1930s Era Champ Car - new project

In addition to using weld nuts inside the frame I plan to put pilots on many of my fasteners to facilitate one-man installation. I have a fixation about not making my clearance holes much bigger than the threads that pass through, to insure precise alignment and fit, so piloted fasteners are a help.

 

My machinist and aviation background like that a lot.

 

Moving into the cockpit I first want to determine the location of the driveshaft. I need to figure the upper and lower limits of travel so I can design a driveshaft tunnel. I do not know if driveshaft tunnels are de rigueur in circle track, but coming from a background of drag racing where driveshaft impact loading is the norm it makes sense to me to have one. I needed one once. Sitting on the line with my foot to the wood and released the trans brake when instantly between my legs I felt the driveshaft snap.

BAM!BAM!BAM!-BAM!-BAM!--BAM!---BAM!----BAM!----Bam!----Bam-----bam-----bam------bam----thunk...



My butt pucker was Level 10 praying for that driveshaft guard tunnel to hold until the pieces came to a halt.
Which thankfully it did.

So I made up a dummy shaft from scrap wood and PVC tubing to set stuff up.

 

A simple wood plug in place of the pinion gear carrier determines the D/S centerline at the rear. Rather than try to jack the axle up to determine the upper limit of movement I put a hole on the pinion centerline two inches above the center which will set the upper travel location.





Another cardboard pattern of the tunnel top establishes the location of the rear of the tunnel.


Astute observers will note the pinion is offset wrt the chassis centerline. I do not think this will be a detriment since the driveshaft does not know orientation of offset, up/down or right/left.

 

I bent up the tunnel. Still need to weld in the nuts. I think I will wait to bend up the rear strap until the driveshaft is in place and I can get a better measurement on how far it hangs down. I want to keep it to a minimum for road clearance and loading.

 

I ruminated on the best way to attach the tunnel and decided on one crossmember to hold up the front of the tunnel, support the front edge of the seat, and serve as an anchor point for the crotch strap. I'll use tabs up front - that way If I have to remove the driveshaft it will be easy to unbolt and slide the tunnel forward. Likewise if I have to remove the trans I spaced the crossmember high enough above the tail shaft to allow the trans to slide backwards and tilt upward in front.

A piece of PVC conduit cut to the desired length served to align the two tabs and keep them parallel and properly separated.

 

The tunnel is in. I now have a place to sit to do further work. The roll bar clears my head by 3" (good) but the foot space is tight for a hoodlum my size (6' 6") so I'll have to be creative making a foot box and eeking out every last millimetre around the trans.

 

Rolled out into the light of day. I need the trailer to go get my Anglia project. I am losing my out-of-state storage and need to retrieve it. Note the break away trailer fenders needed to unload the champ car.

 

Off comes the champ car so I can use the trailer to go get my Attic Anglia project.

 

Now that my drag racing season has come to a close I turned my attention to the champ car. Here is the (faux) tank pressure pump I made. At some point I will probably replace the black Bakelite knob with a knurled aluminum one, more period correct.

 

We used a Carbon fiber shaft in our 410 car but we finely spun the coupler loose, the glue didn’t hold. We used one in the 2 seater and it stopped the harmonic vibration in the longer shaft. The Carbon Fiber shaft lived in the French Grimes Race Saver Series we ran in Texas.

 

Where it all started in 1957 at Devil’s Bowl in Dallas, Texas

 

Cool cars 1-shot. A carbon fiber shaft is not in my budget right now. I have a few old Ford steel shafts I can shorten up in-house when the time comes. I stick pushrods in the U-joint ends to align them before welding. As good as dial indicating...

 

A machinist taught me how true a 4 jaw church in a lathe with a file stuck thru a piece of white paper into a 2x4 he got it within 1 centimeter every time.

 

Here's my pump with a proper knob and feed pipe.

 

That's solid work.

You cut those end caps on a manual machine or CNC?

Damned fine result either way.

 

Thanks CoolHand. I cut them out on my Sears band saw, then put them on a router table with a quarter-round bit and carefully fed them in by hand, taking light cuts. Then I mounted the ends in a 3/8 arbor and turned a receiver groove for the round tube. Old school.

 

That IS old school. I was thinking a Bridgeport with a rotary table. lol

Having VMC's around has spoiled me on stuff like that. Easy two op part in the CNC, probably take longer to load the tools in the changer than to cut the part.

You definitely earned that result.

 

HarHar - "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

I remember when as a teenager I built my first roadster all I had was a ShopSmith woodworking multitool. No metal saw, no torches, nada. I cut the frame rails from rectangular tubing by scribing the lines then drilling a series of holes outside those lines on the ShopSmith, then redrilling them with a bigger bit, etc., etc., until I could break it apart and grind the ragged edge smooth. Tedious

My dad showed me how to make a roadster body from an old pickup truck cab turned upside down.



Priceless memories...

 

Very cool little tub there. Even fits two skinny people.

I'd have to put that thing on like a pair of pants.

EDIT: Is that your grandma riding with you in the first pic?

 

Believe it or not it is a Catholic nun, my religion teacher. By the grace of God - and maybe with her prayers - I have lived through six decades of drag racing and other assorted hoodlums s**t.

EDIT: Son of a gun! in looking at that picture it does not appear that I had a header on the passenger side of the car when I took her for a ride. Judging by the smile on her face it was fun for her all the same.

The other gal is my little sis.

That car evolved into a low 10 second drag car. My mom did not like me drag racing, but she relented. From the start, as seen by the roll bar, I knew I wanted to race it.

 

High speed nuns.

You're alright, man.

 

I acquired a NOS replica brass radiator for a '64 - '65 Mustang. I think it will look more correct than an aluminum one.

 

I decided to mount the radiator firmly in a halo surrounding it, tucked inside the nosepiece. I will be making it from stout 13 gauge square steel tubing and trying to bend it cold. To heat and bend it would have required a couple more pairs of hands. In order to bend it cold I needed a die to put in my hydraulic press so I can form the square tubing without collapsing it. To do that I used a piece of 1" hexagonal bar stock, milled flats on it on two sides and bent it using two rollers to get a uniform bending moment between the rollers and thus a consistent radius. The curved portion of the hex will be welded on to metal stock to act as a male bending shoe. The hex shape will allow the inside of the bend to deflect and bend uniformly without collapsing or kinking. I will begin at top center and walk the die around the square tube to get the desired shape.

 

Not to hijack your thread, but how do you make a roadster body out of a pickup cab? Is it documented anywhere?

 

Dad was a metal man /body repair specialist. I had already begun the construction of my T chassis and needed a body that I could afford. We were driving down the road one day and he said ,
"There's your roadster body."
"Where?"
"Off in that field there's an old ('40s?) pickup cab."

We stopped and bought it, took it home. He took it to work, cut the roof off at the top of the "A" pillar and around the belt line, stretched it outward / rearward where the upper rear door corner opening was, and used the remaining metal for sides and used a model A cowl top to enclose the firewall. This was in the age of Brownie cameras so there is no HAMB build thread but I do have some pics of the body on 3 x 3 photos. Later he hammer-n-dollied out a turtle deck.

Believe it or not somebody drove by our house a couple years later and made me an offer on the body (he wanted a steel body wide enough to fit his existing chassis), enough to buy a new fiberglass T with a turtle deck, so I switched it over to a 'glass T bucket.

One of the reasons for this build is a tribute to my dad, Joseph Koesel, who taught me more than I ever realized. He used to build bodies for some local midget racers. He once made a Crosley powered TQ midget racer that I looked forward to driving some day. Alas, somebody made him an offer for it before it was finished and it disappeared without so much as even a photo of it. Sure would like to know what became of it.

'scuse me a sec...musta got something in my eye.

 

I remember meeting your dad at your Uncle Nick's and and Aunt Millie's house and Gary and I playing in the Sears service van.

'scuse me a sec...musta got something in my eye too.

 

Good to hear from you Mike. Happy Thanksgiving.

 

I finished my square tube bending die and did a tryout on it . It looks like it will work in my homemade bender. I need to make some square shoes for the outer rollers so the bar does not get marred. But overall success.

 

I started to bend the radiator hoop. So far it is working. I reached the limit of how far I can bend it in my press because the piece hits the hydraulic ram. I anticipated this. I intend to mount the dies upside down so the bend will be downward away from the ram. I have to modify the bed die a bit before I can proceed. Happy Thanksgiving.