Technical What are you working on?

Made progress on the ladder bar install

 

Went to put the engine in, and had a snafu. Never measured for clearance for the crank pulley. Sliced and diced the crossmember for clearance. Just have to weld the gussets in. Brake lines will need to be redone as well. Works out well, decided I’m going to get the clutch and bell all setup before putting the engine in anyway.

 

Put some gauges in my 56 T-Bird

 

Rear suspension completely mocked up. Time to pull it all apart and weld it.

 

This rolled in to the shop today, thought you guys might dig it

 

Yes indeed
Dan

 

Crossmember welded and painted. Didn’t get anything else done because I had to clean the shop up.

 

Here's a side view. The wheels are only mock ups. It will have steel wheels with dog dish caps.

 

Installed some Posies 3” dropped springs on the rear of my car. I was hoping to lose the 2” blocks but ended up leaving those in too so it would sit where I wanted it.

 

Mmmmmmmmm

 

The stance is just right.

 

It's just about impossible to know how much old springs have sagged. About 20-25 years ago my friend Johnny (RIP) wanted to replace the leaf springs on the front of his '56 F-100 to lower it a bit. He ordered reversed eye springs and installed them. Raised the front of the truck 2".

 

Been trying to wire my new shop toy up. Been looking for a lathe for around 5 years and finally found what would cover my needs. Basically a German design 15x34 Toolroom Lathe.

 

Nice looking lathe Nick.

 

A complete waste of time, I'm sure, but since I'm waiting on parts for the current suspension rebuild on my '47 Buick, I'm turning this old aluminum lunch box into a heater for my chopped '36/'37 Chevy pickup. Need to put some louvers (louvres?) in the front & bottom so the heat has a place to escape. It's got a Chevette heater core that fits inside. Debating on trying to hand form the louvres or find somebody to punch them for me.

 

Paging @need louvers?

 

Making some knobs for my 40 Ford to match the door handles.

 

Looks great! These days, I don’t have much time for new projects, unfortunately. We’re in the middle of a complete refurbishment of our house, and it’s taking up a lot of time and energy. I’ve been spending most of my free time on the bad boy furniture website, picking out pieces for the interior. It’s a lot of fun, but also a bit overwhelming with all the options! We’re trying to balance comfort and style, so it’s been a lot of browsing and decision-making.

 

I've always been in awe of machinery like that. Even more so with the people that know how to use them.

 

Spring is around the corner , so I worked a little on the 55 . The radiator had been leaking since when I got the car in 2015 and for about 80k miles it did what it had to. But last fall the leakage grew worse and my go to radiator man quoted me both my kidneys and our firstborn. So I shopped around and found that US Radiator had a sellout on Tri5 I6 radiators, around 300$ each. Fitment is perfect and it looks better than a chinese aluminum radiator IMO.
New bumpstops were also necessary, I wonder if the new ones will also last for 70 years , Hahahaha

 

I killed some brain cells painting the Eastwood rust converter on after I had cleaned up the lower sheetmetal, whew boy that stuff is strong.

 

Got the long dowels and pilot bushing in, and installed the mid-plate, scattershield, flywheel, and bellhousing. Didn’t index it yet. I do most of my work after everyone goes to bed, so after a couple hours I’m pooped and it’s late. I’ll get to the indexing later.

 

the achingly slow process of piecing together a blower setup on a shoestring budget.
bought a diesel blower a few years ago, a manifold not long after.
had the blower converted to gas last fall,
bought a lower hub a few months ago,
started fabbing adapter plates to fit the late 371-394 Olds a few weeks ago, bought a single V belt accessory pulley and recently after chasing a Delta drive setup for way too long opted for an easier to put together typical drive setup, got the idler bracket and pulley the other day and cut the stand offs down to tuck it all in close today.
also ordered a crank and blower pulley today.
when those show I can order the snout.
going with the 1/2" pitch 2" belt and and keeping it all as close as practical thinking it might eventually go in the T.

 

Still working on it!

 

Found some poverty caps that will fit the steelies on the tempest

 

Lumpy, those are perfect!! I love them.

 

Pulled the dash- engine compartment harness out of the donor car because the harness in the red car is fried. The donor harness had a toasty ign. wire tied in with the resistor wire ... I removed all that and ran regular 14 gauge wire to replace it. Tomorrow I will do a generator to alternator conversion on that part of the harness.

 

Posting a car show and looking for sponsors.

 

Nice lathe. Being German is it three phase? I’d love to find some a mill and lathe but I can’t get three phase and don’t want to run everything on converters.

 

Bell is dialed in. No need for offset dowels, Lakewood did a nice job. Unfortunately, the project manager forgot to buy pressure plate bolts. What a dick.