Projects The Geoffrey Skene 1932 Roadster - Full Build by Early V8 Garage

Yeah, I think it’s strong enough!

Thank you!

Thank you so much! A better way to say it is that it’s one way (of many) to build a 32 frame.

Thanks, Ron! And right back at you. Very much enjoyed catching up during your shop visit!

 

PART 42

Next, it was time to fabricate a mounting foot for the trans. I started by making a pair of blocks, drilled and tapped 1/2 - 20. I don’t have 1/2” thick material handy so I had to weld 1/4” together.





I then designed a main plate and made from 1/4 X 3” flat bar. The threaded blocks were welded to it and I made a pair of 1/8 X 3/4” reinforcements to the bottom.















The finished foot bolted in place and sitting on a pair of aluminum spacer pucks.

 

come weld for me - very nice

 

PART 43

With the big center bracket and trans mounting finished I decided to get a hand brake handle fit. Since the frame X is 1933/1934 I had set aside a handle and ratchet of the same years to use. I was also mindful when I modified the center saddle to leave the two threaded handbrake mounting holes in the front face of it.



The bracket/ratchet needed modification to fit with the Facel Vega trans. Didn’t get pics of the process but I took a 7/16” wide vertical section out just before the corner and then reattached the ratchet portion 1” lower.





I ended up removing more material on the outside edge and then ***embled with the handle and a fabricated yoke at the bottom for a future cable to attach.





I also made two 3/4 X 1 - 1/4” spacer columns to move the handle forward. (This is the reason I removed the additional material as with the columns it served no purpose.)







The reason for spacing the handle forward was so that at its forward resting position and pulled position it avoids the two bosses sticking out of the side of the trans.

 

PART 44

Still need to do a couple things to complete the front axle/suspension/brakes. One is to make and install brackets to hold the brake hoses at the frame. Made these out of 1/8 X 1 - 1/2” flat bar. Welded, sanded, chamfered.

 

Lovely simple looking part

 

Not only great workmanship, but great photography to showcase it!
Really enjoy seeing your work. Thanks for sharing.

 

Excellent fabrication and great build thread

 

I really appreciate your smoothing edges on the new parts, but more so leaving the casting lines on the original forged parts. Shows they’re “real”.

 

PART 45

With the hand brake handle mounted I decided the next project would be something for it to operate. After some staring and thinking I came up with a concept for a lever ***embly that will operate future cables going back to the brakes.

First step was to make the main bracket which is built from 1/4 X 1-1/4” flat bar and a 6-1/2” length of 1-1/8” OD, 15/16” ID DOM tube. After I welded it together I realized it looked like a toilet paper holder.



The ends were sanded smooth and then a pair of 1932-1934 brake/clutch pedal bushings pressed in. I also added some stubs of 3/8” round rod on top and then drill & tapped 1/4 - 28 for grease zerks.





Next, I made a shaft from 7/8” water-hardened drill rod (tool steel) and honed the bushings with an adjustable reamer until the shaft fit and spun smoothly.



Four sleeves were made from 1-1/8” OD, 7/8” ID DOM tube, three of which will become levers. The ***embly was then mocked up in position on top of the main ch***is center bracket.



The levers were made from more 1/4 X 1-1/2” flat bar with 1-1/8” holes on the big ends to fit the sleeves. The two outer levers have 5/16” holes on the small ends for future clevis pins while the inner lever got a sleeve welded in made from 1/2” rod with a 5/16” through hole.





The inner lever was welded to its sleeve after getting the inner sleeves and outer levers mounted to the shaft with 5/16” bolts after cross drilling everything. This was to ensure the inner lever was in exact alignment with the right outer lever.





The finished parts broken down and finished ***embly. Also shown is the yoke I made from 1 X 2” rectangle tube which will help connect the inner lever to the handle.

 

PART 46

To finish the install of the hand brake lever ***embly I had to go through the exercise of removing the ch***is center bracket so it could be drilled with two 3/8” holes to mount the lever ***embly.



Last was making a linkage from the hand brake handle to the inner lever. The end yokes are made from 1 X 2” rectangle tube with a 3/8” rod welded between them.





The finished ***embly in place and connected to the handle. The levers are 2-1/2” from the center of the shaft to the center of the upper holes. Same distance as the center of the handle pivot bolt to the center of the lower pin hole so the handle to lever ratio is 1:1. I measure the travel of the handle and made the linkage rod so when fully disengaged the levers are tilted rearward and when fully engaged they are tilted forward the same amount.

 

The attention to detail on this build is astounding. (Though not unexpected).

 

Really enjoy your in depth explanations of what we are looking at. I love that everything is equal parts good looking, clever, and extremely beefy. A hard plate to balance!

Your trans mount post mentions that it’s sitting on aluminum spacers. Are you going to replace them with the same chevy truck cab mounts you’ve been using for motor mounts?

 

Thank you so much! All the things you mentioned are requisite for each part of the ch***is I build.

If you look closer at the trans mount the aluminum spacers are sitting on the same black truck cab mount bushings I used for the motor mounts.

 

Ah! They are

I recognized the bushings but read aluminum and just didn’t put two and two together. I’m familiar with…. Not sure how to phrase this, the design language of what you do? But sometimes it takes me a couple re reads of the text and a few different looks at the photos before I see it. Thanks for the extra effort of do***enting this all

 

this is incredible work. how many hours are into this yet ?

 

Fantastic workmanship! I'm in awe and feeling quite inadequate about my builds. Keep it up!

 

I enjoy watching the process as much as the next guy and at this point I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on what I’m doing so my hope in posting this project is that people will enjoy following and get some inspiration.

I have a substantial update to insert this weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of response it gets.

Thank you! Right now I’m somewhere around 250 hours, starting from dismantling the car as it came to me. As I typed that I had the thought, I wonder what the previous owner (who p***ed before finishing his more basic/straight forward version) would think of the course change this car took?

Thank you! I think I’ve mentioned this somewhere else in the thread but this is the kind of project I’ve dreamed of having the opportunity to do and may never have another so I’m treating it like it’s my one and only shot at a high-level build.

 

i'd bet it WON'T be your last shot!

 

Such outstanding work! Thanks so much for sharing.

 

Not sure how I missed this thread, just caught up though. All of the little details a great. Looking forward to watching this one run.

 

I am absolutely delighted by the loving care with which this work has been executed—the aesthetics, the craftsmanship; it is a joy time and again to read your updates.
I will be following along with great interest.
Best regards, Harald

 

Joyous stuff! Thankyou!

Chris

 

Threads like this make help the HAMB great, Ryan has given all of us a platform to showcase our talent, perspectives & projects.
Thankyou @Dennis Lacy for posting we love you for it

 

PART 47

At this point it’s time to start building out the rear suspension which will consist of converting the rear radius rods (which formerly bolted to the now deleted torque tube) into a wishbone with integral torque arms. The wishbone was chosen because, like the original front wishbone, will allow the rear axle to articulate without binding compared to simply turning the radius rods into separate, ridged trailing arms.

I touched on this previously in Part 39 but here is a better look at the front, central bushing arrangement I’ll be using which was recommended to me by friends Peter Eastwood and Derek Bower. These are bushings used on the front radius arms of Ford 150 Tucks and Broncos. They are a sandwich design with the end of the radius arm p***ing through them with a large 3/4” lock nut to tighten them in the trucks frame bracket. This particular set are older NOS, USA made found on eBay for just under $40 and this part number is for 1981-1986. There are TWO sets of bushings in the box but I’ll only be using one set.







I forgot to take a picture before getting started so I dug up a previous one and zoomed in to show how far apart the radius rods were to start with after cutting roughly a foot off the end.



The rods need to be much closer together. Thankfully since these are 1935/1936 they are welded to forged brackets at the back ends. Because of this I was able to heat the forgings at the very front (just behind the weld) and push each rod inward the desired amount which turned out to be about 3.5” each for a total of 7”. This makes the connecting span much smaller and allows the left rod to clear the master cylinder.









Once I was happy with position of the radius arms and verified they were equal distant from the center line AND level (some reheating and tweaking was necessary) I designed a web plate that will tie them together using card stock.





Happy with the web plate design, I transferred to 1/4” steel then cut and shaped it. The ends of the radius rods were sanded to clean, bare steel and I carefully laid out and cut (4) 1/4” slots with a die grinder and cutoff wheel to insert the web plate. After getting it positioned I tacked it and then put the axle, rods and spring ***embly back in the frame to check fit. So far, so good!

 

PART 48

Happy with fit of the web plate and positioning of the rods, the next step was to make the shaft that will go forward through the bushings. For this I’m using 7/8” chromoly rod. I had my neighbor turn down one end to 3/4” and thread it and made the threads longer than needed so I could trim later.



I inserted the rod and tightened the nut until it and the large washer bottomed out on the shoulder at the end of the threads. I let the other end of the shaft lay on the web plate and then measured how far back I wanted it to go.









I decided on 2.5” and had my neighbor part it off then mill a 1/4” slot 2.5” deep.



After filing the end of the slot square the shaft was installed on the web and tacked in place.





The axle ***embly was put back in the frame to test fit once again. There is a 1/4” gap between the front edge of the wishbone and the large bushing washer. For now, I made a simple spacer ring to fill the gap from some 7/8” ID tube but ultimately there will be a larger diameter and longer sleeve here so that the bushings compress when the front nut is tightened. I just didn’t want to keep having to compress the bushings with all of the “take it out, put it back in” that tends to go on.











Happy with the result, I committed to fully welding the ends of the radius rods and shaft to the web plate.

 

PART 49

Now it’s time to reinforce the wishbone yoke. To start with, I made a 1/4” spine that is curved to match the back edge of the web plate and scalloped around the sides of the bones. I also made caps for the ends of the radius rods.





Following that, I made another 1/4” spine at the front that had to be scalloped around the shaft and then heated with the torch and bent in to angle towards the ends of the rod.





To finish up, a 1.5” diameter X 11/16” long sleeve was made to slip over the front end to support the large, steel bushing washer and also cause the bushings to compress when the large front nut is tightened.





The underside is done the same way.





Here’s a good look at how the bushing set stacks on the shaft.



And now for the big moment! The finished rear wishbone installed and tightened. I’m VERY happy with how this turned out and high confidence it will be a good setup. The suspension operates smoothly when bouncing the back end of the frame.





















This is where I’m at in real time. Next week I’m going to continue by fabricating the dual torque arms so stay tuned!

 

WOW, nice job. Look forward to first test drive. Great design & execution

 

Dayum. This is some next level ****! How did I miss this before?

Awesome work, Dennis. I’ll be sure to follow this.

Makes my build look like…not much.

 

@Dennis Lacy
You have great engineering fabrication skills !
Just asking , The design and ideals have you seen before, engineering school
or
you just wing it .
as in the Design of parts ?