Hot Rods The "Whatever" project

Oh no! I should have left them as images

 

I can still see it (on mobile), but it is an extra step.

 

So here they are again as images...hey I'm learning: The 1st win in a brand new limited sportsman for Jim. See his feet? The car was running hot so off came the full side panels. Of course they went from the nose to the roll cage, and the firewall was 8 or 9 inches in front of the cage to get Jim to fit in the car. He was 6-2 or 3 before back issues. Here's where I started. It was relatively light. I could moveit around by myself if I stood inside it at a balance point. Sorry for the poor quality. A little work was done by this point.

 

So do any of you have "One of those days" stories to talk about? For me today it was time to finish the "Oh $#!t" structure that includes the tubes that go under and over the front axle. Having a suicide front spring mount, I figured I'd incorporate the front bumper/shock support structure with some tubes coming from under the axle. Well I got the tubes bent and fishmouthed, and then started to fit it all up.

1st tack weld, Oops! Did I forget to drop my helmet? No! it decided today was the day it was going to fail. Batteries? Nope, its got built in batteries and solar cells to recharge from the arc. So how old is it? Oh yeah 10 or 11 years old. Like all rechargeable batteries, there is a limit to recharge cycles, and today was the limit. So off to the welding supply to get a new one. This one, a Miller Elite something or other (I only have one set of eyes) has replaceable batteries, so that shouldn't happen again.

Got the tubes fitted but no pictures today. Hey I'm lazy and forgetful. I did get some old pictures transferred onto the tablet from the old Iphone soI'll include some pre-"Whatever" pictures...

Starting on the front spring mount. It's built like the old time race car weight jackers, adjustable for cross weight and front ride height.
Back a while at the start of the frame.
Taking a ride in Mr. Peabody's Way Back Machine, here's the front setup as first envisioned. Too complicated and somewhat overweight. You can see the fabricated swing sleeve assemblies on the axle, the left one is free to pivot, the right one clamps and would be pinned to resist rotation if used.
Here's the first take on the rear suspension, with the aluminum birdcages that would be free to rotate on the axle tubes. Fun to make, too complex and not practical.
Here's the car that inspired the setup I am using. Itis Bobby Unser's 9 time Pikes Peak winning champ car. Look it up in the Henry Ford Museum, where its on loan. As you can see from the right side photo, there is only 1 radius rod for both the front and rear suspension.
Look closely at this picture and you can see the hairpin on the left side of the front axle. I don't know where I found some better pictures of this car from the left side, suffice it to say both front and rear have a hairpin on the left side. BTW the rear axle is NOT an open tube sprint car axle. It's an axle very much like the late model guys run. I bet the axle housing tubing is much thinner wall than what mine are, but hey you use what you have.

Tomorrow, finish the front stucture and do some tack welding. Woo Hoo I get to use my new helmet!

 

Oh and 1 last thought: here's a crude sketch of what I have tried to describe as a way to have the "Look" of cowl steering and the effect of Vega cross steering, a la Frank Kurtis Indy cars from 1952

 

I like the concept. Literally out of the box thinking to get around steering shaft clearance issues in a tight engine compartment.

Ed

 

Do it like Cotton Worksman's "T" bucket.

 

Perhaps a photo that actually shows Cotton's steering would be helpful.

 

I believe the top photo is a recreation, as photos I've seen from 2015 show the car still in yellow, not black. I've never been good with geometry, but I'm not sure those arcs are too similar...

Y'all ponder these, and I'll see if I can find any better photos.

 

He had it very well laid out. The 2 arcs will be close to the same radius, hence minimum influence. Probably covered by tire squirm. Of more interest, blow up the lower front picture and look at the left side hairpin bracket. You will see it is attached to the axle with a swing sleeve. Werksman used CAE axles for sprint cars on the t-buckets, and that design has the same concept I was initially working on. If I can figure out how to upload it, I have a 1970 CAE catalog digitized that shows this axle setup. Of course 1st I have to find the file...

 

Well if only someone had told me...
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-cats-out-of-the-bag-cotton-werksman.975767/
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/cotton-werksmans-ardun-powered-t.53748/

Seems we've already covered this T, and quite in-depth too! The top photo I posted above is another car that Cotton built, apparently.

On with the show!

 

The file is too large for me to load as is. Does anyone know how to get a huge file onto the HAMB?

 

ON the Unser car, the left front has a "Y" type radius rod to keep the front axle from twisting. That's pretty much how my first sprint car was set up. There must be something else on the rear to keep the rear axle from wrapping up. They might have depended on the torque tube to prevent wrap up.

 

No it is actually just another hairpin like the front. He didn't have an open tube rear axle in the car. I don't know the exact setup, but from pictures I've seen the rear is similar to what I am using, some sort of floater hub, like a GN or some such. I bet he has a locker rear as the car needed to turn in both directions, and some turns on Pikes Peak are really tight 180 degree turns. I know on my racing buddy, Jim's Mt. Washington hillclimb car, the rear diff had a locker, for the same reason.

 

So it is! So that eliminates any bind as the axle deflects? I see that the drag link and hairpin are close to parallel, but does the sleeve cure some/all of the ills from having the pitman arm lower and to the rear of the hairpin pivot?

Re: larger files, you can try to upload it to your profile and then link it here. Or upload it elsewhere and then link it. Or send it to me and I can futz with it.

 

Oh and the axle bracketwas just welded solid to the outer tube housing, so that the 1 hairpin resists braking and accelerating torques.

 

So finally able to get into the garage for a little bit today. Back issues, only get an hour or 2 sometimes before it just says "NO MORE". Anyway...

As you can see, I got the front of the frame fabricated. Kind of looks like an older dirt car frame up there. I didn't want a peak in the front bumper, and I didn't want it to just go straight across. So I bent the 2 tubes to 85 degrees, and put a small (~2 inches long) piece in the middle. When welded and ground, it will have a small almost flat area to push something with (hey you never know who you want to nerf...).

The 2 under bars are bent at 75 degrees and go under the front axle parallel to the main frame rail. For ease of fabrication, they are spliced and then continue to the rear, ending just in front of the rear kickup. As the picture of "whatever" starts to firm up in my mind, and I am musing on going 1 of 2 ways regarding a body, I have built in some ability to alter some aspects of the frame to fit.

If I build something along the lines of Greg Lazerinni's "Deuce-ish" roadster, then the frame will work as is. However I have always wanted to build a hot rod sports racer like the west coasters used to build using Devin bodies, Ak Miller's Devin bodied Pikes Peak winning car from the late 50's keeps coming to mind. And Toluca Lake Classic Motorsports just happens to manufacture replica Devin bodies. Not cheap, but with planning I can probably afford 1, maybe have to sell some of the other stuff I've collected over the years to fund it...

Oh and get a certain nephew involved to see if we can figure a way to get a body from Sunny California, to Upstate NY somewhat cheaply. His "She who must be obeyed" is from Sunny California after all...

A couple more pictures of today's miniscule progress... And... Yeah a lot more structure to come. If I go the Devin body route, there will be a widening and lowering of the main frame rail from the engine plate to the rear kickup, to get the driver and passenger seats beside the driveline tunnel. Hey its only steel, just cut and weld...

Hopefully more progress tomorrow.

I have an update on the new welding helmet BTW. I bought a Miller Elite (I think that's the model, its their top of the line unit). It has a very large view plane, like the old 4x5 flip down helmets. Great headgear, holds the helmet to my fat head very well, and it stays up when I want it to as well. It has 4 sensors for the darkening feature, which means that it will see the arc no matter how odd a position you are in. Digital controls for all its functions. And fast! You know how tired your eyes get after a lot of welding, well this thing should help reduce that. And when in light mode, you can really seewhere you are with the electrode or mig gun. Worth the money for my eyes.

 

Well that's not your standard front crossmember... definite dirt-car vibes now!

And I'm always up for a good road trip. I'd just better be careful with the choice of tow vehicle... there's a lot of parts I could happily scrounge up between California and New York. You'll have to define "somewhat cheaply" though.

 

So today's only progress was ordering parts. $354 worth of stuff from Speedway, lug studs, steel bellhousing, and a Curtis (their spelling, it's wrong... Kurtis!) style race car nose. I've decided on the direction the body is going, so now to figure out how to make it come together. The road trip isn't needed after all. Tomorrow, more steel.

 

Got the radiator mounts fabbed today: It looks good from this angle. I think there's enough room for a fan, and the top of the tanks are above the water outlet on the 327, so there should be no air bubbles trapped. I goofed on this once on the 54, and ruined a set of Mondello ported 492 angle plug heads. It was a painful experience, but I knew better...

So I also brought the Shroeder champ car box out to see if it will fit. And: Would work great for a single seat center steer, but not a 2 seater where I'm heading, so back to the basement with it...

Guess I'll use a Vega box, but stay tuned for something different in the way I do it.

 

Finally back in the garagea bit today, BUT... Grand National billet hubs, came with the QC. They had 5/8-18 studs, good if I want to use steel GN wheels or drill evey wheel out. I had already installed 1/2-20 stids in the front hubs(5x5 bolt circle to match the GN hubs), and they looked like they had the same size knurl (0.685-inch). So buy the studs, got them last Friday.

You know the carpenter's old saw, "measure twice cut once", well it's car corrollary is measure twice, order once! Yes I'll beordering a 43/64 drill bit to open up the holes by 0.050-inch, the old studs were 0.635-inch give or take knurl. Oh well...

Also in the delivery was a race car nose from Speedway. Looks good, except for the radiator. It hangs out!

And it fits the frame so well... At least the bracketry is only tacked in, easy to remove. Guess I'll wait for a more finished body concept before I get another radiator, or haveone made to fit. At least the effort wasn't completely wasted. I know how much room there is in front of the engine where I located it, so I canbe sure one will fit. A side benefit is that I really didn't like the side mount on the aluminum radiator. I prefer having it supported from underneath resting in a formed c-channel, with top clips to secure it in place.

Also got a bell housing. It can be seen in the seat if you look close enough. So now I have to finish drilling the engine plate for the bolt pattern. I'll use transfer punches to locate the holes accurately.

I know not much progress, but those of you with back issues can probably relate...

 

So I got the 43/64 drill bit this week and drilled the rear hubs for the new studs today. Installed the studs and put the hubs back on. Now I have matching 5x5 bolt patterns front and rear with 1/2-20 threads. Now I have a chassis that with rolling stock could be a roller. This bolt pattern is GM big car or pickup 5 bolt pattern, so now to get some wheels/tires. I'm thinking that the rolling stock on the Werksman roadster looks really good, so maybe some 5 spokes with low wide tires... opinions ?

On another topic, has anybody made their own glass body using rigid foam insulation for a mold? I have 2 pictures of an old supermodified restoration where they remade the body that way. One pic shows the mold being shaped with I think a Sureform tool, and the 2nd shows the mold ready to lay up the glass. It appears it was wrapped in clear packing tape 1st. Thoughts on doing this? It would be an interesting way to get the look I want.

 

@Dave G in Gansevoort, there are lots of videos on YouTube showing how to make foam forms for fiberglass parts. Looks very doable - I hope you go for it!

 

Go for it! If you only need to make one, I’d de tempted to not make a mold, but lay it over foam sculpted to shape.

 

Talk to @Moriarity he build a body I think with that foam or paper mache

 

Yeah I looked at YouTube like brEad suggested, and as both slv63 and loudbang (there's got to be a great story behind that nickname), there are lots of videos where the builder uses foam to make a mold or pattern or whatever you want to call it. So now all I have to do is screw up my courage to make an attempt at body building.

So if anyone seeing this story wants to jump in and post stuff to help me understand what the &#<? I'm trying to do, feel free. And if you have done one, post pics for all to see. Remember my motto "plagiarize " it's easier than you think...

Thanks, and next week its rolling stock time. I'll be altering the radiator to fit inside the nose, and working on the under bars of the frame. And I have to work on steering and all the linkage.

 

Today shop time was mostly spent getting picked up. One thing accomplished was taking the radiator out and turning it on its side to see if it would fit behind the sprint car type nose. And it does. A friend who is an expert aluminum welder has said he'll do the welding for me, as I need to make it from a cross flow to a down (and up and down) flow radiator. Its either that and risk $100 when the radiator was bought, or order a new one,for minimum $300, if from Speedway. I'll risk it... Sorry no pictures today, I'm lazing out on everyone...

Since the radiator will fit, I'll remove the 1st bracketry tomorrow, and get the new mounts and the nose better located. I also started laying out what a body could look like using CAD (cardboard aided design), and think its doable. Since there will be more to show tomorrow, tune in same bat time, same bat channel for an update (hopefully, back willing...).

 

I built the nose for my lakester in my avatar from foam then glassed it to pull a splash. If you dig for Spirit of South Dakota you can see how I did it.

 

Now that I have seen how to make the mold, I guess the next step is to get some blue foam board and start an attempt at a body. I have an image in my mind that looks like Greg Lazzerini's sports rod, but I can't afford a set of deuce quarters. 1st however I need some rolling stock, to set the frame height and decide what looks good.

I'm thinking American Racing Torque Thrusts, 15x8 (R) and 15x7 (F) with 5x5 bolt pattern. I like wide low tires, something that looks like Indy tires from the late 60s. I don't think the Scots side of the family will play out here. More likely the Italian side (the non-thrifty side, Ratrodder don't tell Maggie...).

Oh well, I have a little of my bonus pay left from last spring. It should just cover it...

 

Cool project Dave