Hot Rods My Project....1938 Fiat Topolino.....Lil Beast...........

sounds good to me Randy...besides, even if the lil mig i got works great as is, well i could always lie to ya...then you'ld finally have a excuse to get over here and meet Lil Beast...face to grille..
besides, i'm getting a bit worried about security around here...damn goat farmers.........

 

TOPOLINO...first get an industral strenght whellie bar, or that baby will roll right over the rear bumper. you SIR. are about to find out why it ran all over the strip. but you will simply love the ride, hell i'am 68 yrs. old and would drive it in a new york second...POP.

 

POP, my last "cool" daily was a 72 vega wagon, glass tilt nose and a blown 40 over 400...at close to 600 hp....gotta love torque....

the lil dodge hemi has great torque, really low in the rpm range, like all hemi's ...i haven't bothered to guess at what Lil Beast will weigh when done, glass and tank, battery ect...there;s really nothing to the interior, a small bench seat....5 speed and a big set of Radir cheaters, well it'll be fun....building it more for driveing then racing, but a cam and some other goodies are hopefully in the mix for next winter...still wish i had bought that 471 blower intake..


but tonite i finished cleaning the front end and hanging it ..still need to mount the hair pins, but they are ready with fresh painted too...really tired of wipeing off anti-seize stuff....clean the rotors tomorrow and set the pins, then can see where the front end sets and how it feels...i cleaned up the front legs enough to mount the axel assembly, but still am going to send the frame to sand blaster when i get done with the rest of the mounts..body, steering , ect...

 

Hey Mark,
The front end looks really nice. I had to deal with rust like that in 2006 on my Fiat. The river 1/2 mile away from my garage decided to pay a visit. The bare metal was two feet in the water, sewage, fuel oil and god knows whatever else was in the water. It left a beautiful rust ring around the whole car. Alot of cleaning and blasting to get rid of it. Keep plugging away. Oh yah, keep that damn goat farmer away from lil' Beast. Never trust a man with goats!!!

 

Just remember, a professional doesn't need boots.

But I've got extra pairs for you visitors! You'll love 'em, all broken in in all the right spots.

Heading north. Lock up the kids and the garages!

 

looks amazing

 

Good to see the Lil Beast this weekend. Good luck getting that power upgrade in the garage so we can do some real work out there!

 

Looks good Mark, coming along.
I gotta do some playing with my new welder set up, i still need to buy a new whip for it, and some small parts to see if it will be a good combo or not.
My first test will be on mounting my Deuce tank bracket to the back of the A.
but i got to spend some time on getting my welder up first, so i gotta back off the A for a few.

 

well i got pissed off at work yesterday and told em to fuck off and left...came home and finished the service to the garage,,sucked crawling in the crawl space...about 14" high, due to it being an add on to the house about 59 years ago....

anywho, i got power to the garage and in the panel...breakers are in, just gotta start running the wiring in the garage itself...gotta find out what the average 220 mig/tig runs off breaker wise..liked to get one down the road...started out for work this morn and found a nice gash in the sidewall of my dd 99 cherokee, and it flat...had to order a tire, these are 32-11.50-15 and only got about 4,000 miles on em...was going to pick up some gas and try out the century tonite to see if it needs to be repaired or if it was just needin more juice...my lites are way brighter in the garage now

finished off the hiar pins and got the topo back down on the front tires..dropped the frame about 1 full inch...and now it flexes without having to use a 2 ton weight....should score gas for the mig tomorrow and find out what's up with it then...,,,ready to start cranking on the floors and body mounts...steering mounts ect...should have the rearend back by this friday, gonna check with warren gear tomorrow on it...gotta get down Randy's and get them stay bars he's letting me use for the rear...

hopefully it's a very productive weekend coming up...

all this money for the garage service and then buying a new tire for the dd, looking like i might have to sell off some stuff to get some cash up towards my radir cheater slicks.....tired of looking at cardboard tire on my topo

 

picked up LIl Beast's narrowed olds housing yesterday...really nice work done by the guys up at Warren Gear and Axel...had the ends trued, new modern bearings pressed on.which they told me they used early ford bearings, said they have a bit more support to them....picked up a center section gasket and axel seals...had new studs pressed in..new T bolts ...cleaned the pig last nite and dropped it in for a test fit...gotta clean up the backing plates today and gonna make a run at gettting it test fitted into the topo..still no rubber for the rear, but figure i can stuff the housing and bolt on the slots...been waiting a good long time to get here.........

what i could really use is a nice shot of the brakes assembly for the rear end,,,i have picked up here off the Hamb everything for it except for e brake cables...would like to have all of it fuctional..parking brake and all.......got all the rods and such...

also the old dude who did the work on i asked who did my brackets and 4 link mounts...said it wa a damn fine job...so hats off, once again, to KIRK HANNING!!!!!!!

 

when i get back i will look thru my olds books to see if i have the assembly drawings you may need..do you know the approx. year

 

so hows the trip??good hopefully...


they are the same supposedly from 58 or 59 thru 64?? i think...would like to bring down some media and blast my backing plates drums and other rear brake stuff ...........i have collected all the peices that they don't make anymore..i think...shoes, spring kits and wheel cylinders are all still avaible from what i've been told by napa and others......

....

 

well i spent the weekend working on lil Beast, getting him ready for the floor frame work ....friday went and bought 10" of 1 x 1 and 10' of 1 x 2...getting some 3/4 x 3/4 14 ga tomorrow.....

so i started where i stoped last year, working of the new inner and outter rockers i bought for the topo a year or so ago...had the driver's side outter mounted, but just tacked in place but it had an ooopppppppsssssssss when it was getting transported 100 miles to get the chassis built... so i braced the door opening front to rear and cut out the right side..it was the worst looking of the 2 rot wise..besides the door had to be pulled on to open once the handle was lifted...and it had a bad revel around it from years of racing and twisting....tacked it and cut and re-tacked and and trimed some more and finally got it mounted....nice revel and the door opens nice like it should...slipped the inner rock panel into it, they interlock and it slide in perfectly...

so now i need to cut loose and straighten out the slight bow in the left rocker and rehang it...weld in the inners and be ready for the flooring...hopefully next weekend i'm looking for some one to bead roll the floor tin for added strength.. gotta get some batteries tomorrow and i'll post pics...

sure is nice to have the service in the garage to be able to weld...my buddy, Ole Bob has a 220 stick welder out at his brothers place (parents old farm house and shop, pops worked for Ford for eons before he pasted) we're going to go get tues....it's an old welder but is supposedly in good working order..just not enough fire in the century 110 welder i'm using now...does good sheet metal work, and welded the 1x1x1/8 braces in good, but....hey its a free welder in my garage...besides, Bob has keys...and maybe i'll weld the new front section on that model A frame i got out back to make it a roller...still needing a rear body section for that project

 

tonite i finished adjusting the left rocker and door opening...still needs to be welded in...the right rocker is in and pretty much finished welding
on it..was alot of work to get the door propper on the right..old topo has been put thru alot of twisting over the years......but thinkin it turned out fairly well......i get the left side welded in i can start frameing out the floor pans and seat riser...

 

Nice job Mark. The Rockers look great on the Beast.

 

bring em on down Mark..we can sift thru my books and see what i got..some old shit i found in my grandpas garage after he passed away, i never got a chance to go thru it all..it might have the info may not. worth a shot.

good to be back home man..need to get back on the project

 

thanks Bob, i know you can relate to what all is involed in replacing the inner and outter rockers on these fiats..and then factor in all the twisting from moving it around and lord only knows how mant different race frames it sat on...

.Lil Beast has been moving along at a good enough rate to finally make it seem like i'm really building it, not just collecting peices ..although there's still a few things i need, to say the least...

Randy, i''ll get with ya on coming down...hopefully you'll be able to make it sunday to the swap meet..Dan and Cort were by tonite for a second, and Dan said he's shooting for 9-9:30 to get over to the swap.....i'm plannin to get there a bit earlier, but its only about 8 minutes from the house, so....hopefully the weather holds, it would be great to see another year with a good turn out...

 

Looking good Mark. The race is on!

We made ours to have a flat base so that we could lift the body off and sit it on the ground.

We're tacking the chassis together at the moment, just waiting to pick up the bent cage tomorrow. Also been finalising the plans for the steering.

Like I said, the race is on mate!

Jack

 

yeah I'd like to hit it early too...maybe we can meet up and have at it, and when Dan shows up we can tell him where all the good stuff was

let me know what your time plans are and I'll see if I can drag my sorry ass up there on time for ya

 

well sorry to say, this is a race i'll probably loose!!!!commision at the truck stop and it's been damn slow for the last several months....as ya can see, i'm still trying to pry enough cash out of the daily needs funds to get my back tires.......but with just having installed the new service panel in the garage, it has made it possible to be welding the topo together...spent some time last nite, tacking and triming the left side in...still have a bit more to do on it...doing alot of measuring and adjusting to ensure the body is true and square...this tin shell of a topolino body wasn't hardly braced when i got it, so it has been a battle to get it back to "factory specs"...thinking it might be time to start tacking it to the frame to hold it propper, then finish pulling and pushin it into place.....

needless to say, there's a hell of alot of thinking and measureing to build a hot rod from scratch.........

 

well the further i get into working on the floor ribbing, the more i find out how much Lil Beast"s old ass has been twisted...started the floor ribs over the weekend...measure, measure measure....and then measure it again!! pushing and pulling the tin back into place...actually lots of curves to a topo, making it harder still to true it up...maybe i'm getting anal about how preceise it should be??or just a matter of 4 long days and nites measuring??

 

June 5th sins of steel show formerly billetpr@@f. Davisburg , Mi

 

yeah, i was hopeful to make this with my topolino a few months back...been thrashin away at it, but works so slow if i don't find some deals on rear tires and some other goodies, i won't be driving Lil Beast to the sins of steel show......

 

well it's been a month, the floor ribing is pretty much in now....scored a set of M/T slicks and natural rubber tubes...gives me something to roll it with...think i have the old fiat pedals figured out, hopefully get the steering in this week...and the body bolted down..tons to do but we've finally made it off the jack stands.....some pics, even though my digi cam is going bad, makes everything look red...and the hemi needs a bath!!!!!!

 

Looks great Mark! Now roll it outside and get us some good shots.

 

Hell yeah, glad you got the slicks on it.

I've hit the wall with work so I just keep looking at photos of mine on my phone...

Glad to see you're making progress mate - keep it up!

 

thanks, Bob...i wanted to roll it out all weekend.....but my 21' four winns is parked in front of the garage, parreling the garage...live in town and between the cherokee and the 48 flat fender, i'm out of room!!!!

besides, i've been bustin butt to try and get it together enough to get towed into Sins of Steel this saturday, hopefully by Costland's AD Chevy truck...last big Hamb freindly happening that i'm aware of semi-locally.... besides, i'm hope'in to get some advice on who can bend up the headers i want to run.....and some advice on choppin the top a tad...been thinking 1 1/2 rear 2 1/2 front...maybe...........

here's a few pics lightened up a bit..still have weird coloring though,,,look better in new window/browser mode...they almost look like black and white photos

 

Mark, let me know if you'll be up there tomorrow. I'll try to remember a box of bends that I've got that were extras. They are some tight radii in some smaller ID SS.

 

well i had to move the boat to straighten out and mow in front of the garage...so i figured i'ld roll Lil Beast out the door a bit.....




today again i got the wrong pitman arm for my vega box....this makes the second time in 6 days.....called jegs and pitched a real bitch..went thru 3 people and finally got to a manager...long story short, i got a new vega box coming from them at $180 below list..and no shipping charges....guy offered the deal partly due to my long history of buying from them and this way he also figured i'ld end up a satified customer...and as he also said, he knows the pitman arm will fit it......was too cheap of a deal to pass on,even though i have a perfectly good "stock" vega box...so it'll end up in the classified ads.........