Hot Rods The "Whatever" project

Drove over to Vermont today and picked up a part for Sonny.
I'm going to let the parts I collect for Sonny guide his form and function. But tomorrow, back to the garage and the whatever project...

 

Live axle!

Case looks similar to a Frankland but 12 bolt side plates.

Jones?
Oh, Boy! Sonny is RACER!!!!!

 

I just sent you a direct message. It's a Halibrand midget, and may be a mongrel. Newer parts mixed with older parts to fit a vintage application where the outer appearance is what matters. It's got an internal shifter as it were, but tapered axle and hubs. First time I've used or had anything other than Frankland or Winters or way back exposed to a Hiland (Hyland???, don't know the spelling).

 

I see where the Frankland look comes from. That ridge around the housing that makes it look like the deep gear case of the Frankland rear. It's a part of the casting. I have no idea why it's there, as it has a thin Halibrand cover plate. It doesn't come apart there, it's just cast in to the main body.

 

Oh, You tricked me. Or I tricked myself. I thought it was a full size QC.

I've never seen that Midget center before. The rear cover looks like two piece. Glad you pointed that out.
When you get around to opening it up, you will probably find that the internals are Model A. No nose support for the pinion.

Not my specialty, at all.

I think you were looking for Highland.

 

Highland, that's the spelling! I'm an enginerd, not an English major. I wanted a job...

 

But you could have become a member of POEM, the Professional Organization of English Majors! What a missed opportunity...

 

I'm afraid it's not something that I have ever aspired to. Technical writing and regulations writing is actually easy. Like in Dragnet, "Just the facts...). And there's always multiple reviews to correct the spelin.

 

Looking closely at the 2 pictures, you can see that the rear suspension mounting points are now lower in the chassis and the arc paths will be essentially the same. When the car is on the ground and at ride height, the left side single link will be horizontal and the right side wishbone will be in the same plane.

I altered the lower shock mounts as well while I was working on the suspension mounting brackets, changing the length of some spacers to get everything lined up better. Now there should be no bind in the rear suspension thru its range of motion.

While working on all this, it dawned on me that I'll need some snubbers above the axle to stop it from crashing into the frame rails and bottoming out the shocks. Probably get some urethane bumpers and make some sort of adjustable mount.

Whatever...

 

Progress today on floor supports.

Made templates for the floor:
And here's the nose with the cutout opened up:
Next time in the garage I'll start on the aluminum tread plate.

 

Some pictures of the progress such as it is today.
Cut and rough fit the aluminum tread plate for the floors. It's not bolted down yet, I need to pull it all apart and put the body back on to make sure that everything fits.

I sat in it to see if there's room for my feet on the clutch and brake pedals, and where the gas pedal will fit. A little bit of fettling to the pedals and I think that the setup is going to work. My left foot stays inside the diagonal brace, which is inside the cowl, so I think I'll be able to drive it!

While I was sitting in it (on it?), I ran the steering lock to lock. It takes 4 turns. I'm still ruminating over the possibility of using one of the steering quickeners from Howe. I think 1-1/2:1 would be good. This will give 2.6 turns lock to lock, which is plenty fast enough. I did find a bind every half turn. Turns out that I had the connecting shaft a little bit long in the u-joint between it and the steering column, causing the cross to hit the end of the shaft. Remember that I was fussing with the steering column support a few weeks ago and hadn't needed to turn thru complete revolutions since. Easy fix, shortened the shaft so it's flush in the u-joint.

I also discovered that the pitman arm just touches the lower frame tube at full lock.

I guess I'll be making a clearance notch to clear the tie rod end. It does stop the steering just as the right side tire gets to the hairpin. Maybe I should add a crossmember right there that will also act as a stop... Don't worry, I'll make it safe.
It does stop the steering just right however. But, no. I have to make sure that it can't get stuck in that position.

And here's a couple of pictures of the radiator mockup in the nose. The way I envision the side panels and hood, all airflow coming in the nose should pass thru the radiator and a shroud from the radiator to the fan should be easy to make. Now to get a radiator made... You can say it should be a fug snit!

 

Dave, the VW bus boxes I use in the Track Roadsters are 2 3/4 turns lock to lock. However, there isn't enough travel to steer the early Ford linkage to get stop to stop at the spindles. So, I make a pitman arm with multiple holes, and find it works great at 2 1/2 turns on the street. We move it up, for the dirt, to around 2 turns.

 

Thanks Marty. I hadn't thought about making a new pitman arm. I like the Vega steering box in it now. I could move it back on the frame a couple of inches, and make a new arm to accomplish 2 things, speed up the steering, and gain clearance at the lower frame tube.

This is why I keep posting. There's always great ideas passed along.

 

Body back on to continue fit up. Had to make a couple of cuts to get it to fit over some of the floor support system. Next, a few body mounts and a couple more cuts to get other stuff to fit. I get nervous when I do that, but I'm getting used to clearancing the body. I just hope that ratrodder will be available for patching up any of my oops steps...

A couple more things to do before more pictures. That's tomorrow, after I visit the dentist for my new front teeth!

You know, All's I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...

You're welcome for the earworm!

 

Picked up another T5 transmission. It's a V-8 Camaro T5, numbers seem to indicate 1987, and nwc. It has the smooth bearing race, where the S10 T5 1993 has the race with the concentric rings. 2.95:1 low gear so regardless of wc or nwc a better gear set for the Whatever. Now I have to clean both of them up, make sure that the internals are in good condition, repair as necessary, and swap on the S10 tailhousing.

So now I have more transmissions than cars total. I might have to dispose of 1 or 2... nah, as soon as I did I'd come up with a use for it.

Back to the nwc T5, I guess I'll lower my power requirements when the 327 gets built.

 

So I didn't work on the Whatever project too much this week. Instead I put together a cart for my air compressor system. It's not quite finished yet, but it's getting there. Then back to cleaning up transmissions, and swapping tailhousings.

 

Extraneous tasks! Finished up the compressor cart, and tested for leaks. It's all good...

Next on the list was to put the body back on to frame and check fits.
Here's one of the problem areas. The floors are currently sitting on the back of the body, nothing a little bit of trimming won't fix. I'm getting a little more comfortable cutting on the body. But I'm much better now...

Started fabricating a spacer to tie the top of the 2 engine plates/firewall assembly together. The spacer is the same thickness as the bellhousing flange. When finished there will be a slot cut in the body's firewall for the spacer to fit in. The 2 plates and spacer will bolt together, making it extremely stiff and removing any stress from the body's firewall.

Finally tonight, here's a couple of pictures of the new to me V-8 T5. Still a little dirty and needs the tailhousings swapped out, but I ran out of steam... Things are progressing, even if it seems to be a glacial pace...

 

A little bit of progress. I need opinions. And I know I'll get them! Oh boy...

So here's a few pictures of the new stuff made today and possible positioning of that stuff.
As you can see I bent up some tubing to fabricate a rear bumper. Hey I've been spinning my wheels on other stuff, not making much progress, so I jumped over to the easy stuff. Another easy one in a little bit...

The question is, up or down or somewhere in between for the height of the bumper? I'll adjust the width later, when I fabricate the mounts for it. It'll need a couple of uprights somewhere in the middle, those will be integrated into the mounts. And any thoughts on taillights. I'm leaning towards 50 Pontiac, in the turtle deck, but I'm open to alternate lights. Besides, never having built a hot rod before, I have no idea what's available that looks good on a T. Dirt cars didn't have any lights, so you can see the problem...

Next on the list, steering wheel. You may remember I mentioned somewhere in the past that I would like to use a steering wheel that I made years ago. The only problem at that time was with it bolted to the steering column at its current length it hit my legs and I couldn't work the pedals. So I tried an experiment, just putting it on top of the small wheel. That works, so the solution is to lengthen the column by 4 inches. No problem, as it's been altered before, and it's really easy to do it again. These pictures give an idea of what it needs to be.

And I got a lead on a running 283! Ill know more about it tomorrow! I know, it's smaller and less motor than the 327, but I'm going ahead with that one also. Call me crazy!

 

Dave, I would select and mount the tailights before mounting the bumper, unless you mount the lights in the bumper.
These are 42-48 Ford, and Model A's.

 

Nice! Hadn't thought about model A lights, they'd fit inside the u-bends Just Fine! Thanks Marty, I'm going to look into those. I know they are available as repops, maybe I'll see if ratrodder (the nephew, and good at finding stuff online) can find 2 real Henry parts in good shape. I can picture making another pair of u-bends, cutting them up to make a full circle and mounting the lights dead center.

Hmm!

 

Marty, and anyone else with an opinion. Total lock to lock is 4 turns currently, which gives an angle on the inside tire in either direction of 50 degrees. The tires just touch the radius rod/hairpin at that point. How tight do others have at maximum lock?

 

Didn't like the look of the hoop back bumper so I cut one in half, made the long ends slightly shorter, and turned it into a single bar that follows the contour of the bottom edge of the turtle deck. Made some stands to space it out from the frame, and have it ready to mount tomorrow.

Still haven't decided if the regular or reduced diameter 1950 Pontiac taillights will be the ones. And then a big order from Speedway.

Getting close to taking it all apart for some serious welding time. But first I'm going to make a rotisserie for the frame. I'm going to copy my decades old engine stand that I made years ago in high school (don't ask how many decades ago...). Add a cross brace, and a couple of anti tip overs, and I have a rotisserie... And a 2nd engine stand when done. Hoo boy, more stuff to store.

I've exceeded the blivet capacity!

 

You should have built a bigger garage!

I'll see what I can dig up for Model A taillights. What's your price limit? Repops are around $64/pair, with brackets, from Speedway. Double that if you want the "STOP" script in the glass.

 

Decided to go with the reduced size Pontiac taillights. They are flat on the back, and LED, so should be good and bright. And I'll be getting their door kit. You know what that means. You and I have some lernin to do. And maybe we'll rope in Herman (that's dad to you) for help with the wood thing. I hear he does alright in a wood shop.

That way we have someone else to blame when it all turns to... He does have experience bending wood to unique shapes. The ruptured duck comes to mind!

 

Phew! $500+ in one brief phone call! Taillights, kingpins, bearing adapters, and a door kit, on order. Oh well I can't take it with me...

 

Your bandsaw and a decent sander may be enough for the woodwork we need to do. I'm sure we can find a warm weekend next spring.... we're going to want to have the overhead door open for the fumes, and nobody likes to work with cold fingers.

 

I suppose it's not good to have the heat on with just the back door open for ventilation while messing with whatever chemicals are in resins...

 

The resin will still generate some of its own heat, but in my experience it cures better if the ambient is above 50F.

 

A couple of pictures first.
I didn't like the looks of my 1st attempt of a rear bumper. Those bends just looked too large the more I looked at it and moved it around. I never found that sweet spot. So I cut one of the u-bends in half, and came up with the bumper in the new pictures. I'm going to add a couple of 90 degree bends to brace it from below, but I got sidetracked on a couple of weedwhackers.

Those 2 cardboard circles are simulated taillights, one of the full size repops and one of the reduced size Pontiac taillights. The full size LED repops are completely flat on the back of the housing so that's what I ordered. Parts should be here tomorrow or Saturday.

 

Dave, you could add a riser between the tailights, to house a licence plate.