Hot Rods The "Whatever" project

A friend in North Carolina is restifying an MGB with an electronically controlled engine, and it requires a drive by wire throttle assembly. So he sent me the MGB original throttle pedal assembly for the Whatever project. It keeps all of the control stuff funny old British car parts repurposed. I may have to shorten the pedal part a little bit, but the shape of the arm looks like a good fit.

 

Dave, are you slowly turning into a Tea Drinker ?

 

Well, I'd say only if it were Long Island Iced Tea, but I don't drink anymore. I do like scones, however.

The nice thing about using those funny British small car parts, is they are small! And my feet fit on them. Oh and there is the cost aspect. Either I had them or a friend. And free is always good!

Been sidetracked lately on other things. Hopefully February will allow me to get back to the garage. And the engine to Boyd's.

 

I need to get over and see progress

 

Look what got delivered today! Been on back order since September. How many orders did it take for Speedway to make a run of them? Certainly nicely done.

I'm glad I plaigerized Marty's body mount method. And firewall! The way that the body is bolted down to the frame should keep it in alignment when I have to cut the side out to install all of this.

Anybody got tips, tricks and pictures from installing a door either post them or let me know what the thread is where you detailed the install. I can use all of the help anyone wants to provide.

 

I've done a few.
The trickiest part it to keep the front edge from hitting the body when it opens. To accomplish this (without resorting to a 4-link hinge) you must place the hinge pivot point ahead of the front edge of the door. I suggest you mock up a door pillar and work out the placement of the hinges inside the piller, in pockets. On the ones I did on my tub I used 1916 Maxwell doors that had hinges that had pivot pins placed ahead of the door front. They also are quick-release, i.e., if you open the door 90* and lift it up it will disengage from the hinge pockets and detach completely.
Genius.

 

Thanks for the tips. I'm not too good with woodworking, so I'm thinking that I can make the inner structure from steel and glass it in like Marty did for the turtle deck on his roadsters. I'm kind of thinking along the lines of what Legends cars have so they can have door bars. But different. Sort of...

Id still like to tie the firewall structure to the rear roll bar support hoop to stiffen the whole structure. Can you tell I'm an engineer and always overthink everything???

 

Any updates??

 

Nothing of consequence. I've muddled around with little bits and bobs, but other things got in the way. For instance, I acquired a set of F1 spindles last year. They are beefier than passenger car front spindles, so I have tinkered with them getting them ready to accept the front brakes. The inner bearing adapters are the only parts that needed to change from Speedway's kit for passenger car spindles. And I'll be using one of those tie rod ends that accepts another one for the cross steering link.

Got a list of to dos and to acquires. And the engine still hasn't made it to Boyd's Motorwerks yet...

Oh well, things are starting to get back to normal. And it's warming up!

 

So a little bit of time in the garage today. Mostly cleaning up, as it has been since October since I last cleaned up the mess. Test fit a few things, made some measurements, made a plan for the exhaust system, realized that I need to move the steering box towards the rear a couple of inches and get/make a longer pitman arm to speed up the steering a little bit, organized all of the T10 transmission parts a bit better to begin with its rebuild...

Yeah I got nothing real done, but I'm in a position to get some things done. Oh well, tomorrow...

 

in texas it 's "i'm fixin' to "........

 

'Bout time for you to come out of hibernation!!! Glad you're doing OK!!

 

Latest news. Finally got a radiator on order. Turns out Speedway's chopped 32 radiator, the 6 inch chop one, will fit inside the track nose. It should arrive this week.

Now the reason why I went this way? I was looking at the cost of a custom built radiator, and it was crazy money. So I've been scouring the internet, seeing what was available premade. I looked at Mustangs, older Chrysler products, different racing radiators, nothing was quite small enough to fit inside the nose.

Then I saw an old article about Speedway's 32 lowboy kit. And low and behold, there it was, a small radiator! Went online and checked out the dimensions. I'll have to trim the mounting brackets a bit, but hey, what's a little trim off the sides?

Been tinkering with little stuff still. Gotta get some pictures of the stuff so you can see the progress, no matter how small.

Like a good friend told me decades ago, do something every day, no matter how small, and it will get done.

 

Glad you are making progress. Been on bodywork for the 2 man race car and 1921 Dodge. Slow but sure. Coming along well. Will stop by some day heading up to camp.

 

Sounds like a plan. And I'll have to get over there again to see all of the projects you've done...

 

And I forgot about an experiment with fiberglass over the weekend. A while back, Maggie was in the hospital and was having a cast made for a brace for her left foot and ankle. The gentleman making the cast was using fiberglass orthopedic casting tape, which is a prepreg glass and resin material. And it is water activated, and sets up in20 minutes or less, depending on the temperature.

He gave me a spare package of the material so I could experiment with it. I was thinking this might be a solution to my aversion to working with the normal stuff.

And now for the rest of the story as Paul Harvey used to say. My neighbor has a phony rock fountain made of fiberglass, and it has a couple of cracks in the bottom. BTW he got it that way for FREE. Yes I believe he's half Scots i.e. cheap, as well.

We ground out the damaged area and cleaned it up, cut some strips of the cast material, and applied it. And it did set up fast! However, I don't know if it will work to waterproof the cracks. It's a fabric made to breath when used as a cast for a broken limb.And I don't know how strong the bond is to the old composite. We're going to laminate another layer of glass over the 2 patches with a solvent based resin to get it waterproof.

So I guess in the long run I'll learn how to mess with the real thing by the time we get the fountain done. Total cost to me: $0.00, but the experience: priceless!

 

There you go! Good for you! Repurpose that tape. I like to say I am in night school being taught bodywork by a friend. Learning patience and doing things the right way. He is a master at this. I jokingly call him Picasso. Very talented individual indeed. Just like this forum a wealth of knowledge. It take alot of time and practice to get a body done right. Have the hood in process of being worked over at the moment. Hope better half gets well.

 

Thanks Don, she's getting better every day. Lots of ot and pt. I'll text you tomorrow or Thursday and fill you in.

So I guess the trick with the cast tape is once opened, get it ALL wet and use it quick! It would probably be good for making patterns. But it doesn't hold water.

So ratrodder and i will have to learn how to do it right...

 

Right up your alley. You are a researcher. You know the drill!! Glad the Mrs's is doing well. Yes home tomorrow but heading back up north on Thursday. Take care.

 

DaveG, home run on the Speedway Radiator, hope it works out for you .
My regards to the Mrs.
In the mean time “ Whatever “

 

We'll get it figured out! Might take a few tries, but we'll succeed eventually. Just not sure when I'll be able to make the trip - the next few months is looking pretty wild on my calendar.

 

No problem. I'm in the still collecting parts stage, and have lots to get done on the chassis.

Hey Stretch, any leads on 283s for me yet? Hopefully I'll get the 327 to Boyd's next week...

You guys know the saying, so much time, so little to do...

Wait. What?

 

Spent some quality time in the garage today. Took some pictures of the new radiator. Made a plan for the mounts for it. I'll be spending some more quality time in the garage grinding the remnants of the first crossmember removed from the front of the frame when I took out the buggy spring and its big ugly mount. Now the pictures:
Here's the mockup on the left, altered slightly in height only so I could see if the Speedway deuce chopped radiator would fit in the nose. The new radiator is obvious.

BTW: I have been accused of stating the obvious! It's what I do...

 

Man I hate it when I do that! Hit the wrong thing on my tablet. So I'll continue on regardless.

Nice fit! In the first picture, you can just see the remnants of old crossmember by the right side mounting bracket on the radiator. Here's a picture of the area: And yes it's fugly down in there. And I know I'm going to have so much fun grinding that weld off. And it's on both sides of each frame rail. And I have to plug the hole as well. I think I'll be taking a bit of the front apart!

Looking closely at the sides of the radiator, it has brackets welded on to bolt to Speedway's loboy chopped deuce grill shell. Interesting to see that the track nose will almost bolt on to it as is. I'm thinking that I can integrate the mounts for both, and eliminate the support structure that is in there now.

 

Drat! I DID it again! One more picture:
Lookingin thru the front of the nose, it looks like a good fit. I should be able to seal the nose to the radiator easily, making sure that all of the air coming in thru the nose makes it thru the radiator. And there's plenty of room for a water pump mount fan, and I'm going to make a shroud so it pulls thru as well. And yes, that tube crossmember will be inside of the shroud.

Of course I'll need to ensure that the air can get out of the engine bay. I'm going to try to run full side panels. I'll need to have vents of some sort. Suggestions, pictures, other places where I can plaigerize your idea of what the vents could look like are as always much appreciated.

 

Maybe we should change the "submit" button to a big lever, one-armed-bandit style, so you know without a doubt what you're about to do... might make your tablet a bit unwieldy of course, but sacrifices must be made!

 

PICTURES I've got PICTURES! And a few sentences for you.

I finally got the front suspension out of the way to get rid of the ugly front crossmember holes. And the ugly is gone!
Yup, just cut it right off! Can you imagine all of the grinding and then cutting 4 circles out, welding and more grinding? And I might not need to splice new sections of 2x3 onto the ends. I've been working on the crossmember to support the radiator, and I'm coming up with a little twist.


So I started by making 2 of these uprights that the radiator will sit on and bolt to.

A section of 1x1.5 rectangular box section tubing and some more welding and I have a crossmember. I'm picturing a plate hanging straight down from the gussets on each side of the first picture, that will bolt to them. And a hoop just behind the radiator and nose to support both. We'll see...

So while the front suspension was apart, I swapped out the Speedway spindles for a pair of 1948 Ford F1 spindles. Now there's nothing wrong with the Speedway spindles. They are forged, just missing the steering arms. They use bolt on arms, which isn't the look I want for the Whatever project. The F1 spindles are dimensionally the same as 42-48 Ford passenger car front spindles except for the diameter of the inner bearing races. So the only thing needed to use them is a bearing adapter with a larger inside diameter. Here's the same spindle with all of the brake kit parts. Clearances all worked out fine.

And I now have a bunch of leftover bits and bobs to adapt disc brakes to old Ford spindles. And get a 5x5 bolt pattern, not offered by Speedway. That just took a little bit of effort to find the right rotors. So I have 5x5 on both ends of the car, the old qc rear with NASCAR style full floating hubs, and now the same bolt pattern on the front.

I can use big GM or 5 lug truck wheels. Currently I'm using truck Rally wheels, but in the future I'd like to get something that looks like the old Halibrand solid disc wheels. But that's going to have to wait...

 

Lookin good!!

 

All right, some good progress!

 

4 pictures of today's progress. They don't really show anything clearly. Some day I'll learn how to take pictures that actually look good. Okay so here's the pictures:

Lower left side of the radiator crossmember and where it needs some bracketry.

Steering clears. The drag link goes underneath.

Roadside view of the crossmember. Yeah I know, big deal...

From the engine side.
Early on, I made a hoop and sheetmetal fabrication to support the nose. It might just be a good start to sealing up the nose and radiator so all of the air coming in thru the nose makes it thru the radiator. We'll see... That's why we never toss anything out!