Projects Austin Somerset Gasser Build (DragNasty)

Looking good man

 

So today, with around 20 days before the Meltdown Drags, we really stepped up the bodywork by calling in the pro. Kerry Wrinkle is the retired director of a collision repair program from a locally well known technical school and a good friend. He seriously bailed me out on this thing making quick work of the final sanding and shaping of the Austin! Don't look at me like that, I didn't drag him out of a rocking chair or anything. Kerry still keeps busy at Wrinkle Kolorworks painting only when and what he wants!




The body work will be complete this weekend. Which is a huge load off my mind, not to mention my back!

 

....AND while Kerry set about his craft, I set about doing what I do best, creating more bodywork opportunities!


All kidding aside, this is a serious situation that I have been studying for a while. It is hard to see from a flat photograph, but in real life, that cute little "swoopy" wheel well shape hides some ominous issues. It is obviously fairly close to the side wall of the slick. In fact, at about .5" that is a serious understatement. My concern is if the car gets crossed up and needs some quick 911 directional adjustments, the side wall could easily flex out and hit either or both sides....and at 150 mph or so, that might not be the best scenario.


So after WAY too much talk and trouble shooting, again I did what I do best, boldly go where know man has gone before and worry about fixing it later. I protected the slicks with a scrap sheet of aluminum and with the plasma cutter, traced the embossed area of the lower fender and carefully removed it.

Now you can start to see the issue. Remember this was once a door. So it is not just about removing the outer sheet metal. The reason this area is so thick (resulting in my tire clearance issue) is the thickness of the door.


After the skin was removed then we had to deal with the inside of the door.


After that area was removed next we have the door sill...etc. etc. etc. Actually all these crazy layers, from the now MIA rear door, is one of the reasons I decided not to radius the rear wheel wells. That and the fact that I really like the way it looks tucked. Leaving them has met with some adversity from hardline old school gasser guys but in reality, it has been almost 50/50 for cutting or leaving them.


After everything was finally removed, I cut about 1.5" out of the lower rail area and with a little heat and gentle persuasion coaxed the "swoopy" front area of the wheel wells to a more straight position. Then I welded it it back together at the bottom, adjusted the wheel well side of our little cut area to fit and tacked it back in place.




After some meticulous grinding by Dad and some initial body filler, it is hard to tell we ever touched it...


It is a very subtle change, something that when the car is complete, no one will likely even notice. But that little change yielded us nearly 2" in tire clearance, not to mention plenty "o" peace of mind! ....And I really like the new shape!


AFTER.........................................................................................BEFORE

 

I was standing talking to Kerry at the no prep race at the dragstrip a lot today/tonight. Good racing!

Car is looking good man!!

 

Holy cow I can not move this morning. It was a heralding weekend of thrashing on the Austin and I finally gave up
Sunday at about 8 p.m. with maybe an hour or so of finish sanding left in a couple of places. But the car is smooth and the shop is totally destroyed. I am not sure how we will ever get all the sanding dust out of there!


You know the old body was really pretty straight but it had tons of small scratches and chips. I am not sure of the body/paint process that Austin used back in the day but this car had four layers of pretty tough stuff on it.


To begin with it had a very thick layer of final paint but under that it had a tan layer (and no the green was not a re-spray, even the inside of the doors, behind the panels were green). I am guessing the tan was a final primer maybe like a filling or sanding primer etc. Under the tan is a red oxide primer and under the red a black primer or sealer maybe. So on every scratch and chip you had to take it down to the deepest layer that it penetrated. Most of the time that was to bare steel. Then we had to feather it all out etc. I stopped counting after 100 chip and scratch repairs.


I was really happy in the end with the amount of filler we used. There are a couple of small spots that might have been an 1/8" but they were very limited areas. For the most part it took from a skim coat to maybe 1/16 of an inch to clean up our metal work etc. Since the last bit of sanding work is all up front, we shot the trunk lid last night in primer just to feel like we had accomplished something tangible this weekend.

 

Man I can not tell you how much I appreciate my Dad. So after all the dust cleared Monday night we got to shoot a little bit of gloss on it. Things got ugly. What looked and felt smooth as a baby's backside to us, looked more the like the inside of a baby when the gloss and some light hit it. I mean it was just nasty (at least in my OCD mind shot of how I want this project to look)!

We both just sat, exhausted and stared at it in disbelief! I told Dad I felt like throwing up and he gave a facial expression that showed he aggreed. If the trunk (which we really felt was slick) looked this bad, the rest of the car must be an absolute disaster. It is going to take a ton more blocking, light fill work, feathering and filler primer etc. etc. etc. Way more time than my calendar has left. I went to work Tuesday fairly disgruntled about the entire project. With the pressure of the Meltdown Drags looming it really felt like a good hard gut punch. It is hard to believe after all the work and time we have already put in it but I was so disgusted, I could have easily jumped ship that morning. When I got home I did not even go to the shop.

So anyway, I finally get my head straight by quitting time the next day and headed home prepared to do what ever it takes to get it right. When I pull up the shop door is open and Dad is in there sanding. He had spent the entire day, meticulously working on the body. One little spot at a time. I jumped in and we knocked another 4 hours out on it and by the time we shut the shop door, it was all but finished (again). But this time just before we checked out, we shot some gloss again on the trunk. All is well... (I will get some photos up here in a bit).

 

I'm looking forward to seeing your car at the Meltdown in a few weeks. You'll have a blast there!

 

John I'm here to tell you that car is awesome I have seen it and it is awesome it can only get better with some shiny paint

 

High praise there from the coolest 2nd gear wheel standing Willys Pickup on the planet!

 

Pffffttt what ever lol.

 

Same here, I love watching your car launch!

 

Shiny pant is over rated

 

It takes more than a coat of paint to make it at Thunder Road! Is that what you are saying James? LOL!

 

So after several days of fixing one small body flaw at time, we finally just pulled the trigger and glossed it. Yesterday we were finally able to get out of the shop to put a bit of heat to the top coat not to mention letting it run a bit in the driveway.

 

WOW That looks great. Good luck at the drags!

 

Now you're cooking with Crisco!

 

Looking good. We will see you in a little over a week. Looking forward to the Meltdown! !!

 

It has been a weekend of last minute projects. The final knock out list for this car is about 10 pages long. The abbreviated "Go To Meltdown Drags" list is at least a few pages shorter. Not scrimping on any performance or safety factors but some of the aesthetics at least on the interior are simply going to have to wait. To begin with since we had the car finally in a bit of color, which included the windshield channel etc. we decided to get the Lexan in the car.


A few weeks ago, when I posted about cutting the Lexan I did not show you how we decided to mount the windscreen. So I guess now is as good a time as any. There is a .5" sheet metal lip (if you will) that the original glass sat on after it was dropped in place. We took washers with the inside hole diameter the same as our mounting screws and welded them in place on that ledge. Basically the top portion of the washer fit on the ledge with the hole and lower part of the washer hanging down below it. We evenly spaced 16 of them to mount the Lexan.


Saturday morning we carefully put the windscreen in place and marked the top middle hole. We drilled it and then installed an allen head bolt with lock nut. Then we simply worked our way left and right and up and down to ensure we got it all straight and level etc. To finish it off, we will tape off the grease pencil mark around the edges and paint a 1" boarder around the entire outside which will cover the mounting tabs from being seen from the outside of the car.

 

We also installed the rear side glass. I was really happy as after we had the foil backed insulation in place, they literally popped into place with just a little bit of pressure.


Of course even though they were a nice tight fit, there is no way they would stay in place of their own accord. Dad came up with the idea for mounting them with left over Lexan strips.


We cut 1" strips, predrilled them, placed them on the inside sill, used clamps to bend them to shape, shoved them as hard as possible against the inside of the window (sandwiching the Lexan window between the strip and the outer lip) AND with self drilling sheet metal screws locked them down in place. Wow! Now that is what I call a sentence!

 

You might have also noticed in the photo from the last post (if you look inside the the car) we also finished all the sheet metal rear fire wall areas. It went in pretty good. Because of the two down runs of roll cage, it had to be installed in 4 pieces but it is done none-the-less. Now the cockpit is completely sealed.


On the long term knockout list are the front windows but we are running way short of time. So we installed a mesh safety window net.


It is a pretty simple application. It has a heavy steel rod in the top and bottom of the net. At the top one end goes into a supplied bushing (usually welded to the roll cage) and the other side gets a seatbelt style clasp welded to it and snaps into place. I also noticed (after taking the photo that in that same area is the parachute release handle. I guess I forgot to show that installation as well. Sorry about that but things have been going about 300 mph around here as of late.

So everything is a pretty simple process before I get hold of it... Normally you would install the bottom portion the same as the top, with the two rod holding bushings on either side welded to the roll cage. But I wanted the net to mount at the top and then drop down and through the window slit in the door. This would mean trying to weld the two lower rod holders on the inside of the door. You can probably imagine the logistics of that!


So this is what I started with. Four pieces of steel angle iron cut about an inch or so wide. I drilled holes in one end of both. One of them the size to hold the net rod and the other large enough to put a screw through. Then I welded them together as shown above to give me a surface to bolt to the door and an extended piece to hold the rod.


This is basically what it looked like in place. Low and behold and against all odds, one of the former window crank bolt holes was at the dead perfect height. The other side we had to measure and drill a mounting hole for our other home made bracket. Before we installed it, we drilled a small hole on either end of the mounting rod to slide the supplied hairpin style clips. This will keep the rod from sliding out as the access will be limited after the door panels are installed.


This is how it looks complete.

 

Last night we rolled her out of the shop for a few photos with a portion of the graphics installed.


In retrospect, I sort of wished I had gone with more of a Matte Black on the body. It is Satin black and the contrast from the gloss black fenders is not as much as I had thought. I mean I wanted it to be subtle...but this may be a bit too subtle. And if the words in the above photo look like they might be glowing...

......they are! They are cut from 3M white reflective

 

The Union Jack flag install was a complete disaster. I knew it was going to be difficult because of the size and contours of the roof.


To complicate matters, it was printed on the wrong style of vinyl. It is long story but suffice to say before it was over, there were several all out temper tantrums resulting in this:


...balled up mess on the drive way. You know it just occurred to me this might be offensive to Brits all wadded up. My sincere apologies. I assure you that is certainly not my intention, it is simply how a long day in the shop ended for us. It seems the perfect analogy to a very messed up day! But never fear, I have a new Union Jack in production right this second and we will get it right this time.

 

Looking good my friend don't worry bout that big sticker hell I damn near done that with the motor in the digger last night when the new fuel pump wouldn't fit between the engine and the frame rail because these factories can't make two things the same size but like you I have it sorted out mokan test and tune Friday night?

 

I wonder if a quick wet sand with some 1000 grit wouldn't give you the matte finish you want for contrast? Liking this car a bunch.

 

Just a word on the net installation. The be legal at sanctioned events the entire net needs to be mounted to the cage (inside the outer plane of the tubing). Right now if the car was involved in a big crash and the door exited the shell the net would tend to go with it. The purpose of the net is to keep your arm inside the cage structure in that sort of situation.

Roo

 

Exactly...understood. That is a good point but the issue I have is the shape of the car (and therefore the placement of the cage inside). With the rounded roof etc. The upper (over the door) roll bar is officially sort of over my shoulder if you were to drop a plumb bob from it. The lower bar because the side of the car sort of bulges out and then comes back in at the floor pan, is pretty much in line with the top. So if you drop the net straight down from the upper to lower cage points, there would be no way to drive the crazy thing as it would be totally in the way. Hopefully it will pass for the Meltdowns and HAMB Drags until I get time to get the door windows in...

By the way did you see Jay Leno take that crazy roll over ride in the Hemi Under Glass! Both he and Bob (driver) are lucky they did not loose an arm. There was nothing on either window opening... In fact, Jay actually had his arm out the window as they started the wheel stand. Scary!

 

Well we made a really tough decision last night to pull out of the Meltdown Drags this year. We have been absolutely thrashing on the car to make the deadline, nearly to the point of taking the fun out of it. Although it really looks ready there are several small but very important issues left and we are simply out of time. Outside of the car issues themselves, I have a lingering anxiety that it is wholly untested. I found out at last night that Dad feels the same way, probably more so than myself.

I mentioned to another HAMB’er this morning that to be really fast, a car needs to feel familiar. I know that may sound funny to some people, but I have had lots of fast cars in my time and they all had that favorite sweat shirt feel to them. You are comfortable in them. You know them. You can feel what they are doing from the seat of your pants (and not from that very moment, but from many similar experiences from the past). Less than a week from the Meltdowns I do not have that with the Austin.

For the past two months, we have been trying to get to the drag strip to do some testing. However work schedules, family obligations and weather have kept the little Austin sitting in the shop. Our goal was (AND STILL NEEDS TO BE) make several 60 foot launches and see where she goes. Then shoot for a few launches and a second gear pull etc. etc. etc. This is simple not the car to roll up to the line and make an all-out pass right out of the gate. That is good way to get very hurt and quickly tear up a very cool car.

And for me that is what the Meltdowns is about; putting on a good show for the fans and representing this era and genre of race car. If I can’t do that, then we will just have to wait for next year. As for the little hot rod’s debut, we have set our sights on the much more comfortable deadline for the HAMB Drags!

 

Man I hate to hear that but safety is number one and if you don't feel safe then don't risk it I would rather wait to see it run than to see it upside down or something worse keep plugging away there is always next meltdown

 

Sorry to hear that.
So now you have 1 month to get it ready.

 

So in the mean time the build saga continues. But at a more leisurely pace....
Here was my solution to the huge flag on the roof. Paint the white part of the flag.


Then have the flag printed again but contour cut and weed out all the white pieces so instead of one huge graphic, we can take the smaller parts and piece the flag together.


As you can see, it worked very well. We started by just getting the big red cross in place and then simply pieced the rest of it together making sure to keep things straight etc.