Projects 170 Slant Powered 27 T Shortened Touring, "Basurati"

This past weekend, we went after the seating and drive shaft tunnel. I'm trying to get that figured out since the seat back is in such a critical, structural area of the body AND we're scratching our heads about pedals/shifter/column length still so the sooner we have the driver position sorted out the better.

I think I mentioned earlier that we went back to a stock seat frame, chopped/shortened 2"/2" then stretched the seat back down about 4" give or take, and incorporated another seat back for an early Vette style arrangement (Which I am not quite sure how I'm going to upholster yet).

This is the good metal I was able to cut out of a roached 37 sedan floor that was donated to the cause and saved us having to buy fresh 16 ga and build a pipe anvil just to get the seat platform cut.





Here is a little bit of the ugly going on behind the seat in the tub back still. You can see the new 2x4 there that holds the tub up. The old gray 2x4 is what supports the seat back. Neither is permanent and I am working out how I want to accomplish their function with steel that's less in the way. Currently both would interfere with the rear ends articulation. I will probably build 2x2 steel offsets into the brace for the back and bolster them against the frame with wood. The rear of the tub needs a big hoop tied to the B pillar and some feet to grab the rear crossmember I'm thinking.

 

Went back at the seat this weekend. We decided to use 3/4" decking plywood and made a new platform. I cut some high density & firmness foam for the base and some slightly less firm foam for the back. We are both pretty happy with the seat feel now and are not really sure relieving & webbing the platform will be necessary. I want to extend the cushion a couple inches and bolster the front an inch or so for leg support and I may want to give it a 1" gel memory foam topper before it gets covered so it conforms a bit.



I am not yet sure how to deal with the ends of the back cushions or where they meet in the middle yet. The ends aren't so much of a head scratcher as the middle is. I may make some kind of cap there. I'm thinking I need to relieve & glue wedge cuts in them so they hold the curve of the seat backs better also.

Process:

 

We missed a few weekends due to vacations but got some work in before and after all that.

We got a spun aluminum tank, which was very disappointing, arrived damaged, and the brackets did not line up to the stands and sent that back. The stainless tank that was waiting on my steps when I got back fit perfectly and looks great.

Old

New


The big work I did over the weekend was getting some repairs roughed in on the wheel wells with some pieces that I cut off my own car years ago and a small army of sheet metal screws. Once I get all that locked in, I can finish on the doors.

 

We have been continuing to chip away at some of the broad stroke 'will this be in the way of something else' type things on this car rather than actually finishing anything. So last week we go the steering column cut down and mounted finally so we can actually sit in the car with the wheel and got the side nerf bars built and tacked up.










Wee also got a working bracket to relocate the Alternator finally. Hopefully this will A. work and B. not put the thing too low. It IS sitting between the rails now which will make hood sides easier down the road. We have not put the adjuster on yet so it won't be hanging down like this for long.

 

Been a minute since I've made updates! We've been working most Saturday afternoons on this car since the last update. Most of those efforts have been focused on getting a floor in there and working with seating. I have not been good about taking pictures at all.

The floors are 16ga sheet which we ran some 2" angle around the inside edge for stiffening and to give us a good lip for the drive shaft and transmission tunnels. I ended up not using the tubing hoop and making a loop out of bar sock to join both sides.



You'll notice that we have gotten away from the original seat. We decided we needed to go all the way to the floor and this is what we came up with.



I need to re-cut some foam pads and figure out a finished seat framing and cushion design but we did a sit test in it yesterday for about a half hour without getting uncomfortable. I'm not sure if I should make 2 separate boat cushions (butt and legs) or try to make one angled one for each side. The back is going down to 1" foam with a rolled bolster up top which seems to improve leg mobility vs the 2" we had in there.

Now that we have seats pretty much dialed in, swing pedals are no longer a far away thing and I can get the windshield stanchions and frame started.

 

to give a little reference for the idea behind the lower seats, these are an 80's Countach. I'm building a simplified low back version of these, crossbred with something like early vette looking seat backs basically. @justa170 dreams of someday maybe ice-racing this rig or just whipping it around in the snow and these seats really seem to hold you where you need to be without jamming you up the way we have them mocked up now.

 

We did a little work on the seat to start getting it firmed up. We also put some Eastwood rust encapsulator on it. It actually cured ok despite fairly low temperatures out there. I'm keeping the center section removable for reasons I don't know yet. It might be a good place to stash things like a tool roll or a speaker down the line. I'll probably grind the lower sections down some and weld the panel together later however.

We bent a length of 3/16 rod around the back that I'll tack in to add a bit more strength and compensate for the tack strip. Not paying $200 for a piece of wood we don't need. I'm planning to wrap upholstery over the back and hold it on with snaps. Anybody else do it that way? Sailrite makes some tools for figuring that out.

 

More work on the seats! We decided to shorten the support tubing to soften the angle on NYE before evening plans. Then we got another day in Monday and I cut some foam and cloth to start getting more dialed in. We also tacked some 3/16" rod we bent to strengthen the seatback (Deciding against the $200 wood tack strip option).







Deciding we needed SOMETHING in there to start figuring out the floor, toe board, and pedals, I made a super rough plate to give @justa170 a point of reference to work with. The angle ended up being about what I thought it would be.

 

I keep hitting a mental wall with the floor to firewall to transmission cover to subframe to cowl to pedals problem on this car.

The transmission eats up SO MUCH space (like 10") that squeezing 3 pedals in there is proving to be more challenging than is fun to tackle. We are at the point where we are discussing things like:

• Remove the front of the subrail and replace it with something lower
• Replace the lower portion of the firewall with a wider one
• Cut the cowl side and weld in a blister for clearance

None of this is what I consider to be the fun part of doing this stuff when it's this maddening. 10lbs of shit in a 5lb box is fine but 15 isn't.

Anybody else faced this problem?

 

Not yet. This is probably the real reason auto transmissions are so popular.

 

Basically everything we have done for the past 6 or 7 months has been ERGONOMICS. Fitting the driver in this can with the TRANSMISSION IN THERE TOO has been A CHORE... BUT we have finally gotten things dialed in!

We have a solution for all 3 pedals being safely operated, comfortable seating, shifting, & steering!

My goal has been to be able to operate this car in work boots if I could and do so without blistering the cowl.

Between making a very minimal seat (it's a 15" square with 3" of padding on a bracket on the floor with a half inch pad on the back which I totally messed up), using the kit chassis brake pedal for the hyd. clutch MC, & re-purposing an old Falcon/Mustang brake pedal, we finally hit it. We were even able to fit @BOSTONCAMARO in there comfortably and he is taller than either of us.

I ended up having to cut the subframe forward of the A pillar, make some 16ga angled extensions, & use later Model A kickboard brackets for legroom (well, heels mostly). We also got the seat back supported with a drive shaft hoop and cut. The hump is 16ga & will get some strap inside it by the U joint for safety.





The brake pedal will be moved an inch or so to the left and the clutch will get an offset too.



We are picking away at the firewall now to get enough in there to do the transmission cover.

 

@thebearded1!

 

Yup i've been following this thread

 

This stuff would be easy if it didn't have to work.

 

TRUTH!

I'm getting excited to move past this stuff. I've grown to really dislike firewalls; they always fight me. I really want to get back to tuning the body up and making the longdoors. I still need to cut and fit the driver side and get the whole thing set with both doors opening and closing. then I can stick them together for real and make new tops. From there it's a question of making the body nicer. After that we can make a giant hood (after I make an equally giant pipe anvil).

 

You might find this interesting. I haven't seen them in awhile, blame Covid I suppose. This car is well built and a DRIVER. I think Randy is also on the HAMB. This video is from the Hot Rod site. There are a bunch more on him and others who have similar cars.
ocala hot rod slant six track roadster

 

WHERE TO BEGIN? It's been 3 months since I've updated so this may be long winded. We have the kickboards, pedals, floor, firewall, driveshaft & trans tunnel roughed out and functional finally. I've started getting the doors done too. I'll try to go in order (and remember what I did, lol).

It looks like I didn't expand on how I made the seats, so I will start there.



The cushion is on a piece of plywood with a cover I stitched stapled to it. I made a bracket out of angle & off the shelf tabs that allows it to pivot (eliminating the need to get the angle of a bracket just right). That fits into the floor using isolator fasteners typically used for mounting fiberglass bodies to a frame.

 

OK, looks like I did cover the drive shaft tunnel already, so the next thing we fought with (and have been for a loooong time) was pedal location. We did finally get it. We can get 3 pedals in there. It will be snug but shouldn't be unsafe when we do the final adjustments.

You will see both versions of the transmission cover in here. The first had multiple brakes and was 18ga. I decided that was going to be a pain to fit to the firewall and was unsatisfied with the strength (it was flexing too much for my liking). What's in there now is a simpler 16ga 2 piece design that I'm much happier with.

Version 1


THE PEDALS WILL FIT! We are going to offset the clutch an inch or so left. The brake will get torched and bent when we are ready to lock everything in and have the throttle mounted and operable. The firewall is a mess but I'm waiting until we pull the body next time to fool with it & do it right. We are using some Model A pedals that I rescued from the earth in the woods on a pick I was invited on. I cut them & welded some bolts to the back so we can run them vertical. We'll hopefully end up as good or better than an original VW Bug down there but we shall see. I had to cut the subframe out and replace it with a plate. You may also notice that I installed Model A kickboard brackets flush with the floor for added legroom.





Here is where we are at now with the new transmission cover. I am going to smooth out the relief cut a bit. I actually need to make it deeper first but this works for now; the concept is proven. I can hit each pedal without hitting another in my clunky work shoes.



I firewall mounted the MC too (first, actually). I happened to have a pedal arm out of an automatic early Mustang/Falcon in my pile that would work great, so that's what we ended up going with (we did not like the other swing pedal we bought for this application). We were able to find an inexpensive repop bracket which I cut down (I will close it up and add a tab to the front later). This saved us a ton of time tryint to re-invent & fabricate this piece of the puzzle which was already losing its fun. Cutting the stock bracket and having it JUST WORK was just what we needed that day.

 

You are a lot better at making sheetmetal shapes than I am. Usually when I shape it it is a dent.

 

the trick is controlling the dents

I actually did have to put some relief dimples in the transmission cover. I did this with my 12T press and the male side of my 1/5" dimple die. It worked great but I did have to shrink the edge a bit after. I also misplaced the driver side one a little low and had to fight it with a little braking, shrinking, and shaping (with a rounded off chisel).

 

SO, here we get back into the FUN STUFF about building this car again finally.

I ended up sacrificing some not great rear doors for their tops instead of driving myself crazy trying to make them just right on the bead roller (not impossible, just challenging and time-consuming). I was able to salvage the back of the door top on this one, but the driver side is totally gone.







Here is a before shot. There is only about a half inch difference so the gap from the cutoff wheel at the back was enough to give me the gap I needed to bend down and meet the front section smoothly. The top of the front door was almost entirely made of bondo and duct tape so it was completely replaced. It's all still in sheetmetal screws for now, I will weld or bond it all at a later date.