Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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Hey Itoldyouso, it might have been my gallery that you were looking at. I have built a couple of shifters this way...

Originally Posted by J. Robinson

Hey Itoldyouso, it might have been my gallery that you were looking at. I have built a couple of shifters this way...

I went back and looked at your gallery, yep, you are the guy. Thanks for the ideas. Great looking cars and gallery BTW.


Brian, your posts are always informative. Please do put whatever in here you think would be helpful. I would like this thread to be everybody's, and the more ideas and info the better. Those colored graphics you do leave little to the imagination, and make things very clear.

No, I haven't laid the floor in yet, but may actually start on that this weekend, but first I want to work on the rest of the shifter and brake pedal assembly.

Thanks to supa roosta, J Robinson, and Brian for the ideas and help. Lord knows I need all I can get.


Don

Don---when you make the plywood (I assume) floor, leave a 1/4" to 3/8" gap between it and the sides of the fiberglass body. If it actually sets up against the body, it will leave a visible line on the outside of the body that no amount of filler, putty, nor paint will hide. Cut fiberglass cloth or mat about 8" wide, and let half of it overlap onto the plywood all the way around, and the other half spans over the gap and up onto the inside of the body. When it has "set", flip the body over and repeat from the other side. There is a fair bit of measuring and cardboard pattern making involved in cutting out the hole where the transmission hump needs to be, and that has to be done before the plywood is glassed into place. There are as many ways of making these patterns as there are feathers on a duck, so I'm, not going to say much about that. The tranny hump, though----this is a kind of neat trick. Since there isn't much room in the cab area of a T-bucket, you want the tranny hump to be as small as possible, but you don't want the tranny to be hitting or rubbing on it. When I built my 27 roadster, I had an old "dummy" 350 automatic that I used to set up the mounts (it was a home built frame). I installed the engine and tranny, and bolted it in place. I glassed in the 3/4" marine plywood floor in the body, exactly as I explained above.---Now heres the neat part. I decided that I wanted a 1/2" gap all around between the fiberglass tranny hump I would build and the actual transmission.---So----I took an old broom handle and sawed it up into peices 1/2" long. I took my trusty glue gun, and glued peices of 1/2" long broom handle all over the top surface of the old transmission, with about 2" spaces between them. I then took a small tub of drywall mud, and troweled a layer 1/2" thick all over the exposed surface of the tranny that stuck up above the floorboards. The peices of 1/2" long broom handle ensured that the coating of drywall mud was uniformly 1/2" thick over the entire surface. I let it dry for a couple of days, then gave it a couple of coats of Johnsons Paste Floorwax on top of the plaster. I then layed up the fiberglass mat over the entire plaster surface, and let it extend about 4" out onto the surounding plywood floor and up onto the firewall. I used about 3 layers of mat, with 1 hour flash off times between layers. I let it dry overnight, then unbolted the body, walked to the back of it, and gave it a good yank straight up. Then my sons and I lifted the body off. Some of the plaster stayed on the tranny, some stuck to the fiberglass, but it is easily removed with a putty knife and air nozzle. I was left with a perfect fiberglass transmission hump, with an exact 1/2" gap between it and the transmission, all around.----Brian

Brian: Some really good ideas there. I knew some of it, like never to put the plywood up tight against the fiberglass body, as it will show through, but other things you suggested were new to me.

The idea of the cut up broomstick is a super way to get that uniform gap all the way around. The plaster is another good idea. I just read a story about Ed Roth, when he built the "Beatnick Bandit" and some other cars, he used the plaster male mold idea too.

When I built the hump in my '27 I shaped cardboard over the transmission and painted a couple of coats of fiberglass resin on it to make it ridgid, then I put wax paper over it (big butcher size) and laid the glass up over that. Since this hump is going to be much larger than that one, either of the methods you and supa roosta have explained will probably work well.

I think what I will do for the plywood is run two pieces, one down either side of the trans hump and driveshaft tunnel, then form something (maybe thin aluminum) over the driveshaft hoops. I will then build up fiberglass cloth over that aluminum. I'll make it so the aluminum is only a temporary form. For the trans tunnel, I will use some of both of your ideas there, because I'm not sure yet if I will do the hump on the car frame or off.

Thanks again, and if anyone else has any ideas to interject along the way for any subject, please do. The more ideas that come into this thing the better, and they will give some other builders some great options based on real building experiences.

I really appreciate you guys participating in this thread, and also for reading it.

Don