History Vintage "Cageless" Midget Picture Thread

Must be stretched into a sprint car. Awful long cockpit for a midget.

 

I was thinking the same thing....big cockpit for a midget. Denny Z.

 

I was lucky enough to be let loose in this Vintage midget built in Queensland, Australia in 1966, it's a (GM) Holden straight 6 with triple amal carbies.
The Ron Eagar Q20.

Peter Cunneen raced midgets & here is an early pic from the mid 50s.

Andy McGavin leads Peter Cunneen at Westmead Speedway, Sydney, NSW. Australia.


Youtube clip is from the Sydney Showground Speedway,Australia featuring Sherman Clevland USA & Bryan Cunneen AUSTRALIA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyYxEMbndLo

 

73" wheelbase so slightly longer than typical Midgets . I did stretch the cockpit to provide some leg room since I have to share that with a clutch and scattershield.This car has a transaxle in it so somewhat out of the ordinary. Running at the local hillclimb this weekend. Some test runs on Saturday. Fingers crossed .

 

Well we had a good day on Sunday . Here is a video clip of one of the runs. I now have some feel for the car and can set about fine tuning the chassis and the engine and finish the paint etc.

I query if anyone can answer the question about the steering box adjustment on the Schroder box raised above in post 4382 ? Two further questions regarding steering ;
1)what typically were the lengths of the steering and pitman arms on Kurtis midgets ? and ;
2) what ratio were the steering boxes used on the Kurtis ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnuT2_18_XY

 

In regards to Hilligas midgets, when did he begin assembling tube frame chassis. I know from prior post sprint cars were built in 1950 with tube chassis but haven't found a lot of info on the midgets. Were any chassis # stamped in these chassis, any photos of the cars? I know they look very similar to KK's but have some differences.
Many Thanks!

 

Anybody going to I95 speedway/Lake havasu this weekend?

 

Can someone post or lead me to some photos of the Badger midget "roadster" that were run in the past? I have a modeling project and am trying to find 4-view photos to help me along. It's actually for my grandson.

Thanks

Rick

 

One of the Bob Lockhart Badgers is for sale on www.bmara.com right now. Ad had lots of photos of the recently restored car.

 

WE My Wife & I can tell menny Max Reichenbach stories as she is his daughter and I drove for him His stories need to be told as he did a lot for racing Bill Krueger

 

Walt James Classic is on the Desert horizon:
Some video from last year:
link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc49DYAXlAo
Some photos from the event in 2003
http://www.westernracing.com/willow112903.html
Western Racing Association website
http://www.westernracing.com/

 

Can anyone identify this?




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

 

Bump


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

 

I'm surprised Stan hasn't answered this.

My guess would be 1949.

There is a photo of a tube framed Hillegass car on this thread, page 126 post #2513.

As regards the tube frames, Hillegass longerons were one piece with the kick-up probably mandrel bent.

Kurtis used a straight tube and welded a fish mouthed bent kick-up to that main tube.



Attached are pictures of my tube frame under the prewar Hillegass rail frame body that had been belled out to adapt to the tube frame. The longerons are one piece and mandrel bent for the kick-up

 

Can anyone shed some light on my earlier post?


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

 

Bump


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

 

Thanks Stan & 28 dryer! Any idea if the chassis were numbered? I'm waiting for delivery of what appears to be a Hillegass car to my shop and wasn't well schooled in Hillegass tube chassis cars. P.S 28 dryer if I'm correct you ran your car at Van Wert Oh a few years ago Am I correct?

 

Yes, generally tow out to run with the AARA in Ohio every year.

Now hope your sense of humor is good, since you got your spelling of Hillegass corrected, we need you to work on Dreyer.

 

Sorry about the spelling, good to talk to you again it was about 6 or 7 years ago I talked a little with you at Van Wert, didn't have car then but loved to see the old midgets. Took my 4 year old to the show this year and he told me some day you & mom can sit in the stands and watch me race. (Here we go already) The Old BCRA car I have and slowly been putting back together was claimed buy him when I brought it home a year ago, thanks dad you got me a race car! If Van Wert has a show next year (Not looking good on that it will !) I will stop by and say hello again.

 

Question for you midget Guru's. I am fitting up my halibrand 12" mag wheels to my midget hubs & rear axle. my front hubs and rear are all Model A 5 lug. when I got the car it came with original 5 lug halibrand wheels. my question is what style lug nuts were used on early midgets with mag wheels? My halibrands don't have any signs of ever having a traditional "tapered" lug nut tightened against them (ie- no where marks , gauling) the face of the wheels are just flat. on 2 of the wheels there looks to be faint outlines of a washer/ring impression? I don't want to run a set of tapered lug nuts into the wheels if they did not use them. I do have a set of 4 un-drilled aluminum hub covers I wanted to drill & use. would you suggest drilling & tapering the holes in the aluminum covers to accept the tapered lugs nuts? or did they run a flat face nut with a washer? Let me know what you guys suggest.
Paul

 

Your thinking is spot on.

Presuming the hub covers have a bit of thickness to them, drill them for your 5 lug pattern.

Then go to an auto parts store that has a wide selection of lug nuts. (I found mine at a Auto Zone store that is a mini warehouse for wholesale sales to the trade in addition to their normal retail, so has a broader inventory). They let me search their bin boxes for nuts that were the correct thread and had a flat washer like face.

There were none, but I did find some that I could put in a lathe and turn the taper off of and end up with a flat washer like face.

Enlarge and look at the attached photo and you can see the flat face. Since I didn't use hub covers I used a 1/8" thick spacer ring so the lug nuts did not bear directly onto the mag wheels.

 

The hub covers appear to be the ones Louie Senter cast right after the war. The very first piece of equipment from Ansen Automotive. Very rare. Nice find!

 

Took a few minutes just now to look for a box with a part number those lug nuts may have come in but think I remember they were bulk in the bin, unboxed.

I did find a box of old wheel studs that I must have taken out of my hubs and a box of 10 new 1/2 SAE X !/2 USS Grade 8 Steel Studs X 3" long that I think I used to be compatable with the hubs/wheels/spacer thickness I was using and to get enough length to pass fully through the lug nuts.

The point being, consider this as losing a wheel is overly exciting as well as overly common.

 

Did you mean to type 1/2 x 12? That is an obsolete thread pitch (1/2 x 13 is in common usage) so antique nuts would need to be found / made to use those studs.

 

We probably cast well over a hundred of these to use on our own cars, and sold a LOT of sets to other restorers/builders back in the 70s and 80s.

The pre-war style that used the six-lug machined 1926/27 Model T hubs which we then drilled and tapped for locked studs, looked great when we polished the "Mexican hat" style covers, and even better when we found a source of nice deep chromed acorn nuts and thick chromed washers. We made our own steel wheels, when we needed to, using trailer rims, and cutting out old centers, and welding in new six hole centers, to match the Model T pattern.

We sold them undrilled, or would drill for the 5 or 6 lug patterns...
(The chromed nuts & washers were NOT expensive)

I only have one casting sample left, that has a center hole and pattern in it. (can be puttied back up for pattern to sand-cast more

 

1/2 USS is 13 threads per inch that go into the purpose built hubs on my car. Don't know what Model A hubs are threaded.

The commercial wheel lug nuts are 1/2 X 20 SAE so nothing antique here.

 

Just a quick horror story on wheel studs from the general auto/industrial supply stream. We were building hydraulic wheel drives and needed a thousand 5/8-11unc studs that matched an OEM part number. Dimensionally everything checked fine but when our customer torqued his wheels in place 25% of the studs pulled apart. Problem was traced to improper plating [yellow color common to bolts]. If you buy wheel studs on the open market do yourself a favor and test a few by torquing up the lug nuts before you install them in your hubs or axles. We had to toss a few hubs when the holes became too sloppy to install the replacement studs.

 

I got my 4 un-drilled hub covers from a vintage midget restorer/racer racer in florida,real nice guy. last time I spoke with him he was selling everything he had - 2-3 midgets (running & rollers) all his parts,engines,trailers etc. He didn't tellme where he got the castings but I want to use them,they polish up real nice. FYI "Memaerobilia" dennis from obrien truckers said if he had a hub cover to make a sand casting plug/mold of of he would produce them + if you supply the part to copy he'd hook you up with some of the re-pops?
Paul

 

Are any of the gurus here able to answer my questions posted back in posts 4382 and 4388?
Thanks.