Projects Koz is building a modified, (my next build)

I havn't dropped the ball here! The past two weeks have been hell at work and in addition I have a problem with the Post Office. I mailed out 12 MO,s for parts I bought off a bunch of people here. Most have arrived and the parts are here. There are at least two, maybe more, that never made it to the sellers and unfortunately, according to the post office the MO's were negotiated. They were cashed here in Pa. so whoever got 'em wasn't the people they were sent to. I'm working it out with the Post Office but I'm also trying to find out who may have not recieved their funds. ****, I hate when stuff has to just **** more time. If anybody out there is waiting for funds that havn't arrived shoot me a PM and I'lll resend promptly.

In the meantime I've fabbed up a wood body buck to ***emble off and have ordered a few panels, two door skins and some lower quarters from Howells. They said two weeks so hopefully they arrive on time. Snagging the door skins and bun panels will save me a ton of metal time and get me back on track time wise. I'm still waiting on the fab shop having my 10ga. sheared and brake for my revamped side rails. It was easier for me to run another set of rails than chop up the ones I had. That frame went to a friend who is going to build a sister car to this one, but Chevy powered. He's also going to use the body buck when I'm done, which in reality is half of building the body.

I also sent for a steel "duece" dash which will fit perfectly in my revamped cowl now that I've lost the "A" pillers on the cowl. Homemadehardtop supplied me with a beautiful late '40's convex SW speedo that I'm going to have centered in the dash along with a Pacific Coast Timing ***ociation br*** dash tag courtesy of CuzinBrucie. Shades of Rusetta!

I can hear the flatty purring on the Parkway already.

 

Banner day in my build! My sheetmetal arrived from Howells. One week turnaround on this order and very nice door skins and bun panels. Everything else for the body is here with the exception of the hinges and latches and the dash panel. Plenty to get under way. My esteemed ***ociate is already on my *** as to when I'll be done with the body buck so he can get working.

My ch***is steel was ready so I picked that up as well along with the stock for a couple of other frames that some guys need done. I'll post up picks over the next couple of days of the fab process on the rails.

I finally my block off at Reiders to get the flea dip. It should be back in plenty of time to buck up my drivetrain. I'm going to be busting some serious *** over the next couple days to get back on schedule.

When my block comes back I'm going to check it for damage and if it's good it's going into the Mol***as and getting a decent street port and polish before it goes back to the machine shop for bore and valve work along with a nice deck job.

I'm not trying to build a street terror, just a good reliable runner. I've never had any problems with any of my flattys before. All I need to do is get this one to run as good as a junkyard Chevy and I'll be happy. 175 Horses in a flatty feels a lot more potent than 200 plus in an overhead. Must just be the cool noise thing.

I have stuff to work with again. Late night in the shop!

 

The frame is on the table and squared up. I fabbed the rails up with some nice tapers and drilled for the stock Model A siderail holes up front. The rear is Z'd to set the '40 rear on the proper ride height and at what I believe to be the proper location as I can determine from the limited pics I'm working from.







The rear has a tasty Z eh? I've gotten this far today and I'm not even bleeding much.


****ty pic but this shows where I slotted the rails to bend them and bring the tails under the tank square. I'm fitting up a Model A rear crossmember that is being pruned to 33" wide and will hold the rear spring and clear the tank nicely.

Coming together well.

 

You may not be bleeding much, but I'll bet you're sweating. Keep up the good work man!

 

Thanks Fleetside, LOL.... My shop is actually cooler than outside but not by much! Stop by if your in the neighborhood.

 

My flatty is back from getting three trips through the hot tank which removed about 90% of the last 63 years of carbon gunk. I think I'm going to need to have it "shake and baked" to really clean it. I need to find somebody around here who can do that.

I havn't had it Magnafluxed but I can't find even one crack visually, even between the head bolts. That's just not normal for a flatty! I'm sure something will turn up but I've checked all the criticall areas and it looks good. Theres a lot of water rot damage around the front bores and ports. It's going to need a few valve seats, no big deal. The 1/8" overbore will take care of the cylinder walls easily. It's not rotted so bad to require any sleeves.

I've got it on the bench and working on Dykum up the intake ports so I can do a nice street port and polish before sending it back to have the bores and valves done. I'll post some pics of the process over the next few days.

 

Lots of stuff in in the last day or two. One very nice '46 to '48 Merc rear in sweet shape, a nice flatty cast truck bell, (still need a starter plate), one mint front spring and a usable rear spring. I'm going to the Model A swap tomorrow to hopefully find a better one. I also aquired an F-600 fan idler for the flatty with the sealed bearing. The fan was cut off with a torch but they left me plenty to machine and weld into the pulley a snout to stretch past the water pump belt and hold a six blade steel fan that uses the GM pattern. These are available from Speedway and move some serious air. I havn't been able to shoot any pics lately as I only get a few minutes a day to work on this. I'll post progress soon.

My block, I've just started on the port work......

 

I had a little time after work today so I stripped the '48 rear. The rear was rusted real hard on the outside so most of the bolts on the backing plates etc., were removed by burning the nuts off and drifting the bolts out. The backing plates looked like **** from the outside but are mint inside! The radius rods are kind of sad but once I opened it up the ****er is mint inside. The bearing races and the like along with the bearings, by feel, are exceptional. The rear looks pretty sweet, much better than the last one I had under the coupe. I cleaned it up with a knotted wire cup and cut the '48 spring hangers off. Then using a die grinder and some 50 grit discs I dressed the hanger points to look like the rest of the bearing cup.



Man, how sweet are those bearing surfaces! After I had everything pretty much blended to suit I used the old needle scaler to put a sand cast texture into the polished areas. When its painted it'll be hard to tell where it was molested.



I dressed the somewhat pitted shell as much as I could without cutting into the steel too bad and started to treat the rust with Eastwood rust converter which is mostly just Phosphoric Acid. I only had about a pint left so it didn't make it all the way. I'll get more Monday. When I have everything prepped and the brackets on I'll shoot it with epoxy primer and use a little lightweight to smooth it up and give it few coats of high build before the ch***is black, (Eastwood Boulevard Black gloss).

Checking the ratio it turns out to be a 3.78 which could be worse. I'm leaving the gears in it as is and I'm going to give it a try. I drove Yankee Daves flatty powered roadster with 3.54s the other night and even though it is nice on the open road I like the 3.78s a bit more around town. Just feels better to me. Everybody has their preferences.

Good after work day.....

 

Damn! Another pic of Mr. Proulx car. This one from a five year old thread by Jimmy B.

This thing is all over but no front or rear pics, the ones I could really use!

Sweet!!!!!!

 

I am following your build. Great work and planning.

 

Keep at it! Sounds like you've been busy!

 

Thanks guys! I'm doing my best in this heat. I have a ch***is in here foor another friend that will be done by the weekend and I'll be able to get this one back on the table to setup the frontend and drivetrain.

From the pics, especially the one just above, it appears the car has a drop axle! I know a few of the earlier posts brought up the fact that a drop before the war would have been somewhat unusual thugh not unheard of. If you follow the front radius rod lines in the above pic it looks like the perch pin centerline is approximatly 3" below the wheel centerline and looks like the car may have been lowered between the time the first pic was taken by the house and this one on the lakes. There are a few other changes including the centrifigal supercharger. Like most cars it probably changed on a weekly basis.

I have aquired some 16" Ford straight wires, not Kelseys, in nice shape from Homemadehardtop and I still need to pick up another pair from another fellow on here and now I can't find his contact info! I put it here someplace. I'm so busy during the day right now I haven't gotten half my stuff picked up yet. Some of my machine work for the fan drive using a sealed bearing setup from a '48 F-600 and a '49 p***enger pulley came back. I need to fabricate a shaft extension to hold a late 6 blade GM fan that is not totally correct but will move some serious air. The piece will look wery factory and all but the old timers will never catch it. I'm also working on some machine work to fit the right angle tach drive for a mechanical Stewart Warner tach for a crank drive like Mikeys' on here. Way cool!

 

KOZ Is that painted or powdercoated on the frame?

 

The pic above is Mikeys' car. He posted that pic on another thread here. I just posted it to show the tack drive I'm trying to duplicate. If you send him a PM he could probably tell you. I wish mine looked that good!

 

Wow! Loving this build!

 

Back at it! I have a free bay so the roadster went back into mockup. This time with flatty drivetrain. I shortened up the reat by about 31" and put the torque tube in place. The 48' driveshaft went to the machine shop for respline this morning. I'm trying to get the flavor of Mr. Proulx car while making in my own. I have the frame on ride height and the location of all the big stuff mocked up.





The flatty looks right at home in there. I'm using the new Speedway pumps with the good internals. Hopefully they will live up top their reputation and be nice and leak free. I have some issues with pan clearance as I think the car would look better about 1 1/2" lower but the engine needs to set where it is so the carbs will look right on the Eddie Meyers intake I'm using.



It's very important the carbs set at the proper height in relation to the cowl.



I have been toying with Z ing the car under the body to get it lookng lower but it would be so "non trad" that I just can't bring myself to do it. The body and all the drive components are spot on to Mr. Proulx car in location. Body and frame proportion are everything on this car or it just becomes another T bucket.



I'm building a Tardel type crossmember/K member. There is no way I'm going to get floor pedals in there so a set of Ansen style *******s is in order. The way it is laid out I can use my steering box mount for the cowl steer and the pedal mount as a structural component for the whole cowl. That way if anything fails I'll lose steering and brakes at the same time. You gotta' think ahead.



I think the crossmember will work just fine. If I drop the car any further there will be no interior room at all.

Until tonight....

 

Looks great!

 

Blackie Gejeian - The Story​

From the February, 2009 issue of Rod & Custom
By **** Martin
Photography by Blackie Gejeian​

http://www.rodandcustommagazine.com/thehistoryof/0810rc_blackie_gejeian/viewall.html​

Spent many a Friday night at Blackie's Clovis Speedway, following the CA NASCAR Super Modified circuit, then Saturday nights in San Jose, plus Sunday afternoons at Altamont or Madera Speedways.​

 

GerryO, Pretty cool pics of Blackies roadster. It's interesting to see the underside. These are very famous pics. The pics I could really use are of Joe Proulx car, the one I'm using as a pattern for mine.

The interesting thing about Blackies car is how low he sat in it. The biggest problem I'm having is gettting a low enough seating position. I don't want to be going down the road looking like the Flintstones.

Thanks for the pics, and welcome here!

 

I like the modifieds. Problem is I have to many hobbies [projects] and not enough time or money. Keep it going.

 

Keep the updates coming.

 

I love where this is headed!

Keep it up!

 

I've violated my own rules of traditionalism and swept Zd the front and added another 3" of drop to the rear. I have it jigged together and tacked up. I will finish welding up tonight or tomorrow and post some pics. I mocked the drivetrain and body up on ride height and now it captures Mr. Proulx vision. As a bonus I now get to keep my straight A axle and still set right. I can't believe I whacked 30 1/4" out oif this torque tube and it fits up perfectly! The short tube looks so vintage. Jurys out on the rear bones. That can be the next crisis.

I also started on the front shock mounts which are essentially repops of the ones on Bill Niekamps old blue roadster. If they don't look right I can always follow Stock Racers lead and rework some F-1 mounts like usual. Let's face it, there really isn't a lot of new angles on this stuff that has the look. The old guys got it right the first time.

Pics later....

 

Some pics of the z work. I think the car looks much better now and definitly "sits" right.











In the pics the front Z looks very boxy but in person it is very "Organic" and virtually disappears. When the other parts go on it will be barely noticable. What this did was gave me an additional 3" of depth inside the car without changing the ride heigth. Theres a stock '31 roadster n the shop and this car actually has more leg room although you do sit much flatter. Not at all horrible.

I'm working on the motor and trans mounts now. My biggest problem is I'd like to bring both headers together under the car and exit the rear with a single 3" pipe. The routing is going to be really critical and must be planned for in the construction of both mounts and crossmembers. I think the end results will be well worth the effort.

 

Koz , what size tubing are your frame rails? Would tapering front rails make any differance?

 

The frame rails actually aren't tubing. They are press braked 10ga. pickled and oiled, boxed with the same. The rails follow stock Model A tapers and have the correct radius on the outside and are boxed square, (just tacked in at the moment on the boxed side). All the correct Model A holes are punchd/drilled throught the outside of the rails. I build these frames in my shop here and look just like a set of very mint frame origional rails.





The rails taper from 4" to 2 /13/16" front and 3" rear, (on this car), like a stock A.

You can see here where the rear is stepped but not completed how the rails are tapered and later boxed.





The tapers are very subtle so they don't photograph well. When frames are built this way, at first glance they appear to be just a very cherry reworked origional frame. Here is a shot of the front where the suicide mount goes in.





The front crossmember is a little deceptive in that it looks bolted in but is in fact welded in captive within the frame. When the skirt panels go on you won't see the boxed area and it will look like an early suicide mount, ( I owe Norm for this one), which were typically bolted, but with modern security. The perch for this will be milled into the tube and welded 100% after tapering the weld purchase, so I don't think I'll have any problems with such a light car.

If you see the car in person the frame looks very fluid and organic but for some reason the photos make it look way boxy. The rear kickups which look way too "rat roddy" to me will be totally enclosed within the sheet metal so I'm not too worried about them. The frame will look a lot better when it's finish welded and everything is dressed.

Dirt T's comment perfectly expresses my own thought in that it does look like a rect. tubing frame which the whole idea of this crazy exercise was to avoid. I'll keep working on it!

 

God my welds look like **** in the pics! I have to stop working on my own stuff after a long day in the shop. They really aren't that bad, they just look ****ty because I weld them up in sections so I don't twist the relativly delicate side rails. Since I'm going to be dressing the welds on the outside I taper and go for 100% penetration and enough on the surface that I can dress it without defect.

Looking at the above pics I think I will remove the front boxing plate from the motor mount forward, approximatly 14". The loss of torsional strenght would be minimal on such a light car and it would reinforce the illusion of a reworked stock frame.

OK, I'm justifiying the need for a good Tig!

 

Very nice build

 

I had some time today so I indulged myself and finished up the siderail boxing and a bunch of other stuff to the frame. The first thing I did was to fab my front radius rod holders by building a captive through the frame fitting to accept the rod ends. As the point that I needed them to rotate around was very close to the line where I welded a sweep into the front rail I elected to reinforce it with a slug inside the rail of 1/2" CR.



I them added a 2" sleeve top go through the boxing plate.



With that in place I filled in the piece of 10ga. boxing plate That was left of to allow access for this and also so that the joint in the plate was not at the same place as the one on the other side of the rail. I then fabbed a 10ga. exterior plate mostly for decoration with some useless rivets just for interest and finished welding and metal finishing the rest of the boxing plates.



A fabricated K member was added to pick up the '48 Ford trans mount as well as stiffen the ch***is. The K member roughly follows the style of the Vern Tardel type member.



Only one side in place in this pic. It's all done and the whole frame metal finished now. I took these pics early this morning. It's amazing what a few shop hours will do for a project. I'm spending a little time this evening fabbing some pretty trick motor and trans mounts. More tomorrow.

 

Good stuff here!