Hot Rods 34 coupe..Dismembered to drag coupe.

The usual filth

 

Oh yeah!

 

NICE! I have many inspirational pictures saved.

 

I will be running a 57 Olds rear end.I have a few third members with ratio options. I will have to buy some good axles in the future. I narrowed the housing and got it in position under the car the tacked in some light tubing to hold it in place. Now I had a roller. Rear suspension will be coil overs and ladder bars.

 

Rear wheels are these 15x10 magnesium Halibrands. I have had these wheels since the mid 80’s , they were on the Orange Plus Willys when I bought it. Tires are 10x15 Radir slicks.




Now I had a roller but it was still a mock up. Body was just sitting on the frame with hardly any inner structure, the engine was just sitting on some tubing that was tacked in place. It was great to be able to stand back and see what I had.

 

Killer I love it!

 

“Don’t shoot!”, just my take is all.

Digging the open frame rails over filler panels.
Really like the aluminum filler in the grill.

 

I love this crap.

 

Johnny….I too really like the aluminum filler panel in the grill but seeing the blown Hemi through the grill just wins out for me.

 

I bet many Willy's have had Ford front axles over the years. But the other way around is probably rare. Good use of parts.

 

My envy meter is pegged. Your "inspirational" cars are some of my all time favorites and you are right on track with this one. Just plain bad a$$!

 

I remember seeing this coupe in the background while you were building the Nasty Habit coupe. Since then I have been waiting for the build thread on this on! Great to see you back, and posting build content.
The first thing that came to mind looking at your coope was" sure looks like that bad ass green flake fuel coupe"

 

Kev you achieved legend status with the Nasty Habit and Orange Plus magazine features. Same issue I think, Rod & Culture or something?? I have it around here somewhere.

LOVE your 34 and the direction you're headed. Absolutely cannot go wrong with that '554' style.

 

Kevin, you no only have " The Eye " for your projects, but the talent to see them to completion.

 

nice build in a great style...here's one off the net and a couple I sketched...

 

Kevin that 34 is BAD ASS , can’t wait to see it on the road !! Makes me want to chop my 33 up and do something crazy hope you’re healing up well

 

rusty1…Great pics!
Thanks guys for all the kind comments! This has been a very long term build, the last pictures I posted are from 7 Years ago. I am in absolutely no hurry to finish this thing although I think the progress will pick up speed soon. I am easily distracted however and the bills never stop coming so who knows, I just like having it here to look at. My Willys coupe body sat around my place for 20 years before it got built.
I have made more progress since then but I got busy with other stuff like rebuilding one side of my garage, finishing my 34 PU, building a 31 roadster to sell along with working full time and work on other peoples projects.
Like I said earlier I know a lot of people will consider this car kind of dumb because it is not really a practical car, well I am building this thing for fun. I already have a practical hot rod, my 34 PU.



All along I have been picking up parts for this build. Mostly swap meet purchases and good trades with friends.

 

I have been lucky and found some good parts for the engine. I am kind of picky about how the engine is going to look. When I am at the Hot Rod Reunion or Nitro Revival and checking out a line up of vintage dragsters and altereds I go into a kind of blissful daze taking in all the early Hemis loaded with vintage speed equipment. I take my time studying the different setups, the polished aluminum and chrome, the raw aluminum and paint, the magnesium. I love it! Then I realized that I could have something just like that of my own. I want my engine to look era correct so no parts that are obviously from the 80’s, ‘90’s etc. I want my engine to look like a 60’s race engine but be kind of mellow and streetable. I have seen many early Hemis in street rods with blowers so shouldn’t be a problem.
I am backing it up with a Super T10 4 speed.


I had the engine mocked up for a long time with this magnesium Mickey Thompson blower manifold I got from Von Parkr (sp?) If you notice the whole bottom is blown out of it.



Then talking to my friend Steve White who lives in New Zealand one day he told me he had just bought a Mickey Thompson magnesium blower manifold at a swap meet there. It came off a famous drag boat. We worked out a trade and he sent it to me. Turns out it had been converted from 6.71 to 8.71 so the opening is a little longer. No big deal, a plate between manifold and blower will take care of that. I also has a burst panel built in the front so I will plate that off with a pop off valve in the plate for an earlier look. So that is an expensive part I can check off the list.




I bought this Enderle barn door scoop many years ago at a Hot Rod reunion for $100. Not long after that I got the injector body from good friend Aaron VonMinden in some long forgotten trade. Pretty sure I will run some kind of electronic fuel injection in the future. I will have to make my own butterflys and shaft. Carburetors wouldn’t look right on this car to me. I also have a Hilborn 2 port that looks killer to me but I think the barn door just wins out.



I really like the vintage Mickey Thomson race parts but they are very pricey. I got a repo idler bracket and breathers.

I have pieced the blower drive together piece by piece. I really liked this drilled out idler pulley I bought at some swap meet years ago so now I am putting it to use. Magnesium top pulley is another swap meet purchase.

Another friend of mine in New Zealand and fellow Scrounger Aaron Carson hooked me up with this magnesium Thompson front cover. I traded him a vertical gate shifter for it. He got if from Kiwi hot rod and drag race legend mike Gearing.



I got this cool and I am sure very rare finned Larsen oil pan from Aaron VonMinden. No one seemed to know anything about it or seen one before but eventually I discovered they were made in 1960 in Los Angeles. Has anyone out there ever seen one? Pretty sure it has never been used. Drain plug hole not even drilled.

 

Wow, you said those Mickey Thompson breathers are reproduction. Where did you get them?

 

brian….I got these from the H.A.M.B. Classifieds but check with gallopingringo on IG.

 

That oil pan is the coolest. Really dig your projects.

 

I would love to find these parts, repo or original. Any clues please let me know.

 

Thanks Kev for the compliments on my sketches...

 

Both of those parts look small enough and simple enough to make for a great sand cast project.

 

So glad you are back on this. Do you still have the baby blue 33-34 that came out of tucson?

 

Yes, still have it. It needs a lot of patching just to get into rough condition.

 

Thanks Kev for posting the great pictures and details of the parts. I live breath and dream this stuff. You are going to have a over the top next level old school correct hot rod . This is terrific.

 

Here is probably my favorite thing I will be putting in this car. Even though I already have an Olds rear end in there I will be taking it out and replacing it with another. I have been given the Olds rear end housing that was in the Hugh Tucker roadster. All around swell guy Hugh Tucker Jr gave it to me at a Hot Rod Reunion swap meet at Bakersfield several years back. He told me the restored version of the car has a 9” Ford rear end. So in every great picture you see of this car racing it has this Olds rear end and now it will be going under my coupe. Cool part is that the roadster was local to my area. If only these parts could talk!

 

I blocked the engine exactly where I wanted it which was with the scoop buried deep in the cowl vent. Then I made a couple of front mounts from 4”x3/8” aluminum. I could have made much fancier mounts but I prefer simple and basic. I don’t plan on over engineering anything on this car. Simple and basic is what I prefer.


I had an adapter to get the Chevy bellhousing and trans on the back of the Chrysler. To mount the back of the engine I had to make a 1/8” steel mid plate. There is a lot of structure in the frame , I am just going to modify as need as I fit parts. I got the Magneto in a trade with friend Gil, Hot Rod Ranch, Lompoc.