open side) in the gap to make it even. The body doesn't make contact with the frame on the left now, like it does on the right - half inch gap now.
Either the body is twisted, or my frame is. Regardless, it looks good now...

 

The very last bolt hole is not supposed to touch there. There is supposed to be a gap and you can put a spacer in there to close it up. Not sure why Ford designed them like that.

 

Thanks for your response - I completely understand that there is supposed to be a gap in the two rear bolts, but apparently Brookville roadster bodies have been coming out of the factory with high tail pans - after looking at many other 32 roadsters, I think I have the gap right (even though on one side, the body is touching the frame at the rear bolt hole). On the other side, there is about a 3/16-in gap.

The only thing I'm concerned with at this point is when I put it back on the ground if the spreader bar is going to look parallel to the ground - right now if I put a level on the spreader bar and on the bottom edge of the trunk opening, they are both very parallel.

 

Now that the frame rails are up in their final resting places, I got to work on the exhaust, it's a real snake...

 

Adjustment when being assemble , then later on after fame settled ,flex etc. must road rough and wagon trails, So hopefully after OP puts miles on his Nice looking Roadster thought Out build it will not need No body line / door adjustments , adjustments are no longer

 

Holes for mounting firewall feet were off and had no threads - Dremel comes in handy sometimes...

 

Finley made the exhaust, 3D printed jigs to hold pipes under frame while fitting

 

Finally have steering

 

I would put a support bearing immediately below the upper uni. The uni is too far from the lower bearing in the column for my liking.

 

Thanks for your concern, I'll consider doing that.

 

What does your concern regard - flex in the shaft & coupling, premature wear of the lower column bearing, etc.? Borgeson's tech department suggested it.

 

Both. I assume there is a uni at the box? To me, where the centre uni is floating in space, it would try to straighten or otherwise move when loaded by steering effort.

I'm not the god of steering hook ups or anything, I've just voiced a concern. You've obviously run this by the steering people as well and they are further up the food chain than me with these things.

 

With three or more u joints, a support for the center joints is needed.
With two single joints, I would not use a center support.