1930s Era Champ Car - new project

Oh, you know you will!

 

I finished up the hangers. For the welded stud I ordered two extra long bolts to insure there is enough shoulder to slide over the bronze bushings. Then I cut the bolts to length and put a pilot on each. Turned the hex heads down round for looks and ground off the grade 8 markings before welding.

 

Here's another silly little time saving tech tip. For TIG welding I carry a "quivver" full of tungsten electrodes to the welding site. That way, when I inevitably contaminate one in the weld puddle another clean and ground one is at my fingertips, saving me several walks over to the grinder. Made from a s**** rubber strap that I punched full of holes.

 

It took three hoodlums to install the new bronze bushings in the rear spring - two to steady the 40# spring pack under the press and me to pump the ram. After that we removed the frame from the rotisserie. It'll hold up a deuce roadster build one of us are working on. I snuggled the frame over to one side of the garage bay so we can fit a drag car and my wife's DD in there for the winter. Work on the champ car is winding down for this year so I can turn to getting the engine in the drag car rebuilt. Stay tuned...

 

Just don’t keep us waiting too long…

 

This Post is going to take a bit of a sideways vector.

I would imagine some of you readers read this build thread because of your interest in old sprint cars, midgets, and champ cars.
Some of you may read this post for a detailed example of a ground-up build.
Some may even read it beacuse of my ebullient witticisms on the subject of building a vintage race car.
But I suspect a small percentage of readers follow me because of your interest in the Ford 300 ci six engine as a performance engine.

This posting is for the Ford six afficionados. It is only tangentially related to the era-correct Ford 300 six. I have raced these for nigh on to six decades during which I witnessed the engine's few weak points.
One of the engine's weak points turns out to be main bearing caps. I have seen two engines with broken main bearing caps. These were on built up race motors so the power level is considerably above the stock engine. With the help of a fellow retired Ford engineer who has an extensive home machine shop we milled the caps straight across, to make room for reinforcing straps made from 1/2" x 1" bar stock. Several sets were completed to help other six banger racers. My buddy set up a locating jig to insure every piece is exactly the same. The caps were then ground flat on a surface grinder to insure flatness. I then took a bare block and a set of caps and reinforcing straps to my block machinist who will align bore the main journals.
If you happen to be building a 300 race motor I highly recommend you reinforce the main caps with a set of these reinforcement straps. I will sleep better with a set of them on two of my race motors.