GASSER MUST HAVES and cant haves?

Some say 1969 - it is definitely no longer a requirement as of 71. My car ran NHRA tracks in '68 without front brakes though.

 

In reply to those who complimented my purchase and want to know more....
Thanks! and here's the story...I bought the car in pieces for which I am told I have all I need. The big pieces are definitely all here. The engine/trans is a later Hudson flat 6 so it wont go in without some minor mods (firewall, tunnel, driveshaft). I have had the car a year and have decided "restoring" it will not be fun for me. It is a front seat only business mans coupe. The dash requires a particular taste for which I am also not that fond of. I will try to dig up a picture. Classy but not my style. May require Grey Poupon?

 

Dash Picture

I do like the surf board gas pedal!

 

Thanks.
I knew that 66' still required them, because Don Long built a 33 willys that had front drums with no guts. He said " the rules say you have to have brakes, but it didn't say they had to work"

MELTDOWN DRAGS
JULY 19, 20 2014

 

Any car I build will have working brakes on all 4 corners. It is interesting to hear/think about race cars not having/needing front brakes. Makes sense with a runout area, not so much on the street, especially in a cell phone world.

 

Are you kidding? That dash is BAD TO THE BONE. I like it

 

What 1971BB427 said ^^ .

 

Gassers, as most know them were all but gone by 69 as far as this thread goes. IMO. Around 67 or so, when Mustang Gassers entered the scene, they looked more like Funny Cars than the style Gassers I believe inspired this thread

 

Love that car man! Thanks for sharing. I will in the end do what I want but all advice, ideas, pictures, references help me arrive at a better decision.

 

heres one im building for the wife injected 350 four speed 9 inch strait tube on hair pins and coilovers short ladder bar rear etc its cheap and cheerfull so far.

 

mid 50's Anglia? lovit

 

Damn thats so cool.

 

I haven't read every post here but what about an msd ignition?? I would think that a magnito would be true to the gasser , but I'm no expert

 

------------------
Mags were used....but so were
distributors too. Remember
that most gassers ran one - or
sometimes even two - large truck
batteries in the trunk for ballast,
so power to run a distributor and
coil type ignition wasn't usually a
problem. To my mind there'd be
nothing at all wrong with converting
a points-type distributor to electronic
and using it and nothing wrong with
using an MSD or similar control box
to fire or trigger it either. especially
if was hidden, or at least, just not
too glaringly obvious..

Mart3406
==========

 

Hi Guys

This is a answer to post # 70 - # 71 I sold the 37' in 68' to start my engine shop , and lost track of the car. Heard it was in Sunland Ca on the street but no luck finding it

20 yrs later Jeff Tann found the car in Simi Valley right over the hill from me. after ayr of the owner raising the price from 3500 t0 7000 he bought it for 5 g's and he told me it was a keeper for him so I gave him the 327 that I ran

It started out on a bad note because he wanted to race it with that 60's engine that was used on the then slippery tracks, and with 2 bolt mains you would lay the crank on the ground on the sticky tracks we have today.

And on top of that he traded away my 10" by 16" American Mag wheels and M & H slicks for 15" wheels that he could buy new slicks for and that was Unbelieveable , then polish's the wheels and paints the centers with grey paint over the casting surface

Then he did not use my Shiefer clutch set up he got a new Hays that did not work right, and blamed it on my clutch linkage that worked perfect for 200 plus runs so he cuts up my linkage and trys to make it work and it was so stiff that his welds broke on the arms

And it has never been fixed right I guess after he put in a hydraulic set up, what a joke as you need a metal to metal linkage so your foot can feel what it is doing and when it is going to make full contact

He over did the resto with frame off and new black epoxy on the frame etc and just changed a bunch of small things to take away the look of the car the way it was, by then it was too late to put it back right and I stopped talking to Jeff as he wanted to put his mark on the car instead of keeping it spot on for the history of the sport

Well I got took with giving him the 327 engine then he sells the car to his cousin then he sells it to Steve Metz who wanted to make a Muscle Madness model die cast of it, then changed his mind and sold it to a guy in Boston for 69' thousand bucks Wow are you kidding me then when he say the car rolling out of the trailer he was pretty upset with the quality of the restro plus it was not done so he sells it again to a guy in AZ for 55 thou

I asked this new owner if he could bring the 37' to that show they just had for cars that were in past Hot Rod magazines, he said that the clutch is so stiff it hurts his knee to try to drive the car so it just sets and what a shame that people can not see the car now and see how the real Gassers were

I could go on and on but that is the real story on how the old cars are treated now days with no respect for history and that is a real shame, I tried to help each owner along the way as each one said that he wanted to make the car just like I raced it and they were just blowing smoke

At least the car was found and it will be around for some time now instead of wasting away somewhere and i'am happy about that, those guys spent their nickel so they can do what they want and you have to live with that part of it

Included are a few pics and the Hot Rod story from Dec 65'

Sincerely

Don Nowell

 

That picture of you all scrunched up in the drivers seat is why I stopped looking for a 37-38 chevy.lol

MELTDOWN DRAGS
JULY 19, 20 2014

 

By the time you move the firewall back 4-8 inches so you can use your 10% engine set back and leave the seat in "stock" position, you kinda lose the comfort.

Now days you can move the seat back against the tubs and still don't have much room--in any "gasser". Working around a full cage instead of a rollbar doesn't make it any simpler.

 

I also was around and watching the West Coast gassers run in the 60's. I see you took it exactly as many do. Those are definitely more COMMON, but one body style is no more traditional than another, as long as it's a body from the period. The way they are built is what's traditional, not the body they are built on. What's so confusing about this?
The OP's Hudson can be a done as a traditional gasser, even if it isn't the most commonly seen body style back in the 60's.
I don't look at a certain body style as traditional, because I've seen too many pro street Willys, Anglia, and Tri 5 Chevy clones, being called gassers.

 

Except in the Blown classes, Magnetos were not as common as you might think. Some guys ran them, but Stock Distributors and Mallory Dual points were used a lot. Now days a Stock with a PerTronix, an Old Mallory or even early Accel (you can convert these to electronic as well) would give the period correct look and very friendly on the street and track. i am using the new PerTronix Cast Distributor with the Ignitor III module that gives me multi spark and a digital rev limiter, but no external box that would not have been available in the era.

 

Most of the gassers that were in the upper part of the class were towed to the track, and the standard package was Hilborns & a Vertex mag

The street driven gassers used the factory 2 4 barrels from the 57' 270 engine or the Edlebrock 6 2's and now and then a 3 2's set up , using a factory dist with a tune up

So it all depends on the look you want either a 100% racer or a mild driver style

Back In the posts a guy said he would have had a driver for a gasser, I had a 57' in 60' that was my driver and ran C/Gas but I would get beat by a towed in car with a better engine. So that is when I decided to build a gasser I could win with too so the 37' filled the bill

It is all called ' Run What You Broung ' and that is what was so neat about all the Gassers as you can just build it the way you want as your own view point and go out and have some fun !!!!!!!!

G Don

 

Well we have several in my parts most street drivers,and thats cool it,s their car, I personally like running em we have a FREE drag meet for our club members yes free if they are reg. members and of many I see at the cruize nites around here and some of these Street Gassers are at and they sound bad none I repeat none race them I aways made mine double duty its a personal thing as long as there safe!!!

 

My thoughts exactly. The younger guys look at things differently than the guys that were there. When the young guys look at old gassers, wheels sticking out of the rear fenders look cool because its different than they have seen in their lifetime and in their eyes old is new. To us that were there,the only reason we didnt shorten rear ends to fit in the wheelwells was no one new yet how or had the available equipment. Nobody liked it back then. We just didnt know what to do about it yet. The 60`s parts and build styles are still my very favorite but in my oppinion some of the details are so wrong they just have to go. I can never look at wheels sticking out of the rear wheelwells without thinking the guy is too poor to have his rear end fit to his car.I know this is not always the case now but I cant get that thought out of my head.

 

Seeing one done for the most part right, then looking at the front axle and seeing disc brakes totally kills it for me. If your going to go through all the trouble of making everything else right .........

 

Hi Kan

Its funny you talked about the rear ends as my tires were out about an inch and I built the car to the NHRA rule book, and at the Winter Nats they were not going to let me run because of that and 14 other things they said were wrong

Nothing in the book about the tires sticking out either

Well the car next in the tech line was a Anglia gasser and his tires were out about 4 0r 5 inchs, so I asked the tech guy you going to throu him out too so he says I guess you are OK

Don't know how it is today but they just liked to bust your ass for grins

G Don

 

It was the way that you worded it, and I wasn't the only one that didn't understand what you meant by your statement. It's all good, just a little confusing the way you stated your original sentence that's all.

 

I think they must have had you confused with Modified Production, where it was illegal. Some of the old chassis builders have said that rule was the real beginning of the wide tire/narrowed frame (Pro Stock/Pro Street, etc.) that everyone here is so fond of.

So was you rear end narrowed any? I know the technology was around (look at the dragsters) and that some of the Gassers were starting to use rearends that were narrowed some in the mid 60's. When you look at my Anglia with a standard width Olds rear end and Toronado wheels, you can kind of understand why. Not the best look in the world.

 

My opinion, and we all know what opinions are like....

Like many others I love the gasser look and have entertained the idea is building a street car with the gasser look. My ideas on the subject...

If for show I'd find the rule book from the appropriate year and study old magazine pictures with a magnifying glass.

If for the strip I'd build a drag car that had the right stance and paint job.

And here is where you stop reading if you like to stress about things being "wrong"...... For a daily driver I'd love to swap a '60s small car body onto a later small truck chassis. Just run whatever I4, V6 blah blah blah that was stock to the truck. Put some vintage looking wheels and such under it, give it the right paint job and have fun.

The lottery fantasy is actually to build a pair of matching Falcons. One to the second scheme, one to the third scheme. Use the "wrong" one as my tow vehicle for the race car. Go ahead and build a road race car for autocrossing or just playing on curvy roads with a matching paint scheme too! Let folks be confused when one day my car is two feet off the ground and the next day it's two inches!


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There was a local guy that had two early 60's Chevy II cars exactly alike, at least in looks..He'd line up a race and go home to get his slicks on and of course swap cars, I don't know if he had to most of the time because he was so good at flag starts....Oh and as far as tires sticking out in Gassers, the rules stated that up to 2/3 of the tire width could stick out..

 

that rule did not come into play until later - 71 is the first rule book I have noticed that in - prior to that time no mention of width was made other than "rear fenders may be altered for clearance to permit the use of wide slicks"

 

That would be so much fun to me! If I could afford to buy another 4 door '63 Comet to match mine.... Build it up with a big block, narrowed rear, etc.... Or a (not HAMB friendly induction), tube control arms, (wide low not HAMB friendly tires), etc...,,

Matching cars, one totally daily dependable fuel friendly, one a fire breathing monster! Hells yeah!


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