Bob, you should get his autobiography- Outlaw Sprint Car Racer! It's a great read and full of great details and stories of his life of racing, building, etc. Don't ever remember him crashing, but he had two main cars, the original bobtail sprinter, and a center seater that he campaigned in later years. I think that one one the cars is in the Museum in Knoxville, Iowa, and the other is the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing in York Springs, PA
I meet John Gerber at a Vintage meet in Davenport Iowa back in the 1970's. Joe Gemza had the old Gerber 4Banger in an orange sprint car. I forget the history on the car but it had enough original MILLER bits on it to cause someone to buy it and chuck all the Gerber parts and restore it back to its original MILLER appearance. Bob
Would have LOVED to have met him- from reading his book, I bet he and Herb (ebtm3) would be two peas in a pod !
Every once in a while, I hop on the HAMB to see what I've missed out on.. This thread rules so hard. That spring is crazy. I love this car.. keep it up! Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Every time I see it I like it more. Now that I can hear it and see it in motion, WOW! I hope to see it in person soon.
Thanks! Here some details about the frame...the zigzag in the frame is to get the driver position low down inside the frame rails. the rear of the frame has been bobbed of for the 1/4 elliptic springs, 2 front model t cross members, 1 for the motor mount and 1 flipped upside down for the spring mount. 2 model T fender support brackets for the cross member.....the frame is about 75 inches long, the wheel base is 88" (2" longer than the original Whippet special) Sent from my SM-G920V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Scott Hills wondering what he got himself into when I and my uncle said we will build a car for him to put his SR Frontenac T motor in. Repost from @sehoji #GerberSpecial #GerberSpec Sent from my SM-G920V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Saw the car on Instagram awhile back. Bad***, man. Glad I found the thread now. Don't know how I missed it in the first place.
I love this build, looks excellent. I was also interested in your front spring, as i want to modify my rear A spring, so the heat treating was interesting, but I was a little surprised that just 'cherry red and in oil' was good enough, so I dug around, and all the spring manufacturers re temper after the hardening process, about 950, then cool slowly for hours. I only bring it up as I wouldn't want your spring to fracture on you. This is a quote from one site I found: Eaton is one of few companies equipped to offer restorers “spring re-shaping” services. It can anneal a spring to take the memory out of it, re-shape it and re-heat treat it so that a new memory is put back in. In order to anneal a spring, it must be taken apart and visually inspected for fatigue. Each leaf is blasted clean. After being re-inspected, it is heated to 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, the leaf is placed on a pattern with the correct form and arch to re-shape that leaf. The re-shaped leaf is quenched in special oil to cool it. This heating and quick cooling results in a leaf that is too hard or brittle to work well as a spring, so the leaf is heated again, for a set time, to 950 degrees. This process draws out some of the hardness. Once it cools, the leaf is shot-peened to relieve stress on it. The result is a spring that’s re-tempered, re-shaped and re-heat-treated. http://www.oldcarsweekly.com/resto_series_number_6_restoring_leaf_springs I also saw the shot peening done by another large auto leaf manufacturer, the 'Tempering' is also mentioned in this video, just after they are quenched in oil, 2.41 in on the timeline I'm not trying to be a smart ****, but I thought it is better that you are armed with the info than not. Like I said, great build, cool car.
Thanks for the info! I will definitely go thru it. I just formed and tempered the spring like grandpa has done in the past. Has been done the way on a few of his cars and a few of mine as well. Sent from my SM-G920V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Any reason why you didn't go with a Chev 4 cylinder? Then you wouldn't need the Ruxtal (which I don't think Gerber used (but will have to get his book out to be sure of that) and have had a lighter car. I think the whole thing about Gerber was that he beat all the T's with a Chevy when T's were what the compe***ion was running. Gerbers legs went over the torque tube so that he sat slightly ****eyed in the car, but you probably couldn't do that with the Ford hogshead. Having said all that, you built a good looking racecar of the era!
Basically how this car came along was kind of a bet. We (my uncle Paul) wanted to see if an SR Fronty T could keep up with my White single seat with the ohv banger in it. I heard stories of Scott Hills and his SR Fronty beating flathead V8s and keeping up with Riley ohv sprint cars. I said I would build a car if he(Scott Hills) built a motor to put in it. My uncle Paul Reichin and I decided the car needs to be light so john Gerber's car and noel bullocks car came to mind. We both decided the Gerber car was the one to build. So that's how the car came to be.... So the original whippet special did use a Chev 4 banger BUT he adapted a ford model T transmission to the Chevy block, when the flag dropped he could smash low pedal and slip the transmsion going into direct drive on slippery surface. Basically his tires would have traction when everyone else was doing tires and he would have the edge on them of the line. Gerber car started as mostley Chevrolet but when parts broke he "upgrated" and swapped them to ford parts. He said ford had superior metal co.are to Chevy. One of the main reason he stayed with the Chevy engine is because he knew them inside and out....he never did use a ruckstell. We just wanted one in our car. Yes one leg over the torque tube, that's exactly how our car is too. So there ya go... We had a engine to build/test and needed the right car for it. Sent from my SM-G920V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
T_N_A, Have you ever thought of having an Ed Winfield "2 up 2 down" crank and camshaft (and yes, I know the intake plays into the mix) made? That would be a fun engine to run!
Yesssss.....all the time. One of my favorite cars. Winfields "2 up, 2 down" Noel Bullocks Pikes peak winning car and Jowh Gerbers Whippet Special are the 3 car that inspired me to build my white single seater.
Yes, he knew them inside and out and they were OHV. Chevrolet never made a flat head nor did Buick, but Chev was a four cylinder up until 1928 or so. Both of those engines had a common designer, the Buick coming first. The designer then went to Chevrolet I believe during the time Louis Chevrolet was involved there. Louis had also been a race driver previously for Buick so he knew the value of the OHV. Louis then was detached from Chevrolet and lost the use of his name. The Frontenac speed equipment that he then built, mainly rocker arm and overhead cam heads, were to convert model T Fords. The Chevrolet fours had a flat head with no combustion chamber, the chamber was the cylinder space between the top of the piston and the cylinder head. Compression was easily raised by heating the shank of the connecting rods and with the piston pin in place, using small screw jacks against the pin to elongate the rods! Gerber in the course of his Chevrolet engine development, ultimately made his own rods. For more complete information and a virtual history of dirt track racing up to 1940, buy the book. It's an amazing read.
Ha! that's the first I've heard of stretching rods to bump up compression...all I picture is a salt taffy candy machine. I've ready the book a few times now, always learn something new every time I go thru it... Whippet Special vs Gerber Special
There is a lot of great Chevy 4 cylinder information here: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/1928-chevy-4cyl-motor.463465/
I'm not so sure that's in the book, but I know it's true, perhaps in one of the Ray Kuns books, I remember a picture and discussing it with Walt Klausler many years ago. Obviously with a flat head, no combustion chamber, milling the head is futile.
That was one technique- some simply bolted on aluminum discs to the top of the pistons to up the compression!
The BIG drawback with the Chev4 (after the plain carbon, no real alloy steel) is the very poor combustion chamber shape. On my avatar car I tried pistons with a large hump on the non-sparkplug side of the chamber--but un-fortunely sold the car before I got a decent "seat of the pants" ***essment of any improvement. Made from GMC 270 pistons, As I reflect, it would have been less work to make new pistons with the hump-- but the idea was to get some combustion chamber swirl to blow the mixture over to the spark side of the chamber---but I am afraid that it is time for someone else to take over the work---I hope. Herb
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