Projects KIWI MADE 1927 T Lakes modified - Journey to the end of the road!

I didn't want to have an open engine bay, staying with the lakes theme I guess.....nice and slippery. There is a full length belly pan underneath as well!

 

Looks killer with the bonnet on there! whats your wheelbase? it looks quite long n low...

 

What a cool project! Sits low and looks sleek!! Keep up the great progress and posting pics.

 

120" Ten foot looooooong! O=====o

Cheers.

 

Damn, son, that is some impressive chassis work. The hood finishes the theme very nicely. That's going to be a slick ride. Congrats!

 

Digging the hood / sides. Next time you are in Tampa, drop in and make me some! Gary

 

Thanks for the comments guys.

The hood sides were quite involved, and once again I headed down the road with a template under my arm, only to return home with nearly completed parts.

Initially as usual I made the sides in card first, and worked out exactly how the would function. The sides sit down on top of the full length sill panels and are fastened to them with rivnuts and cap screws. At the firewall end a single fastening attaches to the firewall and at the front another rivnut is used to catch onto the diagonal brace/strut.

The bottom edge is folded to sit on the sill panel (best seen in the fourth picture) and then bends 180 deg back onto itself (the cavity this creates was later sealed with urethane sealer). There is a swaged section part way up the sides to create a raised platform for the "Louvres" that I fitted later. Near the top of the panel it steps inward slightly to allow the bonnet/hood top to overlap the sides.

Around the exhaust opening I decided to have a continuous opening with a hammer rolled edge to provide some stiffness to the panel.

After the panel was all fitted to the car I marked out where I wanted the louvre openings, then I took both the sides to an engineering shop on the edge of town where they used a water cutting process to create the openings. I used the water cutting to avoid any heat input/distortion or stress to the panels. Once done I fitted the louvres to the sides.

One side has more louvres than the other to allow for the Pitman arm and clearance issues on the drivers side.

The hood sides are currently at the painters. The las picture shows the sides leaning on the wall of the paint booth.

 

Tonight I am going to cheat a little bit and post a link to a thread I wrote a while back. I had a club meeting in town tonight, and have work in the morning, so better not stay up too late!

A couple of months back I decided to post my attempts at making my own shifter.....maybe I should have hung onto it until Tech Week!

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=631996

The drawing is what I started with, and I have added some shots of it all dissassembled ready to go away for cadmium plating next week.

 

Looking really good Wade - cant wait to see it all finished!

 

Great stuff. Im looking forward to seeing it completed.

 

Holy shit man! Some of us can build cars but others take it to a new level altogether.

Between you and Surf City with his '36, I'm all set for entertainment for the next few weeks I'd say.

 

Thanks Guys....no one more so than me too!!! It has been a long haul, but it won't be long.....soon!


I found some real early shots of the mock up, on my work computor. Note the wooden chassis and grill suround!

I also found some pictures of the steering wheel I mentioned earlier. I couldn't up load the version of this from home, but it seems to have worked from here.....go figure!!

Tomorrow I should get some more panels prepped for the painter, and might even get some new pictures to post.

 

Is that a 215?

 

Yes it is! Well spotted! I am waiting for it to be assembled at the moment

It has had a 40thou over bore, new cam, balanced spinning bits, and some porting and modern seals.

I am looking forward to firing it up soon too!

 

I'm doing the same thing in my modified!

 

Don't be holding out on us.....let's see it!

 

Foundations maketh the house! A little insight into the chassis.

Right from the outset I wanted to build this car around a tube frame chassis. The inspiration for this was from a number of places, including a 1927 T built by Ken Robesky that I saw in a magazine. His was a more contemporary looking car, but I thought that there was no reason it couldn't be done using some more traditional parts.

The tube is 38mm OD seamless boiler tube with 3.6mm wall thickness, any amount strong enough, but I was not too worried about weight because of the plans to use the Aluminium Buick 215 cu in V8. I did a lot of the cutting with 38mm hole saws carefully in the drill press. Plenty of cutting fluid and a little dressing with a file or grinder. I used some sand filled and compacted method for hot bending of various parts.

When I was happy with the majority of the frame a friend of mine helped out with the welding (his tickets were current, mine weren't). After the bulk of the welding was complete, I found that there had been some movement of the main bottom rails and they had developed a 'Sag'. So I had to make good use of the heavy duty bench, on which the chassis was made, and a gas torch and some pressure aplication in the appropriate places. Long story short....it is straight again!

I think that this should make a fairly stiff sort of a platform for this project and eagerly await the day I get to take it for a blast through some of the hills and corners in this part of the country.

Take a look at the pictures any way.

 

shit yes...its gona be fun scootin through the Brynderwyns or the infamous Mangamuka Gorge in your wee car Wade!! Should still corner good with a 120" wheelbase?

 

Maungamuka's was the one I was thinking of too! can't wait!

 

Spent this afternoon sanding and prepping some more panels. I dropped them off to the painters today. He has the other panels all undercoated and ready for a sand then some color!! Woohoo!

Any way here are the panels I took over today.....lookin all shiney!

 

Now your cooking love that chassis!

 

Rod (the painter) is screaming out for more panels to paint, so I spent today tearing the last of the panels off the chassis. I had to roll the axles out from under it too. Now there is just a bare frame sitting in the middle of the shop on stands! I guess that some time you have to go backwards to go forwards. I will prep the remaining panels on my next days off (shift work) and get them away to paint. It will be a busy week! I had to shoot into town and get some more sand paper and brushes for my grinder this afternoon. While I was in town I dropped the intake manifold and Carb off to Trevor (Mechanic assembling engine).

 

Last night I managed to get a whole bunch of parts into the bead blaster and tidy them up ready to go to the painter this week. Work again to night and meetings for the show tomorrow so I can't see much happening on the car for the day. Four days between shifts is not enough to get everything done!!! I need to take some leave to spend some more time on it but I have nearly run out for the year! Roll on July when we get our new allocation of leave!!

 

Great work... I really like the design of the tube chassis.

What I like most is that I could go for a ride it in and feel like I am driving.

You should put another steering wheel on your passenger's side there...

Sam

 

I could just whip the quick release wheel off and hand it to you while we driving!!!

 

I was able to spend a few hours today on some more prepping panels for the paint shop. Tomorrow I hope to finish up on the last of them and deliver to paint. I will post pictures of the last batch to go. Next week I will finish weld the chassis and put together a rotissery for the guy doing the blasting and painting.

 

Another batch of panels off to the paint booth. Only the dash and glove compartment lid left to do next week.

 

Looking good.
You are doing a great job there mate.

 

Cheers Mate! This is the exciting end of the job. Time to get fussy!

 

Why haven't we seen this else where.
Looks bloody awesome.