Hey you gotta start somewhere. Skill can be learned its not all genetic. I was a wood worker for years before getting into precast concrete. I decided I wanted to build a custom bike about 7 years ago. I didn't know how to weld at the time. I bought a welder played around, built a table and bar stools for a practice project and then started building the bike. I have won 1st place in most shows the bike has been in. A little logic and planning and you will get through your build. good luck The vette in the garage is really slowing my progress down, I can't really wokr unless the weather is nice so I can pull it outside.
I met one of the guys from blue collar at chopped tops funeral. Chopped top always had good things to say about them. I don't get by many shops since I do all my own work. I hate to go and bother people with questions when I am not going to have them do any work for me, seem like good guys over there though.
Here's a couple of shots of checking for motor fit. Couple of things all going on at the same time here. I am trimming the firewall a little at a time getting the motor where I want it, and starting to figure out the tranny crossmember. I wanted to do a bolt in tranny mount. Since I don't see this 4 speed lasting long, I will probably be making a new crossmember to go with tranny 2.0.
After getting the motor happy. I started the motor mounts. I bought generic sbc motor mounts and simply trimmed the mounting tabs to fit. I have these same mounts in my vette which is putting out close to 600 hp and they seem pretty stout. I like a rigid mount personally allows tollerances to be a little tighter on everything without worrying how much everything is going to shift under load.
Hey thanks, its just kool that you liked it enough to build it and put your own spin on it.......Drive on, Littleman, from one sick mind to another, nice job..
Thanks Litttleman, I appreciate the support. Now, where are the latest update pics of yours? Have you done anything new to it lately?
Nothing new as of late, we have added onto our attached house garage, and a small addition on my back garage, this will give me lots of room, and could be the start of Littleman's Speed And Fabrication one day ....Right now I am just trying to get the new smaller addition usable and then organize everything, then on to the Coupe..........I really want to work on it bad at this time, but have to do all this other work first, which will only pay off in the long run, I also have plans to finally build a chassis table, now that I will have the room........Thanks Littleman
Okay next step on the frame was to figure out ride height. Obviously I had done a rough preliminary before I started the frame, but now it gets critical. I also did this before having my tires and wheels. I had ordered them from coker but they were on back order (my luck as usual). I had tire diameters and pretty much did my axle set ups using these. I had planned on doing a suicide perch, but never had done one before. The hard part is figuring out how much the spring is going to compress. I took a wild guess and mocked up the perch and tacked it in place, which is shown bellow. I did the same for the rear, mocking it up and guessing on the compression of the springs. The bolts through the shocks are TEMPORARY, till I make the actually mounts. The rear is not so critical because of the adjustment that I built in to the spring mount on the axle. I torched out all the tabs and such with my plasma. This is obiously just test fit at this point.
Very interesting frame treatment. I hear you about not knowing how much the springs are going to compress. Over the years I have done everything from piling 100 pound sacks of grain onto semi finished chassis to give approximate body and engine weight to determine spring deflection, to measuring "similar" set-ups in friends hotrods, to out and out guessing. Sometimes you nail it dead on the first time, other times you end up putting spacers between the top of the spring-pack and the underside of the crossmember. Sometimes, (worst case scenario), you end up torching things apart and rewelding to get it "just right". You are doing a very nice job.---Brian
So here it is with the axle's just barely tacked in to hold everything in place. One of these weeks I will have to go back adn finish all the welding that I have started so far.
And finally.... I got tires I got to roll it outside to see what it was going to look like. THe front spring compressed more than I was expecting, and the car still has more weight to go on. I may end up re-doing the suicide perch. I'll wait till the car is closer to being done before I decide. My ground clearance test was to drop the front tires in the gutter and see if I cleared the curb. My driveway goes downhill just enough that a low car will scrape. As it sits right now there is about 1/2" clearance, so you figure with me and some fuel and a roll cage there is going to be a problem.
Is that kinda like "I'll fix you up with my wife's friend, she's gotta a great personality"? Hopefully not, interesting is good in hotrods..... isn't it? just kidding
AWESOME. You are soo00 close man. Eddie, do you have any close ups of the firewall area and cut out ? Thanks Ohh, I don't want to steal your thunder but it's amazing how close we both are in our builds, time frame, and location. I decided to buy a frame simply for time. I'm dropping engine trans this weekend. Keep em coming man !! Pic of my junk and build thread http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138527
I don't have any good pics of the firewall cut out on my computer at home. I'll have to put some up on Mon. and you probably won't need them by then...
No, No---I wasn't casting stones here. The frame looks really great!!! I said it is an "interesting treatment" because of the way it runs up behind the rear axle and follows the contour of the body in the trunklid area. I have never seen that done before.
Check out littleman's build in the tech archive, I stole his idea. And I was just giving you shit, I took it as a complement
Coming soon!! floor pan, with built in seats, tranny tunnell, fuel cell, worked on these the last couple of weekends jsut need to get the pictures up. Today I am making up headers, pretty tough looking.
Alright more pictures for ya. First is my yard sale intake complete with carbs. $300 bucks driving around in my vette. The guy had a yard sale of nothing but car parts Second is the fuel cell I made last weekend. It's kinda a crazy shape, but it will fit in front of the rear end and the tumor growing off the bottom will fit down beside the driveline. This leaves me roon up top next to the tank for the battery.
Todays project: Headers First pic. Summit baffel don't know how it's gonna sound or work, I'll let you know. Second pic: I originally was going to do a lake pipe style header except I wanted it to curve downto the ground back by the door, flairing out to 4" for my baffel. I did some mock ups and it just didn't look right. So I decided to run it straight on an angle. This first pick shows the 4" tube being mocked up where I wanted it. Next pic: Shows the mock up with the first tube in place. Once I got the first tube in place I tacked it in place using some angle. Once this was firm where I wanted it the rest went in pretty easy. After all the tubes where in and running long, I cut them all to the same length. Then mocked up the 4" again. I am not sure about the finished length, but for now I'll leave em long, I can cut them easy enough down the road. The last picture shows how I intend to tie it all together. Its a little different the normal collector type transission. I think this will look pretty trick with the welding all done and seeing each pipe going into the 4"
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