Hot Rods The Belly Button Bucket Build Thread

Just getting caught up, lots of work getting done it looks like.

 

Been trying to push through the last week off to finish strong. Thinking I’ll take a break to go to Beaches cruise in at PIR this afternoon. You going? I owe you a beer.

 

Oh man! I can't tonite. I am moving out of of my office by the mall and into a new space I leased across the street from McMinimins on the waterfront (excellent happy hour). I have my daily PU at work full of filing cabinets. Such fun. Professional movers coming Saturday, I've been in this suite for the last 15 years. Lots of crap to get rid of.

 

Nice- that’s just down the hill from where I live. If the pro movers aren’t getting the job done, lemme know if you want some help.

 

Thanks for the offer, they better be worth the money I’m paying them.
Need an electric fireplace?

If so, grab a truck and get over here. Heavier than it looks. Has a remote, works nice.

 

Awesome offer, but no thanks! I’m pretty stocked up on remodel supplies lol

 

Just a thought Tim. That fireplace could be used to rapid cure resin. Okay, I'll go back on my meds now...

 

Sabbatical, Day twenty-six.

Today was a pretty decent day. I started off running errands, and after lunch I did some sanding. The fiberglass over the wooden support structure is starting to look like something. I believe one more round of touch up fiberglass, and an afternoon of sanding, and I’ll be done with that part for awhile.

This afternoon, I went to the local cruise-in, and one of the local buckets that I really like was there. I talked to the owner for about a half hour- he answered all my questions- mostly about going through the state inspection process, about his top, paint and upholstery. I’m really glad I went. There was another guy there with a Fordor A pulling a glass Mullins trailer- had a nice chat with him as well.

When I got home, I zoned out for a bit then got back on the wiring. Through some test circuits, I found out I’ll need diodes and resistors to make the park lamps and front turn signals work in unison (thanks again for the diagram @RodStRace). I also did some poking around to confirm a couple assumptions I had, which proved to be correct. When I get further along with this, I think I’ll try to make a video as there’s a lot to cover. Pictures and text can only tell part of the story. I also touched up the front of car schematic, and started on the wiring board schematic. 2am rolled around and I was basically cross-eyed so I’m calling it for tonight.

 

Sabbatical, Day twenty-seven.

Today I did some more fiberglass, some chassis scheming, and more wiring diagrams. I think I’ll draw all the switch diagrams, then start ironing out the amp draw, fuse size, wire size, and wire color. I’ve got some of that done already, but quite a bit to figure out still.

 

I've often thought about a quick n dirty T bucket, this thing certainly is not that, thanks for taking us on the journey

 

If you are referring to the build process Tim might say "dirty yes, quick........no way"!

 

This thread is like waiting for fiberglass resin to dry that you forgot to put the MEKP in…. Don’t give up on me - I got lots left up my (itchy) sleeve!

 

Sabbatical, Day twenty-eight.
More sanding, more fiberglass. Slow progress today, running errands and yardwork got in the way. Tomorrow is another day, though!

 

Sabbatical, Day twenty-nine.

Today started out slow but finished strong. In the morning, I did some yard work, re-homed the extremely high maintenance pet lizard’s food supply (roach colony) into a larger enclosure, and FINALLY got the extremely high maintenance lizard, who also happened to be constipated, to go poop. It’s amazing what a warm bath and tummy rubs can do. Luckily, this time I didn’t have to pull out the secret weapon of prune puréed baby food.

In the afternoon, more sanding and more fiberglass. I’m starting to become convinced I may need to add a second layer uniformly across the wooden bracing, because I seem to keep sanding through in a few places (and discovering more air pockets). I know it’s not a big deal, but since the effort has been put forth, I’d like to see the reward. I guess we’ll see how sanding goes tomorrow. It’s like 90% there right now, so I’ve come a long way - just needs a little more.

After dinner, more wiring diagrams. Also, I suppose I can show off one of the items I’ve been keeping secret. This-to me- is the holy grail of the Greenline gauges: a mechanical 8,000rpm tach. This one is dated to 1964 and looks to be NOS. I managed to snag it off eBay from a cool dude named Bruce. I mentioned earlier that I’m going to great lengths to minimize the load on the electrical system, and that includes bulbs. I managed to find some LED replacements for the 53 series bulbs that Stewart Warner used in their gauges. Man, what a difference these make! It’s hard to capture with a camera, but the non-LED bulb took a 3 second shutter to get the exposure (which is why you can see stuff in the background), and the LED took just a click of the shutter since there’s a lot more light. Not annoying levels of light, but, “Hey that’s pretty sweet” levels of light.

 

Here's hoping the sanding ends up at Tim-levels of quality soon.
The gauge is beautiful! Glad the new bulbs are working for you.
I assume that with the LEDs the dimming function of the switch is non-functional, hence the unused terminal.

 

In the light switch I have, there is no dimming function. The unused terminal is the difference between Park, and Tail/Instrument lights. In the switch, if you switch on park lamps, tail/instrument lamps come on, too. But in this switch, if you go to low beams, or high beams, in both cases park lamps turn off.

If you look at my diagram and compare to Speedway’s, you can see the one not used is what they call out as park lamps. If you run park, tail, and instruments off the bottom terminal, they stay on with low and high beams.

This is somewhat irrelevant in my situation because the board handles this for me. Park in connects to Park out (there is no instrument or tail light out- you use the park terminal). In the board, low beam in connects to both low beam out and park out - same for high beam. I verified this with test leads the other night. For continuity sake, I chose to use the tail/instrument light terminal of the switch as the park switch. Hopefully that makes sense - it’s easier to look at how the spade connector is mounted to the switch. You can see that as you pull the knob out in one, two, and three positions - all three send 12v to the bottom terminal.

This is one example of a minor deviation in switch’s intended function vs my wiring. The various “windshield wiper” switches are another. I think a short video of explaining that when I get there would be valuable.

 

Got it. That Park (4 corner lights) VS Headlights (tail lights only) is common.
I guess going with 4 corners in park and headlights is a personal choice.

 

Sabbatical, Day thirty.

I had zero motivation today. Managed to get out and do some sanding in the afternoon for an hour or so- more is needed. I think I’m gonna go through with the 2nd layer of fiberglass on the wooden structure. I’ve basically all but sanded through the current layer. The good news is it’s smoothing out pretty good- just a slow process given my current skill level. Lay-up, sand, find air pockets, grind them out, sand to bare wood, repeat. It is getting better- just needs a uniform 2nd coat to seal everything up. Then I need to be careful how I sand it in order to not remove too much material.

This morning I had an idea to revise one of the switch wiring designations, but I wanted to confirm it would work before going too far. After some poking around and a couple test circuits, I’m happy to say it’s gonna work. Rather than re-post drawings multiple times I’ve already done, I’ll wait till they are in a final rev state to re-post. All this to say, I revised rear of car, front of car, and one of the switch wiring designations.

After that, I continued on with more diagrams. I’m approaching the point of being done drawing all the components, then to go back and update after amp draw calculations, wire size, wire color etc.

 

Glad to hear it's getting there. SO much sanding for a sabbatical!
Curious why you chose a pressure brake switch over a Normally Open one. I've heard they leak after a year at best. Old style looks, but modern electrical seems the NO switch would win.

 

People tend to have good luck with the Harley pressure switches maybe that’s the route he’s planning on going.

But to that point, make sure it’s easily serviceable.

 

I chose to use an in-line pressure switch for packaging reasons. In order to get a NO switch to interact with the pedal, it would interfere with real estate I already have plans for - 93.4% certain on this after some off-camera mock-ups. The switch is reasonably serviceable and not mission critical, so I’m willing to gamble a little here. The online reviews from Speedway and Summit are pretty good for the variants of the pressure switch- if they were that bad, I’d expect to read worse. It’s been long enough I don’t remember where my switch came from- I’d have to dig through the receipts, but I know it isn’t from Harley. If this one fails, I’ll try one of them next. Thanks for the tip!

 

Sabbatical, Day thirty-one.

This is my last day of freedom. It’s raining-ish outside so I didn’t push the car out to sand. I focused on finishing the component wiring diagrams - now all that’s left is to sort out the sizes, colors, fuses.

You’ll notice evidence of another element I’ve kept hidden for going on a year now - a clock. I contacted Classic Instruments to create a Greenline-esque 2 5/8” clock, that will live in the dash waterfall, which is inspired by the C1/C2 Corvettes.

Additionally, there’s an MSD box- that’s to help the plugs stay alive in traffic while battling valve overlap.

Lastly, there’s a small stereo. I’m a metal head and I need my tunes. This is a Kicker 50w motorcycle amp with 2 4” speakers. For its size, it actually sounds pretty good! The plan is to put the speakers in the seat waterfall- long ways to go before I can manifest that project.

This post will conclude my wiring diagrams for now, and conclude my sabbatical. I’m gonna get outside and go for a walk, then prepare for my return to prison and clean up for company later in the week. My entire kitchen and half my living room is occupied with wiring chaos. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. I’ll be back later this week hopefully with a sanding update.

 

I'm just waiting for the final wiring diagrams. I intend to plaigerize them! There's no way in hell I'd ever draw up anything that good. I'd probably just put stuff where it looks like a good fit, and string wires...

 

...and spray paint 'em!

 

Hmmm...
The *very* rare, possibly one-of-none GreenLine clock. .
Except you have one to prove it! .
Marcus...

 

Time for an update. I didn’t get much done during the week, but this weekend I managed to make some progress. There was some wiring/electrical scheming going on in the background, but nothing picture-worthy yet.

I focused on getting the fiberglass bracing a uniform surface, which I’m happy to report I finally got there. I ended up adding 2 layers of chopped mat to most surfaces, then sanding smooth, which is probably about a layer thick now. After I had everything smoothed up, I went over it with some woven cloth I have on a 3” roll. This went really well- minimal air pockets and much easier to work with. Between the mat and cloth, I believe I’ve added significant strength with minimal weight.

I feel like I can move onto the other areas of the body that need strengthening/closed up. With each layup I learn and become more comfortable. Lots to do still.

First picture is post-mat sanding, remaining pictures are post-cloth layup.

 

Looks pretty good man.

I feel you on the glass thing. I've been beating on mine the last couple days, and boy sometimes it works, and sometimes it just does everything else.

 

i am a little late to the party. here is a tip. get a pressure pot from horrible freight. put the resin inside and it will take all the bubbles out. resin modelers do this too.

 

Thanks for the tip! In this case, my air pockets are being created by the material itself not wanting to conform to the surface, especially with the chopped mat when trying to do an outside 90* corner. I’ve managed to get better at this with practice, but I believe the only way to really fix it would be generous radiused edges and drafted surfaces. I know this for next time. If I experience air bubbles in the resin itself, I’ll go pick up a pressure pot. Thanks!

 

I'll solve this problem another way: I'll buy Tim a round trip ticket after he figures it all out!