1949 T28 Trojan Airplane becomes a car

I have struggled for a long time to understand the master rod concept and how a radial reciprocates. One picture explained it all. Cool project.

 

Hey flyinbrian, you've got the coolest damn car I've seen. Saw you at diamond head and cruisin'. Just sayin.

 

What about ditching the whole front wheel drive concept? A heavy truck straight axle would look just about right under the front of that (you might even find someone to put a drop on one for you!).

Under the back, go with a severely narrowed 14 bolt or some similar heavy axle, then run some radically offset wheels so that the axle ends actually project out past the tires. With the right combination I'm sure you could get a look that would at least approximate the single wheel design, and would be a lot simpler and reliable mechanically than a complicated front drive system

 

That's what i want see!!!!

 

or you could have it chain driven, as before. maybe you could put two wheels in the back?

 

Crazy. No really. This is crazy.

 

that's what makes it fun!

 

probably told the wright brother the same thing

carry on.


Later

 

I finally had a few days off to work on the Trojan. I pulled it out of storage and spent three days gutting miles of wiring, old rotten radio equipment, hydraulic lines and misc. I removed about 450lbs of junk. A guy came in from Florida and bought the nose landing gear and the huge box that contained it in the nose of the fuselage. The gear and box weighed a little over 300lbs! I can actually pick the plane up by the tail now. By removing as much junk as I did from the bowels of the plane, I can now see what it will take to start building a frame inside to attach all of the automotive parts to.

Here is what has been decided on. I'll be using a pipe straight axle out of a 1990's Dodge one ton 2wd truck for the front suspension. I'll be picking the axle up next week. I'll widen the axle a foot or so to get the bulldog front stance I want in the front. The rear suspension will probably be a boring narrowed 9" Ford with a 4 link that I have laying around. The 454 Chevy will be under the rear ****pit. The floor is 54" WIDE there and the clearance from floor to belly pan is about 32". I'll make the rear floor a hatch to access the engine. Putting the engine midship will give the tail the much needed rear weight.

Here is a picture just after I cut out the landing gear box. Note all of the lines and ****. The green area is the firewall.


Here is the same area after days of removing parts



Here is one of the two wiring gut piles that I hauled off


Lots of room under the floors for an engine


rear ****pit after I removed a lot of junk. The pedal mounts will be gone from the rear. I will use the pedals in the front ****pit for brakes/gas. The rear ****pit is 54" wide at the floor, so I have a lot of room to work with there.


I still have to remove some stuff on the left side. I have most of the instruments in storage. Sadly the joystick will be replaced with a yoke and mast from an airliner to use as a steering wheel.

 

Hurry up, Jason - Speedycop's already racing his Cessna!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtWoTBS3zEw

 

Here's the video...

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PeeAI1wTMiA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

****, I was just going to post that!

Sent from my DROID device using the TJJ mobile app

 

I knew he was going to beat me to the punch some time ago. I like what he did.

 

That is absolute madness. One false move and those guys are dead. I have a low flying T6 Texan in my front yard. It isn't as impressive as those water skiers. Its not for flying. Its just for looking at. I found the T6 in pieces- some ***embly required. It looks like most of the pieces are there minus the engine and the canopy track system.

 

Is that N7008C? Cool! Wish I had a backyard toy like that.

 

It is made from at least three planes. One was N7008C. Some of the parts are off of a T6 that Chuck Yeager had a hard landing in about ten years ago. That doesn't really mean much. I just thought it was cool to have parts of a plane that one of the most famous pilots ever goofed up on. I have most of the parts to T6 Texan in storage to piece a fuselage and center wing section together. The T6 is just being re***embled now to see how much of it is missing, and then it goes back into storage. The T28 Trojan car is my main concern for now.

 

Glad to see this one making progress!


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Weird! I like it. Would like it more if it had a weird engine-you know one of those odd motors you think is cool but would never fit in a conventional car. It doesn't get more unconvnetional than this.

 

Yep Belly Tanks not the whole plane ! I took the picture at the Round Up best looking 450 honda I ever seen looked just like a mule eating a mouthful of hay !!

 

good progress! those videos are awesome. and ive wanted a fuselage so bad lately for an awesome flight simulator.


how much would just the ****pit section of that airplane go for?

anyway, hopefully that setup will work, good luck and keep us posted!

 

Worked on T-28's while at NAF, Andrews AFB in the late 60's. Great for mechanics-very simple hydraulics. Pilot's loved their toughness. Glad to see one getting "renovated".
Good luck!
RB

 

Here is this weeks work. I decided that since this T28 will eventually look like a TBM Avenger, then it should have an Avenger engine poking out in front. So, I took the Wright R2600 14cylinder radial engine that I had laying around and started dismantling it. The 350lb supercharger unit and accessory case was already removed some time ago. I gutted the heavy gears and bearings out of the big prop reduction unit- that's the big gray magnesium "***ty like" housing. The engine was severely rusted together, so I had to cut each rod loose. So far, I have taken one cylinder and cut it in half to reduce the weight(13 more to go). Since you can only see the front half of a cylinder once you bolt the baffles back on the rear of the cylinder, I figured why not? When I put it all back together, it will still look like a R2600, it just won't weigh 2000lbs anymore-----maybe 500. There won't be any heavy pistons, crankshaft or any guts at all in the engine. The last picture is of a split cylinder and the master rod. That little piston next to it is a large piston out of a 1920's Dodge engine! The airplane engine has 6" pistons.
I'm supposed to finally be going after a heavy duty tubular straight axle out of a 1998 Dodge 3500 cab and ch***is truck next week. That will make a great wide front axle for this beast.

 

Man, that's some cool junk!

 

We got a crazy aussie down here who put a aircraft engine in a 55 chevy,but doing the opposite and making it drive will be one cool custom,best of luck!BTW i have over 15,000 FFPoints,do i get a free ride ?lol.
Gaz1

 

Its going to be a while before its operational, but Yes you can have a free ride!

 

subscribed this interesting project

why not making the tailwheel steerable like on forklifts???

whould look better (and more realistic) when in operation and maybe easier to install also

 

That was the original idea, but tail steer is extremely unsafe and just about guaranteed to get you turned upside down. You have to have special training in a taildragger airplane because of the instability. Ground looping isn't fun in a taxing airplane let alone at 70mph. Look up Buckminster Fuller and his Dymaxion car from back in the 1930's. He used the tail wheel idea and it got a car load of people killed. A guy here in the US had built a replica Dymaxion and says it is nearly impossible to hold straight on the road at 35mph.

It would certainly look better if it were tail steer, but drivability is more important at this point.

 

Didn't the messerschmidt cars have a narrow rear axle with 2 wheels and a wider front axle set up making them look like a tail drager but safer?

 

I just looked them up. They were just a reverse trike motorcycle with a tiny car body.

 

This has a Toronado or eldorado set up underneath it.

There are oil pumps inside the NASCAR Ford 9" rear ends that "should" eliminate your oil starvation issues being contemplated .

V drive out of a boat will get your direction changed too.