I have a very old late 40's to 50's cushman truckster with a single cylinder cast iron flat head configuration with a manual 3 spd tranny attached, like a real car, not those attached gear boxes on motorcycles. The rear end is a limited slip differential with a single leaf spring set up on top of axel and is attached to the frame by a wishbone type yolk. The front suspension at this point is independent but im gonna make a straight axel for it. Its been in my back yard a long time and some parts are missing, (major parts Electrical etc) so i dont want to restore it but instead make the remains into a mini hot rod of sorts, full bodied and all, leaning towards a model a. Wondered if any one around here has such a project or has done such a project, I need some input to get this thing rolling. Im gonna try to get some pictures up of the remains when i find my camera. Its gonna be a big long road ahead for me
My dad and uncle built a mini car for me from one of those about 50 years ago. Sorry I don't have any pictures of it but as I remember it was a rather simple build. Seems like dad used a front axel from a King Midget and the rest of the drive line was from the Cushman. I had it for maybe 6 or 7 years and it ran good and was very dependable and lots of fun. I'd say just look it over and keep it simple and it should turn out fine. Good luck.
It sounds like a cool project. There were some factory built cars like that, back in the 50's, called the King Midget, I've never learned much about them prsonally but it might be a place to start researching for pictures and ideas. Ive seen a few homebuilt little cars at shows, and they make everybody smile, especially the driver! good luck with it.
I've got a mini quickchange that would look great with that! It's an Al Davis 3/4 midget q/c - I only have the case, side bells and rear cover but it's really small and would suit a project like that perfectly! Steve
31vicky those are some cool little rods, im going for the outrageously real look, plumbing, gauges everything like the one farthest back, would be badass to find one with a straight 4 motorcyle engine in it.
Im thinking about taking the axel off of the wishbone and fabricating a parallel for it. Anybody have any say? Would it be cooler with it?
I would....I think it would look better. Gonna start building some links for my daughter's fairly soon.
smaller than you want to build but, too cool not to post it someplace and it goes to show than anything is possible
Right now im trying to figure out the leg room versus proportion problem, Ive hit a snag in building the frame, haha
Neat project! I have an old truckster too and have always wanted to build something similar. The little T Bucket's with lawn mower engines I remember seeing at NSRA shows a few years ago really turned me on. I'd bet the blue one above is one of them. Unfortunatly I could never get the guy selling them to tell me where I could buy a body. I've not seen one of the little Buckets at a show for a few years now. I hope someone on here can offer a source for some of these miniature bodies. I wonder if the best route might be to buy a full size glass T Bucket body and cut it down and glass it back together. That might be a way of building a miniature with out ending up with something the size of a go cart. Long live this thread!
Hey guys, Going the gasser route! Ive found an old straight axel off of a small trailer in my back yard and im gonna be trying to run it with dual leaf springs.
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