Modified Murray- FINALLY! Back to work...

Alright. It's been awhile since I've been able to do anything productive with this build because of where I moved to. My landlord isn't too cool with idea of me working on the car in my garage or in the drive (can't say I blame him), and there's not much for power and space in the garage anyway. Here's where I put it when I got it down here...



And thanks to my boss, he was generous enough to allow me to share some of the space we have at the shop. What an improvement!!!!!



I think that ought to be enough room! HAHA!! What makes it really nice though, is he's building an insane 37 Dodge Pickup with a 331 Hemi in it ALSO, so it is a great work environment up there.



I'm not going to give away his project though. I'll let him fill you guys in on it one of these days.

Lately, I've come to realize the HUGE amount of work I have to do on this car! The "TO DO" list on the door, doesn't even SCRATCH the surface! I could put this car back to a Fordor and write on every door and every available panel in small font and STILL not have enough room!! I haven't finished hardly anything because I had to fastrack everything to get this car on a trailer and get it down here. There are a lot of half finished items on that list that now I can start working on. SOOO....

Here's what I started with. Drive shaft loops.



Since I don't have a mandrel bender, I had to made them by hand...









The tall one is for the upper rear and the small one is for the lower front.



The front one I'm putting off for a bit until I get the 2x1/4 flat bar bent up for the top of the loop. The rear loop is ready to weld in though... SOOO...



The welds will get finished off with the rest of the frame welds once the body comes off and I can flip it over.

Next, the rear sub-floor above the Z-d portion of the frame needed to get some modification. The 1x2 runs right over the middle of the kick up and it needs to be moved so I can access the area below a little easier where the battery and some storage will be.

Before (notice the 1x2)


And after the modification.



To add more strength to the body sides below the quarter window regulators, I added some reinforcements that will get tied into the subfloor as well.





Okay, don't go anywhere... I need to get my laundry in the dryer. More in a minute. There's some more hemi mock-ups and RED EYEBROWS coming up!

 

Keep the pics coming big dad... I was just about to go to bed, thanks to you it'll be a while!

 

Okay... more stuff!!

I FINALLY got that damn sheetmetal roughed in on the passenger side roof panel...



Piece... by piece...



and finally... using my crappy china freight hammers to get the general shape... here it is...



It looks pretty embarrASSing with all those tacks, but if you look at the profile, it's REAL close to where it's going to stay. Even better, it matches the other side to the TEE!! I made a template with some round bar to make sure it was just right as I went along.

Okay, now that the panel is finally in place, there is enought strength to take most of the body reinforcements out. THANK GOD! I hit my head on those things at least a half dozen times in the past couple days! I left the top one in because it really wasn't in the way and figured it couldn't hurt to leave it in until the chop was done.



In this picture you can see the old visor panel is off as well. The old one was just trashed and rotted. Thanks to the ruler Druss32, I have a replacement panel to work with. It's going to work great! I can't wait to get it molded in!

(took this picture before the reinforcements were removed)


Okay... I mentioned a Hemi mock up... you got it! I put the other head and manifold on to see how it looked...



This shows the grille shell mocked up. It will probably move back about two inches from this. It obviously will get chopped quite a bit as well. 4-inches or so.





And I can finally get a decent profile picture showing the stance.



Man... working on this thing feels like I'm running a marathon sometimes. I'm sore, and not in "working shape". It will be a little easier to finish that sub-floor with that bracing out of the way, but crawing around in this thing is deffinitely challenging sometimes.

So, you guys should see some real progross over the next month or two. I have a lot of things to address and I'm shifting the focus to the body and subfloor for awhile. Here's what I need to look at next... (not in this order, per say)

- subfloor and transmission tunnel
- floor paneling
- I need to derust the interior so I don't close any rust in on the panels and probably need to seal it somehow
- time to finish the chop
- I'll be doing some pattern making for the wheel well panels which another HAMBer is going to help out with.
- cowl structure, cowl steering and master cylinder components

Jeesh... I'm going to stop there. That's a ton of work.

OH! I finally got a scanner, so I'll be scanning sketches and things now to post up so you can see what's running through my mind.

So much to do and now I have a place to do it thanks to my Boss! There are some wonderful people in this world!

 

Bed time for sure... ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz....

 

Lookin good man!

 

Lots of steel goin' in. What's your target weight?

 

Glad to see you back at the car - This is a post that i have been following for a long time and always look for after the weekend - James

 

Great work Scott, we are always talking about you and watching your build here in our shop........Lou

 

Oh man... I need coffee today!

Thanks for the kind words guys. Wish I had some more exciting stuff to show. I'm sort of in that "crappy work" stage, if you know what I mean. So many little things to do before getting to the big fun stuff.

I haven't thought too much about it. Just trying not to get too carried away. I know I've over-built in some places, but I would like this thing to be as stiff as possible. I don't think I'll have any issues powering it down the road though. If I could keep it in the low 2K's, that would be nice.

 

Lookin' pretty snazzy.

 

Oooooooooh baby brother! I love you SOOO much!!

I think your FINELY ENGINEERED RATROD *grin* is just sooo awesome!

You know, the UGLIER the BETTER!!

Hahahaha, I super heart lub this Murray.

 

lookin good scooter..i have to say your new working enviorment is far cry from what it was

 

Scootermcrad=BadAss!!

 

Good to see more progress on your ambitious effort!

 

What a great look that Murray body gives. The windshield profile is very classy. Want to see it when finished.

 

Good to see your build on the front page again! Do you have a measurement from the firewall to your front axle centerline? How long are your front axle wishbones from heim center to where it mounts to the axle?? I am setting up my front axle and am trying to get a frame of reference for these values.

 

Great to see you gack at it. Look forward to progress posts.

 

From the aluminum insert it is 40 inches (which is actually 1" in front of the true firewall). That face is recessed about 1" from the edge of the cowl. The split bones are 39 inches long from the axle end back to the center of the rod end (I have about plus or minus 3/4" with the rod end). I will actually adjust it back about 1/2 an inch. The spring is just slightly misaligned right now.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you need any other measurements. Glad to help!

Thanks everyone! SUPER happy to be back up and working. I actually was getting a little restless not being able to work. LOTS of ideas no way to release them.

 

Okay... I don't know what's worse... your Mom's love for the R*t R#D or the fact that you're QUOTING her on it! You ARE related, ya' know! *snicker*

 

I think people are really going to bitch at me for not puting a visor on this and leaving it with the Slant Window panel exposed. I've heard the line "It's a Model A! It HAS to have a visor!" **BUZZZZZZ*** WRONG! I've decided to leave that panel exposed. I agree. Classy and unique lines and it sets that body style apart from the others. I think it will look better once I have a windshield in there and show the lines off a little better.

Cutting down the windshield... just one more thing to add to the list!

 

YES! I'm VERY fortunate to have such an amazing employer! I pinch myself everyday!!! AND he's a HAMBer!!!

One of these days I REALLY want your car and my car sitting next to eachother somewhere!! It's like your car donated a kidney to my car or something. They are now related!

 

We are related?! **GASP--SHUDDER--SPUTTER--THUD!**

I'm filing for Serperation Papers and asking for soul custody of the Murray with weekend visitations until you get it running.

***As a side note, you KNOW I tried to hold my ground with her, just some women are too ignorant to be reasoned with.

 

Just the visor panel (or whatever the hell they're called for slant windows). Been staring at it, in fact I just brought the windshield and frame up here to look at the hinging situation. I'm thinking of going with a 1x3 contoured to the header shape in place of the wood WELDED in place permanently and puting lightening holes in it. I will have to weld in caputured nuts or put rivnuts in so the windshield has something to screw to.

Something else that I need to think about is a windshield wiper motor and how it will mount. I will not be running the stock vacuum powered motor. It will go up on Ebay or something WITH the stock vacuum line and everything. But, this car is a driver, so it will need a windshield wiper. It will be removable obviously, but I need the provisions to be there in the even that I do get into some rain.

 

Scooter- nice work as always!

I kinda like the grille where it sit now- nice proportions!

 

Also, have you thought at all about bringing the tops of the side windows down to meet the tops of the door windows?

Lord knows it would be an easy thing to do...

 

Looks great Scooter! See ya at the GNRS

 

Hey Scootermcrad, that Murray is looking good!
You really don't need a wiper. Just apply some Rain X.

 

ACTUALLY... they DO indeed line up! It's just an optical illusion. The whole chop was planned around making the tops and bottoms of the windows as well as the body lines line up. The rain gutter seats were another story and were different from left to right. I had to pie cut the right side and drop it down so the lines flowed on the gutter seat. The left side was good to go. Gutters will help clean up all the loose ends on the upper lines. Sorta looks naked without them. OH! And the door gaps are not even CLOSE to being done. I want them all perfectly uniform on both doors. All the way around. Nothing annoys me more than bad door gaps.

WHEW! Sorry... you got me on a roll! HAHA!

 

YEAH! Rain-X rules!! Does that really work??

 

Call me when you get a chance!!! We need to figure out where to meet up!