Projects My new project: 1932? Chrysler 3w Coupe

Worked on the car today.. made some pretty interesting progress.

- The blower is now turning the right way, ordered the drive-shaft for it, hope I got the right one, it's 28 spline, but not sure I needed the large or small diameter one, so bought the large one, the only one I could find for sale. Should be pretty straightforward to mount that to the balancer.

- Got the engine plate measured out, need to do some CAD later today to determine the offset of those holes to the chevrolet pattern so I can drill the holes for the bell-housing.

- Got another pressure plate ordered, this one is supposedly the one, BBF again.

- The BIG thing for today. Tried Lincoln front brakes (same as Ford, just bigger) and they "almost" fit. Had to use the Chrysler inner bearing, the outer one is the same as Ford (and so is the spindle nut) Looks like I can make any Ford brake fit now, by using the standard Ford outer bearing and by turning down the chrysler inner cup from 2.7170 to 2.4409 (ford size) I can use the Chrysler inner bearing. Looks like I'm going to order myself some Ford disc brakes and upgrade my brakes. May have to sell the Lincoln brakes to fund this part ;-) The car now has Lincoln 12" brakes on the drivers front, with nice and simple 1/2 by 20 right turning lugnuts.

 

Made a little bit of progress.

No more straight six, silver dome flatty engine or transmission. Cool to see that all pedals and the brake cylinder came out with the engine. Made it easy on myself and cut the firewall while I was at it, soo much easier to remove the engine that way.

There is now plenty of space to mount the V12, would have started that today, but it's too hot to stay in the shop any longer.

Have most of the design finished for the ignition and injection as well, planning to make a TBI type of setup, with the injectors behind the throttle body and the throttle body behind the blower with a BOV right before the throttle body. The ignition is going to be a distributor less setup controlled by the EFI computer running 12 dual coils fired in pairs, resulting in 4 sparks per signal 2 for the current and 2 for the 180 degree off cylinder.

 

You're not wasting any time, are you?

 

Very cool!

 

Looks solid and has lots of style, keep it all MOPAR

 

Big advantage of building your own car, you don't have to explain yourself, you just do it.

 

On the contrary, that Seagrave really suits this car.

 

Hi Rob, I'm familar with rare cars also. After buying a 1932 Reo Flying Cloud Coupe, finding out its "One of Three" left. My car was mostly complete , but totally apart in boxes. After a year getting it back on the road. It also has dual cowl vents, dual side mounts on front fenders, golf club door on passenger side of the car,rear luggage rack for traveling trunk, cowl lights, running lamps, lots of deluxe features. Very expensive car in 1932. Good luck on your project. Keep the photos coming. Ralph

 

Quick little update

The engine mud panels are removed, now I've got lot's of room for the engine and trans.

Removed all the wiring and started on taking the dash out.

The reason I hesitated on putting in the blower was that I would need to remove and change the front crossmember something I didn't want to do, but even without the blower, it needs a new crossmember, don't know what was in the radiator, but it ate away at that front crossmember. Good thing I was planning to replace it anyway with the blower install.

Disassembled the grille, that's going to be a lot of work to get right, better get my new larger sandblast cabinet finished so I can get this thing cleaned up.

Did a little quick mockup, see what I've got to work with. The blower will end up a bit lower than this, about 3", and in the middle of the grille, so the center bar will be changed, but I think it looks pretty good. The intake side is on the left of the car (drivers) and the pressure side on the passenger, probably going to run a 3" pipe to the intake, put as little as possible volume in there to keep throttle response best.

Probably won't do much for a bit as I'm going on vacation and need to do some work on the wife beetle convertible (old enough to fit on the hamb), my son's first car and my own "daily" driver.

 

Keep up the good work, I'm curious to see how this thing'll look when it's all said and done.

 

Hey Rob, neat project, would you be kind enough to post pics of the dual distributor, I'm always looking for new veiwpoints on those, thanks, dave

 

Here you go.

Single shaft with a cast iron housing with 3 gears driving 2 distributors, each of the distributors has 2 sets of points and 2 coils that drive 6 cylinders each.

 

If you pull off the way the blower meets the grille shell well that's going to be sooooooooo nice! Are you going to drive the blower via a jointed shaft? That way you don't need clearance around the blower for engine movement.

 

That's a long way in the future, haven't decided yet, want to see what I'll look like when it's all mounted (engine mostly) before I make any decisions on the blower mounts, that's also why I haven't cut the grille yet, not sure exactly how it will all work out.

 

this looks like an awesome project. cant wait to see the progress

 

Made a little bit of progress, some directly and other indirectly for this project.

Got the rear pumpkin assembled and dialed in, almost ready to assemble and install the rear-end with it's new 2.79 gears and limited slip unit.

Worked some on an old ugly steering wheel that I'm planning to use for this, found a good chrysler logo to use as the center. Needs lot's of work, so that's my evening project when the kiddos are in bed and I am too tired to go back to the shop.

Biggest progress is in the parts department, sold an off topic Mustang that I had bought to use the roller 302 and 5 speed trans for a future build, used the proceeds to buy myself a BUNCH of pieces:
- Full EFI setup (wideband O2, sensors, 63lbs injectors, coils, coil drivers, wiring, relays, pump, pressure regulators) only things I still need are fuel log or injector hats and plug wires.
- Alumium for intake fabrication and piping between blower and intake
- Throttle body
- Blow of valve
- Double shaft alternator
- Clutch

Also went into my own parts stash and found:
- steering wheel
- brass headlights
- pedal assembly (Zephyr for clutch/brake and Seagrave for gas)
- set of gauges

Planning to sell some more parts and pieces over the next few weeks to fund the rest of the parts I need.

 

Really interesting stuff going on here.

 

Very Cool.... looks great!

 

More progress..

The picture is a pdf, if it doesn't show for you please click the link.

It's only 2D as I don't have any 3D tools or skills, but helped me get the placement and parts list figured out. It's in black in white, I haven't figured out yet how to export a color drawing, once I do I'll update this post.

The drawing shows the intake log, with the 6 runners and 6 injectors (at the left) with a blow back valve on the right as well as the two lake headers. These templates will also help me get some of the parts waterjetted so I can make my flanges.

http://www.hrclassiccars.com/seagrave%20manifold%20v2.pdf



What I'm replacing


Empty canvas

 

Man, if we just a few states closer I would be begging to make a deal on all your left over parts for my 32. awesome project
chris

 

Glad to see she's coming together for you...Keep us posted!

 

Made a little bit of progress over the last few days, planning to do much more over the next few days.

Got the intake and exhaust manifold flanges water jetted, 6160 T6 3/8" Aluminum for the intake and mild steel 3/8" for the exhaust. Also got my big box of 1 5/8" U bends in to make my exhaust.

Going to visit Grits' place on Sunday to get the intake runners rolled, need to make them into a tight radius, hopefully his roller will be up to the task.

I've been slowly working on restoring a 1947 Buick steering wheel, replacing the center medalion with a trunk emblem from a modern Chrysler, should be a good fit for the car.

The blow off valve is very ugly, need to spend some time on that one to redesign it, or at least hide it.

The engine compartment is completely empty, removed all the old brackets and such, ready to receive a seagrave V12 tonight

Still fighting with DieselPro about them sending me the right parts, they send the wrong 6v92 drive pieces and are not too happy replacing them.

 

The 1932 Chrysler now has a V12 resting in it.

Need to remake the front crossmember and replace the center crossmember with the rear engine plate. Hope to get that done this weekend. Right now the seagrave bellhousing is still on the engine, the engine plate mounts are in the same place, the engine plate and NV4500 bellhousing will replace this cast iron bellhousing in the final project.

This project is coming together great so far, all the holes seem to line up. The mounting holes for the grille are 12" center on center, so are the front engine mounts, the steering column clears the heads, the waterpump clears the steering box by about 2" the shifter will be about 3" backwards from the dash, should I keep going? I think it's obvious, this engine is made for this car.

With the engine resting on the frame I have about 3" of suspension travel, should be enough for now, maybe I'll put in some light (motorcycle?) coil over shocks to increase the spring rate a bit, I think I have some 120lbs/inch ones sitting around from an Triumph project.

IF (big if) I keep the engine in this location, and I think I may, I can get away with mounting a flat firewall, which will help me with foot well space, but may make it harder to mount the under floor pedal assembly.

This mounting position also gives me space to mount exhaust manifolds between the engine and frame.. hmmm.. lake headers or quiet exhausts.. big decision.

 

Shape of the new crossmember is in, needs finish welding and some grinding, then drill the holes and "update" the existing crossmember.

I'm adapting the mount of the grille shell to use the same mounting points.

Yes, I'm going to use insulation donuts, they are not yet on, just wanted to see the placement of the engine, in the end it will be about 1/2" higher.



My 9yo daughter decided she wanted to help, she practiced her plasma cutter, welding and bending skills.

 

I can't wait to hear that thing fire up! Pretty proud of your helper too!

 

This is one ambitious build, love it! There is nothing like the feeling you get after a difficult task has been accomplished. Looking forward to more progress pics. Keep up the great work!

 

Some assembly required.

Not the right exhaust cones had these laying around and needed some inspiration.

 

Did some work on the blower drive and grille shell today. The blower sticks out a little further than I expected and I think the whole engine assembly needs to go down maybe about 2".

The advantage of the whole blower being this far out, I can fit the two airfilter housings from the seagrave engine! Gutted one today to see how I can improve the flow and put a more modern element in them. I have 2 sets, one with copper and one with aluminum mesh and both drop pieces out when you shake them, probably not the best thing for the blower. You can see the air filter housings in the last picture sitting in front of the car.

Think overall the look is pretty good, hopefully this week I'll have time to cut the hinges on the hood and get a first look at the overall lines.

 

Just checked out your build.. that's pretty darn cool, can't wait to see that one done.

Dat is een ambitieus project, zeker om dat in Nederland te doen zonder toegang tot de onderdelen, materialen en specialisten die hier zo makkelijk te vinden zijn. Maar een perfect project ik hoop je te zien rijden de volgende keer dat in in Nederland ben.

 

Way kool!