Projects Project Mattitude: the Beginning

No problem. All of those cars, especially yours, was a major influence on my wanting to channel my car. however.. I really like where the rear tire sits in relation to the rear quarter so that's making me not want to channel it. If I ever end up with an A coupe, I'm definitely building it similarly to the above examples in a '60's style. But for the kind of late '50's hot rod I'm shooting for, I think the stance of where it's at is spot on.

 

Been quite a while since the last update.. But been keeping busy. There's a lot of stuff happening over the summer so I've been working on my roadster several days a week. Over the last three days there was a sweet printmaking event at the studio I volunteer at. I also had to nurse a bad back for quite a while but I've been learning a lot spending time in the garage.

I wasn't able to order the dropped front axle like planned because other stuff popped up that I had to get. You guys saw my thread with all of those pretty sweet stuff for great prices. Rear T spring with crossmember, complete F1 front axle, hub to hub, with springs and shackles as well as the matching F1 box with column, Hudson taillights, etc..



But first was this little gem that I'm real glad I got which is a 1957 Corvette dual quad intake which will go on my 283. I had wanted a different intake that wasn't a single 4-bbl or a three deuce set up.. Those are way too common. When I saw this one pop up for sale on here, I knew I had to get it for my motor.



I already have the Corvette finned covers on the 283 but there's also an extra set of stock stamped "Chevrolet" script covers included with the motor. I'll get the stamped covers chromed and run those instead of the Corvette covers. One of my pet peeves (as is with most of you guys, it seems) is when people like to say that their 283 or 327 is a Corvette motor, just because of their displacement. I feel to avoid that, I'll run the stamped covers. Something as if a kid started out with a stock 283 in his roadster then stumbled on a wrecked Corvette in the junkyard and decided he'd like to have the intake set-up on his motor.. or something to that effect. No need to try and disguise my 283 as a 'Vette motor when it isn't.

I bolted together the front axle with its new reversed eyes main leaf and new shackles, threw the '46 Ford spindles and hubs on there and tied the end of the wishbone up so it wouldn't drag too much. Chris (by the way.. Chris = ruler. Thanks dude!) also donated a 16x4.5 wheel to my build so I can get that other 7.50x16 Firestone tire mounted and get the rear on rubber. It'll get here this week so I can get it all set up soon.. My friend Jared (JJK) also got me hooked up with some wheels with motorcycle tires on them so I can get the front rolling on rubber until I get the 5.50x16's. Thanks Jared! Since the rear is rolling on A wires and is Z'd with the stock front end set-up, I kind of have a pseudo-gasser thing going on. The strange looks I get from the neighbors are making it totally worth it.




But it won't be staying like this for long. Haha. I've been joking that it's a shame I'm not building the roadster version of the Purple People Eater.

The plan is, as soon as I separate the 'bones from the '46 axle, I'll take the front wheels off and lower it to where it should be with the dropped axle, modify the 'bones to where they should be on the frame and to keep the axle at its proper angle. Once I've got that out of the way, mounting the motor and transmission is next using a '35 transmission mount I got off of here and a rear cradle that I got from Chris as well.



In between all of these things, I've been picking away at the door. My welder is having some issues that I need to sort out so I can finish the door and get on fabing up mounts for the Hurst mount on my 283. Plan is to mount the motor a little higher than usual to "fill" out the space in the engine bay. Another pet peeve is when motors are mounted real low and it leaves an empty space above it. I'm OCD when it comes to the smaller things like this. The transmission will mount sort of on top of the stock Model A crossmember which I'll cut up to mate the '35 mount in there then use some 2x4 to make the legs of the homemade K-member.

Anyways, here are some shots of the door.






Notice in the above picture how the door now matches the narrowed A-post.



The bottom patch panel apparently isn't for a '28-'29 A closed car so I cut it all up to make it work. As soon as I finish welding it in and the other side of the door, I'm going to cut off that excess at the bottom and I'll be ready to put that door skin on.



Mmm.. Skinny doors!

One of the scores that I made at the swap meet that I'm going to use on the A are these '51 Hudson taillights. Again, I wanted something different. Something that isn't too common, especially on Model As. So Pontiac lights wouldn't do it.. Nor would the '46-'48 Chevy lights. Don't even get me started on '59 Caddy lights either. Originality is hard to come by.




The plan (I know, I know.. I plan a lot. I wish I worked as fast as I plan) is to cut the steel part of the taillight down to where it's about 1/2" or so and mounts flat. The black and gold emblem at the top of the taillight will be eliminated so I can get a smoother appearing trim ring around the lens. Then they will get mounted sideways on either side of the license plate so that they point out.

Tons of stuff going on right now.. Just trying to get organized and make more progress that way. Lots of over-thinking and not doing enough on my part too.

 

Well, crud. It looks like I'm back down to 4 good leaves for the rear spring. I took the spring pack apart to add the extra leaf I scored at the swap meet and found it'd been welded on. If I'm not mistaken, I read somewhere that welding on leaf springs are a no-no. I suppose this is a sign I need to ditch the idea of using an A spring and use the T spring I got at the swap meet.

 

Looks really good Matt the project is coming along nicely. Those Hudson tailights are growing on me after seeing so many Pontiac lights A's.

 

Looking good man! Did I see something earlier about a Kreuger in regards to your printmaking class? I ask because if I am remembering correctly, he was at KU when I was there ('94ish). He may have been doing his graduate work then?
But I digress! The project is looking great.

 

Yep! Michael Krueger. I believe he's a teacher at KU now? He came down for InkSlingers back in February and then last Wednesday-Saturday for the Summer Jam. He's a great dude.. Huge sense of humor and laid back. When he came back in February, he showed me his album with all of the old car magazines and CarToons that he'd saved on his laptop. When I explained that I was into hot rods, he got to asking me what parts were and their purposes like the windshield brace on a T-bucket. He wanted to come by and see the roadster but we were so busy over at Vermillion (the studio) that we couldn't find any free time to head over. I told him that next time, my roadster would be much further along and not blown all over the garage like it is now..

Thanks for the kind words.

 

Cool to see the progress, Matt -- I think those taillights will look great!

 

For sure! The guy does awesome work. Jenny Schmid was here as well.

Thanks!

 

Lookin good

 

Thanks!

 

Got the other wheel this morning and mounted the other tire (Thanks Chris!). I'm starting to get the hang of mounting tires myself. Pretty proud of that. Threw the other wheel on it and got it outside to admire..

When I work on the front, the wheels will come off and I'll lower it 3 inches so all the geometry and angles are correct for a 3-inch drop axle. That'll be coming in August. Going to mount the motor/trans then attack the front suspension set up and get it all fine-tuned.. 'Bones, spring, maybe even notch the crossmember if necessary.. It's starting to come together nicely.







I'm quite happy with where the back end is with the stock shackles and A spring. There's only 4 leaves in the back but that'll work for now while I look for another one. I can't wait to get the torque tube cut and bolt it to the transmission so I can start figuring out the wishbone situation in the rear. Oh, and if you noticed that the body is leaning to the passenger side.. It's because I only ordered one U-bolt from Mac's. I think it's dumb how you only need one "kit" to get 2 U-bolts for the rear but then you need 2 "kits" for the front. I'll see if I can't clean up the original U-bolt on there and use that.

 

sweet rat rod! lol just fuckin' with ya. almost looks like a car now! how cool is it to see it rolling!?

 

Awesome feeling! Of course, rolling and driving are two immeasurably different things..

Back to work!

 

I agree... Getting it rolling is a really big milestone. It seems to make a HUGE difference psychologically and recharges a guys motivation.

Keep it up man, I can't wait to see a motor and trans mounted.

 

Oh yeah! If getting it rolling like this was motivation, I can't wait to see what it's like having everything at the right stance. I can guarantee you there'll be a lot of sitting in the car pretending to row through the gears.

Me too.. Soon, my friend. Soon.

 

You know the first pictures you have of it mocked up outdoors on the wire wheels.....

That amount of rake, whatever that angle was, was fucking killer.

I'd be fine tuning that front end to get it close to the rake in those pics.

Looking good man! I'm loving it more everytime I check in!

-Steve W.

 

Just a side note/thought type thing just popped into my head.

I think your car would look really killer with a pair of custom lakes style headers run the full length of the framerails, exiting in front of the rear tires. The pipes could flow real nice, right under the body, filling in the gap of the unchannelledness.

I'm talking about really slick ones, like the torque tube style, but radiused to match the radius of the subframe.

Elpalacko posted some pics of a similar setup he did on a 32 not that long ago.

Squeak Bell's model a roadster is the perfect example of what I'm talking about, although I don't think they're radiused...and I'm pretty sure his body is chanelled......

His roadster is kickass....but I can dig up any pics.

If anybody has pics...feel free to chime in here

 

Have you decided to channel it? I like this look for some reason. I think the channeled cars are awesome so I am not sure what strikes me about it.

 

It's looking good dude! I know that there's months of work left to do, but if I were you, I'd be real jazzed.

I think the 3" drop at the front is going to give you a good look... just a touch high in the front right now, eh? haha

 

Yeah, that's the stance I'm shooting for. The plan of attack is whenever I do anything, take the wheels off and lower the front to where it would be with a dropped axle, mount motor/trans, then play with the spring and try to get it at that rake so that when I order the dropped axle in August, it's a simple axle swap to get to that rake. I love that rake with the wire wheels too.. It's just so right.

I have a special plan for the exhaust. Not going to reveal it just yet..

I decided against it. Seeing the picture above with the wire wheels made me fall in love with it.. It looks absolutely sinister sitting at that stance and I want to avoid making it look too low. It's pretty funny how at the beginning of the project, I wanted one thing but as it progresses, it "grows up" so to speak.

Out of all the pictures, that one's my favorite too. Just can't wait to lose all of that altitude under the front end however.

Yep! August can't come soon enough! But until then, I'll have to be content with having the weight of the 283 holding it down.

 

any updates?

 

Not much this month.. Small stuff. Planning out what needs to be done next. Took the body off a couple days ago so I can prep the frame to fab up some motor mounts and the homemade K-member.

Started welding up the driver's side door then the welder crapped out. The welder stopped feeding wire while I was tacking on the bottom of the door and I think the rod that the spool sits on may have seized up.. so I can't make any major progress until I fix it which won't be until August. One thing after the other. July's a busy month for me with a couple out of state trips so the funds aren't there right now. Still have plenty of time before school starts again in August however.

 

Looking forward to the updates/progress on this great project!

 

I know what you mean about things changing as you go. Thee things take on a life of their own. Ain't nothin' you can do about it. The car will tell you what it wants as you build.

Looking good! Keep making sparks and I'll see you at the 'Round up this year.

 

Small.. Teeny-tiny.. Minor.. Not-at-all-important update:

I spent $600.

On my daily driver. For a new electric fan and a couple other things so it's looking like I won't be able to get the dropped axle until next month but I can pick up some stuff to get the motor/trans together and mocked up on the frame as well as start messing with the front suspension. I'm dedicating tomorrow entirely to this hot rod. My dreams of driving this thing taunt at me and after a little motivation from fixing my DD today, I'm ready to start mucking around out in the garage all day tomorrow.

Of course, I could go on and tell you what I'm going to do but Henry Ford said it best:

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."

So rather than say what I'm going to do.. I'm just going to do whatever I can tomorrow.

 

Love the rendering!!! I;ve got chunky flames and baby blue plaint on my "to do" list for my '32.

What axle are you having dropped or buying? I have a friend that I believe has a nice dropped axle but I'm unsure of the year. If you have an idea of what you;re looking for I'll cross reference that with his and let you know. Might be cheaper.

What else do you need to get you going?

 

Chunky flames are a definite must on this ride. I think I may make them a little chunkier and less "modern" than in this rendering, to emphasize on when flames were beginning to become popular. I didn't have green so I used blue in this rendering, planning on going with a light metallic green, cream white flames, gold wheels, motor, other underpinnings, and chrome accents but paint is the last thing I want to worry about right now. I need this thing driving!

Looking at my options, I'm planning on getting one of Okie Joe's axles. Just a regular old dropped A axle. The one I have right now (stock undropped), I want to save for my next project so I want to get one that's already dropped by a professional rather than send one out to get dropped and shipped back.

Just need to fab up some motor mounts, rear trans mount, start fabbing the K-member around the trans mount, cut the 'bones so they mount on the frame and keep the axle leaned back right. Still up in the air over what I want to do to the ends of the 'bones. Figured out what's wrong with my welder so I may drop by a welding store and get the replacement part for it and get back to burning metal.

Basically, I need to get off my lazy butt and get in the garage. I've spent at least 40 hours driving on road trips alone this month so I've been too worn out to even think about going in the garage.

Ah.. One of these days, when I'm old and I look back, I'm going to go "Dang. I was lazy back then."

 

More probably, you'll look back and say, "Dang. I sure have gotten lazy in my old age."

 

To make sure I can say that when I'm older.. I did some work yesterday and today. The good news? The motor is sitting on the frame! The bad news? It's sitting on a couple bars of tube steel for until I make the mounts. But, hey, now it's starting to look more and more like a hot rod. I got a chuckle out of how massive a Model A frame makes a small block Chevy look.

First off, the Offy adapter I bought off here got drilled out and tapped one size too large for the bolts to be able to pull it against the '39 Ford transmission so I worked on getting some heli-coils in. I do have to admit they're pretty cool, especially since this is the first time I'd worked with them.




And while I managed to get the adapter to bolt up to the transmission with some bolts that just feel a little too short but they were able to get partially into the holes. Before I bolt everything down for the last time, I'll get some longer ones to replace these just to be cautious. Then after scrubbing the grime off which I decided to put off, it turns out the transmission was painted red at one point in its life then one of the PO painted over the red with a dark blue. Safe to say it might have some history..



(in the above picture, the bolts were too long on purpose just to hold the adapter in place)

I still haven't brought the '57 283 over since my brother-in-law is in the middle of a big move and I didn't want to be a burden just yet. I decided I could just put one of the SBCs in my garage to good use as a mock-up motor. This is the 350 that came out of my dad's '72 GMC long-bed that was involved in the accident. The 350 itself wasn't in the accident as he had replaced it 5 or 6 years prior with a crate 350 so it sat over in the corner. He assumed one of the cam lobes had gone bad but taking it apart to appease my curiosity, one of the pushrods end was smashed in. The Hurst motor mount is bolted to it and the Corvette intake is sitting on top of it but this isn't the motor I'm using.. Just for the heck of it.



Anyways, with it taking up space, I figured it would be better off taking up space on my frame instead of precious garage space so I took it off its stand today and worked on mating the transmission to it. Of course, all the grade bolts I have are too long so I took the shortest of them and some flat washers and went to town..



Then jacked it all up and set it on the frame. The tie rod on the '46 spindles wouldn't clear the cherry picker so I took it off and rolled it straight then once it was where it should be, turned the wheels in so it can't roll back. This is only temporary. There are some wood blocks behind the back tires as well.



One of the things I want to do is raise the motor to fill in the engine space visually. While this is probably a little too high since it's just sitting on a piece of tube steel, this is the general idea of what I want to do in comparison to the grille shell.



Ah.. Progress.