Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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Don,

I know you have told us this before but what is your rear end?

Thanks,
Z

It's probably about 36 or 37 inches. Isn't that getting rather personal?.. Oh, wait,.. You meant what KIND of rear end is in his roadster.

Sorry. I've been around teenagers all day and sometimes the smarta$$ attitude is contagious...

J,

What are you using in yours?

z

An 86 Chev S10 two wheel drive pickup rearend is a perfect fit for the rear of a model A Ford pickup---Thats what I'm running in the Wild Canary---and its 53 5/8" face to face of wheel mounting surfaces.

My side is so sore from laughing about the burned head, I dropped my pen under the desk, came up to quick hit the back of my head. I still was laughing
Bradc

Brad, did you get a video of you hitting your head?? Those are very big on YouTube and Americas Funniest Home Videos. For some reason Dan couldn't take it when he saw the skin burned into the header...........it just cracked him up.


Like Brian, I am also using an S10/GMC Jimmy rear end. Mine is a '95 out of a two wheel drive Jimmy. Like Brian said, they are a nice width, just maybe a tad on the narrow side, but reverse rims take care of that. The one under my Kids T is an 8 inch Ford out of a '77 Ford Granada, maybe a couple of inches wider.

Admittedly, the S10 rears aren't as strong as something like a 9 inch Ford, but they used the same setup in Camaros with V8's, so for someone like me, who isn't going to abuse it alot, it is perfect.

Damn don, i miss out on the forum for a couple of days, and you guys are almost done. I cant wait to see them in daytona!They are looking awsome!

Any particular reason S10's besides width?

I was thinking of getting a V6 ranger and using as much as I could, My plans keep changing but what I can afford and what I would like to do are two very different places.

What about the ranger rear?

Z

Z,
The rear ends in my coupe and roadster are both mid-'70's Ford Maverick (8-inch). Both have the very common 2.79 gears. As I understand it, Ford used this same rear in early V-8 Mustangs, Fairlanes, Comets, Mavericks, and Granadas.

Thanks John, looking forward to finally meeting you and the other guys at Turkey Run. Don registered our cars yesterday (I was holding up until I was pretty sure we would have cars to take there) We finally decided on where we are going to stay, so tomorrow I'll make those reservations.

Z, a couple of reasons for using the S10 rears........width, easy to clean up (only simple spring perches to cut off and grind smooth), cheap, and plentiful. Various gear ratios are available too. My T has 3:00 gears, and my Dodge Truck with the same rear end, has 3:42's.. I am not familiar with the Ranger rear axles, but if the width is close to what you need, sure, why not?

JRobinson is right, those 8 inchers came in lots of cars. We just found out the one in Don's T came from a straight 6 cylinder car because it had 2 inch wide brakes vs 1.5 in some of them. He bought brake kits and had to return them because the shoes and wheel cylinders were different. Finally found the correct ones.

Tonight Dan and I went to the shop and worked on getting Don's fan mounted on the radiator. Don had a gig, so he hasn't seen what we did yet. We had several options. Walker Radiator and Total Performance do not offer a shroud for the 6 inch chopped '32 radiator, they use 4 simple brackets to mount them. We bought a set of those, but didn't like the flimsiness of them, so Dan and I bent up a shroud out of 18 gauge steel (which I will paint black tomorrow). It mounts the 16 inch SPAL fan perfectly, and will cool the engine better than just having the fan bracketed to the radiator. No air can sneak around the sides of this thing.

We bent it up on the brake, then Dan formed it to the exact shape we needed and cut a hole in the center for the fan to mount over. Finally, we welded studs onto the shroud to mount the fan, and we drilled holes in the sides to bolt the whole thing to the radiator and shell. It came out really nice, but took us about 5 hours to do. (We could never make a living at this stuff )

Here are some pictures of how it came out. It looks close to the water pump pulley in the pictures, but it really clears just fine.

Don

Don,

Did you think about relief flaps in the shroud to relieve the pressure at higher speeds? Most of the electric fans have them, but I doesn't look like you have enough room.

We actually talked about that last night and decided not to. There is so little area that is not cut out by the fact that we are running a big fan compared to core surface area that there is very little restriction. As you mentioned too, there is not much of a place to put them.

I think (and hope) this car is going to run cool anyway. We let it sit and idle for more than a half hour the other night with no fan at all, and you could still put your hand on the hoses and block. He went the smart route and bought a really nice Walker radiator that I'm pretty impressed with. Time (and summer in Florida) will tell for sure, but I think the electric fan and shroud we built should be enough.

One thing I have to figure out is where to mount the top support rods that keep the radiator from pushing rearward. There is no room to get them to the firewall as the engine is in the way. I was going to mount them to the top of the engine, but that cam is so lumpy the engine shakes a lot and would vibrate the radiator to death in short order. I am going to look at it today to see if some rods can be run to the frame or something and still look nice.

This engine has the coolest idle of any car I've heard. The entire car actually sits there and shakes, and we haven't even been able to put it in drive yet. Funny part is, he wants Dan to install a stereo even though I told him he will never be able to hear it over the engine and wind.

Don

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

One thing I have to figure out is where to mount the top support rods that keep the radiator from pushing rearward. There is no room to get them to the firewall as the engine is in the way. I was going to mount them to the top of the engine, but that cam is so lumpy the engine shakes a lot and would vibrate the radiator to death in short order. I am going to look at it today to see if some rods can be run to the frame or something and still look nice.


Don

If you look closely at the pic below, just behind the head light, you'll see what Grabowski did.

Another alternative would be to tie into your headlight stanchions if they're in a place that will work. A small, unobtrusive bracket, perhaps doubling as a tube to hide the wiring.

Good thoughts Bob. Those little brackets on Norms car don't look bad at all. Watching the engine shake last night convinced me that it would wreck the radiator in short order if I attached the brackets there.

I will probably do something just like you've pictured. BTW, thanks for the shot of his T........it's one of my all time favorites and brings back a lot of memories.

Don

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

BTW, thanks for the shot of his T........it's one of my all time favorites and brings back a lot of memories.

Don

Yeah, me too. I suspect that pic is actually of the Von Franco copy, but he worked hard to duplicate the original in every detail of it's early '60's version from the TV days.