Hot Rods old 50's style rail

hey ive been on here for a couple years or so has anybody found any old plans on makein a 50 style rail..you know the short wheelbase ones where you sit over the rearend..i saw one in a 1961 hot rod and thouht it would be a good project for the winter...lots of thanks for any help

 

Rex Rods makes a chassis.

 

Look on the HAMB Drags forum, the HAGR cars are the best EARLY cars. For late 50s look at Kerrys car.

 

I made this one a few years back I am really really enjoying it. Search You Tube "Senior dragster" for videos. Detailed pics on my website shown on this post. Car is short fun safe and steers and runs well. Short enuf i put it in the back of my 1/2 ton to go racing. 96 inch wheel base . it is mild steel tubing and built with a currrent rule book in hand so as not to get somehwere and be prevented from running. Double hoop and extra helmut bars dont add much to appearance but you do what you have to, to keep everyone smiling. It takes about $400 of dom mild steel tubing to make a short rail an altered or even a 130 inch rail. I use mild steel because i am used to working with it and it is strong and not too heavy. Car weighs 1404lbs. In moly it might go 1304 at best.
Don

 

See Rich Venza on here. He has professionally engineered plans for a 1958 Chassis Engineering frame. I have mine built off these plans, 103", and it's way cool. They work well and the frame cost me about $300.00 to build. Add another $80.00 for the aluminum body and it's 1959 all over again.

 

thanx for the info..got a good starting point...let you know how it turns out

 

$300??? Wow, I didn't get off that easy.

I didn't have plans but got what measurements I could from a friend with a similar chassis (earlier style) and spent some time scaling pics in old Hot Rod mags for the rest. Here's my Dragmaster like digger.

 

Fuck I love this car.......

 

I'd love her more if she hadn't blown up on me. Didn't she understand I'm a newbie and need some extra slack? ;-) Thanks for the kind words.

The trailer is going to get changed for the third time. With it hitched, backing the digger off, the headers hit BAD at the ramps! I'm going to make the trailer hinge on the tounge, at the first crossover in front of the axle. Not sure what I'll use but some sort of jack in front of the winch will control the angle with brackets to lock it down to travel. This will allow a nearly straight shot at the ramps off of the trailer for the digger. I'll post up some pics when I get it done.

 

what type of wheels are on the back? do they have a specific name?

 

Actually I like your digger very much. It has a real nice look to it. You captured it well.
Don

 

They are just an aluminum alloy five spoke Torque Thrust. The originals were Americans and were made from magnesium. I run four of those on my 31 Pontiac. Most later Americans and others were aluminum. There are several styles with different shaped spokes. To be honest I don't remember if these are old knock offs or actually Americans. I got them for cheap off of Ebay because of some serious curb rash but put them on my lathe and cleaned that off mostly.

I've hijacked this thread haven't I? Sorry.

Thanks Don.

 

thanks for the info on the rims, but does anyone know about the rubber on them?

 

Yeah, the slicks are new piecrusts from Hurst racing slicks. Cody's a HAMBer and a great guy. He'll take care of you.

These are the 30x10x15 double buffed to remove all lettering.

http://www.hurstracingtires.com/1093440.html

 

thank you

 

i like where it gone ...keep it up
these are scans of a old jan 1961 hr pics of what i mean

 

Kerry... Your car is way slicker than mine! The $300.00 I talked about was for the frame only. Your car is actually styled about five years newer than mine and updated a little bit with the double hoop etc. The earlier cars used two 120" long drops of 2.5" .095, 1020 mild steel tube for the main rails and the engineer who did the report explains the superiority of mild steel over chrome moly for this chassis. My how things have changed! If you include the cost of tubing and the two radius bends required for the single hoop cage, I,m still well under the cost discussed. The engineering report I have is to Scotty Fenn from Norman L. Pederson, mechanical engineer, 925 Santa Monica Blv'd, Beverly Hills, California, dated February 24, 1958.

Mr. Pedersen can be reached at CRestview 1-5205 should you have any further questions. Once again, the plans and engineering report are courtesy of Rich Venza.

Keep me posted Kerry. Yours looks like you can actually run it somewhere.