Projects 1917/1928/1938 American Lafrance Plymouth V12 Speedster

MMXXXVIII?

 

I don't know how I've missed this thread. You and your build are amazing!!

I once owned a 1941 American LaFrance fire truck. It had a stuck engine and I was never able to get it freed up. I was young and dumb and ran out of room to store it and had to let it go.

 

Thank you

 

Did alittle photo shoot today.
Here's a sneak peak.

 

Awesome.
I gotta say it...that open chain sprocket scares the shit out of me.
Andy

 

Went for alittle hill climb yesterday and snapped another axle. Had a blast while it lasted but now it's time to get custom axles made. Anyone know where I can get them made?

 

Wow, that kind of sucks!

 

Take them to a professional welder first. They're not working that hard, properly welded and used in a light weight machine like that they have no reason to fail.

 

You might reach out to the Rock Crawler or drag racing crowds. They are always having axles built.
Maybe reach out to Moab Motorsports or Matts Offroad Recovery (Google them for contact info). Those guys are always building cool stuff and having axles made, I just can't remember the name of the company(s) they use.

Good luck with it
Bobby

 

Mark Williams.

https://www.markwilliams.com/axles.html

 

It does look like a great way to lose an arm.

 

I don't believe it's as "lightweight" as you might think, and with the torque of that V12 beast I'd say his best bet would be to have some axles made that don't have a welded joint in the middle of the shaft.

 

Yup.

 

Called them yesterday. Will shoot them pics this week. Hopefully they take on the project

 

Pfft professional welder.....pfft

 

I shortened some axles way back. The car with driver was around 800lbs, under 150hp.
Had a "mechanical engineer" spec out the sleeves, "just to be sure".
My welds held just fine. The sleeves didn't last very long.
Looking back, the math isn't that hard.

 

Axles are generally heat treated. After welding, the heat affected zone, is annealed.
So now the stresses want to concentrate at the weld. That doesn't help.
Then, depending on who did the welding, you have the possibility of stress risers and inclusions.

 

There are also a multitude of filler material choices. If you used the copper colored solid wire that is favored by most guys on this site, your axles had no chance of survival. That wire is not ductile (it's brittle). It won't stand impact, torsional forces or bending movement of any kind. It's fine for sheet metal or stationary jobs, but it has no place in a high stress location.

 

You clean up well.

 

Thanks

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/JQ2bjzuHZgI?si=vduVBUaxdGVGod4s

 

This is awesome! Here is my starting point for my speedster! Keep posting fun to watch and learn.

 

Great starting point

 

For sale 25k obo

 

Had the Axles normalized and hardened. Will get it back on the road this weekend. Wish me luck on not snapping axles!

 

Woohoo!!!

Lots of luck to ya!

 

Took it for a hard rip and everything stayed together. Got her up to 40 mph

 

Gave The Beast of The Valley it's first bath ever and re coated it in WD-40 since it's bare metal.

So far I've put about 10 miles and had her up to 40 MPH with zero issues. I'm feeling optimistic that I'm on the home stretch for testing and will be running her through the paint shop after this season.

 

Use Gibbs instead of wd. Glad things are working for you. Have fun.