Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,790
Club RR Member Number: 34
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cheers chairchild. yeah, you have to be patient on a build like this!
quickrack-
very little progress tbh. ive done a bit of trading round to get me a better tyre setup, but thats about it, ive got a lot on with other projects of mine, other peoples cars, buying a house, etc. etc!
ive now managed to get more or less brand new (300 miles old) 6.00-16 avons on the fornt, with 7.50-16s on the back (when they turn up!), which is the 100% perfect tyre sizes i wanted, so I'm pretty pleased about that. more pics when the rear tyres are here and fitted as well as the fronts.
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Really enjoying reading this thread - the combination of engineering & aesthetic factors being addressed is very interesting  next, was the small matter of actually making them fit. for the rear, this was pretty straightforward, as the PCD was correct, they just needed some spacers as the wheels didnt have a crazy offset like the ones id made, so didnt clear the bodywork. with a bit a bit of mocking up I decided 1-1/4", or 30mm, was about what I needed, so I did some ebay searching and came up with these-  30mm thick, 4x4.5" pcd, 1/2" UNF studs and nuts same as the ford 9" axle, centre bore is 71.5mm which is the same size as the wheels and larger than the ford axle. fitment- chrysler 300c! seems Mopar don't like to change things unless they have to. they're steel ones, I'm very suspect of the cheap chinese wheel spacers, as with how easily they break and curse word up, they simply cant be the grade of alloy they're advertised as, so to leave no doubt as to strength, I'm having steel. for those who'd have expected me to make some, a set of studs and nuts and the materials to make em ran to more than these did delivered(£75), so it was a no-brainer really. these are plated finish too so no corrosion either. and came next day too! I take it that the weight difference compared to the alloy equivalents isn't too much? Thinking of buying a set, as that price is very good! |
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,790
Club RR Member Number: 34
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alright paul,
granted they're heavier than alloy ones, but not massively so. when you take into account the mount of metal machined away for the Centrebore and the bolt holes, its only about half of it left.
its not like any of the rest of the running gear on this thing is light anyway (a 4x16" artillery wheel with a 7.50x16 with a tube weighs a hell of a lot, must be over 40kg, and I certian the rear axle is over half a ton!) I wasnt bothered about saving a a few hundred grams for the stress/nagging doubt factor of having alloy ones. I knew every time I planted it hard id be worrying about if they were up to it, and thats something I didnt want to be thinking about. this just isnt the car to be using cheap chinese alloy parts on.
youre right, they're damn good for the price compared to even buying a set of studs and nuts.
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Last Edit: Aug 2, 2012 12:28:21 GMT by Dez
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Cheers - that's answered everything I was wondering about them  |
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Gobsmacked, simply amazing level of detail in this project. My cap is well and trully doffed to you sir!
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always loved hotrods! would love to build myself a pop one day! your only local too! i'm in essex good build thread buddy |
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Oct 23, 2014 11:49:14 GMT
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As I'm kinda new around here, has this build been mothballed?
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96 E320 W210 Wafter - on 18" split Mono's - Sold :-(
10 Kia Ceed Sportwagon - Our new daily
03 Import Forester STi - Sold
98 W140 CL500 AMG - Brutal weekend bruiser! Sold :-(
99 E240 S210 Barge - Now sold
02 Accord 2.0SE - wife's old daily - gone in PX
88 P100 2.9efi Custom - Sold
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,790
Club RR Member Number: 34
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Oct 23, 2014 18:32:31 GMT
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yes and no. I'm certainly in no rush to finish it, i put the truck on the road to satisfy that itch.
lots of stuff has happened though, since the last update on here its got different wheels and tyres, a rework of the front sus (again!) to make it longer and lower, a rear floor, engine moved, a fuel tank and the start of a battery box, in fact loads of stuff. a lot of it was ive redone stuff i wasnt happy with, but ive also turned up a lot of better/cooler/rarer parts ive wanted to incorporate.
i kinda stopped bothering to update it on here though as it seemed about 6 people read it and it got bumped down really quickly cos of all the update of people putting stickers on golfs and the like....
the forum does seem to have sorted itself out a bit in that respect recently though, so i'll copy and paste the update over from the other forum i have been updating it on, if people want to see
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,790
Club RR Member Number: 34
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Oct 23, 2014 18:58:08 GMT
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these new post were written for a audience of 'traditional hot rodders' so a fair bit of knowledge is assumed. if you need owt explaining, just ask! so, with the swapping round of tyre sizes, id created myself loads of trouble with the ride height, and it not sitting level. the back wasnt too bad, id effectively raised it 3/4" by going form the 8.20-15 to the 7.50-16, which was beneficial due to the saggy spring. but on the front id gone from the ridiculously small 5.00-15 to a 6.00-16, in a brand that was large for that size. there was a diameter difference of just over 3-1/2 inches, which even after subtracting 3/4" for the rear size change and halfing it to give me the radius, still meant the front was now 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" too high. i was scratching my head a bit of how to sort this, as thats a lot to loose by decambering an already quite flat spring, when i realised the answer was already lying right there next to the car, in a 32-36 beam id picked up. identical to an A one apart from spring perch depth, but with 1.5" of drop from the factory. what i also figured though, was the larger wheels and tyres had effectively 'shortened' the car too, making it look a bit stubby at the front end- not helped by neil saying 'it doesnt loo as long and low in the flesh does it?' or words to that effect! this was a car that was already stretched about 8-9" over a stock A wheelbase. so as well as using the '36 beam to drop the front, i elected to use the longer 36 bones to stretch it another 3-3.5" or so as well. i had toyed with the idea of moving the front crossmember, but i was talked out of it as chopping the chassis again at this late stage was a bit silly really, so i decided to just move the spring perches back down the bones. '36 bones are much heavier in dimensions compared to model A ones, so i figured this would be fine. this gave me a wheelbase of 115", which i think is pretty much bang on for a car as low as this. thing is '36 bones essentially mount 'upside down', with the weld seam on top, which i didnt like,so i did this to correct the camber and mount them 'tother way up-    make sure you check over these 80 year old parts thoroughly before using them though folks, i found this on one bone, hidden beneath the rust and dirt-  soon sorted it out though-    then i cut off the spring hangers (they will be making a reappearance soon though)and smoothed off the front-  i then made version 2 of my spring-through-bones setup, the inner side is the same but the outer needed a longer sleeve as the 36 bones are thicker, plus i modded the bronze washer and pin to take a stock tapered castllated nut rather than an ugly old nylock. i then marked up and drilled the bones and welded em in-     you have to heated up the perch pins and give them a tiny tweak, about 2-3 degrees, to get them sitting square to the spring, but other than that, thats it really, it all goes together dead easy-     |
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,790
Club RR Member Number: 34
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Oct 23, 2014 19:01:31 GMT
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those spring mounts i chopped off the bones? heres what i did with em. id picked up these in a trade with a mate, some genuine guides-  so, i torched out the old bushings from the hangers-   the resulting hole was 3/4", i needed 3/8" for the mounting studs on the guides, by chance i happened to have tubing the right size, so i cut a couple of bits and pressed them in, the filed up the ends. the other end was cut off parallel to this surface, and the light bolted up-     a bit(lot) of messing about and measuring up to get the lights exactly where i wanted em, and i buzzed em on-    and with a light fitted-     look like they were made for it really! and what youre all waiting to see, how the front actually sits now-   (and yes, thats another wheels and tyre change. nd no, the WWs wont be staying...) |
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,790
Club RR Member Number: 34
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Oct 23, 2014 19:03:27 GMT
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suppose id best tell you about the wheels and tyres. id been hankering after some wires for a while, so much so id bought some ford 16s/18s with tyres off mark 'brettendorfspirit' on here to see about fitting them, although the front PCD is the same if i swap the studs back to the original holes, i knew id need spacers to fit wires to bendix brakes, and some PCD adapters for the back, but thought it was worth it. the spacers id need to do that were huge, 8" diameter, an inch thick on the front and 2" thick on the back, which was over £100 worth of materials before i even touched a cutting tool to them, which i was gunna do, until i happened across these..... they're another mega-rare set. so rare some people swear blind they don't exist! only other set i can find sold for $2k in the states, in much worse condition, for a set of 4. i have 6! they're '33 dodge adjustable spoke wires, 5x4.5" pcd again, in fact they're totally interchangable with the artillerys, as they're the same 16"x4" size too. they're made by budd, same as the artillerys. so i can chop and change between artillerys and wires as i fancy. they need a good dose of gloss black and some blackwalls on there, otherwise I'm really happy with em.  next, another chance purchase sorted out an issue id been struggling with for ages- shocks. fitting shocks to the front of a car as low as this is to be frank, an utter curse word. they always seem to need to go exactly where the headlights are, unless you mount the headlights for too far forward or high up, which looks curse word. tube shocks are pretty much out of the question unless you want em as high as the grille shell, and all of this is only compounded by a suicide front end and the desire to keep the beam clean and uncluttered when its pushed right out front like that. id tried various lever arms, none of which would work, armstrongs had too big a body to mount under the chassis rail without them touching the floor, or at the side without it hitting the bones- which looked too cluttered anyway. i was looking at the rather expensive andre-hartford frictions as they would have worked, when i ended up buying a pair of houdailles off a '40 ford, which are hydro so work better, yet are still very compact and a smiliar shape to the andres. i made some brackets, using the original square-shank bolts-    made em a bit fancier and added some gussets-   they're gunna go here you see tucked well out of the way and hidden below the chassis rail-   you really cant see em from the front at all-  so they're tucked up there, and then i need a little drop-link to attach to the bones to operate them. i chopped up some old worn out model A shackles to do this-  then, i used some m8 bolts, bored the taped holes on the ends of the shock arms to 1/2", and make some brass bushings to go between the two. a couple of simple steel bosses the same width as the lever arm with a 1/2" ID, 7/8" OD were turned up to weld to the bones, and i spot faced one side of the shackle so there was a flat bit for the allen bolt heads. the other side of the shackle was drilled through and tapped to m8. the whole lot was botled togehter and the bosses welded ot the bones, and it all looks like this-       |
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,790
Club RR Member Number: 34
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Oct 23, 2014 19:06:48 GMT
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id started stripping the paint off the front end of the bodywork, and sorting out the bashed up cowl top as someone had previously welded in a recessed firewall halfway up it, which looked like it was made out of a lump cut out of a skip attached with an arc welder, which had done the cowl top no favours at all. id already repaired the previous holes hacked in the cowl sides, but not done the rust at the bottoms of them yet. i was doing all this with a view to getting the firewall put back in, in a stock-ish position rather than deeply recessed like it was before. ive now got the firewall cut out further at the bottom nd slide in, but i had to remove the dizzy and steering box to do this as space is so tight. I'm going to move the engine forward a fraction to try to remedy this, its a ballache, but its less of a ballache doing it now that further down the line. but yeah, the paint. whoever red oxided this thing needs a kick in the curse word. a big gloopy layer of the stuff sloshed on over old flaky paint, mud and various wildlife,a good layer of surface rust, and full of paintbrush bristles too. its a curse word to strip, i gave up on chemical methods quite early on as you still have to knotwheel/grind over the whole lot to remove the rust, so its pretty pointless. knotwheels have proved best so far, but its slow going and they do clog up eventually. the bits with original paoint under the oxide strip back nicely, but the layer of rust mixed with the oxide are terrible to remove. ive been getting the metal as clean as i can with these then going over with a linishing disc to finish. great fun! in hindsight id have got the whole thing blasted, but id have to undo so much work to do that now it aint gunna happen.  its a monotonous task, and as i was working on the front end of the body, i decided to break up the task a bit by re-sorting out the screen header bow, and the screen frame. id had a previous attempt right back at the start of the build to steel out the top of the bow to fill the gap between visor and screen top frame, but it hadnt gone very well and id aborted that job. so i ground off all the box section id added, filed it all up back to stock, and started again. theres a couple of reasons i think it didnt go very well, one is I'm trying to fit a 30-31 visor to a 28-29 (i didnt realise until i took apart the visor/header assembly on my mates '31 how radically different the two setups are), and the second reason was back when i started doing it, i didnt have a bloody clue what either setup should actually look like! so, with it all stripped back to stock, i noticed the header was now bowed. i didnt know if it was like this before and id didnt notice, or if the heat from me grinding and welding had done it, but it didnt matter, i had to sort it before i could go any further. you can see the bow here-  its back in the middle, but its also low there too, as in bowed down, so the centre needs bringing forwards and up for the screen frame to fit right. so, i piecut the top bow in the relevant blaces to straighten it out, and with a couple of big bits of thickwall box (so the header would bend before they did), and a lot of clamps, i had it back straight again-    i then welded it all up bit by bit to keep the heat down, flapped it all smooth, and tried the screen frame for size. this had already been cut down to size by my mate choppy who does a lot of my 'soft metalwork' for me, ally and brass etc., as its one of those extruded ally ones so it wont rot out like stockers do. i don't think its right for the car, i think it ws meant to be a 30-31 one as the hinge mounting plate was a bit short for the car and none of the holes line up, but a bit of redrilling and it works fine.     i also tried on one of my nice shiny mirrors id got as part of that speedway order a few years back. they're vintique ones, entirely stainless, and really nice quality for the price. also whilst looking for some windscreen supports/adjusters i thought i had which i cant find(guess ile have to make some), i did happen to find the sections of A pillar id cut out when i chopped it-  my next concern was finishing up the top corners where the steeling id added in above the doors meets the header bow and the A-pillar, as this was a bit untidy and needed the corners finishing off. id had to cut the cant rail above the door and stretch it about 1/8", as it had previously been hacked before i got the car and i had to guess how long they should be for the door gaps to be right. id based my guess around the brace that was at the bottom of the pillars being right, and the cut at the top having been done with a 'normal' 2.5-3mm cutting disc, but it turns out their either used a mega thick disc, the brace was wrong, or both! either way i cut it and opened the cut up a bit then rewelded it, to sort that, then i welded up the front corner junction, adding a little pinch in with a step at the corner of the door for the gutter channel in the roof skin to fit into. again i was flying blind a bit on this lot, but i think it looks pretty good now. its filled up all the gaps, the roof sides fit tight, and theres no water traps, so it looks pretty good to me-   |
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Last Edit: Oct 23, 2014 19:07:48 GMT by Dez
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,790
Club RR Member Number: 34
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Oct 23, 2014 19:11:26 GMT
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and the last update for now is the visor. i wasnt gunna fill it full of holes as it seems everyone does it, but erm, yeah. it was partially due to everyone telling me stock ones boom/vibrate/etc. so they NEED to have holes in to let out the trapped air, so i though if its having holes, I'm gunna do as many and as big as possible. marking out-  holesawed, cleaned up, and all rough edges smoothed-   then swaged-   and here it is fitted up-     it does actually tie in with the rest of the car too, the seats, sills, dash and inner door skins all have the flared holes, so its carried through a lot of the car. still don't know how I'm going to fill the big gap between header and visor, but at least i know what a stock 30-31 setup looks like now, and that setup seems to make most sense so will probably go with a variation on that. |
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Oct 23, 2014 19:35:14 GMT
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Utterly brilliant as usual  *n |
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Top grammar tips!
Bought = purchased. Brought = relocated
Lose = misplace/opposite of win. Loose = your mum
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Mike
East Midlands
Posts: 3,387
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Oct 23, 2014 19:35:19 GMT
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i kinda stopped bothering to update it on here though as it seemed about 6 people read it and it got bumped down really quickly cos of all the update of people putting stickers on golfs and the like.... I'm guilty of reading and not commenting, I need to rectify that! The headlight mounts look just right, the positioning works well. |
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Oct 23, 2014 20:00:34 GMT
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The absolute dog's nuts!! That is all  ) |
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Oct 23, 2014 20:11:42 GMT
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i kinda stopped bothering to update it on here though as it seemed about 6 people read it and it got bumped down really quickly cos of all the update of people putting stickers on golfs and the like.... Dez, I think you vastly underrate the entertainment value this build brings us mere mortals, I don't comment but I do gawp in awe at the skills shown, i'm sure others do too so please please continue with the updates in both written and picture form as for stickering golfs, I think any ole mojo boost at times is needed, I know one of my caddys took on a real spurt after I applied an RR sticker !!! |
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Oct 23, 2014 20:36:17 GMT
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This build thread is epic! Just spent the last 2 or 3 hours reading it through!! Keep the updates coming please.
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Oct 23, 2014 21:47:41 GMT
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I'm also guilty of reading and not posting, been following this since the beginning, glad to see an update, keep it up as I suspect there's a fair few people like me out there who don't post.
Fantastic build.
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1993 Rover 220 Coupe
1972 MG Midget
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