Projects Hotrob's fiasco of a "Model A Coupe" build thread

I actually have been collecting parts and such for a while, but I think I finally have enough together to start a progress thread.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=225374


I picked up a Riley Auto frame, or should I say he delived it.
Thats right. Not only are these frames a great deal to start with, but he gave me the HAMB discount, and Eric delivered it to Texas and I picked it up at the Lonestar Round Up!

The frame is killer. I see he is doing the trans mounts a little different now. It looks like the cross member is now tubular and unbolts instead of the welded flat steel that mine came with but hey what can ya do progress and all.

He welded in motor, trans, and ladder bar mounts for a few extra bucks. Well worth it in my opinion.

 

I picked up a pair of Hurst retread cheaters for around $300 to my door. They look super cool and look like a quality job.
http://www.hurstracingtires.com/

I got the fronts from Summitt. They are the Coker Pro-Trac 560-15 bias ply's

 

do you have a body or just a cool frame and some bold tires
I think we need more pic....
later Bill

 

For the front suspension I had a stock front axle that I got with a sport coupe that I got from Negative Matt somewhere around Denton Tx a couple of years ago.

I sent it off to Joe in Ponca City Ok and he dropped it a perfect 4".

http://www.joesspeedshop.com/

I think it ended up at about $250 with shipping and all.

The stock Model A bones came from my good bud Dean in Henderson Texas. Thanks Dean.

 

Stay tuned. I am trying to move through this in some logical order.

 

I got the wheels from Summit.
THey are called Pulsar, but they are Halibrand clones.
THese are the wheels that Hotwheel cars were supposed to be running.

The price was great. $103 for the fronts, 15"X4", 5 on 4 3/4. The rears were around $125 each, 15"x8" with a 6" backspace, also 5 on 4 3/4.

I decided to use the chevy bolt pattern because I am going to use a mid 70,s chevy 10 bolt rearend that I got from Adams Auto salvage outside of Henderson Texas. Its a little wrecking yard out in the middle of nowhere. He still has some Model A's and other 30's stuff in the yard.

Adams Auto: (903) 836-4411.

Discount tires mounted the tires.
Tip: When you are having the cheater slicks mounted, either do not balance them, or make sure they set the balancer to a static balance, instead of a dynamic balance or you will end up with a bazillion lead weights all over th einside of the wheel, and some kid tellin ya it won't balance.

 

Setting up the rear suspension was alot more difficult than I thought!

I struggled for a few days trying to simulate a "loaded" suspension so I could get the pinion angle that I wanted.

Here you can see my navigation through the process.

Lots of measure, check angle, remeasure, recheck angle and repeat.

The rear spring is a posie straight and narrow that I got from Riley Automotive,www.riley-auto.com along with the pete and Jakes Ladder Bars and the spring hangers. Thanks for the technical support Eric.

The real advantage in my veiw of using the frame that Eric built is that he has done alot of leg work in regards to fittment ect.
Now I don't mind working through problems on my own, but I see no reason in repeating mistakes or taking on un-needed work. That just makes good sense to me.

 

In the end it turned out pretty good. I ended up with the 2 degrees in th epinion I needed to match the engine/transmission angle. I still need to finish the welds but it is there.

I am starting to realize that I may need to raise the floor to allow for suspension travel. THe top of the ladder bars are just barely below the frame rails and when I jump up and down on the rear I see that they travel above where the floor would be.

I think I have a solution that will work great....I will keep you guys posted when I get to that point.

In the meantime here is the rear suspension set up with the ladder bars. I still have to get the shocks set up, but I want to mock up the body first so I don't end up with some interference.

Any input on how the rear shocks should be installed?

Pics of rear shock mounts would be a tremendous help.

 

Your kicken ASS !! Keep it comin'

 

Looking great! I like the methodical build threads. Steven.

 

The shocks are not on,but you can see how they bolt up.

Later,Mark

 

And then

 

look'n great! Riley's was a good choice!

 

When Eric and I were talking about the build he did based on this frame, he advised against using split bones and reccomended hairpins.

His coupe used bones that mounted into the side of the frame using recesed tapers. He explained that the cowl would interfere and need to be cut to fit. and that the hairpins were the ticket.

Well I went around and around and concluded that:
1. spilt bones are tits and look way cooler than any other option.
2. I already had a really nice set of bones on hand.
3. A hairpin setup with all the bat wings and hardware was gonne cost me like $500 bucks or something.

You can guess what I decided to do.
But instead of mounting them like Eric did, my set up ended up being much lower on the frame after I set the kingpins at the desired caster angle.

I used speedway motors taper shock mounts to locate the split bones and a set of their weld in bungs and ball joints.

The spindles are 40 Ford round back spindles that I scored at Pate swapmeet in Fort Worth Texas. www.pateswapmeet.com You can get anything there! Serious this is the coolest swapmeet I have ever seen!

I pressed in a new set of king pin bushings using a small press. I heated the spindles to 400 degrees and put the bushings in the freezer for a couple hours.

I used the speedway motors disc brake kit I chose the kit with the cast brackets. I think it looks like a factory set up instead of the plate steel bracket that kind of looks like an adapted kit.

I went with the disc instead of drum for an couple reasons. Cost and performance being the majors. I would have loved to run drums and still might if I score a nice set but this is where I am at for now.

 

O.K, I got a little side tracked today. The drivers side floor pan for my Falcon a/fx project came in from North Coast Muscle, http://www.northcoastmusclecar.com/ and I could'nt stand it so I put it in.

The fit was pretty good. Not great, but good.
I am still waiting for the passenger side. It has been on backorder for over a month.
I will say they are super to talk to and work with, and very eager to satisfy.

I can,t wait to get the floors fixed so I can get the engine in. I built a 302 c.i. with a nasty little cam and a set of World Product Heads. http://www.worldcastings.com
They are making a super product at a great price.
I have used the Windsor jr's on two other motors with very good results.

So check out the Falcon and I will get back on the Coupe in a few days. Lots of stuff to show you guys. I think I will talk about the engine and show some of that next.

 

I got a PM about how I mounted the bones and I figured I would post the question and response in case anyone else has an interest or a comment. A comment that is directly related to the question.

First understand that I have not mounted the body yet so cannot say at this point how it will go, but as you can see they (the wishbone mounts) are below the frame rails and since I am not channeling I can,t imagine a problem.

That said I used speedway part number 916-36503. $3.99 each! hows that for cheap?
And they are very thick substantial pieces. They worked great.
Now cut the bones and leave as much length as possible. I actually had to leave a gap when I welded in the bungs in order to have enough length to put the mount right there at the bottom of the Z and not show too much thread.
What I suggest is that you get the axle mounted up nice and tight, then screw the ball joints into the bungs a little better than 1/2 way. Then set your kingpin caster angle using an angle finder and if you are lucky like I was the mounts will sit right there at the bottom of the Z and maintain a 5-10 degree caster. you may need to thread one side in one or two threads more or less than the other in order to keep the axle square to the frame. Not even Eric can square a frame to a 32nd of an inch. I was unable to get the proper caster while putting the wishbone where I wanted them, so I will mount them now and fix the caster later by pie cutting the bones.

When I say square I mean that the face of the axle must be perfectly perpendicular to the centerline of the frame or you will have trouble with steering when you get on the road.

If anyone can expand on this please do so.

P.S. As for the motor mounts, Eric put those in when he built the frame. They lined up perfectly when the motor was test fitted and used to "load" the suspension during setup.

 

I was not looking forward to the tie rod v.s. spindle with the dropped axle fiasco.
Pleasantly I was able to avoid any real hassles.
Usually when you deal with a dropped axle and split wishbone a builder will do one of two things.
1. the most common solution is to heat up the arms on the spindles with a rosebud on a torch and bend them down and out of the way of the bones.
2. The other more modern approach is to use aftermarket spindles without steering arms and use bolt on dropped steering arms.

I did neither.
Instead I used the stock roundback spindles that I have been saving and used a heim end on the tie rod instead of a ball joint, and mounted them on top of the steering arm instead of up through the bottom. It required me to drill out the taper which I was reluctant to do but hell you gotta break some eggs right.

I am sure this is not a novel approach, but I was happy that it went together so smoothly.
In the pics you can see I have about 3/4" clearance. More than enough since there is no play between the two with regards to suspension.
As always feel free to point out any issues with this approach that I may be overlooking.

Now as an aside. I am sure there are those that would have made this build more traditional than I am with drum instead of discs, ball joints instead of heim joints, flatty instead of OHV ect.
To that I would say its my ride and I am building it form my purpose not yours, however I would also say that I wish I could build it that way.
The reason that I feel that I can't really boils down to expense in my mind.
The used parts to build traditional simply are not available in my neck of the woods unless they are slap ass wore out or you have very deep pockets. I am interested in neither.
I hear stories all the time here about the buddy deals and gimmies ect, but that aint my reality. I am stuck with E-Bay or catalog parts.
Now I have picked up used parts here and there but it is just harder and harder as the years go by.
Sooo.. instead of waiting another 5-6 years to collect up all the choice parts I decided to start building.

 

Looking real nice!

 

I finally got a body.
I have looked and looked but either I found a pile of rusty pieces or a roller for 10k.
THis came up so I grabbed it. I have not picked it up yet but Cal the guy I bought it from tells me it is a good solid builder. I have shown up to pick up nice rust free cars half way across the country only to find that the description was somewhat less than accurate, but I have a good feeling about this coupe. Hell at this point I don't care. I have something!

THe car is in Red Oak Iowa. I will make the 20hr round trip from Dallas to Red Oak next week. Not sure if I will haul a trailer or just put it in the back of the truck. My wife hates the ride of the 3/4 ton pickup, so I will probablly haul the trailer behind the expedition.

Check out the EBAY pics:

 

I have been looking at the motor/transmission set up and getting the pinion angle and transmission angle in phase as I set up the rearend.
The rake of the car is about 1". That is, after selecting the tire sizes and setting up the rearend and front suspension I ended up with about a 1" rise from front to back over the length of the car. That is barely noticeable to the naked eye. The frame rails look almost level.
That ended up giving the rearend pinion a 2 degree upward attitude, and the transmission a 2 degree downward attitude. Perfect right?

Well I put a level on the intake manifold and got a 2 degree drop toward the front of the motor!
This bothered me. I alway sunderstood that the motor should lean back, not forward.
I immediately began working on my plan to cut out the trans crossmember and put in a dropped one to get the right angle on the motor. But then all the work I did matching the pinionn and trans angles would be ruined! Was I going to have to redo the rear suspension?

Wait!!!!O.K relax Rob,...breathe.
I know!...Call Eric.

Well long story short he talked me down. I was so wrapped up in trying to get everything to go together perfect that I sort of ran into a forest for the trees problem.
The motor is actually in the 2 degree downward attitude towards the rear of the car, but the intake manifold is machined with a 4 degree forward slant. You do the math. Now very obvious to me.
So the resulting forward slant Meaningless as it is, is a result of the manifold not the centerline of the engine and transmission.

Why the dissertation?
Same reason I am doing the rest of the thread I guess. To possibly help one of you guys avoid the same pitfall, in this case that was getting too wrapped up in minutia and failing to step back and regroup.
Can you imagine if I would have started cutting the rearend back out to fix my imaginary problem. That would have set me back a week or more.
So take this near miss as you will. I will use it as a reminder to take a breath and step back when things seem like they may not be going together right and pause to ask why, what really is the issue here.

Anyway here are a few pics to look at of the motor tranny ect.
The engine I have setting in the car is really the spare motor I keep for my jet boat. The one going in for real will be the subject of a later installment.

 

Watching this build keep it coming...

 

Nice project, i really like the tires and wheels. They look familiar for some reason.

 

Nice little coupe! Eric rules too!

I have a question... What welder are you using?

 

I have the MillerMatic 140.
I got it about 3yrs ago for just over $500 from Airgas inc. The Argon cylinder was another $100.
At the time and maybe still, it was the hottest 120v welder you could get. The biggest selling point for me was the infinite heat and wire speed selection.
At that time most other machines had a selector switch that only gave 5 or 6 options. The fine tuning here is a neat option.

My welding really sucks, but its getting better. Lots of grinding down shitty welds still.

 

Crank the heat and gass up. You will see an improvement.

Dig your project.

 

Thanks for the advice and the encouragement. Hows Tyler? You still painting bikes?

 

Everyone in Tyler sux.

 

Just a little concerned. The welds in this picture for your threaded bungs and for the rod end to frame tab look a little cold, like maybe you're not getting full penetration. It doesn't look like you prepped the surface of the split bones either, which has me even MORE concerned. Please don't take me the wrong way. Just checkin'. These are pretty critical areas you're welding, right here. I wouldn't worry as much about cranking up the gas as making sure you have enough heat in that weld to fuse the two surfaces.

Also. Don't grind too much of those welds away. Not always a good idea to do that. Especially if there is a chance that weld is contaminated or doesn't have enough penetration.

Seriously nice build though!

 

I share your concern! But I am on my own and doing the best I can.

 

Totally! Just makin' sure all is safe! No harm intended.

When in doubt, if you're not a 100% sure, cutting the weld with a cut-off wheel and getting a nice "V" and running a couple passes only takes a short bit.

Gonna' be a cool build man!! Looking forward to the results!