1930s Era Champ Car - new project

I am about half way done with painting the chassis pieces. Tedious.
Here is a sample part in single stage acrylic enamel with the finished color. Glossy, not glassy.

 

The beautiful painting weather we are having continues, making for more conducive painting in my driveway. Today I did the big chunk - the frame - along with other bits. I also painted inside the lightening holes in the front axle black by hand.

A couple of observations I learned while doing the chassis painting:
The borrowed frame rotisserie made painting the frame so much easier than wrangling it around on the floor or jack stands. Thank you to my buddy Greg G for the loan of the rotisserie.
Instead of buying graduated paint mixing cups, I went to Gordon Foods and bought some simillarly sized unmarked polypropylene cups in bulk. Using my third-grade knowledge of proportionality I put marks on the cup for paint, reducer, and hardener. Graduated paint containers are pricey. I bought a stack of 25 food cups for the price of a couple of graduated paint mixing cups. Before using them I tested one filled with reducer overnight and another with paint/reducer/hardener to be sure there would be no interaction between paint and container. No problem.

The rear axle****embly remains to be painted. Since the backing plates are black I'm thinking the axle will be black with the rear springs done in Frenchtown Grey.

Also looming in the future is an engine / transmission rebuild in my race car and other home maintenance issues, further slowing progress.

 

Its raining today. I stayed indoors and began****embly of the front spring. The spring slider pads had some flash on the outside edge. I remember my plastic model building days and how I did not like to leave plastic flash on the parts. As I recall, Revell kits were pretty good at not having lots of flash and mold mismatch. Monogram seemed to be the worst of the big guys. Anyhoo, I shaved the OD down before knocking them in place.****embling the leaves was stressful as there is a lot of potential energy built up.

Respect

It took a ton of pressure to completely press the stack together. That one center 5/16 bolt makes me nervous so I put a temporary retaining plate over the middle.

 

A viewer on a different site sent me a photoshopped image of my cah. I like it except he couldn't get AI to reverse the flames.
I suppose they would look good if I was backing it into the wall... yikes.



And Dayton wires with knockoffs. It needs wires.

 

Now we're talkin' .
Fixed the wheels and tires.

Thanks Brett, This inspires me onward.

 

Backing it into the turns… blows the flames away.

 

I took the weekend off from working on the champ car to go drag racing. I finished up a rather mediocre racing season with a win in the Nostalgia Outlaw Comp eliminator. I cropped off the non-HAMB friendly disc wheels to post this winners circle photo. Now the race cars get winterized and one gets an engine rebuild (after seven racing years).

 

Wow,that looks great! Keep 'er going!

 

7 years between freshen ups. Guess 6 in a row is the way to go…

 

I call the Ford 300 six "The Best Kept Secret in Drag Racing"

 

The rear axle got de-rustified and nerf bar blanks were measured, bent and fitted.

 

Oops - I forgot to post the pic.

 

Work continues on the nerf bar fab.


I want to share an idea with you. I have been a
reuse
repurpose
recycle
guy since forever. That includes my car stuff. I like making things from broken or discarded stuff. Case in point - A friend threw this electric impact wrench in the trash because the planetary gearset was all torn up. I asked him if I could have it and took the motor / drive apart. It has a shunt wound motor similar to a grinder, making lots of revs. I made an arbor to hold small grinding wheels and discovered it makes a great tool for making fish-mouthed tubing ends. Look closely at the motor housing. The red end can be turned to change the direction of the grinding wheel. That means however which way you are grinding you can turn the motor so the sparks are always flying away from you! Not in your face. WooHoo! It also works to dress welds in tight places like inside a chassis.

 

Great idea and reuse. You could even attach drum sanders for the final little bit of fettling that a fishmouth always seems to need. I mount them in the drill press, but it gets pretty heavy holding a long piece of tubing at weird angles and massaging the fit.

 

Another advantage of this little beauty is the momentary trigger switch, allowing for minute bursts of grinding power for precise metal removal. After using this tool I am surprised a commercial version with these features does not already exist for metal fabricators.

 

Looks like you have a design for a patent! We’re all witnesses to the idea and prototype proof of concept and a date stamp. You could become a millionaire, or a thousandaire with your idea…

 

Man I havnt looked at this thread in years and I’ve really been missing out! WOW!

 

Welcome back Tim. Let's see this baby through to completion...
and hot laps...
and a cruise night or two.

I painted the rear axle. I was just going to brush the spots that would be hard to hit with a spray gun, but once on a roll with the paint brush I just went ahead and painted the entire houising with a disposable brush. I learned the best way to get rid of brush marks is to apply a very thin light first coat and let it set up a little bit. After it had dried a little, going over the area with a heavier second coat will let the acrylic enamel paint grab hold and flow out.



Once the housing had dried overnight I decided to face off the QC cover. The Richmond logo just looked too new so off it came. Once under the mill I decided to face off the tops of the fins.
Do you think the mag housing would look good painted black also, leaving just the milled surface unpainted?

BTW, here's another "tech tip/ party tip":
the magnesium shavings can be used to make a sparkley campfire at your next campfire.

 

What am I looking at here with this rear end? I must have missed it earlier in the thread.

Is it like a 9" or 8.8" or something like that with a faux quickchange housing grafted onto the back for the look?

I can't imagine how you'd turn a hypoid style gearset into an actual quickchange by just adding on a set of spur gears to the back.

Paintjob turned out nice though. And I agree that the faced and polished fins on the otherwise cast mag cover look quite good and fit the vibe of the age better as well, IMO anyway.

 

Hi Ryan, Yes I grafted a damaged QC center section on to a Ford 9-inch axle, to achieve the classic look of a Halibrand QC, without the expense of actually having to acquire one. I am familiar with the workings of the Ford unit, having****embled several of them. I had to make budget decisions within my means too.
Believe me, I caught flak from some purists who chided me for not going with a legit QC, in addition to other
non-traditional features I put on the car, like a starter motor and a transmission, and 4-wheel brakes. I hope to carry off the vibe of an early champ car, but maintain the ease of driveability and serviceability of a modern hot rod.
Mea culpa.

 

You don't gotta justify your build decisions to me man, I was just confused looking at it, 'cause I thought it looked like a 9" with a QC welded on the back, but had no idea how that would work.

Don't sweat using the more readily available and cheaper rear. A 9" is an excellent choice for this build, and will make exactly zero difference to the look or feel of the car in use. A mag center QC would have been a bit of a maintenance PITA over time anyway, whereas a steel and cast iron 9" will give you no such trouble.

The whole build looks excellent, sir. You're making good progress and it's gonna be a very nice ride when you're done with it.

 

Phew! That was 45 pages in a row of great posts. Your brain reminds me to much of my own! Fantastic build thread. Looking forward to following it to the finish line!

 

Thanks Tim. I hope other champ cars will be following me to the finish line LOL.

 

Gonna have to be a mixed field, but I got a sort of track roadster that’ll be up to the challenge in the future…

 

I started in on the rear spring shackles.
I've decided to use bronze bushings on the rear spring. To that end I made some shackle sleeves from 4130 chrome moly steel. I bought some bronze bushings that will get pressed in. When the bushings are flush with the sleeve ends there will be a .050" gap in the center. I will add zerk fittings to carry lube around the gap and keep everything sliding nicely. The sleeves will be welded on to one side of the hangers.


The rear spring eyes will also get bronze bushings pressed in.

 

As much as I love it, I’m also curious how that goes together? I’ve re read the post a few times and I’m still kinda lost. I’ll just wait to see the mock up before asking as I’m sure it’ll answer all my questions

 

I'll post additional photos of how it all goes together ASAP.

 

Moving right along, I reamed the ID of the .065" wall sleeves to accept the bronze bushings, then I reamed the bronze bushings ID to size after pressing them into the shackle sleeves. Bushing clearance is 0.0015". I made a 5/8" rod to position the sleeves on the shackle links so that they stay in alignment when they get welded on to the links on one end, and also to keep the bronze bushing from being damaged by the heat of welding. Two 5/8" bolts will get their head turned down round so it can be neatly welded on to the other end of the link. New bronze bushings will be pressed into the ends of the leaf spring too. The link sleeves can now be inserted over the axle studs and the leaf spring slipped over the bolts on the other end.
I hope.

 

I don’t think that I had noticed you’re mounting those shackles on/from the end. Can’t say I’ve seen that before.

Will the spring side get a zerk of some sort? That’s what I was trying to figure out mostly.

 

I am not sure if I will put a zerk in the spring end. I did that when I split the drag link by drilling out the pivot bolt but drilling and tapping the bolt is a pain. Two bolts is two pains. We'll see.