1930s Era Champ Car - new project

Hey, TFTF;

"The driver's cockpit gets trimmed and wire-edged, using 1/4" soft steel rod. Because this piece was too big to get into my bead roller easily I did most of the wiring with hand tools."
I've been following your project, as 20's-30's Champ cars are an interest of mine.
Did I miss the pics/description on how you did this? If not, could/would you please elaborate? It'd be quite helpful.
TIA.
Marcus...

 

Hi King ford, Thanks for signing on. Lately I have been working on a couple of other cars, getting a J/Dragster ready for my grandkids to drive, and doing lots of drag racing so little progress of late. Please be patient as I will get back on it this fall. I'm real close to firing up the engine on a test stand and more body work is planned soon.

 

ngwizard, OK, I'll take some pics. One thing that helped was making a set of crimping dies welded to an old pair of vise grips to completely crimp the metal skin around the rod, as in a swedging tool.

 

Neat project. I have a Jag six I was going to use for a similar style car but I can see I will never get it done. Have to finish my /6 powered "German Willys" first. I like your manifold. SU are wonderful carbs. In my early ears I was a MG/ JAG mechanic and fell in love with these carbs.
don

 

Wow.......cool build. Def' post some more progress unfolding. Good luck.

 

I started to make my headrest. It gets welded to the tail section. The first thing I need is a buck to form the metal around. Here's my progress to that end so far:

 

Fantastic work, and not just the metal, Buck-Master!

 

Thanks seatex.

After the glue set up, I cut a material blank pattern:

 

After noodging the metal over with hammer and dolly I inserted the wire and folded the metal over the wire enough to hold the wire inplace. Then I used this magic tool I made from an old pair of ViseGrips to complete the crimp:





For this photo op I used a piece of scrap metal and a 1/4 punch to serve as a piece of wire, for illustration purposes. After just one crimp on each end of the piece of metal I had to pull on the punch with all my might to get the crimp to release it. That crimper REALLY holds the wire firmly in place.



Note that the slot formed by the jaws is tangential to the hole. This allows the wired edge to lay flush with the top surface thusly:



Minor tweaking of the edge with a hammer / dolly was made after crimping was complete.

 

Hey, FTF;
Thanks for the info, pics, & demo. How do you get the metal to roll almost all the way around for the wire to be inserted, esp on either a wide, or tight, curve; prior to using the hand crimper? Is it all by hammer n dolly, or do you have a beading roller? I like the pliers tool. This is very helpful.
Marcus...

 

I did it all by hand - patience and experience pays off here. I may have been able to wrangle it through my bead roller except for its size. It would have required me to have a helping set of hands to hold the part and run the beader - a luxury I do not have.

 

I started on the headrest. First, cut out blanks and trimmed. Then laid out a grid pattern for my manual shrinker/stretcher to follow.
After a little time in the shrinker - WHAT HAVE I DONE???

 

Then a couple of hours on the shot bag and hammering the daylights out of it:




Its actually starting to look like I can save it.

Shoulders: "You're killin'us."
Me: "Shut up shoulders."
Wrists: "The pain is intense".
Me: "Shut up GirlieBoys".
Muscles:" I'm done".
Me: "OK Body - enough for today".

 

Looks nice! Why the "shrinking" first?

 

The shrinking is necessary to get the metal to "fold over" around the center of the buck. Without shrinking it would just pucker andbe hard to form.

Another far less acceptable option, in my opinion, is to make pie cuts along the top edge, fold the metal in to close up the pie cuts, and finish weld everything together. All that extra welding and heat warpage and the grinding and the sanding - oy veh - its hawwrible!

 

Metalworking can be fun once you get it in your mind that it can't be rushed.

 

Hey, FTF;
Thanks for the info. .
Marcus...

 

I had hoped to have an update on the progress of the car...


...unfortunately - Life happens.

On New Years Day my wife and I went for a ride on our tandem bike.
Crashed.
Broke my hip - my wife was not seriously injured.
I ended up in the hospital for 21 days due to complications from the surgery.

So I get a little hiatus until I heal - maybe 3 - 4 months.

Stay tuned - I'll be back...

 

Really sorry to hear the bad news, best wishes for a fast recovery! Gotta be careful around those bicycle things.
Great thread on a fabulous build - so close too!

 

Bummer dude! Heal up quickly!

 

I'm back "on line". Maybe 90% recovered so I hope to be tidying up some of the body sheet metal loose ends soon as I recently bought an older Miller Idealarc 250 TIG machine.
Its back to drag racing too so once again I'm juggling my time between going fast and making junk.

 

Glad you're back, I always enjoy following your projects.

 

Well, I could say something snarkie about the bike thing,, but I think I'll keep it to myself,, Sure glad you are healing up and ready to get back to making "junk",, I should be so lucky to make junk as well as you. Bring it on.

 

Glad to read that you're back. Faithful to this thread, I was concerned to read about your wife (and hip!)
I'm 72, and have to be careful in my shop, lots of 'wonderful old treasures' to trip over...
This Champ Car is just oozing with genius, I especially liked the use of the F100 axle, the rolling and flanging of he 18 ga. sheet steel, and the design/fastening of the tail.
The engine treatment is pure wizardry.
Wonder if the plug for Wilbur Shaw's 'glass bodies lit the spark for any more Champ projects?

 

Thanks Mike.
I also wondered if anybody else has started a Shaw bodied racer. I have been keeping my eye open for similar projects since I read about the Shaw bodies in Street Rodder and I visited Josh Shaw at Zakira Restorations in Cinncy. I have been doing a little welding on the tail section prior to grafting on the head rest, but truth be told, this is race season for me and I have been having a career-best season with two wins in my avatar altered which keeps me busy. Also my grandkids are helping me debut a new Junior Dragster tomorrow [note: everything in a J/D is half scale but the budget!] and the Anglia job beckons too.
So bear with me and I'll post updated pics as the Summer winds down. Thank you.
P.S. Mike, Is there any relation between Atwater CA and Scott Atwater outboard motors?
P.P.S. I want to get the pins in my hip removed this fall. They are a minor bother and I worry about them becoming "shrapnel" should I go down on my bicycle again, and thus have discouraged me from most aggressive riding. So far, no surgeon wants to undo the work of another surgeon.

 

Yes, 'Josh' Shaw. (where'd I get Wilber?) His bodies are a definite short cut to a genuine looking Champ car, and basic to 'frame-up'. Too many other projects prohibited my 'some day plan', so my '27 Chevy rails, Elliott front axle and other goodies sit dormant for now.

re: Atwater...
I believe Atwater started out as a 'watering hole', 60 miles North of Fresno. There was a stage relay station, operated by a 'Professor Atwater', who had previously peddled pots, pans, and 'sundries' from his wagon and Medicine Show: Kickapoo Indian tonic, I believe.
Don't think Scott Atwater was a descendant.

My doctor in Modesto wants to pin my left hip to my rotating pelvis with a newly 'tried and proven' method, which involves a 'rivet', 7/8" long, titanium or stainless, not clear on that.
As you say: Possibility of metal 'grenading' inside paints a bleak picture. (and, Amen to a surgeon 'overprodding' the work of a colleague...)

Good hunting with the Altered. We will be patient for any further posts on the Champ car, thanks for having us along.

 

It seems curious to me that I - and others - sometimes start a project with the idea in mind of building a simple, basic, no frills car to be functional but simple and bare bones. Somewhere along the line the goal shifts and what was OK in the beginning is not good enough today. Goals change, expectations are raised, and more time and money gets spent to upgrade the project.

A simple shop truck turns out too nice to haul junk in the bed.
A stone chip on my jalopy's flame job makes me wince.
A gasser coupe is never brought out when there is a threat of rain.

Such is the topic of today's post. Cleaning up some bad weld joints.

I had gaps at the back of my tail section where four-foot long sections got stretched over the wood buck and the resultant welds had quarter-inch gaps. I figured I would just fill in the gaps with weld bead or make sliver-like filler patches to plug everything up. After all being off by a quarter inch over a four foot tail was no biggie. But upon further reflection I realized all that welding was going to induce warpage and be hard to bump out. Instead I decided to make a patch, cut out all the caca weld joints and weld in a new piece. Here is what I did:




There was a lot of daylight in the seams



I made a patch using a shot bag and English wheel




After some tappa tappa and ready for final welding





mobetta

 

You're not obsessive...No, really, you're not.

 

Well, this thing is fucking cool.

 

Love that 'Beany cap' patch! Understand the shot bag for the preliminary depth, followed by the wheel. Stretched like aluminum! Excellent fix!
So inspiring, forming steel as the Masters did with aluminum...
So, I am wont to ask: "Why not steel Corvettes?"