Hot Rods Spalding Bros Repro, for "Too Tall" Ganahl.

I should have it finished this morning, and it's not raining. It will photograph better outside, I can shoot some pics and post them this afternoon.

 

Great, thanks!

 

That exhaust hanger is SWEET! I am going to shamelessly copy that as soon as I get off this computer. Thanks!

 

I got the belly pan frame and sheet metal wrapped up. Here are some profile shots, bear in mind it will have the original pickup box in place.

 

Nice exh. hangers

 

Very nice!

 

I'm back at it, built the rear body mounts. Now I can square up the body, build the cowl extension and firewall.

 

What are you using for the pads?

--louis

 

It a piece of machinable nylon, possibly UHMW, I am not really up on polymers. When the body is shimmed up for the final time, we may replace it with aluminum, that will be Pat's decision. Once the cowl extension/firewall/dash is installed, and the hinged, flip-up section is completed, the front body mounts will follow.

 

I built the cowl extension today, it was necessary to fab a 1" radius die to form the sides in the brake. Using a s**** piece of 2" exhaust tube, and welding an 1/8" plate flush on the bottom, it will make bending the sides easy. On the early cowl, where the windshield sealed at the bottom, there was a flange that needed to be removed, in order to mount the hinge. More pics coming !

 

With the flange removed and top ground flush, I had a steel hinge with a br*** pin to use. After laying out the hole pattern in the hinge and punching 3/16" holes, and mounting the hinge to the cowl, a 90 degree angle was formed and attached the back side of the hinge. The extension panel tapers about 1" in the 8" width, after a couple of sample patterns, I laid out and bent the panel.

 

Now for the final fit, some notching was required to the front edge, along with t******* the sides. If you wonder why I make these "Bart Simpson" style notches, it allows me to cut the 90 deg corners and trim up to 6" at a time. After I settle on the angle for the dash, the excess metal will be removed, and a dash panel will be installed. Fabrication of the rear radius arms will be next.

 

Love the footbox / pan. How long does a build like this normally take you, Marty? Gary

 

Simply beautiful.
Do you plan to wire-edge the back edge over the instrument pod?

 

Gary, Do you mean the belly pan, or the Track Roadster ?

 

Frenchtown,
When I am satisfied with the dash angle, there will be a panel, welded in place like the original, with the upper portion of the firewall attached (with screws) to the bottom edge.

 

I see!

 

Duh. I meant the car. Gary

 

I built the rear radius rods today, they are shorter versions of the front ones.The mounting brackets are being cut, Once I get them, I can make the necessary cut-outs in the body sides to set up the front mountings. The rear axle construction will get underway, as soon as the 2" OD x .312 wall 4130 round tube arrives.

 

Looks great Marty....

 

I found this picture on another thread. The HAMB has a new member, Zac Spalding, he is the Grandson of Tom, and Bill was his Great Uncle ! Welcome aboard Zac.

 

Will you allow for a little more rear suspension jounce travel?

 

That shot was taken at El Mirage, right after the debut at Bonneville, I am sure as soon as they ran it on a rough dirt oval, it made it's own clearance. Yes, once we set it on the ground at the proper ride height, we will elongate the openings around the bars.

 

Today, Jim Lindsay brought the Blown/ Flathead, Modified/Roadster I built for him, back for some minor alterations before the land speed race season starts. He also needed a hood for his latest creation, I call it his "Fir-Wood Derby" car. It's powered by the same 212cc Predator engine , that we use in our motorbikes. I quickly roughed him out a hood. When we start racing these, "there will be splinters"!!!!

 

I picked up the rear radius rod brackets, bent them to the proper angle and they should work out fine. The mock-up steering box, torsion bar arms, stops and bushings, along with a sample 26"X 1" sample bar, will be shipped from Schroeder Steering next week. It will be great to get the torsion bar brackets, and the Roto-Flo shocks mounted.

 

Kinda what I did but better. Get ready for people saying it will never work.

Yes I've cleaned it since.

Gary

 

It's not that "it will never work". It will work but it is preferable to put the Heim bolt in double shear to eliminate the cyclical bending moment on it which could lead to early failure. It is important to realize that when striving for the most historically correct representation of a recreation car that building it as it was "in the day" often wins out over more advanced engineering principles, especially since those recreation cars will not be put into the rough-and-tumble service that the original endured.

 

I agree completely there are better newer rear suspensions. I did post these photos on another HAMB thread and got many "it won't work" answers. I've run them for maybe 20,000 miles, seen the same thing on old Indy cars. The cars we are building rears move maybe an inch or two and they work very well with that little movement.
Gary

 

I haven't chimed in on this discussion for a while, so let me do so on a few brief topics.
First, concerning the above discussion, note that Marty is using clevises to attach the radius rods to the hub plate, which are double-shear.
Second, I have the engine back at Bob McKray's, where he's blueprinting the shortblock. We have decided to go with new Ross forged pistons rather than using the n.o.s. cast JEs that came with it. He's sizing and bushing the rods with new ARP bolts. And I'm working on the full-flow oil routing.
I'm also collecting needed parts (with much thanks to Glenn Necessary's stash so far). If you look at the interior/dash photo, you can see that I need 7 large S-W gauges. I'm opting to use 2-5/8" flat-face, stepped bezel blackface gauges, because these I can get (and have 4). I need a fuel pressure gauge and two fuel level ones (one was actually used for oil level). I also need the large mechanical tach, and I am hoping to find an S-W tach-drive adapter that fits in the block between the cam and distributor (rather than the front crank-drive they used with the injection). This would mean (I think) a 1/2-speed tach rather than a 1:1.
This engine had a Nash-based Spalding dual point/coil distributor (and Mallory "potato" coils) with it when I got it 20-some years ago, but I foolishly gave it to some Inliner back then, not knowing I'd need it for this project. I now have two stock Nash 12-plug distrubutors, but not a Spalding conversion, which I really should have in this car. Any out there--that are available?
Last (for now), you'll note a hand fuel pressure pump mounted on the right side of the dash. I need one as seen in the photo, that I can make work.
Oh yes, also a set of 16 x 6 Lincoln wheels for the rear.
Contrary to what someone said, I fully intend to run this car on circle tracks once it's done. In fact, I'm even putting an early Ford trans in it so I can drive it around at certain events, just for fun. I've joined the WRA; it's not gong to be a museum piece.
Any help in finding needed pieces would be appreciated.
Thanks, Pat G.

 

Pat

Not wanting to run this into the ground I am using Ford Tie Rod ends to attach my rear radious rods to the frame witch takes up any little movement my rear T spring moves.

And I really wasn't knocking anything Marty is doing.

I love this build.


Gary