Dragster frames........picture thread.

Can some one shed light on this frame..what are the lil holes on top ? some kinda braces used to bend the tubes ? If so is this how it would have been done in the 50's Seems to be a Lyndwood style copy,,or maybe an old frame that someone added a crappy roll cage to

 

I'd guess the bodywork was attached(rivetted) directly to the tubes.

 

Probably right. The Lyndwood I had in the 70's had the aluminum screwed directly to the tubing.

 

Yes, all lyndwood body panels were screwed to the tubes, yes that is original Lyndwood pipe but the rail in the pics but it is not a factory welded rail. It was a pre-cut kit that was bought and welded by the buyer. the front end is not correct nor is the engine or rear. it does have the correct spindles,radious rods & ross (crosley) steering box. the upper body frame has been shortened and welded on the outsideof the main frame (???) but over all it's a 1959-62 lyndwood "eliminator II" chassis. alittle too much rot but it might make a good planter in the front yard!


Paul

 

Question looking at how the trans is bolted up the the rear,,is that ok that way ? yoke to yoke with 1 universal?

 

Yup, that's how it was done. The alignment of everything was very critical. Later the splines couplers came along and made things a little better, but not much.

 

unknown make.....only owned it for a short time ...something like 18 hours ..?

 

Anyone know the weight of the Dragmaster frame ?

 

Mine's a pig. I'm making it out of mild steel instead of 4130. :-(

 

Maybe 120 lbs. My Woody Chassis weighs 78 lbs

 

doing one of these and went with .125 wall on main tubes instead of the .09 stuff and adding a lil more cage ,,semi worrying about being over weight,,but when I looked at the Dragmaster and all that tubing I got to wondering. I'm using mild steel as well


also anyone have a template for the T-88 rear axle mounts ??

 

Go to www.chassisshop.com and open up their online catalog. They sell tubing and give the weight per foot of what you are going to use. This shop has everything to build a chassis and great service. Start ordering NOW !

 

I picked up 1020 steel at a local yard,,guess i could just toss the pieces on a scale was just curious,,neat site though

 

I used to work on a glider airfield,Terlet, where they had a big repair shop where all dutch gliders were repaired and inspected.
"old timey" gliders are still in abundance here and are mostly of steel tubing constuction covered with linen.
The guy who did all the welding of these fuselages ( he retired a couple years back) was an oldtimer who had an incredible amount of experience in welding these very thinwall chromemoly tubing fuselages.
I have tried to suck up all his knowledge and tried to spend as much time as i could around him when he was welding, one of the things that made me curious was the fact that he was still welding the stuff with acetylene and oxigen while he had a modern TIG welder available, which he used with great expertise on other welding jobs like brackets and such.
His answer was that he wouldn't touch chromemoly with anything else, he had done extensive testing cause he hated the hassle with the torch and gasbottles and the fumes had ruined his lungs in the past fourty years, and also because the inspection authorities had asked him to help with certifieing TIG welding on airframes.
He said he kept having problems with warpage due to uncontroled shrinkage, these fuselages are long and narrow and even a little bit of shrinkage gives a lot of warp in a fuselage, so you must be able to predict what will warp how much and which way.
But his biggest concern was lack of controlable strength in the finished weld and trouble with the required relieving (heat treating) of the welds.
So he returned to his tried and tested method of gaswelding the chromemoly tubing, (he used a small tip with what he called a reducing flame,which ment a tiny bit more acetylene than needed for max heat just to be sure he had no excess oxigen), no heat treating necessary, just let cool slowly in the shop for a couple days, the end result is plenty strong, he couldn't remember ever having a weldingjob rejected by inspectors in the last 40+years and he never had a problem recertifieing (mandatory every two years) in his career.
He also said that gaswelding, although slow, cumbersome and bad for your lungs, gives you superior control over the welding process.

I guess that this is just more "we done thataway for thirty years and never had one break", but this guy really did want to get rid of the torch, it had ruined his health, and he had all the equipment to test the end results, and had the suits from the certifieing board wathing over his shoulder, but he still had to conclude that the best way to weld Chromemoly tubing was gas.....

 

Leo that is a great read....to bad the master hurt his health.

 

Hi Leo and thanks for the Post...
Do you know what Rod he used??
Have any pics.
thank you

 

Here is the article French Grimes wrote for Circle Track Magazine. It was published in the Feb. 1979 issue. I've see it referred to elsewhere but I've never seen it reprinted and I can't find it online so I scanned it to upload here. I hope this qualifies as Fair Use because I'm sharing it in an effort to benefit the state of the art in fabrication and to enhance the safety of 4130 chassis construction. I consider this the most definitive article in print on the subject so far. I made the best compromise on image size and quality that would allow me to upload these here, I hope they are sufficiently readable - This magazine's been in my bottom desk drawer for 30 years now.

 

Thank you for posting that.

Good read.

[Right Click]
[Save Picture As]

Stashing for reference.

 

on the K-88 Chassis Research frames they have a kinda built in scatter shield cover ,anyone know if those were 1 piece or 2 ? I'm guessing 3/8 maybe 1/4 thick ?

 

They were a one piece ring, about 5"-6" and welded into the frame. It was probably rolled into a circle from a piece of flat steel. I think there was a second piece of flat steel on the back side, covering the top part of the bell housing, down to the top of the trans.

 

Lyndwood's also had a scattershield cover that was 2 pcs of rolled 1/4" steel they both bolted to a plate welded to the main frame rail (4 bolts each side/ 2 top 2 bottom) as after market scattershields developed they were discontinued or removed from the chassis by the owner. mine has an asnen cast iron NHRA approved 2 pc bell housing.

Paul

 

Im looking for some pics of even earlier rails F.E.D what ever you want to call them, like this one.

 

Ryan,
I am in Australia at the moment (headed back to the US on Friday)and using a borrowed internet connection so I have been logging onto the HAMB infrequently recently and only found this part of the dragster frames thread today..
There is absolutely no need to normalize a 4130 frame if it is welded correctly. The current SFI specs for drag race chassis construction are the result of a lot of research by people much more qualified than you and me. The fact that the document that you reference was created by the Army-Air Corps indicates that it was written in the 1930's and we have learned a lot since then. Bad welds (TIG or gas) are bad if they are done in a home shop by an amatuer or in a fully equipped shop by a so called expert who does not know what he is doing.
Until recently I worked at John Force Racing, running the fab shop there and those guys are as paranoid as anyone on the planet about safety. We never heat treated any welded structures and we were doing 4130, Ti and aliminum every day.

Roo

 

OK Guys, WTF would metallurgists and engineers know about anything, right?

You guys build your cars however you like, with whatever you like, and enjoy them however you like.

Also, KEN, I will reiterate once again that I do not endorse any method for fabricating with 4130.

That doesn't mean I don't think people can build things with 4130, it just means I am not going to recommend any particular process to people.

Do as you like, I'm not stopping you.

Hell, I'm not even saying you are for sure wrong.

All I said was that I would like to see an honest to god published and tested specification for joining the stuff (which does not include an article in Circle Track, informative as it may be, or a single piece of paper from Lincoln, bearing no official engineering seal).

Not saying you all are doing anything wrong, I'm just lamenting the fact that a real, proven (like take it to a court of law proven), and well documented method is currently not available.

You all are reading way too much into what I've been saying. Oven treating a chassis will never make it worse than it was as fabricated, but it could save your ass if you happen to have a hard joint in there some place. I didn't say you had to do it, or that it was the "right" way to do it.

Some of you folks on this forum have the old chip on their shoulder when it comes to dealing with engineers. It's like we always have to be wrong, or you are somehow less manly or experienced.

I don't fully understand it, but it happens a lot. Some times, we're wrong, but a lot of the time, the "common knowledge" is wrong. But inevitably we get shouted down by the "good ol boys" who've been "doin it that way forever".

Not saying that's for sure the case here, but it sure smells like it, especially with you Ken. You'd think I just called your mother a name or something.

It really sucks when something fails, especially when we saw it coming. Engineers pretty much never get to say "I told you so.", 'cause usually someone has croaked it and that'd be in very poor taste.

I always find it a bit humorous about how guys on here jump on the "Rat Rodder's" asses about being safe and giving the hobby a bad name, but then those same folks cry foul and run us off when we call their hallowed designs into question (you know, 'cause some of them are piss poor ways to do things).

Again, not saying that's for sure what's going on here, but the pattern of the argument certainly fits.

 

Indeed.

I know your kind all too well.

Do you dislike anyone who's gone to college? Or is it just engineers?

 

This is a picture thread, no engineers allowed! (unless they drive trains)

 

Riiiiiight.

Just like the five welders and pipe fitters I had to teach math to.

Well, since my BS meter is hard over on the peg, I'll bow out.

Can't keep up this pace.

 

Any body got pics of front torsion assembley all taken apart , and are these parts still avadible

 

Hey an older link from Miller with regards to Murf McKinney.

http://www.millerwelds.com/education/articles/story142.html

Dont shoot the messenger.. Its a good read weather you agree with it or not..