Probably white. This is a "restoration" of an old hot rod, so I do want it to look & feel like Sid's car, even if I am making it mine in a few ways. Couldn't resist throwing the seat in and rowing through the gears this morning. It's a weird feeling to finally be here. Plenty more to do, though.
I don't see any evidence that there was ever any way to tie a transmission to the crossmember and nowhere that another crossmember would have been. More analysis required.
How big a guy was Sid and how well do you fit? Hoping it's not going to take a bunch of mods to be comfortable. I like all the shots, but the one with the AA in the background is great. The rear frame, springs and bumper aren't typical, but I think it looks good, and if it works, don't change it. Late Dec to mid Feb, quite the change in a short amount of time!
Jody told me that Sid was a taller guy, but the car fits me like a glove with the seat right where he had it, and the hot foot pedal is for my shoe size... I think the rear angle is great. Definitely different from the formula but it's real & it all looks right at home. No plans to change it.
Looks fantastic! I would look into the millworks av8 parts. They make a bolt on trans mount for an early ford three speed into an A that bolts to the stock center crossmember. If not to purchase then to at least get some ideas from. @IronTrap used one on there roadster pickup project with the blown flathead if you want to watch. Solid video of installing one
Add a couple hoseclamps to your ratchet strap and you'll have a David Frieberger Roadkill special. Kidding of course...cool car/history.
What are those 2 big bolts/nuts sticking up thru the top of the original crossmember? Maybe Sid actually had the longer '49-53 trans in it and used those with some kind of saddle to hold it in place?
They are actually the ends of a U bolt. I interpreted this as a drive shaft loop.... Would a guy do that? Just support the end of the transmission in a saddle? I have a scatter shield he cut from plate steel that wraps under the transmission. I was almost wondering if he just had it sitting in that but that seemed silly.
Oh I’d put money on that holding the back of the trans having seen the rest of the car. Wouldn’t be the first time it would have been done that’s for sure!
Another thing... my lake header dream was kinda quashed when we set the engine in the car. It sits so damn low, and the pedals are in the way on the driver side. Might just have to have normal exhaust
This transmission is supposedly out of a '49 F1, but the throwout bearing for a '49 was definitely wrong for this transmission and I had to use one out of a '48. Wonder if that's the difference... I'm gonna see about copying Millworks' homework for that mount. Looks pretty straightforward to make. I was thinking box tube but that looks much nicer. I think their part wouldn't work exactly because of how low my drivetrain sits in the frame, but I'll build something like that...
I hate to say this, but I'm starting to lose a little respect for Sid. (Actually, I've had a funny feeling all along.)
There is definitely more than one hokey thing going on hahaha. But who knows how many passes the car made like this? I guess if it worked... My impression is the thing was only superficially street legal to tech for that class. Guy tells me once he got serious about racing it, it never saw the street. The frame around the steering box in particular scares me. I don't think I can make enough power with a flathead to justify boxing the frame ordinarily, but I don't see that holding up to any kind of spirited driving other than straight line pulls, so I'll have to come up with something to shore that up.
F/G, D/A. D/D, X/D were all official NHRA classes in the very early sixties. I know; I was there and raced a D/A '36 coupe with a '41 Merc in '61 and '62. Even back then, tech inspection was a big deal. Before they let us race, we had to have a roll bar, scattershield, safety hubs, and an approved fuel system. Getting on a dragstrip (at least an NHRA sanctioned strip), was a lot harder than getting on the street. Just sayin'.
I can't pretend to know anything about this, but I'm eager to learn. One point- my understanding is that most of the strips around here in the 50s leading into the 60s were either unsanctioned or were AHRA, including Green Valley, where we knew the car ran, which was AHRA sanctioned until the mid 70s. I don't know how stringent AHRA tech inspection would be compared to NHRA, but what I meant was that Sid had the car "street legal" (ie would pass TX state safety inspection at the time) as part of what I understand the AHRA requirements for that class to be. But the frame seems kind of flimsy for street use. I might be underestimating it but there is a large chunk of the frame torched out to clear the steering box with no reinforcement added. I can see how this would be OK in a straight line with probably less than 200 hp, but maybe not for street driving. By the way, this car had all the aforementioned safety equipment and harnesses (which look like surplus military hardware). I had to cut the drum retainers off to get the rear brakes apart.
One thing a lot of hardcore traditional guys don't like to admit is along with some of the amazing feats of backyard engineering there was also a lot of cobbles that scream of banjos and Safeway brand lite beer and always save brand cigarettes lol. I lost track of all the legitimate vintage builds I've seen in person that were built back then AND driven on the street that only had rear brakes and on top of that had the rear axle assembly welded directly to the frame to fight wheel hop and cut suspension costs lol. Honestly if it's a vintage build and you don't find something sketchy on it you either aren't looking or the history was misrepresented lol. Congratulations you proved without a doubt it's a vintage build lol
I will admit that about the only thing I know about the other sanctioning bodies is that they had a reputation of being a lot more lenient than the NHRA strips. Back in those days, we had two "official" drag strips in the Twin Cities; Minnesota Dragways in Coon Rapids that was NHRA sanctioned and North Star Speedway in New Brighton that was not. Back then, it was not unusual for the guys who couldn't pass tech at Coon Rapids to go on to race at North Star.
Stupid question. My crank, water pumps and generator pulleys all line up. However, the double wide belt truck crank pulley doesn't clear the crossmember. Is there a reason I shouldn't just cut the outer groove off the crank pulley and double the gen pulley to run the fan?
These chrome head bolt caps from speedway were just the ticket. When I get some aluminum heads, I'll stud it and then I'll have real ones. But for now this has the look. Gotta pump the brakes for now - probably won't touch the car much until my shop goes up. But we'll be back at it soon. I got a new brake master cylinder. I am going to start gathering parts to do the brakes all around. Paint will happen at my place - in stages, so it isn't in the way or taking time at work. I have a dash, I have most of an interior, I have gauges and buttons and switches and window regulators and handles and knobs... For all that, all I really need to be able to start it and yard drive it is a drive shaft, a gas pedal and to mount the radiator. Sounds like an easy project when I put it that way...
From those pics, it looks like the lower hoses are going to be interesting, along with no stock fuel pump, unless it fits up in the notch. Lube the bleeder screws, U bolts, brake line clamp bolts. Did you check the steering box fluid before the engine dropped in? Great progress!
Sid was using flexible hoses (the remnants of which were still on the radiator when I brought it home). A trick I taught myself which I'll probably use here is to use exhaust tubing for difficult hose routes. I will have to clear the fan with the upper hoses so will probably do pipes for all four. There is an electric fuel pump on the inside of the firewall tied in to the original fuel line, so I'll just replace or rebuild that one - the stock mech pump probably wouldn't have been sufficient for the carb setup I want anyway. Haven't done anything with the steering box. It looks like a greaseball. Not sure what's available for '40 boxes - just haven't looked into it yet but I imagine it will need a full rebuild. Having said that the car steers great even with the engine in it. Feels like power steering sitting still and while you're rolling it's feather light (I may have been pushed around the parking lot while behind the wheel )
Here's my solution for the pulley problem... This Model A gen pulley off a junk A generator is the same diameter and belt width as the flathead gen's, but sits on a tapered cone that is smaller than the flathead generator's shaft. I will cut up the A generator shaft and weld the tapered cone to the end of the flathead generator shaft. My machine shop can fix the threads on the bigger shaft after I weld it and then the whole assembly will be able to come apart as normal. Doubling this pulley and going to a single crank pulley solves the crossmember clearance problem & lets me run my mech fan instead of switching to an electric fan.
could you just buy a pulley that has the right grooves and slide it over the stock armature?-even if you have to face the hub back for clearance for nut/washer?
I don't think the armature is long enough. There are other ways around this but I think this is maybe the most elegant.
Sounds like you’ve settled on a solution but for the sake of conversation if the hole in the new pulley is under sized is there any reason you couldn’t bore and reem the hole to the larger tapered size already on the generator?
Conversation is good... if there's a better or wiser way to do this I'm all ears haha so appreciate any thoughts of course. The armature on the V8 generator isn't tapered and there isn't enough meat in the middle of the A pulley to bore it to that diameter. Also, there wouldn't be any threads protruding through the pulley to put a nut on.
Not saying right or wrong, but this situation must have come up before. Try searching the HAMB for solutions. The cool thing about messing with old Ford stuff is that somebody, somewhere has run into it before and found a solution. Either a different pulley, different gen or an adapter might work. The old guys may have had to weld and machine, but that would have been a last resort.
If there was enough meat around the bore of the pulley, you could counterbore it to get enough thread for the nut. Just a thought. Steve
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