Thread: Followed Me Home, '33 Build

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Roger,

Buon pomeriggio da Napoli!

Looking good. What you have had to do is a good illustration of why the hair stands up on the backs of our necks when someone says "is that a kit car?" Like all we have to do is bolt the parts together.

Did Kansas ever pass the streetrod law? How about the requirement for saving receipts for everything down to the last nut and bolt? Are you going to end up with a big auto tax bill every year? (I might mention that I've had my '34 titled in VA for three years, and have never received a tax bill. )

Not that I'm coming back to Kansas, but I'm still curious.

Ciao,

Jack

Originally Posted by Henry Rifle

Roger,

Buon pomeriggio da Napoli!

Looking good. What you have had to do is a good illustration of why the hair stands up on the backs of our necks when someone says "is that a kit car?" Like all we have to do is bolt the parts together.

Did Kansas ever pass the streetrod law? How about the requirement for saving receipts for everything down to the last nut and bolt? Are you going to end up with a big auto tax bill every year? (I might mention that I've had my '34 titled in VA for three years, and have never received a tax bill. )

Not that I'm coming back to Kansas, but I'm still curious.

Ciao,

Jack

Jack,
It is great to see your name/avatar pop up here. I hope that your time in Italy (my mistake on Spain earlier) is everything you want it to be, and more!

Even though I started with a "roller package" where all of the major assembly work on the chassis was already done for me, I agree that the term "kit car" causes an emotion spike anytime I hear it My headlight adventure is nothing special, but it gives me a bit of pleasure to keep a look I wanted while gaining a functional feature.

The streetrod legislation in Kansas (SEMA laws) is a particular frustration for me. After the bill was allowed to die in a House transportation committee in the 2008 session I contacted the Representative that authored the bill (she and her husband have a street rod). From public record, the bill did not clear committee due to a letter from the Dept of Budget stating that it would require XX number of programming hours to rework the vehicle registration data base to recognize the new classifications of "street rod" and "custom car", and that the dollars to pay those expenses (less than $50k as I recall) had not been included in the budget for 2008. I was told that she had been assured that one of the junior members of the Transportation Committee would sponsor the bill for 2009 and push it through. About two months ago I went into the House of Representatives records and searched for the Bill by name and old number and found nothing. Long story short, with the health care and budget crises they "forgot" to introduce the SEMA legislation, and it is no longer possible to address it in this session. The Representative who authored the original bill asked me to "...send reminders to her, and to the junior representative who agreed to sponsor the bill in committee.." in mid-December this year to ensure that it was not forgotten again. I will do that, and I guess I understand that they have bigger fish to fry, but it is frustrating to have them not follow through with something, especially when it is seen as a process simplification.

For now we are playing under the same old rules - keep every receipt for things purchased for the car, including raw materials like bar stock and sheet metal, supposedly to prove that nothing is stolen property. I'm not sure about the annual property tax situation but will hopefully know in a couple of months.

Take care and enjoy the journey. When you get back maybe you can schedule a road trip to Kansas to visit old stomping grounds.

I know that there are at least two others that frequent this forum that are at similar points in their builds and have expressed interest in the way I tackle some of the things that are old hat to many of you, so I’m going to bore most of you with how I got the body off of the chassis single handed. Pictures follow at the end since there is no way to put them in line as I go. I used a Harbor Freight 2T picker with the boom extended out to the ½ T limit, still more than twice the capacity of the lift.
I had talked at length to Duane Noblett of N&N about how to lift the body, and following his advice I extended a single 2x6 front to back through the windshield/back window openings. I asked him specifically about any need to notch across the board to keep from putting load on the flat rim where the windshield glues in and adding a second 2x6 underneath to account for the relief cut, but it is a 1/8” thick lip and Duane said he had always just put a towel between them and had never had any problem. I decided on a five foot long board to provide some extension front & back hoping to minimize the strap to body rub a little, but there too a few layers of old sweat shirt material eliminated any friction. Rather than loop my strap and hook it around the two ends of the 2x6 (double strap through the hook, looped to each end) I decided to run the strap through the body and around the ends of my 2x6, since my strap had a safety factor of more than twenty for my nominal 500# lift. This allowed me to ratchet down the strap and keep my picker hook close to the roof, helping to eliminate concern with running out of picker lift capacity. I also put a little notch top and bottom on the ends of my board to take away any concern of the straps slipping off center. I marked my center point on the window openings for balance, put in several layers of T-shirt material as padding, tied the brake & clutch pedals all the way down clearing the firewall, removed the RR wheel so I did not have to lift over it and did a slow lift to check balance. I had the hook centered on the roof and it was quite back heavy. For mine, minus doors and trunk lid, the balance point was with the hook right at the rear edge of the door opening and I was able to move the hook very easily with the strap looped end to end. Small adjustments were by moving the whole board/strap. I only had to lift about ten inches to be well clear of the frame, pulled it back, rolled the stand underneath and slowly dropped it in place. After setting it on the simple frame I decided to add a bit more width to the frame at the mid-point, just to get the load out closer to the edge of the floor. Here are a few pictures of the process, which will likely be much easier to understand than my words.

Here are a few more, due to the five shot limit

Worked out great Rog! Nothing got broke and nobody got hurt so it must have been a good plan, right???? That's a really nice heavy duty table to set the body on!!! What's next on the build up???

Good job, Roger. You have to respect a good jury rigger.

Throughout my entire build, I never had a single person help me with lifting, moving or installing anything. That was part of the fun for me.

The first time I removed the body on my '34, I used an engine crane. However, I had a bit of difficulty keeping everything balanced, and it liked to swing around a bit too much for my comfort.

From then on out, I used two come-alongs attached to angle irons lagged to the ceiling rafters. On the rear, I had a 2x6 that spanned the trunk opening. On the front, I attached to the Bear Claw latch studs. I had to go from front to back to raise or lower the car, but it worked out pretty well.

The body cart is similar to yours, just built a little differently. I thought I'd add method to the thread just for another way to approach it.

Oh, and I did double check the loading on the ceiling (which was the floor of the bedroom over my garage) and the pull-out resistance of the lag bolts. Not a problem.

Dave,
Need to finish a few things on the chassis, like fuel lines, some work on the tranny mount plate, mount horns,Dave headlight conduits threaded into the frame, etc, then blow it apart for for prep and paint. Also plan to paint the underside of the body so it hopefully does not have to come off again.

Jack,
Pretty slick double come-a-long trick! I struggled with the approach on the cart, and finally downloaded a frame spec sheet from Wescott. With their dimensions I just used some wood and wheels laying around to build a rolling cart for convenience. Also have an old king sized mattress, and will flop the body on its side to work on the bottom, and to paint.

Just a quick post to show I've been getting a little bit done. I know that this basic stuff is probably boring to you guys who have built lots of cars, but a rookie approach may be of interest to others like me that are going through a first build.
As I stand back and look at my chassis there is no comparison to other builds on this forum (like Ken Thurm's ) where everything is run inside the frame with access plates, but mine will be safe and functional, and I did try to keep it neat and from being too ugly.
I mounted the fuel pump in a protected gusset which is still readily accessible from the bottom for future maintenance needs, but somewhat protected from road debris. The fuel filter is immediately downstream of the pump. Lines are mounted with Adel clamp pairs in tapped holes on the frame. Due to the congestion of the master cylinders (brake & clutch) on the driver's side I elected to go back to front on the passenger side, hugging the front crossmember and sneaking up the driver's front corner with both supply and return lines. Edelbrock put both fittings up front, but on opposite sides, using a crossover tube in the back between the two fuel rails. The front crossmember required some simple standoffs, which are just 1.5" aluminum angle with a little buffing. I also addressed master cylinder access, cutting a hole in the floor and using the piece removed as a "locater" for the panel, gluing it to a square panel with Bondo. I plan to add a couple of velcro tabs in the corners to hold it down, even when there is carpeting to cover it someday. Last is the horns, which I tucked in behind the master cylinders on the driver's side with a simple SS strap bracket, again drilled and tapped in the frame (Thank you, Mike52!!). Yesterday was getting the AC receiver/dryer and the coil mounted on standoffs that will be tucked up in the front corners off of the frame rails, hidden by the splash apron; and ordering some AC heater fittings so I can be sure of the clearances inside before I cut bulkhead holes. I also glassed in some little barriers on the back side of the dash to form a sealed plenum for the defrost air, and revised my approach on how to route that defrost air onto the windshield. Busy, busy, busy...

Very nice clean work. The braided stainless looks fantastic. It's a bugger to work with! Hopefully you don't have any stainless steel slivers!

Steve, thanks for the comment. Actually the sheen in the fuel line pictures is deceiving - the fuel line is the Russell Pro Classic 3/8" line that Edelbrock supplies with their Pro-Flow XT EFI kit, and is a black poly/fabric braid material which is much easier to work with, much like nylon rope fibers. I elected to use what they provided rather than replace it with higher dollar stainless sheathed tube, figuring I can change it out later without much trouble if I don't like the way the Pro Classic stands up over time. For now I think the black cover with blue dot highlights will be OK against a black frame.

Very cool.Looks much better than the plain rubber I'm running!

Jack, Roger, like both of you I wanted to lift my body off but was alone. I came up with a rig something like Jacks! I checked on the lifting capabilities of lags and set 4 into the ceiling joists of my house at the time. Then, built a substructure into the body with 2 X 4's. Using some pulleys and 3/8" line, I could use my come along to shorten the line and effectively raise the body slowly and smoothly all by myself. Here should be a couple pics, if I do this right! LOL..

And here's another view. Seems we all came to roughly the same conclusions!

As the old saying states, "Necessity is the mother of invention", and some add that ingenuity must be the father...

Originally Posted by rspears

As the old saying states, "Necessity is the mother of invention", and some add that ingenuity must be the father...

So True! So True!