Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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Yea we could be wrong but then we'd back you all the way
Thats a fare days labor. go eat diner

Jeez, I missed a couple of days and you almost finish your car. You got a lot done, looks really good !

Hi, new to this board and this thread.
This is a great project.
I think you can come pretty close to your goal of $3K

I built my first HotRod, a '27 roadster, about 5 years ago.
When I first started thinking about the project, I got connected with a club of local guys who had done it all before.
I bought a lot of stuff new like a frame and body and some suspension bits but I still managed it for just under $6000.
BUT, as mentioned way back in this thread, I couldn't have done it without making some new friends AND a lot of good luck.
I got a $200 donor Malibu with a 350 (recently rebuilt I later discovered) and a short tailshaft TH350.
I used everthing I could from it, engine, trans, wiring harness, steering column, seat foam, some brake parts, driveshaft (shortened), etc.
I traded, swapped and finagled for everthing I could.
For instance, I got a set of barely used Coker ProTracs on Cragar SS's for $50.
I traded the Cragars for a set of 15x10 slotted mags.
I bought a fresh 327 block crank and double hump heads at a yard sale for $200.
(yeah I know, deal of a lifetime etc.)
I traded the block and crank to a friend who runs a transmission shop and he went throught the TH350 for me. (BTW I just traded the heads and some stuff I got for free to the same guy for going through a BOP TH350 for my chopped and channeled '29 coupe with a 400 Pontiac in it.)
I got a set of round back spindles from an discarded axle my cousin had. I got a 3.00:1 8" rear axle for $50. I even scored a working 3x2 setup for $250. I got a '35 hulk out of a hedgerow for free and traded the rearend and radius rods with a guy building a "traditional" rod for a set of Sanderson headers with a little blue on them.
I could go on for a while but to make a long story short I really worked at finding deals and keeping a list of what I needed and what other people wanted that I could trade them. If I knew then what I know now I could probably have built it for even less.
P.S. Just so you know this wasn't a fluke, I'll probably have the coupe on the road this summer for about $8500 total.
If you are interested in more on the project, here is my site:http://home.nycap.rr.com/stovertown

D*** Bob, I thought with the beard no one would recognize me. Those Corporate types have no sense of humor.



Hey Smokey, welcome to the forum. See, you did it the way I originally intended, and you proved it can be done if you just have patience and use your trading and buying skills. I am still going to do it with the '29 cowl and doors I have laying around, just to prove the point. If I hadn't started digging this little T and decided to dump some money into making it a few notches better, I could have done it too, I bet.

The next project will be called " The REAL project $ 3 K." (this one was just practice )


Don


I just looked at your '27 site.........great car and pictures. I have a soft spot for '27's. Mine is on A rails and looks a lot like yours. I also am using a Montego rear axle, but mine is a '68 9 incher. Love the tripower setup on yours.

Brian mentioned he has done a fair amount of glass work, I know Hotroddaddy worked at a major boat builder, and suspect many other members have done this kind of work, so I thought this might be a good time to mention some things for the members who have little or no experience with this medium. If some of you can chime in with whatever info you want, it would be very helpful I'm sure.

As Brian mentioned, fiberglass work isn't rocket science, and the more you work with it the more you realize the unlimited potential for making things out of it. The average guy, using readily available items can do everything from minor projects to building an entire car.

The first thing anyone thinking of doing some glass work should do is buy a good book on the subject. Even though I have been in the marine business since '88 and had exposure to glassing, I still bought a very good book on boat building and found tons of info in there that also relates to what we car guys do. I also would pick the brains of every fiberglass guy we would use at the marinas and learn little tips from them.

Fiberglassing is actually called FRP, for fiberglass reinforced plastic. The cloth or mat you use is the actual strength of the product, and the resin simply encapsulates that cloth or mat and makes it adhere. When the two are combined they fuse into the product you see making up boats and Corvettes. There are two types of resin.......polyester and epoxy. Of the two, epoxy is the better, stronger product, so naturally you would think it was the only one to use. Not necessarily, and I am using Polyester on my T, and the majority of boats on the market are made with the same product.

The reason is cost. Epoxy is more expensive (significantly so) and polyester does a very good job anyway. Where epoxy works well is when you are going back to do a repair, it bites in better in that circumstance and creates a better bond. But for initial construction, polyester resin is fine.

There are also various cloth products available. One is mat, and this is the one that you see with random strands running all different directions. Another is cloth. This is the one you see with a uniform pattern, and it looks like it was woven into a grid pattern. I usually work with mat because it conforms better to corners and bends, plus it will adhere better in the first layer. It has less tendency to pull away from stress. I think the stuff I am using is called 1/2 ounce mat, and it is the product normally used to repair and modify boats and the like.

I am going to close out this post because my computer has been freezing up, and I don't want to lose all that I have typed above. But here is a picture of the common tools I use to work with the stuff.

Don

The second picture above is mat that I have cut up into various sized pieces. You want to do this before you start fiberglassing because your fingers are going to be sticky during the process and you won't be able to do it then. Plus, the resin once catalyzed only gives you about 15-20 minutes working time, so you have to keep moving quickly or the resin will "kick" on you and get hard.

I save every little scrap of mat because you can fit little pieces into corners or string many pieces of it together to get a long run. It is just as strong this way, and conforms to corners and tight spots better than one bigger piece that will wrinkle up.

The tools shown are just common household tools, except for the two rollers shown. The one with the big wheel is a corner roller, and us used to compress the wet mat or cloth into tight corners and get a good joint. The roller that is longer is used to roll down large sections of the wetted out mat or cloth to get bubbles out and get a uniform layout.

What you do is paint down a layer of wet resin, then lay your mat or cloth into it and press it down. Then you take your throwaway brush and start dabbing more resin on top of the dry cloth. I say dabbing, because if you try brushing it like paint it tends to pull the mat or cloth away. You want to put enough resin on top until the mat or cloth becomes translucent, but not so much that you over saturate the cloth. This is something you develop a feel for. If you get too little you get a resin starved, dry cloth situation. If you put too much you get a resin rich, brittle situaltion. It takes some trial and error to learn how much is right, but there is some latitude for error, so don;t let this scare you.

Before you start laying up the glass you need to prep the parts first. If you are glassing something into a fiberglass body, like I am doing, you need to grind the interior very well, after wiping it down a lot with laquer thinner. What you are doing is removing the wax that rose to the surface when the body was built. THe reason there is wax in there is that fiberglass resin will never cure tack free unless the air is kept away from it. It cures by inhibiting the air, so they mix wax in the resin to do that.

Just thought of something on that subject. There are two types of resin.......laminating and finishing. I mistakenly bought laminating when I did my '27, thinking that I was doing "laminating" so that must be better. Problem is, laminating resin has no wax, and will remain sticky forever. It is made to allow you to continue laying on layer after layer without grinding. What you want for most projects is "finishing" resin. You do not have to grind between each layer of mat you put on, as long as you do the layers at one time. If you go back after the resin has cured (like the next day) you do have to dewax and grind the surface as the wax has already risen to the surface and the new stuff won't adhere.

As was also mentioned, buy lots of throwaway chemical resistant gloves, and either buy lots of mixing cups in various sizes, or start saving your Cool Whip and margarine tubs now, because you will use lots of them. Also, put down plastic sheeting under your work, because this stuff sticks to everything around it when you are putting it on.

I hope some others have more to add on this subject, but I have put off going to do my grinding as long as I can, so I have to go do that now.


Don