Projects What!!? another 27 on 32 chassis!??. Scratch build body.

Outstanding!, thanks for posting

 

David... I had a long, drawn-out post but a much simpler one is better :
- Wow. Very, very nice.

 

Mike I looked at your drawing but I don't understand how it works. I am slow to pick up ideas sometimes. I need a bit more of an explanation. I still remember the sweeps idea you shared with me.

 

Thanks to everyone for your interest and nice comments.

Not sure what's going on with photos on this site but the full photo does not show unless you click on them.

 

Hi David. This devise is used to measure an existing arc. As a general example let’s say you want to copy a group of arcs from an existing piece. The dimension A will be a convenient length depending on the length of the arc. Long radius arcs require longer A’s. B can be about 50 to 60 mm. The screw thread and the disk are used to measure the height or depth of a curve. Ok, this is how it is used: place the device on a flat surface with B vertical and the pointed end of the threaded rod touching the flat surface. Mark the disk with a pen at the index bar. Now place the devise on an arc, the point will contact first if the arc is above the horizontal plane and the ends of the B’s will contact first if the arc is below the horizontal plane. In each case, turn the disk attached to the screw until the point of the screw and the ends of both B’s touch the arc ,all the while record how many turns of the screw it takes ti get all 3 points in contact with the arc record this data. Using the 7 x 1 thread you will be able to determine how many mm’s the screw moved.
So, you are out somewhere and you want to measure the radius of various arcs on something You perform the above procedure on each arc and record the rise or fall of the screw’s travel.
When you get back to the shop you check the individual arcs using your data collected.
I use 3/4” square tube and 3/4” x 1/8” flat bar
The devise is brazed together to avoid shrinkage.
Mike

 

Thanks Mike, very ingenious.

 

Thank you. To be sure; the chord is of an arc of a circle only. Which is what the automotive sweeps are.
The disk can be divided into 8 so that would be 1/8 of a mm ,pretty accurate.
Mike

 

So then began the task of putting all these panel together to make a body. I am always very busy here at Classic Metal Shaping so finding time to work on my car is not easy but I have been devoting Saturday afternoons to it and whatever other time I can get on it. The first panel I fitted was the cowl to the inner frame. This was wrapped over the frame in the same way as the original along the 'A' posts and on the underside. The front was riveted to the firewall. I did this with steel pop rivets which were pretty much an exact match in appearance to the rivets on the original body.

 

Then I bought in a load of unf nuts and bolts (everything is metric here in old blighty) and bolted the hinges to the door on the passenger side (this is left hand drive) and with quite a bit of guesswork and working off the original body I have here I worked out where the door should be hung. I then marked the position of the hinges on the A posts.



I then cut out the hinge area and made a rebate piece to take the hinge in the same way as it is done on the original body.

 

Good to see your posts David, your work is an inspiration to us all.

 

Its good to be posting again. Thanks!

 

I finished the tops of the doorframe.

 

Then it was time to fit the skin. This is not as simple as it might seem because the frame has to be exactly the right shape because the frame actually sits in the bead of the doorskin. I had to do a bit of adjusting to get it to go together.



The skin had to be trimmed around the hinges to get a nice fit



It was about this time while trying to fit the door and the bun panels I realised that something wasn't right. After looking at the original body and trying to get everything to fit as it should I came to realise that the repro hinges were not right. Although pretty accurate in most regards, they are flat where they should be kinked near the pin area. This was not a major problem and didn't take long to correct once I realised the issue. Has anyone else come across this? This would cause a real problem if you tried to fit these to an original body I imagine.

 

Door fitted in place and the bun panel fitted to this side.

 

This shows the underside of the body where the bun panel joins to the subframe. The outer skins wrap over the subfame in the same way as they do on an original body.



It also shows the body mount brackets I welded into the subframe. There are holes in the side of the subframe to allow access for putting in the bolts.

 

Next I made the braces that go at the back of the bun panels. I copied these as best I could from the originals.

 

This was quite a task because obviously all the bolt holes have to line up.

 

Great design and execution on the subrails, and the copies of the upright brackets @ bun panels! I needed some 'insight' on these as my '27 T Touring has some rustout on drivers (left! LOL) side.
Good looking side shot, my previous steel '27 roadster also sat atop Deuce rails.
Perfect placement, very well fitted.
I ran into the retro-hinge problem sometime back, also. One has to set them in a sturdy vise, warm them and shape with the mentioned 'kink'. Perfect fit was then realized...

 

Thanks for commenting Mike. It seems daft that they would go to all the trouble of reproducing the hinges and leave out such an important detail. If I hadn't had my original body here I would never have been able to work it out. I did mine cold in my flypress. It took seconds once I knew what I had to do. I fabricated the "upright brackets" they were not formed from a single piece. Well the outer one was fabricated, the inner one is one piece.

 

Dave I'm happy to see after 27 years you are finally there (I remember you talking about this back then and showing me the buck). I hope my project won't take that long (I don't know that I'll be around in 27 years lol).

As always, top quality and execution, I'll be certain to come and have a look when I'm in the UK again

 

OK You got me - who are you? It's even longer than that that I have wanted to build this car. I am sure I talked to a lot of people about this, especially those who visited my workshop

 

Made the B posts but I changed the way they fit to the subframe in order to try and make them a bit stronger because the seat base is part of the structure on the original body but I will not have this in my car as I want the seat to be lower.

 

Dave, check your PMs.

 

Always nice to hear from an ex-student... I had another ex-student turn up at my workshop a week or two ago.

 

Another source for measuring curvature is using what are call "Railroad curves", they are thin plastic curves used as templates to draw curved lines in hand drafting, for railroad and highway plans. They were quite expensive back in the day but are now obsolete in most industries due to CADD programs. My set runs from 2.0" radius to 90" radius.

 

Thanks for the input. I have a set You are right they are very useful. I have full size sweeps and I make sweeps to match any particular panel as I need them as well.

 

Here is the 27 with one door fitted and one part of the turtle deck clamped in place . The panel at the rear of the cockpit is also fitted.

 

All started as flat sheet steel...
Not done yet but its been a fair bit of work just to go from all the panels made to the stage its at below. I am still working on it now.

Its starting to look like a car now.

 

Aww' man ... you didn't just come back. You arrived, and swept the field ! What a badass T.

 

Here is the new 'B' post fitted and the door catch fitted to one side.