Hello Hambers, My name is Andrew and I am sorta new to this board. I've been spending a lot of time on my One Ton Jeep TJ project and have been neglecting my '29 Tudor project. With spring being here my gears have turned to the hot rod (I'm outa money for the jeep). What I'm playing with is a complete A sedan and a late flathead and trans. I have boxed the frame, installed some hydraulic brakes on the stock banjo and a loaded superbell front with Buick drums and self adjust juice (linclon I think) (still not completely dialed in) brakes. The car is cherry with no rust and just 2 dents I put in the roof with lift forks I am to the point where I have the body on the frame and am trying to set up the engine and trans. I don't know how y'all are over here but just for good measure I am a noob and have never done this before. I usually hang on Pirate4x4's board and they tear posts like this up. So go easy on me. My skills are fair to good (welding, grinding, making things work) and I have worked on, built and taken apart stuff for about 12 years. I do jeeps, bikes, muscle cars, hot rods and anything else that I have the money for. On this rod I would like to keep it as stock as possible. Using all the parts I already have. I know the early banjo doesn't have the pinion support and the steering box will probably be scary as sh#!. But like I said I'm kinda out of money for now. So when the rear snaps in two I'll go T-5 and 12 bolt or Dana 44 and when the steering makes me crap my pants to many times I'll go reverse corvair or F1. Here is where I'm at on the '29. It apears that the engine is going to clear the fire wall with the oil fill removed. The enginetrans is pushed in to the torque tube all the way. My problem is the A crosmember. I need to cut the rear part (lip) off where the pulley is hitting. I apparently am also gonna have to hack the crap out of my box job on the frame. Any input would be appreciated along the lines above (stocksimple). Thanks, GCR Drunk mock up. here you can see the boxing plates and the sweet 21" wheels I'm not using. The gine Almost a roller and the steelies I'm using Today. You can see the front crossmember problem and how the car will kinda sit. Thing is as high as my TJ was on 37" rubber.
Good looking project. It is a common thing to cut the rear lip off of the cross member for clearance. If you bought an aftermarket A front crossmember they are allot flatter and have no rear lip. That would probably drop the front a good inch. But if you low on funds, that is cool, what you have will work with a little trimming. Keep it up, and keep us posted.
This is the jeep back in the day Here it is now. I'm building a Dana 60 front and a 14 bolt rear. I will cut the cross member and let y'all know. Thanks
No affense but you should redo those welds on the motor mounts and anywhere else that looks like that. Its all about saftey and a motor mount needs top be strong. The beads on that mount look like puke. Try cleaning the metal until its shiny with a grinder because if you dont your not getting a good weld kinda like those ones on there. Im not being an ass but if you cant weld dont learn on the most important parts of the car. Get someone who can weld to do the structural parts unless your building a rat rod then go right ahead and make it unsafe hahaha Cool project though and neat jeep Ya gotta love a jeep. Just my 2cents -Jon
No offense taken. I know it's not pretty so I called my uncle about half way thru. He is a good fabricator and said it would be fine and had good penetration. Him and I used a Lincoln sp175 plus 220v welder. I also ground the frame, sanded the plates and chamfered the edges of the plates. There was defiantly concern there on my part and I indeed sought out a second opinion. I don't weld to often and when I do I usually practice on scrap for about an hour. I didn't this time. I suck at it and it will probably break and kill me. Naaa. I've had all kinds of stuff break at speed. Almost all of the stock suspension brackets on my jeep have been broken off and been replaced with Rubicon Express brackets welded by me with no more failure. The two front lower control arm brackets let loose on the highway. Only one was hanging on my a thread of metal. The jeep got real squirly But I limped it home very slowly. I recently broke my front trackbar and the steering went funny. I had a front pinion bearing lock up at about 65 cause the shop didn't put any fluid in a brand new axle. I was only 18 and new nothing. They fixed it for free. I used to drive this '29 truck that was built by some kid in cincy. All the rear 4 links had broke off at one time (not double shear mounted). The steering had let loose on me twice and almost got me hurt bad. We fixed the steering and sold the car. I think the guy who bought it rebuilt it a bit and I saw it on ebay about 2 months ago. So I don't know weather to say these things suck or are a fun part of what we do. Obviously I don't want anybody to ever get hurt, especially me or a passenger (dad, friend, girlfriend). I have found that when you start messing around with stuff, modifying things and putting things where they shouldn't go funny stuff can happen. I am by no means a professional car builder but if I think something won't get me there or might kill me I just take it apart until it can be fixed. Does it always work? No, but I do the best I can. Now anyone can criticize and say "O, I'd do... and You should..." But the truth is if you ride a motor cycle, you will fall off at one time or another. If you work 2 hours from your house, you probably go 90mph on the freeway everyday. If you own a jeep with 40" tires stuff will come apart in glorious fashion. If you have a hot rod and dog the crap out of it around town, the cops will take notice and pull my ass over. I am calling the first break on this '29 to be the Banjo rear. Now did I hear of some kit that makes the wheel and axle stay on when the thing when it breaks. I think I should probably get one of those.
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