Hot Rods Finally building my high school hotrod, 20 years later

Very cool! Staying tuned for this one

 

Very cool! Love your drive and perseverance. Keep at it and you'll achieve your goal. I got my truck when I was 17 and just got it back on the road after a long haitus last year. I'm 43 now.

 

Great story so far! I’ve really been noticing the 4 doors lately and think they would make a totally cool rod! Subscribed.

 

Don't feel bad 31Hotrodsedanman. Had the dream of building my '64 back when I was a high school senior in 1964 and the Dodge was new. Had the car over 20 years and hoping to finally get it together this year so I can still enjoy driving it as the straight axle altered wheelbase beast it's turning into. I'll be 76 in April so it gives me reason to keep going out into the shop. Then I can get back on the HA/GR project that I started in 2007.

 

Friend of mine had picked up a '36 truck that he just wanted the flathead out of so I started pulling the rest of the parts off of it. Eventually I got the crossmember, pedals, rear axle and front axle off of it. I wasn't super happy with how the crossmember was going to sit in the car so I cut down the rails from frame 3 to start building my own.

 

They turned out ok but I had to put more patches into them than I wanted. Plus having to clean up all the welds on the inside was gonna suck.


I also ended up with my measurements a bit off so they didn't line up to the kick up exactly how I wanted. I was gonna leave it but it kind of bugged me.

 

Frame looks pretty sturdy.!

 

There was a guy here on the HAMB (F6Garagerat) Who built a bitchin Model A pick up a while ago. He ended up using one of these Rock ends to mount his radius rods and I thought the concept was really cool. With a proper torque arm setup in my mind it should act real similar to a torque tube. I was able to find one from summit and ordered their last one. I check the posting from time to time and they haven't restocked them for a while.

Once it showed up I started mocking up ideas for the center crossmember and placement. I put the end right around where the U joint should be.





Im trying to get all the lines of the frame to flow nicely together. At this stage they were getting there but still a little choppy.

 

Even though I had spent all the time on the center crossmember pods?, bolsters? idk what to call them. I really wasnt happy with how they had turned out. Too many patches, too many inconsistencies, too many spots that I had to accept due to little mistakes. It really bothered me that they didnt line up to the kick up intersection. A friend of mine had just picked up a plasma table and was looking for a test to dial it in so I used my day job skills and modeled up a new set and sent them over.



when I got the pieces home I spent about 45mins bending everything up and tacking it together. Minus drive time I was able to recreate like 2 weeks of work in about an hour and a half.






Im way happier with how these turned out. I would not have been able to create the holes and the angles anywhere near as nice with the tools I currently have in my shop.

 

Nice work. I'm glad the car was where you left it in California. When I went to Oregon with a car trailer to get my 30 Ford pickup I inherited when my dad died, it wasn't there! I ended up with an empty trailer on the way back to Nebraska. Hasn't been found to this day.

 

Oh man thats a bummer! yeah luckily my dad had a big piece of property to stash it out of the way though he was glad when I finally came to pick it up. (probably to park another boat in its place) Plus if he had gotten rid of it he figured Id never come back home.

 

I spent a minute modeling up what I wanted the final design to be for the center section of the crossmember and sent it over to my friend to cut it out of 1/4 plate. Left myself a little bit of room in the wings to make some adjustments once I started putting it together and eventually took it over to @CTaulbert for some proper TIG welding.

 

One of the challenges I've come across while building this frame is really the lack of reference points to work with. I'm sure if I had some more experience under my belt and more of a system it wouldn't be a big deal but it has been frustrating. Especially since a I've been building everything alone. I've done a lot of math and geometry to put everything where I think it should go and for the most part it makes sense to me but there's still that thought in the back of my mind saying "I don't know what the hell I'm doing" I had the same feeling with the Railjob but that went away once I started punching the throttle and it held together. Hopefully the same happens with the '31.

One thing I did need to change after I got the nailhead mounted and the firewall mocked up was the rear axle placement. Somewhere I got distracted and put it 2 inches too close. I've been following @jordabennett racer build as well as the OT work from Mike at Stanceworks and decided to plasma cut some nicer kickups that pushed the axle back. Did some quick CAD drawings and sent them over to my friend to cut.

I matched the taper at the forward end so it would flow as clean as possible with the rails. If my math is correct these will swoop up under the car right before the wheel arch.


I'm really happy with how much this frame has evolved and improved as well as my skills. A big change has been my mindset as well. Before I was just rushing to get it done, but now I've learned to slow down. Take my time to think about what I'm trying to build and try to make it something I'd want to see even without a body on it. I feel like I'm getting there.

 

Looks great I'm building a 30 tudor with a 364 nailhead/ wide ratio muncie looking forward to seeing what you do

 

So I kind of already showed it in the last post but I had @GearheadsQCE narrow down a Goldtrak diff and the '40 bells to work with his champ adapter plates. Still need to get some axles for it but hopefully Ill be able to pull the trigger on that soon.



Some other unobtanium pieces that Ive actually managed to pick up. Right around my birthday (coincidence?) Matt Martin from Centerville auto announced they were going to do another run of their 6x2 log intakes. its been years since the last round and he wasnt sure if they were gonna do anymore afterwards. I got lucky with timing and money and was able to get my name on his last set. now to start collecting carbs.



I was searching the local junk yard last summer and a '49 ford popped up. It and a couple other cars had burnt down in a garage fire. I have always loved the '49 dash and I was able to pull this one for $40. I dont have really any sheetmetal experience and especially none with burned metal but I figure I cant really mess this one up any more than it already is. Plus if it dosent work out I have a cool wall hanger.




This year for christmas my wife found a '51 cluster thats already been converted to 12v. I think it will look perfect in there.

 

I made a fun side project with the spring perches from the axle bells. I really dont have anywhere to store my air tools so I cut some notches into a main spring leaf I had and then used the perches to mount it above my work bench. This leaf had a little too much arch once it was all togeather but I found a flatter one in my stack that Ill remake later.

 

Now, that is a cool idea. I may have to steal it.

 

Got a little sidetracked with Detroit Autorama, Cavalcade of Cars Old School review, and a bunch of family stuff lately. Im trying to get My 64 Olds back up and running as well as chasing problems on my 85 Suburban. But last Saturday some of my club brothers came to hang out and one of them had a 1919 Dodge Brothers roadster in the bed of his truck. So of course we had to throw it on my frame "just to see" haha. Plan is after my frame comes off the table Ill start a frame for his car.

 

I'm not sure why, but some of your photos are showing up as red X's...kinda like the photobucket host fiasco of a few years back.

I've been following your thread...good work!

 

Yeah I noticed that. I'm going to have to go back and try and reload a bunch of pictures. Thanks for following along

 

So I still need to go back and fix all my photos. Kind of a bummer. But here's an update from the last year.

For a quick departure from the frame, I started cutting down the junkyard 49 dash to get it to fit. Still needs some trimming and I need to figure out how to actually mount it but it was a fun little project. Finally got my olds running again but ran out of gas on my test run. Also found our I had a wheel cylinder go bad and lost most of my brakes. So back on the jack stands it goes.

Decided to test fit the body to make sure I had all my dimensions right


Had to grab a shot with all 3 together

 

The kids had asked to bring the racecar for their trunk or treat at school. Not gonna say no to that. While I had the car on the trailer I decided to stop off at Vinsetta Garage for some beauty shots

 

Very cool!

 

Well, not the lack of brakes part but the rest

 

With the body on I could finally see how much room I'd have to the floor for the rear suspension. I'm 6'2 and I'm trying to keep as much space inside the car as possible. I'm also determined to keep the back seat in the car. (why build a fordor if I'm not going to have a back seat?)

My initial plan of having the torque arm aim at the top of the quick change meant I was going to have to raise the floor significantly.

I got fusion360 set up at home so I modeled up a torque arm that attached lower and made some test 3D prints to see if I got it aimed correctly.

 

Couple of minor tweaks and I fully modeled up the torque arm to get cut out of 3/8 plate

My plan was to use a chunk of an extra '40 radius rod to make it look like something that would have already existed but be strong enough to handle the nailhead. So I cut down the section I needed and spot welded the plate in.


I then had some accent ribs made up to finish it off.

Overall I'm really happy with how it turned out. Gonna have a friend tig weld it up so I don't have to do too much clean up work on the tight areas.

 

Looks slick!

how much room to the driveshaft domyou end up with?

 

It's close but I feel like I have enough space. For how short the driveshaft is gonna be I don't expect to much deflection.