Projects The bucket of ugly! A de-uglifying thread...

I'm heading to Famoso on Tuesday for the CHRR swap meet next week so spending this weekend cleaning and polishing parts. Didn't know there was one this weekend, my loss.

 

It's usually not very good, so I doubt you'll be missing out.

 

Supposed to meet Chip there so he can perforate my '46 Merc truck hood, hoping he brings the Bucket.

 

Nah, Tim...Still way behind on my job Schedule. Supposed to be getting the `50 Ford project in, and I haven`t got rid of the two that are still in the Shop yet....

 

Thanks. I have been looking at a spring over set up, but was curious about the perch. Your photos help sway me in that direction. Thanks!

So, today, I picked up the 9" Ford housing. The 1 1/2" x 3" metal for my frame will be in my friends shop in a couple of weeks. He's getting a frame table from a friend of his and in about 3 weeks.......... we'll be burning steel!

My enthusiasm and drive is at a fever pitch. Hopefully, this time next year, I'll be posting a "first drive" video.

 

Cool, I hope you do a buildthread here when you got started.
I remember reading about your first build at the other forum when i started the research for my build.

 

Fred, glad to hear you are getting started on this and have plans to go full bore on it, looking forward to watching it get built. I'll second the motion for you to post a build thread on the HAMB!

 

Well, this weekend was pretty good! Went to that swap meet with a couple friends and my brother - between the four of us, we spent more getting in and parking than we did on parts lol. Oh well.

I also talked to Kiwi Tinbender Paul on the phone for a few minutes. He was working on my grill shell, so I'm super stoked about that! He also told me that ***us on here scored a panel full of Twin Blues, including a 160mph speedometer, so I tried to pry that out of him... but no dice. I wouldn't sell it, either, so I'm not too upset! Sounds like it's going into a cool project, and that's all you can ask for.

Conned my brother into helping me sand out at the garage. He is a really big help, and I'm proud to call him my brother! I gave him a choice on projects, and he opted to get the sand cast aluminum brake scoops smoothed and ready for polishing. They look awesome!



I was meanwhile filling the pits in the other suspension pieces. While I waited for that to set up, I started sanding one of the backing plates.



Today, I went back out there and final blocked the front suspension pieces after filling. I found a few spots I missed, but I'm gonna let the powder coater take care of those. Gotta move forward lol. My welder buddy happens to live right next door to the powder coater, so I can just drop these off, have him weld the panhard bar, shock mounts, and wishbone bungs up, get them coated, and picked up finished products. Pretty stoked to be taking the next step!

 

Love to see progress, very cool and those scoops are the cats meow. JW

 

Chips' wheeel polishing method.,

 

Who is this Chip fellow you are referring to ?

 

One of my old cars had a 94-1/2" wheelbase and to me was just the right length, everything close with no extra room; current car has 101-1/2" wheel base and has a lot of extra room at the front even after using an ugly long pump etc.

Best way is to have the radiator, engine, and body in hand and design from there. Bud Lang's "Homebrew Frames" article in Jan '74 Rod&Custom describes a good way to determine frame
size and layout. The rest of that issue is a pretty good T bucket bible too.

 

This is how i made to get the "right" position for the front crossmember.
It will be just in front of the radiator so it can fit betwin engine and crossmember.
And this is my advice how to get "right" propotions on the hotrod.
First where do i want my rearwheels on the frame.
Mount the body where it looks good to the rearwheels.
Mount the engine where it looks good to the body.
Fit the radiator where it looks good to the engine.
And finally the front crossmember where you think it looks good to the radiator.
And if to much frame still sticking out in the front cut it off.

 

And this is how i did to made the blueprint of my frame.
Put the stuff togheter until i hade my wanted look.
Used 2x4 woods as a simulated frame.
Take the mesurements and whrite it down on a cardboard.
And then started to build my frame.

 

Fred, for what it's worth, my 26 RPU wheelbase is 108.5" The body has been stretched 4" and the bed is 34" long.
The front axle is about 3" forward of the front spring with the spring mounted to the sides of the front wishbones suicide axle style.
The front spring - cross member is right under the rad.
You can find all the pictures etc. on my build thread if you need.
Larry.

 

I did that for a customer's '24 T body, laid out the wooden 2 X 4s ($10 for the pair!) right on my frame jig, cut and glued/doweled the uprights on table saw, band sawed some 1 X 4 to shape for center crossmember.
Laid it all out in an afternoon and evening, tapered the fronts of the rails, set the body and 340 Plymouth engine/904 trans/rear end and configured a front member with axle, spring and wishbones.
Wise*** pals wandered in, looked it over, and one of the 'dimmer wits' asked if the wood frame would be strong enough for street use!
I said if it didn't hold up, I could add bracing.

Customer approved the layout, and the frame was duplicated with 1.5 X 4 rectangular tube, 11 ga.
The wood was fast and cheap to work with, very easily shaped...burned nicely in my shop stove when finished with.

 

Should have told them that you would make it stronger by wrapping the whole thing in fibergl***

 

Well, I managed to get the pile of front suspension pieces over to be welded/powder coated. Stoked about that. Now I've been kinda bouncing around on little things, deciding which one was giving me the least amount of grief.

I started with a couple of those forged brackets I've hacked up, like what's shown below.



And started making this bracket. Ran out of time to make noise, so I'll have to finish it tomorrow.



It will mount here...



And locate the panhard bar. The conduit is a template to take to a friend to bend out of some DOM tubing. It was the only thing I could think of to optimize the function of the panhard bar.



The plan is to mimic the bracket theme on the frame side mount as well as the rear shock mounts. Should be fun. I'm blowing through Dremel bits on those things like they're going out of style. But their price tags indicate they are in fact not going out of style... some type of anomaly I've stumbled upon...

 

But their price tags indicate they are in fact not going out of style... some type of anomaly I've stumbled upon...

I catch them on sale once in a while in the packages with another rotary tool (usually some variety of cheapo knock-off), but I've got a whole box of bits for the price of 2 or 3 individually packaged ones

 

Okay. Here is what I'm doing, as far as the wheel base is concerned on my frame. I'm using the build book from Total Performance as a guide. If you're not familiar with it, it has blueprints for building their ch***is. It's pretty straight forward and full of good information . For a standard body, the wheel base comes out to 102". Since I'm going with a body that is 7" longer than the standard body, that puts the wheel base at 109". This should be simple math. I hope.

A call to CCR confirmed the dimensions of their stretch body. So, I'm going with what I have found out. Naturally, I'll measure twice and cut once. Or..... buy more metal. AndersF brought up a good point. Mock things up. Check for fit and cut as needed.




Pics of the rear end coming soon!

 

Droooool............

 

Just one more.



The ideas are a flowing. Now.......... someone donate to the Winters rear end fund.

 

Have you guys seen this one? It's been on eBay a couple of times and if someone would buy my '09 CVO Road Glide, I could have it sitting next to the A in my garage!

 

WOW! Thats a late 50's/early 60's build or someone nailed the look!
Love it!!!!

 

Yes!!! That is *****in!! And as Bill mentioned, either a gennie old build, or somebody absolutely nailed it.

Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

The seller states that it was a late '60s build. I like it, except for the headers...I can see me burning all kinds of clothing and fleshy bits until I figured out exactly where I'm allowed to be!

 

Tfeverfred,

If you are using the Total Performance blueprints for your frame and wheelbase dimentions , I have a couple critiques that may help as I am using one of their frames.

1. I wish the kick up in the rear was an inch or so higher. I'm running a 31 inch tall rear tire and to get rear back down to a reasonable level I only have two inches of rear suspension downward travel available.

2. From the rear of the front crossmember to the front of my SBC block the distance is 18 inches (to water pump pulley groove is 13 inches). Do you need that much space for a radiator and fan? I'm running a blower so the space is filled up on my car but if I was not, that would be a lot of dead space.

If this is of no help then disregard but these are things I would think about if I was doing mine again.

Mike

 

Started making the rear shock mounts. You can see where I had them on the outside of the frame before with some boring brackets. I think this idea is better. Once again, I ran out of time to make noise, but I basically got one side done.