Your going to cut the roof out if we wern't so far away from each other I'd love to trade you my 38 topolno body (it's been plastic media blasted, treated, and primed inside, and out) for your 49 topolino body because mine is a rag top body, I plan on driving mine on the street, and I don't care for an open body street car (I don't know why other than I don't), but I prefer an open body racecar (which I already have).
wehn i first read this thread i thought it was going to be another hack job...tilll i seen the pics..this is one hell of a transformation ...will make for a sweet ride... Kenneth, what size are the tires/wheels on for topo rear???
My computer died recently and I lost all my progress photos... Rad. I've been super busy with work, but we've made a little progress recently. The body was quite twisted, when I got the car the body had rusted away from many of the ch***is bolts. So we stripped a desk down and welded the body to it to square it up. Used a car jack to push some pillars away and ratchet straps to draw others in. We've fabricated new sills and welded them on. They have flat bottoms because, as it's a funny car, we'll take the body off from time to time and don't want to damage a nice rounded lip. Will finish boxing them in later down the track, it's time to start the ch***is - the body is now out of the way on the gantry. I've bought a drill press and tube notcher for fitting all of the chromoly purchased in December, attached is a shot of a test cut on some s**** moly, it's amazing how accurate the cuts are - if there's a quarter millimetre gap I'd be surprised... I've got an order of mild square coming next week to set up the ch***is jig, then it'll be months of fun and torture... Also, we now have the ch***is plans printed 1/1 - it's super handy for setting everything up, we put the plans on the floor and I layed down on my side and we traced around my body. It proved that the cage needed to taller and a bit deeper. I then put the steering box, pedals, shocks, diff and moon tank on it, plus cardboard templates taken from the engine and gearbox - this is such a useful way of mocking up cheaply. I went home and adjusted the plans and now we have an accurate blueprint.
How could i have missed this Topolino thread. Love it, looks good. I wonder how many PMs you will get from guys asking for the roof section you cut out ?
OK, here's an update. Been stranded with work so haven't been able to pick up the steel for the ch***is jig. I did, however do a photoshop mock of the paint to add to the previous illustrator mock. The image is kinda big, so may take moment to load. I'll update it with sign writing when I've resolved what I'm gonna do with it regarding fonts etc..
I don't yet have the steel for the ch***is jig so I decided to dedicate my Easter weekend to notching all of the moly. I have to apologise for the apaulling quality of the photos... I'll lift my game when my camera is finally fixed... Here's the ch***is plan that I printed 1 to 1. Then I spent the next 3 days notching and fitting all of the tube for both sides. The 6 point cage will return from the benders next week (hopefully), so I'll have a complete ch***is to start tacking up. Not shown are the bars that run across the car, but all has been cut minus the cross bar for the steering and pedals and the two short bars in the X at the rear to stop intrusions into my kidneys. Learnt a hell of a lot this weekend, and am left feeling super satisfied.
I've finally had time to get onto the ch***is. We've had two monster weekends thrashing away and have achieved quite a lot. Just to refresh memories, forward of the cage we've based everything closely on the Mondello/Matsubara altered (second version), and adapted the cage. I chose to go with a right angle style cage - it ain't pretty but as contrived as it sounds I wanted it to look like it had been adapted over time. A lot of the early funny cars had the cage bent at right angles and the more research I've done the more that I get the impression that aesthetics were often disregarded - the old function before form thing I guess. The Mondello/Matsubara coupe was kinda square, and the extra hoops exaggerate it but I think it'll work with the body around it. The posts that hold the shock need to be trimmed down, we left extra length when designing it to allow for the fact that we weren't 100% sure of the geometry at that point. The spigots in the axle will be trimmed and tidied too. So much to do still and make, but it's nice to be able to look at it and dream...
This may give you and everyone else some inspiration .... http://markgeorgette.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html
Hell yeah, looking fantastic. Hard choice between the paint styles, I kinda lean toward the first style myself but hell they both look great. Good luck, if I ever finish my A40 G***er maybe we can have a good old style flag started race!! Cheers, Doc.
Thanks for the Georgette link, love the old build shots. I've been a big fan of the Outrage car for a few years now. I have hundreds of magazines form the early 60s to early 70s - if I can find some time I'd love to scan the many inspirations that have gone into the design of the ch***is.
Hi Doc, I guess I'm still playing with paint styles in my head. We are inexperienced in fancy paint, so I've tried to be a little realistic - the Berardini coupe has always been a favourite of mine. I still want to come up with some proper lettering, especially for the "trunk" area as it's so plain. I've been gold leafing everything that comes my way for quite a while now, I just need time to do the designs... and I want to come up with a cool looking "Danger Mouse" logo, I'm torn between a Roth-style image and something much older like the bomber nose art or something cl***ic like the Road Runners logo on the Spade Carrillo roadster (thanks to Hemi 32 for the pic from his Pebble beach thread).
Here are a few shots of the older style flames (I just had to throw in the Saturday Evening Post cover with the kid painting the cool looking dog on the door), plus a thread on old hot rod flames: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=390242 My biggest concern is not confusing eras, so like I said, I've got a lot of thinking to do on the paint side of things.
Here are some pics of the Mondello/Matsubara ch***is (thanks to Karpo M). We subs***uted all of the square tube due the fact that it was simply unavailable in moly. It did make the holes particularly hard to drill in some instances but we pushed on. You'll notice that we did away with the kick-up at the rear. Sush Matsubara apparently reported that the car had awful handling troubles due to the rear coilovers, so he subs***uted them for solid bars, effectively rendering the rear end as fixed by locking up the ladder bars and watts linkage. We simply did away with the kick-up and solid mounted the diff. The front end is very similar to the Mondello/Matsubara car. We have used Strange single adjustable coilovers (we may paint them to get rid off the billet finish) instead of the vintage Konis. The straight axle is an old Dragmaster unit, and we've made our own batwings to adapt the brackets that we think originally located wishbones. There were also 2 mystery brackets that we trimmed down to rings that are now located inside the spigots that mount the springs to the axle. This keeps with our idea of making a car that looks like it's been modified and updated over time... The four links are done in the same way as the Mondello car, as is the panhard bar. We are close to finishing the steering arms for the spindles - the original arms had to be cut off the '36 Ford spindles as their angles were all wrong for what we wanted - the drag links run between the four links. I'll post pictures of them when they're done, along with the bell crank and drag links.
i agree!! well not tooo many...makes me feel like i should be turning Lil Beast into a drag topo...naawwww...i'll leave the drag topo's to guys like Tarlo...damn nice build ...wish the distance wasn't so great..love to come check it out......
I agree Rich! We've had another huge weekend and achieved an amazing amount. About 80% of the welding is complete on the ch***is and everything mocked up nicely. It's very straight, and it's time to start addressing the design for the seat and the tin, which I'm sure will have a myriad of problems... it's all uncharted territory for us. I'll hope to be finalising the design for the funny car hinging at the back this week, as well as working on engine plates and firewall, then hope to d**** the body over it soon. Here's a mockup from earlier in the weekend - I'll post better pics shortly - was too tired to shoot better ones tonight.
Hi Gary, We're hoping to get another big session in on the ch***is this weekend. There should be lots to update after that! I've cut and notched everything for the seat supports, rear hinge and wheelie bars, but I'm not the one welding everything... Not 100% sure on the roller weight, but the bare ch***is is probably around 70lbs, and with wheels and tyres, complete diff with 3rd member and brakes, wheelie bars, steering and suspension, seat and pedals I calculate it to come to about 480bls. In some ways it's probably a little over engineered, if we were pros and really looking for the best times there would definitely be places to refine the design. It's hard to calculate exactly how heavy the car will be, but we seem to be looking at between 1550 and 1650lbs wet with driver. The weights for some items are conflicting depending on the source and we don't have scales...
After another big weekend and the ch***is is almost completely welded now - with the exception of the 2 head hoops which are the wrong radius and will be replaced soon, and the new triangulated bars at the rear for the funny car hinge, which is tacked in at the moment until we d**** the body over it for absolute final location. We took the ch***is off the gig and turned it upside down for some of the trickier welds - my mate Wayne who's doing all of the welding likes gravity to do the work for him rather than fight it. We made the seat mounts and they are all fully welded in. I know the Kirkey seat aint pretty, but I think I'm gonna come up with a custom cover for it, maybe a nomex diamond pleat... some kinda Tony Nancy thing would be nice. We might have time to fix the seat in place with dzus ****ons next weekend. We'll be replacing the rear axle bearings this week and hope to have the roller on the floor this weekend. We'll then be working out the pinion angle in relation to the C4 etc, then move on to the engine plates. Needless to say, things are getting VERY exciting! I'm sure people can relate to this - we spend so much time pushing on, fabricating, planning, cleaning up, that it takes a while to appreciate exactly what's been achieved. You're so tired by the end of the day that you just want a quiet beer and sleep. It wasn't until my subconscious woke me at 5 this morning did I get that excited, satisfied glow... we've only ever played with street cars, it's a huge step for us to get the build this far, both mentally and acquiring the new skills involved. With the ch***is at this stage I feel it's time to thank all those on the HAMB who've helped with all of my stupid questions, particularly Karpo for his invaluable input with supplying detailed images of his altered, and Rod Andrews in Australia (http://www.andrewsracecars.com.au) for his seemingly endless advice.
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