Projects My roadster pickup project.

I actually sold the coupe after I bought the '64 fairlane 2 dr. post sedan car. I am using the funds to upgrade to thunderbolt style with it.

I was unaware that the engine was as quality a piece. It was a runner per the prev. owner.

Nice truck.

Paul

 

Paul, that's right, you did tell me about the new project and selling the 46. You treated me right on the 46 stuff, the motor and everything else looks really good. It will get a good home when I start the next project.

Since today was Father's Day my Sons checked me out of the home and took me to dinner. (Well, not really, but I am rapidly getting to that age. ) We decided to take our three roadsters out since there was no rain on the radar and it was a beautiful, cool night.

It's weird, and you guys with hot rods and customs probably find the same thing, but sometimes you take your car out to play in traffic and no one notices or responds to your car at all. Then the next time out people are hanging out of their car, snapping pictures, and asking you questions at redlights. Tonight was one of those nights, and we couldn't even stop for gas without people pulling in and asking if they could take pictures. Even in downtown Ft Myers Beach, where we went to eat, camera flash bulbs were going off every few feet. Maybe it was 3 hot rods with open headers.

It was a nice night, a nice ride, and I really enjoyed the dinner and the gifts. Don renewed my AAA Gold Card and Dan got me my sheet metal. Nice thing is, I have a birthday in a couple of weeks and get to do it all over again ! Here is a picture I took at a gas stop.

Don

 

You could not ask for a better gift ... your boys running hot rods with dad ... my time will come.

Every time I'm in the garage welding my 6 y/o comes in to hammer weld wire on "his" railroad track anvil. Got to get a video of it for him later in life!

Paul

 

You have no idea how cool the coming years will be with him, Paul. Sounds like he is taking after his Pop already.

I told Don I will remember this night forever and he said "You really don't have much of a life, do you ?" But I will.

Don

 

I envy you Don, If i had 2 boys I would want them to be just like Don & Dan, they are 2 great lads to be proud of, Glad you had a great day, You are one of the nicest guys i know and deserve everything you get.

While we are on the subject what are Don & Dan doing project wise at the moment ???

 

Thank you, Steve. We think the world of you and Sue as well. Wish you guys lived closer.

As far as Dan and Don's projects, they are knee deep in two, but neither is HAMB friendly. Don is building an 84 Capri with a 460 Ford and C4. It will have a full cage and be a mostly drag car and sometimes street car. We have been shoehorning that 460 block in there and think we finally have it all figured out, but it is like putting 10 pounds of something in a 5 pound bag. Dan wants to tub it with Don, but Don is resisting as he would like to get it done sometime in his lifetime.

Dan is building a 93 Mustang and typical of Dan he is going all out. He has cut some of the interior floor out and is running subframe connectors through the car to tie it all together. It is also going to have about a 16 point cage, and he is tubbing it out for some 12 inch wide wheels under the back. He is going to use a 351 roller cam motor and 5 speed and he wants to use it as a daily driver. This is the Mustang Don gave to me and that I realized I would never get around to, so I passed it off to Dan. I haven't seen him so excited about a project for a while, so it was a good move to give him the car.

But I still keep him hot rod focused because he helps me on my rpu project and does all my welding for me. So, that is what we have been up to.

Don

 

Hi Don and glad you and the boys had a good evening out cruisin'. Which son had or still has the Tudor Ford, Don jr or Dan,I think it is Don. Is that been pushed back into the corner or sold?

 

Hi Whip. Don now has the 30 tudor as well as the 46 tudor. We keep trading cars among the 3 of us and somehow Don ended up with most of them in his shop. He has enough projects now to last him for the rest of his life. His plan, I think, is to finish the Capri then move on to the 46, then on to the 30, that is, unless he buys something else in the meantime. He has accumulated so many cars, motors and parts that he has had to rent the shop next door to our shop and he has that one all to himself now, so Dan and I are alone in our shop.

Don

 

Very cool build! I am enjoying this thread. Have you considered a longer bed than what you first mocked up? It would make it look balanced. Wish gas was that cheap here, its about $1 higher :O

 

Tanks, MA Fan. No, I wanted this one to kinda look like a Model A drag truck that I saw and loved when I used to go to Pittsburgh International Dragway in the early 60's. I've always liked the bobbed pickup bed look and this car was the perfect candidate for doing it that way.

Don

 

Did you guys ever figure out the TIG machine?? I'm sure it'd be helpfull with all the cage work!!

Paul

 

Did Don jr come to his senses and sell that boat that the fish always new to run and hide when it poked it's bow out toward the open sea? He will have to do a thread on the other site or has he followed you here too? That '46 would be Hamb friendly wouldn't it?

 

Paul, actually, Dan has been doing some tigging. He did part of my subframe and he has cut up a bunch of scraps and has been practicing. He still feels his welds aren't good enough for serious stuff, and if he makes a weld that he doesn't like he is grumpy for the rest of the day.

Whiplash, Don still has the boat. He doesn't get to use it much though because of working 5 days and then playing in the band another 4 nights. Summer is tough down here to go boating anyway because of the heat and it generally rains every afternoon.

I got the body off of the frame on my rpu project and am cleaning up the subframe in preparation for welding the tunnel and floor in. With the humidity we have been having it rusts almost overnight so I have wiped it down with metal prep, which seems to be slowing down the rusting.............as long as I keep my hands off of the bare metal. I should have some pictures of the welded in floor to post by the weekend.

Don

 

Thanks Don, I'm just starting the trans tunnel in my car. I've been tring to think thru it. your picture have made it easy!!

 

I'm glad there was something there for you to use, Paul. I haven't done many steel interiors like this, but the templates I am making out of poster board and careful measuring is really helping. I'm actuallly surprising myself that I haven't had to scrap a few mistakes so far.

Yesterday and today I worked on getting more done on my firewall and tunnel. While Dan was working on his car I got all of the subframe and underside of the body cleaned with Ospho to get rid of the surface rust that was forming almost overnight. Now it should stay a little better until I get some epoxy primer on it.

We decided to add some more cross pieces to the subframe we built. We put two pieces of 1 x 2 under where the front of my seats will be, and a 1 inch piece of c channel under both sides where my feet and my passengers feet will go. This is just to make the floor that will go on top of these a little more rigid.

I got all of the tunnel pieces cleaned up and drilled holes every two inches so Dan could rossette weld the panels to the subframe and to the firewall. After some clamping and fitting he welded it all up for me, and also welded up the two long seams where the trans hump meets the driveshaft tunnel.

All that is left is to grind down all the welds and smooth everything, then I can start making up the two floor panels out of some more 18 gauge. I'm pretty stoked to see it get this far tonight, and welding it all in really made everything rigid. Here are some pictures of where we ended up tonight.

Don

 

Not bad for an old fella and a punk kid

Its looking excellent Don, you will be terrorising the streets in it soon i reckon

 

First off this RPU is bad ass, exactly how I constantly tell my wife I would like to build one!
Second...Sorry to hijack your thread, I know this is a stupid question, but when you mount your M/C under the dash like that how do you check/fill your brake fluid? This would be no big deal if you could remove the top of your cowl, but on my 47 coupe there is no chance of that, I had thought about making it where I could remove my cowl vent to fill through there.

 

Thanks, iwana. It is a constant battle to keep the bare metal from rusting. It is so hot and humid here that even if my arm brushes the steel it is rusty the next day. I am using a rust remover that is acid based and I use a scotchbrite pad then a rag to remove it. I call it Ospho because I have used that product in the past, but it is actually a similar product that I found at Home Depot that etches and primes the metal a little. The metal will still rust, but not as fast. I have to get the interior in primer soon as it is becoming a problem keeping it clean.

Thanks, Steve. This old fella is feeling it today. It is 2 pm and I just got up ! Dan and I were at the shop until 4 am this morning, trying to get the welding done. I bet he's feeling it at work today, but he did good for me, sticking around to get this part of the build done. Lately we are well known at McDonalds drivethru, because we stop and get breakfast after 3 am so many mornings.

Thanks, n847. No hijack at all, my threads tend to go all over the place anyway, and I like them like that..........a lot more fun IMO.

In a small roadster like mine it is a problem with the underdash MC because of space. You have to check the fluid through a vent door, or in my case through the old gas cap. But it can be done.

In your 46 it isn't so bad because they make a remote fill reservour that, as long as you can mount it higher than the MC, will allow you to check and fill the fluid from the engine room. It mounts on the firewall. But they also make some neat underfloor setups for your car. My Son Don has a 46 that he will be doing someday, and I think he is going to a power brake setup under the floor. Just something to consider.

Don

 

Don I remember trying to teach Dan how to tig weld last september with sweat running into my eyes I can't ever remember being so hot, It was 90 odd degrees outside so heaven knows what it was in the shop. The highest temp we ever see in England is probably 85F and I thought that was hot

To build a car in such high temps you have my utmost respect.

 

You are right, Steve, it is like a furnace down here sometimes. Luckily, the past few days it has been overcast and raining pretty much constantly, so the temps have been below 90. It was only 80 when we got to the shop yesterday, and that is cool for here. Still, even though I work in shorts I am still sweating like mad and we go through a case of bottled water in a couple of nights. My constant battle is trying to keep rust from forming on the bare steel. Winter is SO much nicer in Florida.

Don

 

Hello Don,

Another good looking build sheetmetal wise.

Look what followed me home yesterday:







It's been sleeping since '91. Plans are a few bars to sfi & tin interior. Whish I had your skillset for tin work. All I can do is weld it up.

Keep me posted on the progress.

Paul

 

Nice car and instructive thread - thank you.

 

Very nice work!

 

Will still be watching to see what happens with the box.

 

Thanks Don...I was originaly planning on running the under floor MC but I've seen a couple under dash mounted units that I really liked and it just got me to wondering? If it meant hanging something else on the firewall I would probably just go under the floor with an inspection panel. Then I could run a small remote filler up the fire wall if need be.

 

Paul, that is VERY cool. Looks like somebody is going racing.

Thanks, Hasty, Shoebox50, and Blue One.

n847, I have to agree that the underdash unit is pretty neat. Only reason my Son is not probably going to use one is because he is going to eventually put a/c and other stuff under the dash that would be crowded out by having it there.

These cool evenings thanks to Hurricane Debby has made it more pleasant to get some stuff done on my rpu. Now that the tunnel , hump, and firewall are at least welded in I can concentrate on the floorboards. Since my frame is kicked up 4 inches in the front, part of it intruded right at the beginning of my floor, so the floor will have it's own kickup on both sides to clear that. Before I can start making the flat floor sections I had to make some covers out of the 18 gauge to go over those areas.

I spent last night making cardboard templates of both sides, and it took some time to get them right because of the odd shapes on every side. There is the firewall in front, the trans hump on the insides, the cowl sides on the outside, and then a 4 inch dropdown at the back to meet up with the final level of the floor.

Once I had the templates so they were tight against all sides I transferred their shape to the sheet metal and cut it out with the nibbler and bandsaw. Then I bent them to the right shape on our brake, and drilled a bunch of holes around the perimeter so Dan can rosette weld this new piece to the other pieces of sheet metal and the subframe.

As you can see in the pictures, the piece I made for the passenger side is slightly narrower than the drivers side and I did that on purpose. I wanted as much foot room for my gas and brake pedal on the drivers side, and also I wanted as big of a hump as possible on the passengers side so I could access the transmission dipstick and also have room for the cooling lines to come off of the transmission.

Tomorrow night Dan will weld these in place for me and then I can start making templates of the actual floor. Here are a couple of pictures I took tonight when I was done.

Don






I know it looks like those kickup covers take up a lot of valuable foot room, but they really don't. The cowl on this Murray body is deeper than the usual Briggs 29 body, so that space up there is sort of wasted anyway. I think I can use that area on the passenger side to mount my fire extinquisher out of the way.

 

Last night we welded in the two front kickup covers which now allowed me to start making up the two floor pieces that go from the front of the body to the back on each side.

I made a template of the shape of the floor out of construction paper that I laid down and taped up so that it gave me the exact shape the metal floor needed to be. (Thanks Dan for that tip, it worked really well ) Once that was done I laid it on top of my 18 gauge, transferred the template shape to it, and then cut it out with the nibbler.

Surprisingly, the steel floor actually fit when I laid it into place, and it only needed a little minor grinding so it was a perfect fit all around. We then drilled about 37 holes around the perimeter and on top of the cross pieces so we could Cleco the floor down, and those will be replaced with rivits when I finally fasten the floor down.

I am going to do the same thing Dan did on his rpu, we will first use 3M panel adhesive on top of the subframe, then lay the floor down, and use Clecos to hold it until the panel adhesive sets up. Then we will remove the Clecos and put rivits in their place.

Here are a few pictures of the drivers side floor laid in place. We are going to roll some beads in the floor before we install it, to make it stronger and add some detail. Proably tomorrow night I will make up the same floor panel for the passenger's side.

Don

 

It's looking really nice in there.

 

Thanks FM.

Claymore, I just asked Dan the same question tonight because we did exactly the same thing when we built his floor in his rpu. I thought the bead rolling might stretch the metal and distort it some. But he said no, after he rolled the beads in his floor panels every hole still lined up perfectly when he reinstalled the floor. So, I guess the distortion is minimal.

Don

 

Looking good Don and I was about to ask that same question but I suppose the beads won't be massive so it should pull the panel any.