foot room be damned I would have kept the Cleveland. I like your choice of mill, so do not misunderstand what I am going to say. For me a hot rod outruns the other guy. You were more likely to do that with the Cleveland. Never the less I like your choice of engine.
Took my Cleveland powered shop ute, to pick up the new to me front end. Purchased from a local rodder who decided to go ifs. Cleaned up the casting a little. Without getting to carried away. Added a coat of chassis coater black paint, to keep the rust away while I'm setting it all up.
Little more progress today, Turned up a driving punch, to fit the bushes in the stub axles Dug out a block, some old heads and water pumps and put them together for a mock up engine. Removed the booger welded 'tank' , then mocked the cowl together with the new tank and firewall.
You are getting rid of the ugly and making it Your own . Very cool build . Thank You for sharing Your project with us.
Bringing the real deal together. The former treatment was a mistake. You got it on track. Thanks for sharing your efforts
What a kool project! Thank you for taking the time to share your progress. Going to be very helpful for others to see your process.
Today's progress. Cut the ifs mounts of the chassis, then cleaned up one side. Still need to tidy up the other side Did some work to get the cowl gaps looking a lot better. Slotted a few holes, and reworked a couple curves on the repop panels. Slid the now shiny black, 9" back under the rear. Will be looking at options for a shorter coil over, or changing the mounting points, need to get it sitting a few inches lower in the rear
Picked up my trans adaptor from 'Old Time Speed' here in Australia. Very happy with the service. Will allow me the option to run either a ford t5, or muscle car era top loader, behind the flathead.
Have been busy on OT cars in the fleet lately. But have started making a bit more progress on the A. Assembled The front axle, stubs, brakes. Got it sitting in the right spot, then tacked the shock mounts and hairpin mounts in place. Mounted my t5 to the flattie block and started to mock up for fabricating mounts. Sitting on the trans cross member from the clevo/ c4 combo, I was around 20mm forward. Redrilled an old trans mount by 20mm, and the engine location now looks pretty good.
Trans is a T5 from a 90's Australian 6cyl falcon. They share the front end dimensions, like input shaft length etc. with the muscle era top loader. Shifter location is a little far rearward, but that's not too painful to remedy.
Aussie Clevelands are pretty pedestrian. Ford sent the patterns down there and they were used mainly for making destroked 302s. The heads were oddball too. 2V ports and valves with 4V chamber.
I can't figure out why the first builder put the engine so far back, especially on a roadster pickup. Perhaps he bought the driveshaft first and built forward.
I have 351 Cleveland's in both my aussie xy falcons. Both using those oddball 2v closed chamber heads. They make for a good combo, with 11:1 comp and the old F246 cam.
I can only assume the chassis was originally built for a 289/302 c4 combo. But it's still a long way back. It seems this little A has had many ambitious owners since the project was started, seemingly about 30 years ago, from what i can put together of its history. But no one had successfully achieved much with the build.
Being an Australian build, the disc brakes are so much easier for registration, so they'll be staying. The 9"and t5 are neither here nor there for me, being under the car. So they're staying. Looking at getting rid of the coil overs. And wheels and tyres are a long way off, it needs something to roll on while I build it
Plan on those as your last big buy. A friend was building a car right when Boyd's billet wheels became the street rod thing. He spent a lot of money and by the time the car was done that wheel fad had passed him by. He got about 1/3 of what he paid for them.
Was happy to come across these market place today. Set of 16x4 dodge wheels, should fit the build nicely being a decent early wheel with 5x4.5" pattern
Needed to add a clutch pedal, now I've changed to a manual trans. I got lucky and picked up this pedal box for not much money. It was well worth the price just for the pedal rubbers alone. If I can use the pedals or pedal box also, then even better.
Tacked in my motor mounts. Then mounted up my glass fenders and sat the cowl on for a look at the progress. I have found some front and rear fenders local to me, that need some work, so will be replacing the glass ones.
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