Hot Rods The Arin Cee Roadster

They also made a earlier Duntov cam that they called 097 and it set on 12 & 18

 

I need one of these Chevy V8 (1964 - 1967 283 and 327) oil separator canisters to complete the early motor for Arin's roadster. If you got one and don't want a fortune for it, send me a PM. Thanks!

 

There is a short one found on 4 barrel motors and a long one found mostly on 2 barrel motors and they also had a plug with a metal 90 degree elbow or PVV that replaced the road draft tube

 

I guess the shorter one would be the one I'd need. This motor will eventually get a 3 deuce setup. I will look at the bottoms of the intakes to be sure. Thanks for the tip.

 

You can always flatten the end of the long one so it clears the bottom of intake. Frank

 

I owe you an apology, Frank, this is (was) a solid lifter motor, which I didn't know until we pulled it apart today. I don't know what grind it was, it is not marked, but the cam had two very dished lifters and two very flat lobes. The last guy who rebuilt it didn't get all the crud out of the block before he reassembled it. Two clogged oil passages = one ruined cam. The good news is that I was going to replace the cam anyway, with a new Comp Cams "Nostalgia" L79+ grind which should be stout yet very street friendly. The good news is that even though it's a two-bolt main block it's got a forged crankshaft.

The short block is in really great shape, freshly rebuilt with lots of crosshatch still showing and no ridge at all. It will be going out to the machine shop tomorrow to get disassembled, hot tanked and reassembled with fresh rings and bearings. My guess is that the cam went flat shortly after it was put back into the car following a complete rebuild and it was retired after that.

 

With Joe's help once again the three engines are off to the machine ship, two of them never to return. The two I will not be using are rebuildable and will make good cores for somebody and so will not be scrapped. The one I will be rebuilding for Arin's roadster will be rebuilt using the best quality parts at Automotive Machine and Supply in Cleburn, Texas. While there it will also be balanced for smoother operation and longer life. I will issue updates as we go along.

 

Joe is making great progress on the motor for the new hot rod at the machine shop. This is the crankshaft being polished yesterday. We (mostly Joe, to be perfectly honest) are putting a lot of extra time and effort into making this a really great high performance motor, not just a "rebuilt". Lots more info to come on this as it progresses.

 

While Joe Anonymous was busy building the new motor at Automotive Machine and Supply, I decided to rework the windshield. My friend 1-Shot here on the HAMB had given me a really nice 2" chopped windshield which, though absolutely top quality, was a little too "street-rod-ish" for this build. (If you will go back a few pages on this thread there are some photos of me installing it. I also did some very heavy modifications to the cowl at that time to get it to fit properly.) So I did the right thing, tore it all off and started again with a rusty and bent original frame, cutting it 4" this time and leaning it back over 20 degrees to give it that "moving while standing still" look that was so popular on the "gow jobs" of the late '40s.


This is the finished product after three days of work. The windshield frame was a throw-away with lots of rust, bent parts and extra holes. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.


I cut the 4" from the bottoms of the uprights at the corners. Both were rusted through, one being totally unsalvageable, the other needed lots of repair. So I eliminated them. Problem solved.


The windshied posts I used were the same ones from the previous 2" chopped windshield installation. I leaned them back a little bit more and then shortened them another 2" for a total of 4" to match the windshield.


The secret to making a radically leaned back Model A windshield with solid posts look "right" is to prevent the windshield corners from sticking out past the front edge of the posts. This involves major surgery to the cowl, a little bit of which can be seen in the lower left corner of this photo. (The whole story on this appears earlier in this thread.)


And here's the finished 4" chopped windshield with 20+ degree lean back ready for final bodywork and paint. It all looks just as it should, even on the inside, with no awkward protruding windshield corners and a really smooth looking cowl line. Lots of work, but worth every drop of sweat. Arin will be pleased.

 

Looking good. Frank

 

I wanted the dash in Arin's roadster to be very '40s looking, without the razzle-dazzle of the later hot rods, so I settled on this neat, surface-mount S-W gauge layout. Eventually it will get an ignition switch, a starter button and a light switch in the center area below the two large gauges. As a concession to modern safety I'm also going to use an aftermarket-type turn signal assembly with indicator lights on the dash alongside a center-mounted high beam jewel.

As it turned out I had almost all the gauges in my stash of stuff, left-overs from previous projects or take-outs from cars I've owned, remodeled and sold. I had to step up for the ammeter, the tach and the gas gauge - another concession to modernity - but the rest was all pretty much free from my shelves of stuff.


This is where I stopped for the night, more to come soon. I'm very pleased with the overall look.


The layout had better be right on because there is no turning back from here.


The layout from the cardboard discs was transferred to the dash meticulously, I didn't want to make any mistakes.


I played with these cardboard discs for weeks, trying to get a layout that I liked and that would have a period hot rod look. This is the final design.

 

Eric they make a self canceling turn signal that’s mounts under the dash and all you need is a rocker switch to activate it it’s about 4x6 and about 1 in. tall PM me if you are interested in it . That way you can keep it off the column for a more traditional look. Frank

 

If you want to keep the dash a little cleaner have a look at CTaulbert's 33 build, uses a second globe in a couple of the gauges to flash green

 

Eric I believe this is a motorcycle accessory. I got mine on Evil Pay Frank

 

Thanks very much for the suggestions, guys. I will look into them as I get closer to doing the actual wiring.

 

Today I finished up the diagonal cowl braces.These are necessary to prevent "cowl shake" when the gas tank innards have been removed from a Model A cowl. Side-to-side braces won't get the job done, it must be triangulated with diagonals to stablize the cowl. The "bite marks" in the braces are where I had to remove a little bit to allow the gauges to clear. Don't worry there is channel material welded to the backside of the braces so that no strength is lost.



The braces are temporarily attached with a combination of bolts and tack welds because there is no way to drill some of the necessary holes to allow a totally bolt-in installation. This will be remedied at a later time. But the entire cowl structure bolts together and can be disassembled so that each component can be worked on separately. You can see that the lower quarters are unbolted and removed already, the top of the cowl (gas tank) unbolts as does the lower firewall. The area looks complicated and messy because there is already a side-to-side brace in place that I previously installed which holds the steering column drop. This is also just tack welded in place and will be permanently attached later on.
My old black coupster had wicked cowl shake because the tank had been gutted and a thin firewall installed by one of the previous owners without adding the necessary bracing. The stamped steel dash and small-gauge tubular support did nothing to help the problem. But when I added diagonal braces similar to these the entire problem went away.

 

I got back on the 4" chopped and 20 degree leaned back windshield this weekend and finally got it pretty well buttoned up. Once it's in primer you'll never know the cowl was heavily modified to accommodate the backward tilted windshield.


There are a million ways to do this windshield modification wrong - and I've seen most of 'em. But there's only one way to do it right.


Little bit of primer and paint and you'll never know...



Looks good, seals good. I'm happy.


I've probably got a hundred hours or more in this chopped, leaned back and cowl-matched windshield.
.

 

Nice job. This is an area that most garage builders don't take the time to make right.

 

Made a little progress on Arin's roadster this week:

I cut a template for the windshield glass from cardboard. I will have a glass shop cut the glass but I will set it myself. Getting quality glass work done on an old car is impossible in my area, even if you bring it in disassembled and ready to go. They all say they can do it but the prevailing level of quality work sucks...so I'll do it myself.

I also re-evaluated the placement of the indicator jewels and the switches in the dashboard. I had marked them out a few days ago but wasn't really happy with the layout, so I washed it all off and stgarted again. This time I'm happy.


Making a template isn't rocket science but it's got to be very precise, there's only 1/4" of depth in the glass channel to play with. I will "wet set" the glass using a silicone material rather than fighting with the old-fashioned setting tape.

I suck at drafting so it took me quite a while to do a final layout for the indicator jewels and the switches that made me happy. The switches will be (left to right) a starter button, a 2-position ignition switch with keys, and a light switch. That's it. The jewels will be green for high beam, amber for left and right turn indicators.

 

Good looking dash!

--louis

 

Nice

 

Quick update: I got the switches and the indicator light jewels mounted in the dash today. One more small step...

EDIT: I had a couple of people ask where I got the jewels I used. Below is the listing I got the indicator light jewels from on eBay - same vendor has several different colors.

 

Your efforts on the dash have paid off, it looks great!

 

Today I spent a little time finishing and detailing the welds on the windshield posts and on the ends of the dash I where I had filled and smoothed them. Then a final test-fit to be sure it will all fit together properly when the car is finally assembled. All went well, so now it's on to finishing up the steering column and column drop. That will be tomorrow...


Today's work pretty much wraps up the windshield and the dash prior to paint. The panel above the dash had been chromed in the car's previous incarnation as a street rod, but it was pretty crusty from sitting outside for so many years. But I cleaned it up anyway just to see how it would look. Still pretty crusty, but not altogether bad. I'll keep it for now.


I'm really please with the way the windshield turned out. The 4" chop and radical lean-back looks really good on the car and wasn't all that difficult...in hindsight.

 

Nice work. Frank

 

Screeeeeeeeeeeeching halt!!!!! Slight change of direction...so I've got this car (the one in the picture, not the Arin Cee Roadster) for sale ($22,000) to pay for it all. Check it out in the classifieds. (Some of the parts may seem familiar...but don't panic, all will be well in the long run.) I'll 'splain it all later...

 

Gasp... Nice

 

Okay...well...why a sudden change in direction for this long-term project?

Well...because it's a long term project it has "evolved" from the original concept of "as Arin Cee would have built it in 1952" to "how Arin Cee would build it in 2021". Huge difference? Nope. Arin is still Arin and his taste in hot rods hasn't changed all that much, but it has evolved, not with technology but with capability. Confused yet...?

Let me put it this way, it's been five years or so since the Arin Cee Roadster project concept hatched in my head. During that time I've either built or rebuilt three other cars, each better than the one before it. So in my own mind it makes no sense to go backwards and unlearn everything I've learned about hot rod building and design just to keep a concept intact.







So, I've decided to employ some of my newfound knowledge and skills into the Arin Cee Roadster project, and by moving the concept timeline up to the late '50s instead of the early '50s. This explanation probably is meaningless to anybody other than me, but to me it is very important to make this latest car the best one I've ever built. There was no way I could accomplish this goal without modifying the original concept, so that's what I've done.

By the way, I did talk this whole thing over with Arin and, after stomping his little feet and throwing himself on the ground in a fit of childish spite, he finally agreed to let me make these changes. He'll never change...

Stay tuned, more to come.

 

I just discovered this thread for the first time. I haven't read every word, but I've skimmed through it to get a feel for Arin's roadster. Great project!
I've discovered, somewhat regretfully, that I'm just not a roadster guy. I've owned two, plus a couple of convertibles, and discovered that open-air motoring only appeals to me about 10% of the time. I still love the looks of roadsters, I just don't want to drive them any more.
That said, I share your love of the look of early fenderless cars, especially A's on deuce rails with skinny tires. So I thoroughly approve of your project, and look forward eagerly to seeing how it turns out.

 

Great thread! Love that Phaeton as well!