Hot Rods The "Whatever" project

Soon, sometime soon.

Spent part of the morning getting a new motor on my belt grinder (also an old device, made by someone for Montgomery Wards). Now it runs at 3400 rpm roughly. It's much better now.

 

First roll out of the garage. Feels like progress, even if not really... And from the front: Next a body...

 

Hey, now we're getting somewhere (again)! Grab a chair cushion, throw on some safety goggles, and go for a spin around the cul-de-sac!

 

Just a little going on, mostly the unseen stuff, like making bushings, rod end spacers, odds and ends not worth taking pictures of, let alone making any more of than this sentence.

Came across an old issue of Hot Rod magazine, October 1981. It has coverage of that year's Pikes Peak Hill Climb. Here is page 18, with pictures of some race cars from that year.

 

Man! I hate it that I have uncoordinated fingers! Hit post reply when shooting for upload a file, then did it again after editing to get the picture in. Oh well, onward thru the fog...

The sprint car center right is Bobby Unser's car talked about above, being driven by Bobby's son, Robby.

The car first raced in 1959, and here it is with safety updates (the full roll cage typical of its day), and a different hood/nose configuration. That's all that changed for all practical purposes. The suspension is still the same as I copied. Robby raced it at least 1 more time in the mid 80s, and somewhere I have apicture of it from that race too.

So by my counting, this car was 22 years old, with no major changes to anything affecting suspension performance, well except tires, hp, and probably better coilovers. I think my suspension copy of this setup will work ok!

 

Funny story. Bobby was an owner of some Super8 motels back in the 80s when the new owner of our local Speedway was also a swingin dick with many Super8s. Bobby had Robbie spend some time up here in sprint cars for experience. Dad had told me how small he was so one night after the races he was holding court in the pits after the races and dad put me up on his shoulders to get a better view. Just as soon as I opened my mouth the crowd had one of those sudden silent moments and all the 50 or so people heard was some kid say "yer right dad, he is a shrimp!"

 

Tman, I love it! I bet your dad wanted to slink away and leave you behind...

 

Finally! The new body arrived! Now I've got to get back to work on the "Whatever" and maybe rename it! Nah, I like whatever...

It is sitting too high, and the turtle deck is also too high as I just set it all on the frame and haven't had time to get back to it since it showed up Wednesday. Now to determine whether or not to channel it an inch or 2.

At least it's new, no rust to fix,or dents to repair. I'm going back to Marty Strode's #10 roadster project to get ideas for mounting the body. His method is genious, so why not plaigerize it. And I may extend the rear of the frame eventually to match the length of the turtle deck. Whatever!

 

I set mine flat on the top of the frame rails, hung the turtle deck where it looked right and built a base for the turtle deck out of angle iron. Your tastes and results may vary.

 

Dave, it’s going to be nice for sure

 

Thanks, I'm old and don't deal well with technology.

 

I may set the body flush on top of the rails or slightly channeled (1 inch max),and the turtle deck will be in the normal location relative to the body lines, so I am very much in the same boat as you. I'm probably going to extend the rear of the frame at the same time. Hey it's only steel, cut and weld... not like wood! I still haven't found a board stretcher or wleder, and glue sucks!

That's my opinion anyway.

I like your push bar/wheelie bar. I'm an old roundy rounder, so my back bumper will look appropriate to my history. My only real problem to solve is clearance for the right side rear suspension. I so far can't make myself cut the body to clear, so am looking at ways to get it to clear without if possible.

 

Sometimes the solutions are so simple! I plaigerized Marty Strode again today. I have been agonizing over getting the rear suspension to clear the body, in particular the right side hairpin didn't clear the bottom of the body.

So I was trying 4 bars, and torque arms with 2 bars, and a few other ridiculously complex systems, when I had to 1st raise the ride height anyway by an inch. It wasn't enough to clear the former hairpin, but it helped.

Next I mocked up a hairpin like Marty made for his recreation of the Spaulding track roadster. BTW it's probably going to be stronger once done, so I may even make the front the same (thanks for such detailed pics Marty, it was easy to copy...).

And if you look at the right side picture closely, you will see that to get the geometry back where I want it, the front mount needs to be half way between the 2x3 rail and the lower 1 1/2 tube. Oh and there just happens to be a square tube brace there, perfect for putting a bolt boss thru. So the only change to the frame in that area is to lower the boss 3 or 4 inches. Oh and plug the previous holes. It's only steel, easy peasey...

So then putting the body on I realized I need to lengthen the rear of the frame behind the rear axle. Again it's only steel. I'm going to make the 2x3 tubing extend to the back of the turtle deck's inside, and the lower tubing to match. Thsi will give a solid mounting place for a fuel tank, the battery, the rear nerf bar, the rear coil overs, and eventually when I figure out how to make it, the rear under pan to match the turtle deck.

 

Was having troubles getting the pictures to load. Had to fix the problem so here are the 4 pictures to show what I wrote above.

#1-right side showing the Strode design hairpin under the body. Zoom in and note the square tube just under therod end. It will be drilled and the bolt boss welded into it for the front rod end.
#2-closer look at the front attachment point.
#3-left side.
#4-3/4 rear shot showing the back of the frame (sort of) and just how short it is relative to the turtle deck.

Hey it's coming to me. But I'm still trying to figure out how to get the short WIDE feet down in there. I may have to use an automatic of some sort to get rid of 1 pedal, even tho I really hate it...

We'll see!

 

Oh and the turtle deck is settinga little low...

 

It's coming along! I don't need to squint quite so much to see the shape of the car now...

 

Anyone ever notice it's the little stuff that eats up so much time when building any project? You know hanging something on the walls for SWMBO for instance. 1st get the widget and figure out how to hang it. 2nd get the hardware out and take it to the room you're working in. 3rd get the tools you think you need. 4th start putting up the widget. 5th go get the 1 screw/nail/hanger you realized you need. 6th go back and start over. 7th...

Well you get the idea. With the "Whatever" I was making some simple flanges yesterday to make a removable section of tubing in the lower rear frame rails. I bandsawed out the shape from 3/16 steel plate, ground to the layout line, and did the layout for the holes.

First was to drill a center hole to bolt them together for drilling all the flange connection holes the same. Center punch, and center drill the2 sides. Start drilling the 1st side, no problem, drilled thru 8 flanges straight and true. Yep you guessed it, the other side the drill drifted.

Now I was using my drill press and everything was locked down, and leveled. I could feel the drill having a diferent cut as it went thru, a sign that I should stop and check things out. But no I knew better.

Fortunately I didn't drill with a very large bit, a 5/32, so the solution is to just set them up in a milling machine and use the proper size end cutting end mill to pop the holes thru that side. The only problem, I don't currently have access toa milling machine since I retired. But there is a solution I learned from a machinist way backin the early 70s. It involves grinding a drill bit differently and making a heavy drill jig to guide the bit thru the flanges. 1. At. A. Time.

Still quicker than making new flanges. I'll post pictures of the setup once done. It may help someone down the road.

 

I like how it is going.

 

Dave
I was spoiled for years being a machinist and having access to machinery but when that dried up I found myself needing to get "creative" at times.
I've had occasion to fix "out of location" holes like you are faced with by using end cutting rotary burrs in my little drill press by making a clamp over drill guide out of simple mild steel flat stock, probably not going to work for multi use jobs but as a one-off repair it may just save the day.

 

Yeah that's similar to what I did. The head of the machine shop way back in my formative years taught me how to grind a drill bit flat that will cut almost to the center. And this is just the situation it works on, where there is a clearance hole, albeit mislocated, to clear the chips. And same here, make a guide bushing sort of thing. I was lucky in that the first flange in the stack had the center hole in the correct location, so I just popped the 3/8 hole thru and used it to guide the "special" drill bit. The only other thing to do is take a honing stone and dull the sides of the flutes so they won't auger the hole out of round, just in case.

It took a while to drill all 8 flanges, but it was a lot less work than starting over, or welding up the drifted holes and grinding smooth and redrilling the 8 flanges. And a secondary benefit was the center hole in the flanges allows me to use those plugs you always save when using a hole saw (you all do save them don't you?) as a centering thing to weld the flanges on the ends of tubing. A picture tomorrow will be worth a thousand words, so I'll take a picture that will explain the above.

Oh well that's all for tonight. Pictures tomorrow!

 

Hey, tomorrow was three days ago now! We want pictures, we want pictures!

 

Got some work done the last few days. Lengthened the rear of the frame to match the turtle deck (2 times). Added 7 inches, not enough. So added 2 more inches. Rigth to the back of the turtle deck. And the beauty of doing this? I hadn't planned too well for getting the QC out of the car in 1 piece. The extensions for the lower rails are flanged now and 9 inches long. pull those 2 sections of tubing, and drop the QC out the bottom.

With the frame extended, there now is room for an ATL 8 gallon fuel cell I had in the shop. I have to move the filler cap but that's easy. You can just see the cap near the rear edge of the deck opening. It either needs to be lower to clear the decklid, or taller and relocated to protrude thru the body. If I do that I'll use an old Moon flip cap I have had for about 25 years. We'll see...

Still undecided on the way to get the rear coilovers attached to the frame. I still don't want to cut the turtle deck if possible, but its not looking good. And finally tonight, the front of the rear suspension attachment bosses. To get the geometry back to correct they need to be lower. And that square tube just happens to be in the right spot. A new hole, some welding and it's there.

So for the rest of the week, back allowing (I kind of overdid it today...), I need to figure out the seating position, which leads to the steering position, which gives me a sense of where the pedals can fit in, which leads to ...

Oh and motor mounts are on the to do list for a rework. I am going to make sure the engine is level with the frame rails. This makes the back of the block parallel with the firewall. Which means I might go back to the engine plate from early in the thread. And then plaigerizing Marty Strode's #10 track T, I could make a cowl support hoop, just at the edge of the dash. Bracing between it and the forewall/motor plate might be a way to have hanging pedals. I have some ideas on how to then mount the master cylinders so they are not on the firewall, and still easily accessible. We'll see...

No one who's built a t ever said there was so little room in one of these things. At least I didn't read/hear/realize just how small they are. People in Henry the 1sts days must not have been 6+- feet tall and 250 pounds. Okay so I'm a fat @$$, what can you do?

Well enough for today.

 

With your nice new frame extensions real low all the way to the rear do you have any concerns that that may be an impediment to going into semi steep driveways or going up on a trailer?

 

Are you sure you want an answer?

 

Well....... I know the answer, but thanks for thinking about it for me!

 

Not worried too much. There's actually 6 inches of clearance at the rear of the frame. It has a little bit of a rake to it front to rear,and right at the rear kickup a 4x6 spacer block on the 6 (5.5 actual) inch dimension just clears now. The real beauty of having the frame this way, is that should there be a flat or suspension failure, the two bottom rails will act like a sled. We'll see however.

You have probably seen East Coast dirt modifieds from the 70s and 80s. The bottom fraim rails were typically 2x4 tubing, with front and rear extensions that had the same shape. That was my inspiration for the bottom rails.

So now with the problem of the day: I still can't think of some elegant solution to getting the rear coilovers tied to the frame. I really don't want to cut the turtle deck, but it's looking like the best solution is to cut a neat slot and come off the frame to outside the turtle deck, with a small diagonal brace to keep it from moving too much. We'll see...

 

Well after a day or so of muscle relaxants, which don't mix with working with power tools, I was able to get some work done on the rear suspension coilover mounts.

The first step was to bore holes in each frame rail with a 1 3/4 inch hole saw for a pair of thru sleeves of 1 3/4 od 1/8 wal DOM Here's the after with the sleeves in, as well as a lower support tube of 1 1/2 square tube. This all is what led to the muscle relaxants. So a day or 2 with no progress.

And here is today's effort. The 1 1/2 tube slides into the sleeveand will be bolted in when I determine the correct length. There will be a lower diagonal brace attached to the square tube with some as yet undesigned hopefully clever removable attachment. This will allow this assmebly to be removed for body assembly. Once the body is fully mounted (I intend to plaigerize Marty Strode's method used on his Track Ts) I will be able to locate and bore a nice clean hole thru the side of the turtle deck, with no big ugly slot.

And should the 1 1/2 1/8 wall DOM flex a little bit, I can fit a section of 1 1/4 1/8 wall DOM inside it to carry the load. We'll see...

 

Is there any benefit to having the top of the shock any closer to the frame? So it's closer to, say, 60 degrees, rather than the ~80-85 it looks like it's at now? That probably would also ruin your nice clean hole thru the turtle deck, of course...

 

The angle a shock makes from verticle lessens the damping force in the vertical direction, making the chassis "think"it has softer shocks, and with coilovers, springs.

All the shock manufacturers have charts that show spring and shock effectiveness at various angles, and they don't recommend an agle greater than 30 degrees, with straight up the preferred orientation. My first setup was at the max (I was being lazy using premade tabs for the chassis mounts), so when I came up with these brackets I decided i could stand them up as close to straight as practical. The final angle is TBD when the body is finish mounted

 

Thanks - taking notes over here...