Another build thread? Yep, my track-style T

[J. Robinson]

Thanks, Bill. Sorry I missed you in Ocala.

Yeah, the interior is not what I originally envisioned, but I think I'm actually going to like it better. I originally bought two tractor bucket seats for it, but they sat too high. This arrangement puts the driver and passenger almost two inches lower in the car. Now I have room between the rollbar and my head without having to raise the rollbar up any higher.

[oldrodder43]

Good day from the North Jim. Just got home yesterday. Glad to be home (and with my little dogs). It was a real pleasure meeting you and looking over your Coupe and T project. I sure wish we'd had more time, I could have asked you a million questions about building. You sure do exceptional work. Like they say, the pictures don't do you justice. Sorry about bringing along the cooler northern air with us!! Anyone need a quart bottle of sun block?? Actually the weather was perfect for us, and by the end of the week it was getting uncomfortable warm, but real nice by the pool. Maybe another year we can visit again. Best of luck to you, Perley U.

[J. Robinson]

Well, I'm back again.., finally...

As you can see from his post, Perley came by for a quick visit. Unfortunately, we didn't get to visit long (35 - 40 minutes?), but I can tell you all that he's a nice guy and doesn't look his age.

OK, where were we? Ah, yes. I had mentioned that there were a couple of things I needed to take care of before I weld up the roll bar assembly and bond it into the body. First of all, the hoop that is positioned immediately under the dash was going to be in the way of installing my gauges later. I could have raised it up about an inch and a half, but then I would have trouble bolting on the windshield brackets. I decided to "dogleg" the bar away from the backside of the dash panel in the gauge area. I did this by using two pieces of 1" x 2" rectangular tubing for the offsets and another piece of the 1" round tubing (same stuff the hoop is made from) for the cross piece.

As you can see in the pics, I welded the offsets and new tube in place first and then removed the original piece. By doing it this way, I was able to do all the fabrication outside the car and assure that nothing moved.

[J. Robinson]

The other thing I wanted to do is add a support for the sector shaft extension on the steering box. The extension I made will be under constant forward / backward stress whenever there is any input from the steering wheel. Eventually, even though everything is made from some beefy material and welded on both sides everywhere, the constant stress could cause the metal to fatigue and fail. I had the steering fail in a stock car once; that was the ultimate "Oh Shit!" experience. I stood on the brakes and slammed the fourth-turn wall. I DON'T want that to happen in traffic where there are vehicles coming the other way. My solution was to build a bracket that attaches to the support hoop just inside the body and eliminate the forward / backward stress and flex of the extension. With the bracket in place, all the stress now is rotational which does not (in this case) cause metal fatigue.

Look at the pics while reading this; it will help this make sense. The sleeve part of the bracket was made from a piece of tubing and two 3/8-16 coupling nuts. After welding the nuts onto the side of the sleeve, I simply cut it in half with a hacksaw and then drilled the threads out of the coupling nut halves on one side. Now it bolts together sort of like a connecting rod. Half of the sleeve is welded to the 1/4 x 2 flat bar with the radius cut in one end. This assembly is bent slightly and bolts to another bracket that is welded to the steering support hoop.

Now I can reassemble this inside the car and finish welding and bonding the roll bar assembly...

[J. Robinson]

My son sent me the link to a local news group that took pictures at the recent New Smyrna cruise-in. Our cars are about 2/3 of the way down. The guy liked his sedan so much he shot and posted 3 pictures of it...

http://yes2localnews.com/08-gallerie...tCoastCruiser/

Also, both cars showed up on Hotrod Hotline in pictures from the Spring Event at Daytona Speedway. They're on the 7th of 10 pages.

[Itoldyouso]

Jim, I mentioned your T build on another forum and some folks have come over to view it I think. The subject was 4 cylinder hot rods and how they worked out in one. You might be on the leading edge of a movement with gas getting the way it is.

Your cowl support looks good and will really stiffen things up. I'm so glad I did one in mine, nothing moves when I crank the wheel.

I went to that site you mentioned about the Smyna show, and was really shocked to see your Son's sedan.............he's really got it finished off nicely. I didn't know about the green paint and flames. Just looks super all the way around. He has to be getting stoked about having it on the road. When did he add the trips? Cool!!

Here are the pictures for everyone to see. Looks like it was a huge turnout of some really nice cars.

Don

[J. Robinson]

Thanks, Don. He's had the tri-power on there since day one. All the plumbing on it, as you can see, is done in copper and brass which he polished to a brilliant shine. He says he's going to put copper tubing in place of the radiator hoses and polish that too. We'll see... Those carbs are not the usual 2G's with side inlets; they are the more common (and much less expensive) front inlet type. The adapter that they sit on turns them slightly so the inlets are offset to allow the plumbing to fit. That setup draws a lot of attention.

The New Smyrna cruise-in takes place the second Saturday of every month and always draws a large number of nice cars.

The week after these pics were taken, we headed north to attend the cruise-in at Rossmeyer's in Ormond Beach. Unfortunately, about ten miles from home, my son's sedan threw its right rear wheel! I went back home to get my truck, a jack, and the necessary parts and tools so we could affect repairs on the roadside. No real damage other than 5 broken lug studs and a beat up brake drum, but my son learned a valuable lesson about wheel spacer adapters and why we use a torque wrench to install them...

[Itoldyouso]

Ouch! Was it torqued too loose the first time or what? Must be nice crusing with the Boy. My Sons keep asking me why I am not using my T much, but I am waiting until both of their cars are running so we can have our own rolling car show. More fun to cruise with others.

Don

[J. Robinson]

Not sure, but probably not tight enough... He slammed the adapters on with an impact wrench and then put the wheels on.

OK, for some of the newbies out there, here's a lesson in Auto Mechanics 101 (Sorry. It's the teacher coming out in me)... Have ya ever wondered why the lug holes in a standard steel wheel have that raised area around them? No, it's not to center the lug nut! That little raised area is actually a carefully engineered shape that compresses slightly when the lugs are tightened. It acts like a lock washer. You can drive around on a stock wheel with 4 or even 3 lugs indefinitely, but you can't do that with a mag wheel... If the lugs are tightened unevenly on a solid piece (like an adapter or a mag wheel with a thick center) it will seat with uneven pressure. It may not be visible or feel crooked at first, but as the wheel rolls over and over it keeps exacerbating the high and low stresses until something moves. If one lug nut comes loose, the differences in the stress loads becomes greater. Eventually, another lug will work loose, then another and another, etc. Pretty soon all the weight and stress is being carried directly by the lug studs instead of the friction between the surfaces of the wheel and hub. At that point, if it isn't re-tightened, the lug studs will begin to fail. My son said he encountered a vibration that was growing steadily worse (probably the lug studs shearing off one at a time) and then, suddenly, the wheel left...

When we got it back home that evening, I had him to take both rear wheels off so I could check the adapters. Bingo! The lugs on the left adapter were finger tight! To prove my point I tightened it with the impact wrench and then checked it with a torque wrench. The first two lugs I tightened registered 130 lbs. The other three ranged from 100 to 80 lbs! I loosened them all and reset them to 110 with the torque wrench.

OK. Lesson over.

Yeah, Don, it is kinda cool cruisin' with my young'un. Back when he was in his early teens, his mother and I were certain that one of us was probably going to kill him. He finally grew up and has become a good friend. We built our cars pretty much side-by-side like you and your sons and now we enjoy cruising them together.

[J. Robinson]

I finally got around to reassembling the steering and supports inside the body. In the picture, you can see the sector shaft support is just inside the body. Everything fits and works as intended, so now I can finish welding in the side bars and bond the roll bar structure to the body.

[Itoldyouso]

Yeah, those teen years can be a little trying, can't they? I know we had a few heated "discussions" when mine were that age. Problem is, they won't hold still for a spanking when they get bigger than you.

Nice to see you are getting more done on your T. That steering support is a good idea.

Don

[J. Robinson]

Well, it's been a while, but I finally got a pretty good day in on the roadster yesterday (Sat.). With all the modifications finished on the under-dash hoop, I was ready to weld in the side bars and then bond the whole assembly into the body.

I began by welding in the side bars. Since it is impossible to get a full 360 degrees around the tubes, gussets are a must. After finishing the side bars, I put a cross-bar in the main roll bar hoop about 3 inches below the top of the body. This piece is also gusseted at the corners and I included a bracket on each side so I can attach racing style shoulder harnesses later.

Once everything was welded in place (and cooled off) I moved on to bonding the cage to the body. To do this, I put a temporary "dam" of 2" masking tape on one side of the bars where I wanted to apply the bonding material. Next, I mixed up a big glob of Dynaglas fiberglass filler and packed it into the void between the bars and the fiberglass body. (It actually took 3 times to fill all the areas I wanted to bond; ya can't mix this stuff all at once or it will harden before you can use it.) After the the first round of filler was hard enough, I pulled all the masking tape, mixed up some more filler, and packed all the areas from the opposite sides. Finally, when all the filler was cured, I did some scraping and grinding to clean everything up.

There are a couple of areas where I will do some additional bonding when I "wood in" the body. When I'm done, the roll cage and body will be virtually one piece.

[J. Robinson]

Now that the side bars are in place, I was able to finish the side nerf bars. I built the bottom bars sometime ago, but I couldn't put the upper brace on until I had something to which I could attach the upper end.

First step was to make a couple of brackets and attach them to the side bars just inside the body. I fabricated these from 1/4" wall x 1 1/2" angle. After cutting them to length, I trimmed 3/8" off one edge. Next, I drilled them and welded a 3/8 - 16 nut to the back side. The finished brackets were then welded to the underside of the side bars so that they were directly above the rear of the side nerf. I got them even by measuring from the firewall straight back on both sides.

After the brackets were in place, I drilled through the body from the inside, using the hole in the bracket as a guide, with a 1/4" bit. Using the 1/4" hole as a guide, I then used a 1" hole saw to cut through the body from the outside.

Next, I cut two pieces of 3/4" tubing 1 1/2" long and welded a 3/8" SAE washer to one end.

[Itoldyouso]

Looks like everything is getting really tied together well Jim. That inner structure should come in handy to mount a lot of your stuff to.

How close do you think you are to firing up the engine?

Don

[J. Robinson]

I don't know, Don. I haven't messed with the engine at all yet. I still need to remove all the fuel injection stuff and get some type of carburetion for it. It was a running engine when it was pulled from the '87 S-10, so it shouldn't be too hard to get it going...

The inner structure also adds a little protection, but it's going to complicate the "wooding" process.