Projects Finally My '26 Chevy Roadster Build

Jason, Thanks! I'll make sure Steve sees this. I'm sure he'll follow your ideas better that I can. I know Leroy & I are no help to him as far as the CNC goes and this is not cabinet making.
I have a 6"x 48" belt sander that is vertical and a smaller hand held that I could mount horizontally. Pretty sure between Steve, Leroy, & me we have all the tools we need. With Boyd continuing to fit his patterns and doing his tracings with measurements I'm pretty sure we going to get this done. Stick around and feel free to jump in with ideas & advice. I realize this thread is 7 1/2 years old but we are making progress and it is not just me anymore.
Like to see pictures of the '27 truck.

 

Well, the truck has taken back seat to life in general but I have recently found some motivation and started back on it. You got me to looking for pics and it looks like we have had it for 8-9 years and so far I have not made much progress. The only thing I have done as far as going back new is I made a new steering wheel for it. I have also been collecting parts as there just wasn't much left of the truck when I got it. It was fine with me at the time as I figured I be making most of the body anyway.

Anyway, I did find some pics of my setup making the steering wheel which was small parts, it might help explain some of what I described previously.

First pic is the finished wheel with the finger grooves, the next ones are the blank with dowel holes next to the spot on the table I poked holes in for dowels and vac holes. It also got the o ring groove.

I put the blank on the dowels, turn the vacuum on and then run the program. For this I cut the end/cross grain first at the angle to make the pie cut, I also roughed the perimeter to help eyeball the glue up. Glued it up as a rough ring, then I cut the inside with the grooves and roundover. With that done I clamped it in place from the inside and then cut the outside. I recall having to roundover at least one side on the hand router.

 

ROAD TRIP !!! Across two states into another for old Chevy parts. A nice person building a street rod gave me a truck load of 27 parts. He has a truck that had been made from a sedan and he is building it into a rod. I think the engine is junk, looks like it has been welded on and a big hunk of the deck is missing. But I got a nice rear end, rear springs, hangers, starter, column and wheel, carburetor, transmission with 27 crossmember, and more … I haven’t investigated it all yet, some of it is wrapped up. We forgot to load the front axle . I am excited that the parts are not very rusty. Most of it is greasy or still has black paint on it. The springs and hangers, are much nicer than the ones I have. It will be interesting to compare the transmission crossmember to the 28 crossmember.

 

Great find! Even the engine will have good parts. The wheels looks solid. Is it worth going back for the front axle? Did it have the brakes & wheels?

 

You got the gas tank too!

 

Yes, hopefully the tank is good. I have a good tank but this one has a gauge. I have a front end but that one is better. It is about 5 hours each way for me, if I have a reason to go back that way and he still has it, it might be worth a diversion to pick it up. The front axle is a 27, so it doesn’t have brakes. If I run across a good 28 front end cheap I might look at using it, four wheel brakes would be a plus. This rear end also has the brake rods. Will post some more pics after I unload the truck.

 

As promised, a couple of pics. Even though the engine has some issues, pretty sure it ran in the last few years. It had new plugs, a freshly rebuilt water pump(score!), recent points and a modern looking coil. The water jacket has been welded. The fella I got it from said from the bottom, the pistons looked new, but the cam and mains were worn badly. It has a lot of end play in the crank. I need to pull the head and check for high compression pistons, never know. The transmission looks really nice. The crossmember on the trans looks the same as the 28 crossmember that I have.

 

Good news! A lot if useable stuff. Really like the fuel gauge. A lot of the engine parts could be useful. Since Chevrolet didn't use a lot of special alloys for their engine parts like Ford did the Chevy parts can lend themselves to fairly simple repairs.
The steering wheel looks like mine. I've thought of using the levers for a throttle & choke. I won't need a spark advance.

 

The steering wheel needs some glueing and a refinish. I probably won’t use the spark lever either as I plan on using a 28 distributor. This load had some really good stuff in it. I am especially pleased with the transmission. I am seriously considering assembling the chassis. Fix what has to be fixed and just put it together, patina and all. I would like to put the chassis together and start thinking about a body. All that is stopping me is a warm place to work. I need about a week of decent weather to clean out and make some room in my “shop” area, but I don’t think I am going to get it. I am going to take about an hour tomorrow and pull the pan and head on the engine I just got and see what pistons it has and how bad the rest of it is. Rear end has 8 leaf springs (sedan I think) wondering if I can move the bottom leaf to the top of the spring pack to effectively get 7 leaf springs.

 

The 28 distributor still uses the spark advance, (just not as much) so take care of those hollow shafts! You can do whatever you want with springs, all depends on how heavy your car is going to be. On my speedster I took several out and took one medium (maybe third) out turned it over and put it on top. Lowers your car and makes it corner like it's on rails!

 

Thanks for the info on the distributor, I learned something new. I need to look at the other rear springs I have and count the leaves. I am afraid I am going to have to do a bunch of work to get useable front springs. I have a set on an old trailer but they are really rusty. A friend gave me some front springs off of about a 34 Chevy truck. They are the same width and length but the leaves seem heavier. I am hoping I can save the originals off the trailer with some grinding. I could use lowering blocks in the back, what is the best way to lower the front?

 

Lowering the front is why so many Chevys have Ford front ends. They don't need to be really low. You can usr a dropped axle but they look dumb if you over do it. You can use a thinner spring pack and or de-arch the springs. Spurgin & Giovanine mounted the springs outside of the frame rails. You can Z the frame. Some turned the frame rails around to use the rear pickup for extra axle room. A few actually turned the frame over and hung it under the axle. I don't like that idea at all. I have broken springs before. I am looking at mounting the axle on top if the springs if there is enough room between the springs & frame. (and oil pan) Also using a '49 pickup axle that may have a little pure drop in it than stock. These things don't have to be low to be cool. The lower you go the more it messes with the steering and the use of the stock steering box, column, and wheel.

 

Axle on top of the springs doesn't leave much suspension room, so you'll need good dampers, this is my Chevy racer, square U bolts make it easier to do.

 

Is this your racer sitting by your A?

Is there a build thread for it? Like to know more about it. I'll be reading the Springs Outside the Frame thread too. Thanks!

 

The front of this is conventional but the way the rear is hung is interesting.

 

Yep my stuff but no racer build thread, just the springs one.

 

Dan. Id like to see a better picture of the rear suspension. That is something I'm still throng to figure out. Right now the plan is some sort of 4 link with quarter elliptics being the bottom links.

282doorUK, I'll get through the spring thread today I hope. What are the shocks you used? Are they single action? I have a set from a '49 Chevy pickup that I may use. I also have a set to Chevy tube shock mounts. Much to be figured out yet.

 

"Pop's" Greens' stuff was always interesting, & it worked well. Half-Underslung & leaf springs are in correct position to function as designed. Only theoretical problem could be is if entire spring, or shackles, broke letting frame drop, but it'd be dragging, not digging in as would a front frame-under-axle would.
Marcus...

 

That is a Green engineering chassis from the late 1920s. Here is a crop of the picture.

I just looked through the spring thread, wow my head is spinning.

 

There was one underslung one around a few years back. It looked cool and was well constructed but I don't want to be in anything that hits the ground if something breaks at 70mph, or 25 for that matter. Because of my road and removing springs from packs I have broken a lot of springs in my '53 pickup since the '70s. I only jan to break one of the mono leaf sets to shit can those. With the multi leaf packs they have always broken at the axle so it just drops a couple of inches till the frame rests o the axle still locating the axle and nothing hits the ground. Once it happened when Vic & I were all packed up for Bonneville and waving to my wife. One let go and as I turned back up toward the house the other one broke. It delayed us a few hours. Glad they did it close to home.

 

Man props to you for just tearing in and not letting it torpedo the trip!

 

Today I took the pan off of the 27 engine I dragged in this week. It has cast iron pistons, no shims and a badly worn camshaft. I put the pan back on and will put it somewhere out of the way. Not much there, the block has been welded, the deck is busted on the edge, it is a 27 and it is worn out. It could be fixed but I wouldn’t spend money on it when I have better.

 

Tim that was 2008 and we had arranged to do a demo with a guy from Canada to put GM EFI on my 270 Jimmy six. We had to go!
Dan, What you have is better now but you never can tell.

 

Six Ball, I agree. I won’t throw it away, it could be fixed. The first block I got was a 28. It is incomplete, has a cracked water jacket, and needs mains. I was planning on lacing up the cracks and using it until I found something better. I have a good 28 block, but got two cracked 28 blocks before I found a good one. I have another 27 block that would be an easier build. It would probably be messy to run, but I think the exposed push rods are more interesting. I have an extra model A crank laying around, the longer stroke would be fun. First I want to get the car together, then start looking at improvements.

 

There is no end to the things we can think we might do someday. There is an end to the somedays.

 

I one of these build threads I remember seeing a copy of a magazine article on building a three springer race car based partially on Chevy parts. Could someone tell me which thread it is in please?- never mind … found it

 

Did you check the 3 springer thread? There is a lot there from bct but he doesn't let you search his posts or at least that is the message I get.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/three-springer-3-springer-picture-thread.583579/

 

Next installment on sketches:
"A" pillar R (#10R)
It took three times to get a good pic. let me know if this is good enough.

Having a little trouble with the "B" (#11) so odd shaped that I have not figured how to get it across correctly. Will just have to add several sections and I will mark the sides like I did this one.

 

Holy Cow! Yes the picture is clear enough. It would be nice to have a full size one to take to Steve. I'll see what I can do about that. I need to get your others back to you now that I have copies. I don't have one of these out yet to show him. Let me study this for a while. This will take a few passes in the machine but is just the kind of thing I'd like to be able to do. To be able to locate all of the cuts on the 4 pillars would be great. You are killing it! I am very impressed.

I'm still in battery replacement mode. Cleaning out the Asshole Mountain Utilities building so I can do the swap. New batteries in the pickup since Wednesday. It is looking like the old set still has some life left now that they are getting more of a charge from the hew panels. I will use the best ones for a smaller system in the Poultry Palace. It will run a water heater & some lights to extend the laying season. More light more eggs. Maybe even a brooder for new chicks this spring.

 

Thanks, lots of good stuff there.