History Stock-S/S-F/X 1959-1966

NOT over restored....

 

heres a buddys car.... not overly restored....i added the lettering last spring... there is also another 64 lightweight being restored in my area....previous record holder and winternats winner.... brandon

 

Mr. Guffey, Bill Stinson here. We spoke on the phone many years ago about the '64 Ramchargers car. I did a colored pencil rendering of that car from a photo I took at Detroit Dragway back then. Thought you might get a kick out of it.

Hope all's well!

Bill

 

Pretty nice perspective work there; nicer than the prints I see in MCG.

 

Thanks! Got giclee prints of this available, too. 24"x24" on stretched canvas.

Bill

 

Nice work Bill.

Joel

 

Is the car in the forground is the Super stock car that was converted to a hemi from a max wedge, and was runnerup to Lindamood at the 1964 NHRA Nationals. Was the car in the background the A/FX car or do you remember?

 

About over restorations... to each his own of course when owners decide how they're going to do them. For myself I'm not going to get into which cars are this and that on here ... just stating my opinion for discussion's sake. Anyone ... ?

Joel

 

One more of the Fermier Bros. '62 406. I'm not sure of the year, may be '66? Someone may know more of the class breakdowns for a 4bbl 406 in what year ... 385hp ... right?
The car started out baby blue, then painted the chestnut color and later back to baby blue. Bobby said the long bars seemed like a good idea but didn't work. They went to T-Bolt style bars after that.
Joel

 

Earl Wade in the ex-Ronda T-Bolt from Drag Sport Illustrated 7/12/65. The long bars are easily seen here ... Ronda changed to them in preference over the short lift bars the T-bolts were equipped with. Note that he switched back to the 'glass bumper and ran extensions on the inner headlight rims/tubes to get out into the air.
Was Fontana an NHRA strip?
Joel

 

If you're referring to the art, the car next to the '64 is the '63 car. I have a pic somewhere. Aah, here it is.

 

Thanks, Joel. I dig your work, also. I have a T-shirt from the '96 SuperStock Reunion you did. Way cool!

Bill

 

From a Drag News cover page 7/10/64 ... a 6/4/64 race ... Bill Tanner in his '62 Dodge vs The Strip Teaser T-Bolt. I didn't note the track, just that the T-Bolt finished 3rd place for the night. The way many of the non-NHRA tracks in the South and East ran S/S (still SS/S here) in those days was quite different from class racing and eliminator runoffs. Alot of tracks ran all the S/S-F/X cars for first place money, then all the losers ran for second place, then those second round losers ran for third, etc. on down the line. Alot of the tracks, but not all ... running heads-up of course. I wonder if Tanner's car still had a 413 under the hood?! ;-)

Note too that these cars are not running narrow wheels with low pressure rear tires yet in July of '64.

Joel

 

No kidding? Thanks Bill.
Joel

 

Very curious!
I noticed a pic or two of Pontiac Tempests.
I know they weren't overly popular but has anyone seen '61-'62 Buick Skylarks or Specials on the tracks at that time? They came with the 215" that Mickey Thompson fooled with for some time. I know if they were raced they probably would have replaced the 215" with a larger nailhead or something.
I'm considering building my '61 Skylark in the fashion they were constructed then and would love if someone could share at least one pic.

This is an amazing thread!!


BloodyKnuckles

 

The only Buicks I recall were lower class stocks in the early sixties and a few like Lennie Kennedy's later car but nothing in the F/X type machinery that I'm aware of. There were a few Buick bodied flip-top funnys but those are not under this topic. Ron Pellegrini(sp?) ran one and I think had a business making the bodys for awhile.

Build the Buick wagon though and go N/SS racing!
Joel

 

I've been trying to find out more about this car, who the driver was, motor, etc. since this shot first appeared in SS&DI in one of the early issues, maybe it was the first issue in late '64. Anyone know anything about it?
I have color sans of the race but they are poor quality long distance shots.
Anyone have Mid Eastern Drag News issues from '64 that might have a race report? It was at York, PA. against the Archway Ford T-Bolt.
Joel

 

Great thread! I'm loving reading about and seeing all the cars posted here, the great information here in this thread is truly priceless.

Being a huge Pontiac fan I thought I'd post a little info on one of the most unusual mechanical features of the '63 421 Super Duty Lemans/Tempest cars I saw mentioned earlier in this thread.

Here's some info that I found on the Performance Years site, it gives details on the '63 SD Tempests and the transaxle/'rope' driveshaft used on all of the '61 -'63 transaxle Tempest/Lemans cars. These cars did not use just a common Corvair transaxle:

The 4-speed '63 Tempest automatic was called the PowerShift. It only came in the 6 Super Duty Lemans coupes and 6 Tempest wagons. (There might be a 13th vehicle somewhere). After NHRA kicked them out of a production class because of the limited production brought on by the GM "no racing" edict, which caught everyone by surprise, most folks replaced the transaxle with a solid rear. That's why Thompson had a few extra. To the right collector, a complete, operating PowerShift is nearly priceless.

It was two 2-speed planetary transmissions (like a Powerglide or TempesTorque)on either side of the Tempest final drive unit. The flywheel and either a clutch or torque converter was hung at the extreme rear end. This required shortening the fuel tank about a foot.

Power flow thru the PowerShift was interesting and complex: the "rope" driveshaft fed power into the input shaft via a splined connector at the front of the transaxle. This shaft went completely thru the front trans case, the final drive and the rear trans case to the flywheel/flexplate. From the tc or clutch output the power flowed back thru a second concentric shaft to the transmissions. From there it went back thru a third concentric shaft which was the pinion gear shaft.

First gear was about 2.43, which you get with front trans (1.76) in low and then thru the rear trans (1.38) in low (1.76 x 1.38 = 2.43). For second gear the rear was shifted into direct to get 1.76 from the front trans still in low. For 3rd, both are shifted: front into direct and rear back into low for a 1.38. 4th gear is both back into direct. While this sounds terribly complicated, that's how the old 4-speed HydraMatics worked, but with the two planetary gearsets in one housing. Clutch and band apply and release have to be timed well, especially on the 2-3 shift.

The clutch, as shown in the pic a few posts above, was a concentric hydraulic always turning throwout bearing. AFAIK, this might have been the first OEM use if this, now common clutch actuation. You can see it in the pic.

As far as the "rope driveshaft", it was an alloy steel torsion bar, about the hardness of an antiroll bar. It had a forged head at the front which bolted solidly to extra holes in the center of a Pontiac crank on the automatics (and all SDs) and to the clutch output shaft on the production manual, I believe. It was splined at the rear and approximately 80 inches long. It was bent into a gentle arc (maybe 3-4 inches max at the center)and retained in a upside-down U-shaped torque tube. It didn't really need the little bearings about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way along the shaft. They were just there to retain it if it broke or came loose from the engine and for installation purposes.

Pontiac built maybe 300,000 '61-'63 Tempests with this shaft. VERY few ever failed in the field. Producton automatics had 5/8 dia shafts and manuals had 3/4 dia. as did the Super Duty cars. You can demonstrate to yourself how it worked by putting a gentle arc in a piece of wire like 1/8 dia. music wire, and have someone turn it while it's in the arc. The rotation is transmitted smoothly without any sinusoidal variation like you find in a u-joint.

Because it's a torsion bar, it will wind up under high torque loads. In testing, I believe it wound up over 2 revolutions when a 389 or 421 WOT at hp peak was dumped into it from a clutch at the front with the rear fixed to the test fixture. It stalled the engine (and then unwound the 2+ turns). In the production Tempests, the TC was in the rear, but the manual clutch was on the engine. You could dump the clutch and feel a little of the windup/unwind. The 3/4 dia. shaft minimized that, but I think the 5/8 would have been plenty strong enough. The biggest production engine to use it was the '63 "326" HO (4 bbl dual exhaust), which you probably know was really a 336 cube engine. I don't recall if it used the 3/4 shaft for the 2-speed auto, but probably not.

Picture of the PowerShift transaxle assembly:

 

Howard Maseles at the wheel of the 'Pamered Papoose' B/S '64 GTO.



Does anyone here have any more pics of this car?

I'm very tempted to put the same white paint and lettering on my own '64 GTO hardtop.

I do have Howard's phone #, I think I'll give him a call and see if he would approve and if so to see if he has any photos he'd be willing to share of this car to help out with the lettering placement.

Bart

 

A great-looking '66 Chevelle that I really have no information on, but I know it belongs here in this thread.

 

I wholeheartedly agree.
And, I think there's a place for both. But that's just my veiw.
And I do respect and am open-minded of others veiws.
Wouldn't it be boring if you saw just one type of restored cars?

I am into muscle and drag cars...until I came across this site...it opened my mind to the world of hot-rods...mainly because of the people behind them (discovered from the hamb).
Hell, I may even build a hot-rod now
Sorry to get off topic...but you asked

ps. I probably over restored the Pop's Kennedy Stage2 '70 car. But it's so easy to do with these original drag cars because of the low miles, never driven on the street, and like this one, everything was there. And btw...no vinyl on this one all the lettering is hand painted on baby!

Guy Parquette

 

It'd be hard to 'over restore' a '63-'65 Mopar super stock. really, those cars were like jewels compared to most anything that came out of Detroit afterwards. part of that is probably becuase they were so simple; basic colors, no frills, so easy to build. After '66, the "muscule cars" got all tarted up with decals and emblems, and it seemed quality went out the window. The AWB cars were racers, and I never recall seeing a really 'nice' looking one from anything closer than twenty feet away. They were beat up and hacked up and worked hard for a living.
But whoever owns the car gets to say how it is built; and everyone else's opinions are....just that.

 

The long bars were a factory recommendation. Piloted on the Bob Ford S/S T-Bolt. Also note this car has fiberglass doors.

Regards,
Dennis

 

I didn't realize these 6 were 4speed AUTOMATIC's...I thought they were 4speed stick's. Good info!
Here's the one from a show I was invited to that was built for the former Pres of Pontiac (at the time).
Now this car was over restored...but rightfully so imho

 

Mr. Guffey,
Do you have any photos of the other cars in your collection you could share? Please....

 

Nice photo of a 1962 Ford. 1964 Summer Nationals Indy. From what I understand this car always ran an automatic transmission since this time. The car was never put back as a four speed.

Regards,
Dennis

 

That is a nice shot of the '62...

 

Here's another one of that 1962 Ford at the 1963 Summer Nationals Indy in legal S/S trim.

Regards,
Dennis

 

Here's a Thunderbolt.

Regards,
Dennis