Thanks for that reference @alanp561. I know you're trying to "steer" me right! I'm aware it will throw out my steering, including widening my turn radius which was thought of before making cuts in the tank. I wasn't aware of the actual Ackerman's steering geometry but I understood I was making a decision that would negatively affect drivability. There is extremely minimal room up front. The nose cone is incredibly skinny and I only have a few inches to work with. There isn't much room to work with at all. I spent hours on Tuesday mulling over the front end with regards to mounting the leaf spring. Utilizing the normal configuration with the tie rod in the rear of the axle will get in the way of making a suitable leaf spring mounting structure that I would be comfortable with, while allowing it to fit within the confines of the tank. Belly tanks are all about making things fit where they can. Even though it will have license plates, with the lakester being hardtailed now and coupled with my bad back I won't be driving the car much except to shows and events. I may change my mind when I start driving the car, but for now I'm not too worried given the amount of drive time that will be had. I appreciate you sharing all the knowledge!
This may help. This is what i did for an adjustable spring mount, it's drilled to give 1/2'' increments. I also used a flatter spring. Make sure you set the spring mount pad to the angle of the spring. As for your tie rod now out front (so is mine) you could move (bend) the steering arms out closer to the wheel/tire, this will make steering much better. since the wheel base is now much longer your steering arms will not need to be bent out as much as they were bent in, if you follow. JW
The way I fix anti compression tubes inside frame rails its to drill a 3/8" hole close beside the through bolt holes. I turn the ends of the tubes square in my lathe so they fit snug, and push them inside from the open end, then a simple plug weld in those holes into the end of the tubes will hold them in place. Grind the welds flat, no need to do both sides, the bolts will hold them.
I'm late to the show. When I saw you were in Southern MD I thought PAX. We fish the old Target Ship. I remember a movie when I was a kid with Mickey Rooney driving a Tanker on the road. I think that's the car Mike Wolfe of American Pickers found a couple years ago. It had an Indian in line 4 for power. When I was a kid I loved that car. i think I have a link to the one Wolfe found. You may see some details you like? Joe. https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/10/unusual-belly-tanker-found-by-mike.html
Sorry to take your post sideways. A British chap responded to the Mickey Rooney car above, that they were building F3 500 racers, with 500 CC motorcycle engines in the late 40's and 50's, and he thought the MR car was one of those? It does look a lot like some of the early F3 cars, but the Indian 4 was 77 CI which is over 1200 CC's, so it can't be an F3 500 car.
I will have a small progress update soon. I have been extremely busy and my whole life has been changing dramatically on all fronts within the past couple of months. Due to such, I will no longer be meeting my self-given completion deadline of the first week of October. Giving myself that deadline was a big motivational push in the right direction, but the car should definitely be completed by Cruisin' Ocean City, MD 2024 in May to be debuted in the Convention Center for the big show. I have no doubt about that. I am in the middle of selling my house, so the next progress update will be completing the front end / front leaf spring mounting structure to get the lakester on all four wheels. This will enable me to transport the belly tank as a full rolling chassis for the move.
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is indeed, a serious set of new, evolving challenges ! Make dam sure you tag and bag all of the parts, so that when you get to the new residence, you don't get confused! Bravo on taking on this project !
Small update. It's been awhile since my last progress post and figured I'd throw you guys a couple of bones to chew on. Life has been MAD BUSY and hectic with countless life changes taking place, but I've still managed to make some slight progress here and there. Keep kicking the ball, right? Here's what I've accomplished since my last set of updates. - Welded in the front frame crossmember which connected both frame rails. As with the rest of the frame, it was ground down and smoothed out to help combat future corrosion. - Came up with a rough design for the front leaf spring mounting structure utilizing some old school CAD (Cardboard Assisted Design) once again. -Started the fabrication process of the front end mounting structure out of 1/4" thick steel plate. Some things to note for the design of the front end leaf spring mounting structure. I am fabricating it as to have some fighter jet design cues. When you are sitting in the lakester facing forwards, or from a top down view the front end mounting structure will somewhat resemble a mini fighter jet. I will be cutting / coning / shaping the forward end of the mount into a point to resemble the front fuselage of a jet, and the lateral axis portion will resemble the wings of a fighter jet. As far as the strength of the structure itself goes, it will be welded into 3 sides of the front crossmember; the top, aft, and forward faces. There will be almost no weight up front so this is extreme overkill and its strength will be more than sufficient. The front leaf spring will see a forward tilt of 2.5 - 5 degrees to raise the front radius rods up a bit. As of right now, there is no adjustable setup being made. The front of the tank cones in aggressively and there is very minimal space up front to do anything while ensuring the top half of the tank fits over everything properly. I've gotta make do with what space I got! I'll be finishing the front end mounting structure here soon. After it is finished and the lakester can roll around as a complete rolling chassis, the next step will need to be to weld bolts / studs to the front radius rods. I also need to drill 4 holes in the side of the bottom half of the tank where the radius rods will mate to the tank. I still need to come up with a hardware solution for mounting the radius rods through the bottom half of the tank and the frame rails. I have already sourced some rubber spacers to sit between and act as padding between the tank and radius rods. At that point, the bottom half of the tank will be mounted to the chassis and I can remove the support blocks that have been supporting and positioning the lower half of the tank! All of this will absolutely NEED to be finished before my up and coming move in order to properly and safely transport the belly tank to it's new home (which is only a half hour away, no biggie). Enjoy the new updates. Next update, the front leaf spring mounting structure should be completed.
It's good to see you pressing on. One thing I'm seeing that concerns me a bit; those ground off welds. Know that a good portion of a weld's strength comes from the bead that sticks up. any good competition class inspector looks for this. Maybe you like the look, but it surely weakens the joint. Or maybe you don't feel comfortable showing off your welding skills at this point...BTDT! don't let that mess you up! at least now you've got a fresh, clean place for a nice bead. I am not a natural born welder, but I'm a persistent person, so with LOTS of grinding and rewelding behind me, I have learned what works and what doesn't. Keep going, I admire your drive. It will be a cool car!
You guys might be wondering why there has been no progress in the past 2 and a half months. I had a large lightning storm roll through my area shortly after my last post in September. A bolt struck a telephone pole on my property and made the whole house go haywire. Tripped the breakers on both HVAC systems, fried a couple of smoke detectors, and popped irreplaceable fuses inside my welder because I had it plugged in. My welder lived a very short life. I was on the last step to get the lakester 100% on wheels and under it's own weight without support blocks underneath the tank too! Such is life. I spent 20 minutes fiddling with the welder trying to get it to work with no luck, and then sealed the deal when my inner Hulk emerged and I RKO slammed it into the concrete garage floor 6 times. The main dual-pole circuit breaker leading to the garage is half dead so only half the garage has power, and not the half with the welder. My property is up for sale, so the lakester build will be on hold until the house sells and I get moved into the new place, whenever that may be.
I guess I do have one update I could toss you guys. Since building is on hold for the time being, it doesn't mean I have been completely idle. I found this sweet WW2 Aviation Oxygen Breathing Tank which will be, you guessed it, the fuel tank! Based on my measurements, I believe my drivetrain will have plenty of room, so I am planning on working with my custom driveshaft length to comfortably accommodate the placement of this tank over top of it. It's quite large, and overtop of the driveshaft is the best place I can think of for the fuel tank. The oxygen tank is too large / long to place it sideways in the lakester, so it will have to be positioned longitudinally. I'll plan on placing the gas cap on the flat flanged side on top, with the bottom feeder side on the gauged end.
Sorry about the lightning strike. We had a massive thunder boomer roll through a couple of months ago that killed one of the two new garage door openers and took out all the 120v outlets in the garage. A new GFCI took care of the outlets but the home warranty service we use said we were out of luck on the garage door opener. Seems they don't cover "acts of God". Congrats on the oxygen tank find. Looks like it was made for your project.
Thanks Alan, I think the tank is going to be perfect for this lakester! Unfortunate to hear about your luck there as well! Mother nature these days... Still working on my house sale. Getting some nibbles, but unfortunately no bites on the property. No mechanical work done on the lakester still. I'm planning on getting the belly tank moved into my fathers house temporarily where I can continue on with the build in the meantime. The lakester might see 2 moves before completion. For now, I'll be dropping down from a 4-5 car garage down to a 2 car, so quarters will be a bit tighter and the build process will be that much more challenging because of the space constraints. However, the two car has the benefit of a lift! I'll be able to lift the chassis off the ground when the time comes for some easy welding on the underside of the car when I start work on the chassis structure and supports. We'll be playing a super fun game of "Shuffle all 10 cars around" all the time. Still need to source a new welder but i'll take care of that when the move happens. At this point, due to how busy I am with work, i'm not sure i'll meet my build completion deadline in May. Too much going on but that's okay. All I know is that this belly tank WILL get completed at some point. Just enjoying the process when I can get out in the garage and tinker. Cheers to all. Hope everyone reading has a great holiday season.
There were a few Belly Tank builds going at the same time and most seem to have fallen off of late. This one has been quiet since December! JW
Hey all! Should hopefully start making a little more progress on the lakester in the near future. The lakester has found a new home since I sold my house in March (I still own it, don't worry!), and it's not where I'm currently living. It's about 15 minutes down the road. The garage it's in currently is JAM PACKED full of stuff and it's impossible to move around in there. Before the move I did manage to find a potential seat option that will need some modification if i'm to get it to fit. Came out of an A4 Skyhawk. Hope you all enjoy this update. I meant to update you guys months ago but ended up getting busy and forgot! The next item on the to-do list will be getting the front end leaf spring mounting structure welded up when I have the time and space to work on it. Cheers!
Nice work. I get that using an aircraft seat is cool on several levels. But just looking at the real estate that you have to package it in it would seem that there will be very little of the original seat left. It may be better to design your own seat that will be more ergonomically close to optimum. Save the aircraft seat for a porch swing or display furniture or wall art.
I have been leaning more towards making my own seat, and I very well may have to do that given the space constraints. The tank at it's widest is only 22" in diameter. After I get the engine and trans locked into place with the radiator and firewall, i'll see what kind of space i'm running with but you are correct. I would have to hack up this seat to get it to somewhat fit, but it would also seem out of place given the size. Nothing wrong with fabricating my own seat for this kind of project!
Took a visit to the belly tank yesterday while visiting with family. Getting a game plan together. Getting ready to dive back into the build here shortly. Working on gaining more space in the garage so we can move around easier. As you guys can see, it's PACKED in there! I did buy some wheel skateboards to place under the belly tank's wheels for ease of movement and to gain some height for the engine hoist. Diving back into the build, I still need to source a starter plate. Can anyone here confirm if this starter plate is the correct plate to use for mating the Mercury 8BA Flathead to the Ford F1 3 Speed utilizing my new bellhousing I picked up? It is from my understanding that I don't want the starter to be angled. Hard to tell from the pictures. This is a new platform for me, so maybe one of you more experienced gentleman will know. After I get the correct starter plate in, I'll be able to mate the engine and trans and get the assembly ready for mounting into the car! After the engine and trans get mated together, I'll be able to make some serious progress on the build rather quickly. EDIT: THIS IS NOT THE CORRECT STARTER PLATE!
Small, but big update. Talked with the owner of Van Pelt Sales in Ohio this morning and had a discussion about starter plates. He helped me identify that this is the correct starter plate for my application. Part Number #6366-8CM. The starter plate I posted in the previous post #237 is incorrect. Glad I waited to talk to a professional during business hours. There was only 1 single starter plate with the proper part number I needed on eBay so I snatched that sucker up faster than a toupee in a hurricane. Delivery should take place within the next week to a week and a half, by the end of October for sure. When it gets here I should be able to mount the 1950 Ford F1 3 speed top loader trans to the Mercury 8BA flathead. Progress! Overcoming 1 hurdle at a time.
Found some time this evening and ended up making a bit of progress on the lakester. First time in a long time making any real progress. I swapped starter plates, and finally mounted the smaller bell housing and starter onto the 8ba flathead. Progress!!! I will need to source longer starter plate to bellhousing bolts, as well as the trans-to-bellhousing bolts. The main components mounting bolt holes all line up : engine - smaller bellhousing - trans. Pleased about that, however I've run across a new hurdle that will require more green paper to leave my wallet. I'll need to source a new clutch. The yoke on the trans is too big to fit inside the 9 inch clutch. Does anyone know off the top of their head which clutch kit I'll need to get? 1950 ford f1 3 speed to 8BA. This is all new territory for me so I'm learning as I go.
Is that a Northrop gruman tank or do you work for Northrop gruman? I'm a bit confused there lol. Anyway it's cools to see people still building these
The Jalopy Journal
