NEW GOAL FOR '10

Marty and I discussed revising our timetable and we're now going to shoot for having the chassis as a roller -- done and painted -- by April's Lone Star Round Up. That means getting the shortened axles back to MArty and having the engine completely de-burred and ready for paint.

2000 HONDA CITRUS YELLOW

I exchanged PM's with the lucky guy who bought Junior's 31 Coupe that was built at Clark's So-What Speed Shop. I'd always admired the car and its color and I learned that it a Honda paint color called Citrus Yellow, without the typical clearcoat.  Good to know and very close to what I have in mind. I'm ultimately picture a little bit more to the yellow side.

A FEW MORE COLOR REFERENCES

WISHBONES

In spite of the slowdown on the build, Marty worked on the wishbones this weekend and as you can see they're looking very nice, if  I do say so myself.

THE BODY RETURNS HOME

Due to budget constraints, we've pulled back the reins a little bit and are temporarily slowing down on the build. As such, I brought the body home and Marty is going to focus on finishing the frame fabrication, hanging the rear end, setting up the front shocks and finalizing. In the meantime, I'm going to order the cut-to-fit axles and get some of my spare parts listed to generate some more scratch for the built. Our initial goal of having the car running in early April may be in jeopardy, but what the hell, we can only do what we can do.  In anticipation of the roadster body returning home, I went out and bought pieces to make a dolly for the body, consisting of 4X6's, casters, and metal brackets. Drew and I finished up the dolly after running the body back from Marty's. The dolly turned out pretty beefy. On the downside, I killed my Skil saw. I'll fire off some shots of the dolly tomorrow.

Weesner -- Another Reference Point

For months now, MArty and I have been drawing inspiration for my roadster from this Keith Weesner sketch. It's informed my wheel choice, my header selection, my colors.

Wiring Supplies and More Inspiration

Well, we're getting pretty close to needing to figure out the wiring for my roadster. I'd read somewhere that The Hot Rod Company had a nice selection on old school wire covers in different diameters and a quick trip to their website proved it was so. I also spent some quality time on Pinkee's website schooling myself on wire routing and brake line routing techniques at Marty's behest. For those who haven't had a chance to look at their workmanship, it's amazing, as evidenced by the wire loom running from the headlight bucket into the frame shown below on the green 32 they're building.

THE NARROWED 9"

We made a pretty extensive list of items that still need to be sourced for the build. It's now about prioritzing the items in the right order so that we can move forward at an efficient pace. High on the list are the cut-to-fit rear axles we'll be needing for the shortened 9". I took measurement of the remove axle tube and added 1/8" for each of the four cuts. Noting that the 9" is offset from the factory, we centered the pumpkin, by removing 6 1/2" inches from the driver's side and 3.0" inches from the passemnger side. So in all, we shortened the rear somewhere between 9 & 1/2'' and 10", allowing for an 1/8" of removed material for each cut. Now I'm off the find some axles.

SCORED A '37 CHEVROLET STEERING WHEEL

So much for my grand plan to use the 13.5" wheel I purchased from the hot rod company has hit the skids. I'm sure it will be of use sometime down the road. The trouble all started when my son Drew came across a vintage Chevy wheel on craigslist. We went to look at it on Saturday and it was too cool to pass up. It came from a 1937 Chevrolet passenger car. We had it out to Marty's on the weekend to see how it looked in the car and we all dug it. Because it's larger than the wheel I bought from The Hot Rod Co., column, pedal and wheel placement will be all the more critical in order to make shifting the 4-speed Muncie possible. We also dragged the John Deere seat buckets with us and while they're too wide to clear the driveshaft tunnel, we're going to try to cut them down to fit because they seem to do a lot of things well-- low in profile, subtle and utilitarian in design, able to accept custom cushions, etc.
Time will tell.

FRONT SPRING PERCH

Went up to Marty's today to see the progress on the frame. The front spring perch is fabbed and the motor mounts have been integrated into the frame. Here are some progress shots.

Slide show of car before teardown

Here's a slide show I made of the '29 when we first got it. By the time the rebuild is done, you'll be hard pressed to recognize it as the same car.

MORE SUPPLIES NEEDED

I'm quickly learning that the trick to cleaning and polishing metal is to. go. one. step. at. a. time. If you try and skip forward, you mess up and have to go back to the beginning. And by that I mean that it's vital that you do your rough removal of material all at once. Then, you graduate up one step. 400 grade to 600 grade to 1200 grade to 220 grade, for example. And we're not even ready to talk polishing. I took a quick trip to my local Sears and bought all kinds of barrel sanding bits, as well as adhesive backed circular pads , a set of files. I used a 400-grade grinding wheel on my angle grinder and 400 grade circular pads for all my initial removal. Remved the nasty edges, ugly seams, shoddy manufacturers flacking, etc. Then I got impatient and tried to move up to a fine polishing grade. Trouble is, I didn't get all the nooks and crannies cleaned up and found myself trying to do the rough work with fine papers and dremel bits. Then I read up on the subject online and discovered the dirty truth. I needed to take more steps, be patient and go back to the course paper to get everything right.
So off to Sears and Lowes I went to get sandpaper and barrel sanding bits in numerous grades. I predict the next week or so to be a lot of meticulous work, carefully done. Live and learn, eh?

PREPPING BELL HOUSING AND 4-SPEED TRANS

I think my wife is about to leave me. I took a break from prepping the rear end and turned my attention to the Muncie M20 trans and bell housing. Being aluminum, I got out the angle grinder and drill motor and set out to make both pieces as smooth a baby's ass. It was alot of work and ate up the entire day. Tomorrow I need to make a run for sandpaper. Fun (not!)

A CLEAN REAR IS A HAPPY REAR, PART TWO

Another full day spent cleaning the 9". Okay, this may seem ridiculous but all I can say is I'm gonna have one very smooth rear axle. Between grinding recernt welds from the narrowing, sanding tubes and attempting to even out factory welds, I again have no idea where the entire day went. I guess there's a Zen to this and I must be discovering it. We've still got to fab up the rear in the frame and get the cut-to-fit axle shafts. And I still have to detail the carrier itself. The tubes and the pumpkin will be skim coated, sanded, primered, then re-sanded before going to final paint. Here's a nice shiny shot to prove I worked my you-know-what off.

A CLEAN REAR IS A HAPPY REAR

Well we got the narrowed 9" rear end back and now I have some serious clean up to do before Marty fabricates the four-link rear suspension. I'll be deburring it and cleaning up both the factory welds and the welds made in shortening it before it goes back to Marty's. I'll also be cleaning up the backing plates and rebuilding the rear brakes with new parts and ordering a set of new cut-to-fit axles.  The measurement from flange-to-flange is now 51". We took about 8" out of the Ford Bronco 9".

Here are some shots of the clean-up effort in progress.

PRESENTING LB TIKI

The John Deere seat buckets arrived at HouseOSpeed headquarters (aka my garage) today and I really dig 'em. I was initially concerned that they might be too small but upon test-sitting them, they seem like they'll be perfect. They're a lot like bomber buckets albeit more utilitarian. I'll be running them out to Marty's this week to see how they fit in the roadster's interior. I think they're going to be very cool with a low key, functional vibe. Speaking of very cool, I also found another color reference for my roadster's paint. It's on a car known as LB Tiki , which was built by a cat named Ivan who lived in Long Beach. I've linked a pretty interesting HAMB post on the car being driven from CA to Florida by its present owner. Anyway, Ivan (whose last name escapes me) is an old pal of Marty's and now lives in Lockhart, Texas. I've chatted with him a few times at car shows about how much I dug his car, which not unlike my 65 Suburban ,  has an unmistakable tiki mojo.  Small world, huh? Anyhow, his car has lived in a file in the back of my mind for years but I came across it just the other day on the internet and grabbed these shots for posterity. So here's LB Tiki, and a color that is damn near what I'd like to have on my roadster.

Later...

FRAME ALMOST A WRAP

Here are some update shots of the frame. Marty did his final welds. As you can see we're going to placing speed holes here and there, just to keep things interesting.  Note the circular pieces mounted below the motor mount pockets.

The transmission mount is in place, as well as rear crossmember. Won't be long before we're plumbing brake lines and routing wires. First we've got the rear end to install, as well as the cowl steering. Still, we're making some good progress now.

VALVE COVERAGE

One of the options for valve covers: Edelbrocks, finned and polished.

All mocked-up after a long day of metal prep.

Still have to get the intake polished and the carbs rebuilt.

MORE ENGINE DETAILING

First, an arty shot of my engine with the carbs and intake set in place. Both still need to be rehabbed but you can't blame a guy from wanting to know how the engine's gonna look.

After another full day of deburring, it's as if it'll never end. Actually, it's looking quite nice but I can see how this would appeal to a person's obsessive compulsive nature. I'm cautiously optimistic that I've cleared the halfway point.

DEBURRING IS A GENUINE PAIN

Well, I just spent an entire freakin' day in the garage continuing to debur the 327, switching between air tools and my drill motor and employing a number of different grinding stones and wire wheels. It was alot of work. All told, I'll spend probably thirty hours removing edges, sharp corners, and every bit of grease, grime, paint accumulated over the course of the engine's four prior decades. If it's true that great paint is in the prep, I should be rewarded with a sweet little engine that stands out nicely. I'm leaning towards painting the engine block the green color I have in mind for the body color, or argent, the color of the vintage Torq Thrust's spokes. Fortunately, I'll have lots of time to think about it as I continue to smooth the cast iron. In the end, I'll be laying on a two stage basecoat/ clearcoat. Stay tuned.

A SIMPLE STEERING WHEEL

The more I thought about the steering wheel and how important it is for all 6'5" of me to fit in the car's cockpit, the more I realized a larger period wheel probably wasn't going to be the right cal for me. After considering a number of options, from a pricey 1940 Ford replica in 16", to a '56 Corvette spoked wheel, and a litany of ultra cool import wheels in 13" - 15" sizes, I finally decided to take an affordable, conservative approach. I ordered a 13&1/2" three spoke chrome job with a black outer rim from the hot rod company. The type of wheel that coulda found at a Pep Boys back in the sixties, which is, after all, the period I'm shooting for. I can always upgrade it, if I don't like it.

PICKING MY SEAT

Scored a pair of seat pans. They're John Deere tractors seats. Very compact and utilitarian. Can't wait to try 'em in the car. The next steps will be pedal placement, steering wheel, column and cowl steering.

FRAME UPDATE

We swung over to Marty's today and he's making serious progress on the 29's frame. If the shortened 9" had shown up on Friday as it was supposed to, it would be a roller right now. As it is, the engine mount/ cradle is fabricated (see front of motor shots below), the transmission crossmember is in and the car is looking more and more like a period hot rod by the day. I did an initial test sitting and the next step will be engineering the cowl steering, pedal placement and steering column.

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