Projects BACK TO MY ROOTS-261 CHEVROLET 6 Powered Model A Stock Car

I forgot to post these, from the end of April the cowl top hold downs.

 

I never heard of header paint primer, but I am impressed!
I planned to get a good days work in on the racecar today, but I had to make an unplanned trip to the hardware store, but the trip ended up netted me vintage homemade racecar wheel!

 

Where I've used the VHT primer on headers, it seems to keep the white from flaking as much or as soon.
I'd say it's worth the money.

 

Very cool thread , thank You for sharing

 

I got back out in the garage today and put time in on the racecar!
Built a windshield guard and welded in some gussets that tie the roof to the cowl, with 1/4" bolts Dad's idea.
Also beaded two more wheels!

 

Man! It's been a while since I last beaded wheels. As you can imagine we used whatever was available. Most of mine were done with half inch rebar. Ugly, but Cheap! And welded with 6013. Stopped doing it eventually. Just asked Jim to stop bending wheels... yeah, didn't work!

 

Even with the beads, the wheels still bent way easier then we thought they should have, back in the day.

Its hard to get over how light the wheels are on these modern cars are. Bend the wheels on this new stuff and you have bent most of the suspension as well. My son's neighbor races, I've been hanging around over there these past few weeks. These modern cars are throw away cars. Quite different then what we ran back in the mid 90s.

 

Like Robert has pointed out, cars thru the 70's and into the 80's were somewhat more durable. Part of it was what we had to build with in the early years. Those guys in the 50s and 60s built with cars and materials that were readily available at low cost. Weight wasn't much of a consideration for most of the guys, only the hot dogs who raced for a living. And even then their cars were not that disposable. Again consider the stuff available.

When I was first helping others out, most of the cars around our area were built using 53-54 Chevy frames, and 40ish Ford front suspension components. Still cheap and available in many automotive salvage yards (junk yards...). Safety Racing 3/4 ton spindle adapters and Buick drums. The low buck guys used Highland 6 spline quick change rear axles, heavy but low cost. The bucks up guys ran predominantly Frankland qc rears around here, Winters hadn't come along yet. The cages were typically made from black iron pipe, 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 inch. It wasn't until the tube frame cars came along that tubing instead of pipe became the standard. Lebanon's rule book even recommended that you use the heaviest pipe you could get...

By the time I built the 54 coach, used Frankland qc rears were available used for $200, or less, and easily rebuilt. Chrysler leafs in the rear, Flemke springs in the front were still popular. I used used Reese trailer bars on all 4 corners. Even cheaper, and more adjustable. Again the bucks up guys ran Koni coilovers.

Steering was either a passenger car box, mounted up front on the frame, or some form of manual center steering box, the low cost one was a 6:1 Ross midget box, kind of flakey, or a Schroeder or Halibrand center steering box for the big bucks guys. We did all 3 over the years. And even had one of Schroeder's 9:1 champ car boxes with the power steering system he had. Ran some junkyard pump however and ruined it because of swarf. Live and learn...

Limited class cars were not allowed quick change rear axles, roller cam or rockers, or magnetos. But otherwise were usually just older modifieds. By the early 70's modifieds up here were mostly tube frame cars, big blocks, and at some tracks lnjected. The Valley only allowed injection for over 360 cubic inch engines at open competition races. 360 and under could be injected for Saturday night races, on any fuel. Running 12 % nitro one night was fun!

A lot of those cars have been restored and still run in various vintage events. Unfortunately mine were scrapped when we were done with them. Parts salvaged for the next project. I still have a Schroeder 9:1 champ car box, a set of sbc Hilborns, and miscellaneous odds and ends. I'd love to recreate one of the cars, but I'll probably never get a round tuit...

 

Square tube and Black Pipe roll bars/cages get a bad rap as being unsafe when the truth of the matter was people were using used Black Pipe that had rust/eroded from the inside and were not gusseted or reinforced.

Vintage drag racing, the bodies are destroyed but the rollbars are intact, because they are gusseted and reinforced.



Bruce Dostal's Falon note square tube in cage but gusseted. Bruce rolled the car at Fonda he was looking down at the flagger again the body is unusable, but the cage held up. -


Modern cage design D.O.M. tube note wild offset and lack of gussets for weight savings.
Larrett Daniels street stock he was lucky and walked away-


Modern D.I.R.T Modified note bent collapsed halo bars.

 

Yes, black iron pipe is okay. This frame was made from it:
Here's the interesting thing about it. I bought all of the steel new thru work, total expenditure was under $200. Jim had the pipe bent at a local muffler shop, about $25. And a box of welding rod was supplied by a steel erection firm no cost (older brother was the business manager, what can I say...).

This chassis raced for 4 seasons, changed every winter, because I could...
We could have built a new one every winter for less time. But it was cheaper that way. The cage and basis chassis stayed sort of unchanged, the seat, pedals and engine location staying the same. And the Pinto shell never got seriously bent, so once it was on, it's mounts never changed. And Jim's 54 coupe,
Here's the car before the opening night win in 74. Jim won 9 races in 2 seasons in this car. Mike and George Vascellaro acquired it in 75, and put a Gremlin body on for 76. By the end of summer it had been sold to Dutchess County Diesel, renumbered 34, and Dick Hansen drove it for quite a while. It's still running, having been restored some time back, in the vintage circuits these days. Oh and it was built out of 1 1/4 inch black iron pipe!

So I guess you can see that black iron pipe can be safe, and long lasting. I'd go into strength of materials theory and explain Young's Modulus and how it's unchanging for steel, but people would argue about it. Yield and ultimate strength change, but stiffness is related to Young's Modulus and the moment of inertia of the cross section of the piece being designed.

BTW, it's generally accepted that Young's Modulus for steel is 30x10^6 psi.

 

I started the day Minekill car show, not shockingly there were only three interesting vehicles. They have absolutely killed there swapmeet by letting it fill up with lace doilies, arts and craps. At least it was free and only seven miles from home!



I finished the day in the garage.
Trimmed up my spring mounts/sliders, welded the lower shock mounts, and got paint on the wishbones and axle!
The drilled axle was under a 40 Ford that was hot rodded back in the 50s Some Tech-NO rodder got his hands on the car and put a Corvette front and rear and a LS-ES-E-I-E-E-O engine in it because he wanted a his words "Hot Rod."
He had a hot rod now he has a ruined 40 Ford!

 

It always amazes me how people can ignore the things that need to be done and involve themselves in things that don't concern them.
I took the zoomies and header paint into work today so I could paint them and have them baked in the powder coat oven, I hung them on the smallest powder coat cart we have. After they came out of the oven I looked them over and they were good, I checked with the head of powder coat he said that cart wouldn't be needed at day, so I wheeled the cart out of the way and let them cool. About an hour later I picked my welding helmet up to see the powered prep guys who's hands all always filthy standing in front of me holding my freshly painted white headers by the flanges!
Yes, there were two big black handprints on the flanges and powder coating didn't need the cart, and when he did it they were about 2 hours behind in production.
I ended up scuffing them off repainting and having them baked again!
The finished product-


Some unchristian words may have been spoken too.

 

Oh Fudge! Only you didn't say fudge...

 

I may have implied he was the unintelligent male offspring of a female dog.

 

Racecar Update-
Repaired the frame notch from when I was going to use a set of Clifford headers and painted from the firewall forward.
Dad cut the boxing plate from some square tube, while I was at work, I did the lay out and drilled it.
The plan is to have it back on the ground and rolling for Rodtoberfest in Roundtop NY next weekend!

 

For parts, just stop at Bouchard's and then maybe pay a visit to the Ski Lodge. vic

 

Ahh, those were the days! Can you imagine having all of the parts we all used up? I know I'm responsible for at least 5 sets of old Ford spindles alone. Buick drums, 4 new ones every year minimum, not counting those that got wasted in on track incidents. I'm responsible for a couple of mid 50s sedans, 1-57 Chevy and 2-55 Fords. Only the Chevy made it to the track, so the Fords were big wastes.

And Tommy Gages 05 coupe. Remember that you have to tighten up the engine mount bolts before sending the car out on the track...

 

I had a couple of surprises when I got home from work.
Jimmy Fugel dropped of some very nice steel wheel and dad built an engine restraint.


Jimmy Fugel then-


Jimmy Fugel now-

 

That third picture of the 2 looks like a familiar backdrop. What year was that one?

 

I am not sure I will check the next time I see him. I know he won at Cairo with that car, Cairo only ran August 18 to September 22 1974

 

And one of those races was Tommy Gages last. He blistered the wall, and knocked a section over. Bent the car up as well of course.

 

My mom and dad were there for that, I thing they only missed one race at Cario.

 

I have had lots of comments about when my car is going to be finished, and why it's taking so long, it was really starting to annoy me, but it hit me today, who cares what others think, or say.
Everything in my cars is vintage or hand built by myself and my father with limited help from outside people, and everything is done in the true old school way as it was done in period.
When I say vintage, I mean vintage! 60 to 90 year old parts, I scoured junkyards and swapmeets made phone calls to the west coast for period correct parts!
I didn't take the easy way out and hang an old body on an existing chassis built by someone else I built my own chassis, bent my own cage!
I will be assembling my own engine, I will need dad's input on the transmission and rear, but I won't be paying someone else to do it.
It might be a long time coming but when it hits the track it will be my work and dad's who got it there and no one else's!

 

That's the attitude Robert! Just remember what my friend Jim told me when I started building the 1st #54 at age 19. Do something every day, and it will get done. It's worked for me for 50 years. Same here, I don't care what people think about how fast I'm going or not. I'll get the whatever project done at my own pace...

 

After a few weekends of running around it felt good to get back on the racecar!

Built fuel pump and filter brackets.
A door bar gusset/master shut off bracket.
Before someone asks oval track rules read master shut off must be with in drivers reach.

I will be using a new old stock A.C. filter for racing.

 

I have been doing a lot of work on components for the racecar which I will post when they are complete.
One project I did want to post was the tire grooving/wheel building jig that dad and I built today.

 

What? A machine groover? That's not old school! Put the tire/wheel on the left front with it off the ground. Your go-fer gets to turn the tire while you hold the Ideal grooving iron. Of course in the pits in the 70's we didn't have power, so just force the blade thru the rubber. And also who ever had new, sharp blades?

 

It's human powered, not eclectic and build with cast off parts/steel from dumpster diving.

There some who could but I wonder how many modern short trackers could build their own, but my bigger question is where hell is the money coming from?

 

Ya know, if you say it's "ONLY $12,852.99" or "ONLY $3382.99", it doesn't sound quite as bad . Nice job your Dad and you did on your machine . Let's see it in action.

 

Ho

Holy bat droppings, Batman! Yes at least you two are building not buying! And the people currently racing wonder why they are going broke.

You've seen pictures of the cars Jim and I raced. The 54 coupe cost just under $2k, race ready in 1974, and it won its first time out. The 54 coach cost roughly $4k, due to it being my first attempt to build a car myself. I didn't have any stockpile of parts then, and it was a modified, not a limited class car like the coupe. The Pinto was a complete rebuild of the coach, costing about $2k, as we completely redid the car, however I had stuff by then and had gotten really good at trading/scrounging in the year and a half of the coach.

The next rebuild was mostly engine and steering, approximately $1.8k. Jim even built the trailer for next to nothing, for me. The only cost incurred was for the lights and registration. Heck, even the tow vehicle, which was also Jim's business truck, had only cost Jim $2.6k. And it was almost new when he got it, under 5000 miles. It was initially a box truck, but it was driven under a very low underpass, bending the frame. Jim, being a fabricator, fixed the frame and built the flatbed for it. That truck is still around after numerous rehabs, like George Washington and his axe, multiple engines, cabs, beds...

But those days are over. Too many people who have more $$$ and don't want to pay the dues like we did. You and your father are throwbacks to that earlier era. And it's good to see