Another build thread? Yep, my track-style T

[Whiplash23T]

Hi Jim, Don't put yourself down man, your cars are special to you and I would believe everyboby on this site would appreciate the workmanship that you have put into them. I think it would be a sight for sore eyes to see all your T's together, and I mean,not across the other side of the field. I joined the T Bucket Forum before I was lead to this site, and now I spend all of my time here because of (1) the people are so friendly. (2) most of the people are Christians which I admire being one myself. (3) And there is so many Knowledgable,helpful people here.

[J. Robinson]

OK, I'm almost computer illiterate, so if I can do this, anyone can... Somewhere in your computer you should have a photo editing program like Microsoft Office Picture Manager or maybe Photoshop. Whatever pictures you are going to post on this forum need to be resized. The ideal size for here is 640 x 480. It's big enough to see everything, but small enough that we can see the whole picture and read the text without having to scroll from side to side (very annoying). When I am doing it, I open a picture, click on "Open", click on Picture Manager (the picture opens in a new window), click "Edit Pictures", click "Resize", select the size I want, click "OK". Then click on "File" at the top, select "Save As". I usually leave the name of the picture whatever it is and put an "a" after it and hit "Save". It puts the resized picture back in the same file right next to the original. It sounds a little complicated at first, but after you do it a couple of times you can fly through the steps. If you have problems, send me a personal message so I can give you more help.

When you get a chance, click on "Edit" on your previous post and delete the pictures. That will let this column go back to its normal size. Then you can resize the pictures and re-post them so we can see 'em.

[dlotraf33]

Jim, just wanted to let you know this has been the best build I have had the pleasure to read. The other nite I found this and stayed up too late and read till my eyes crossed just to get to the end. GREATTTTTTTTTTT. You are just as talented with the posts as is apparent with the build itself. I always wanted to do just that. But I would forget to take the pictures at the correct moments. So much was lost. Your teaching abilities sure do show. Can't wait to see it finished. It will surely be a sweet t. Hope the manifold works, I too know only one thing about computer controlled cars, that is that I don't know anything about computer controlled cars. Keep up the great work.

[J. Robinson]

Hey Whiplash, looks like you got the hang of it now... Now that I can see the steel reinforcement you did, looks like a nice job. Bet it sure makes getting in & out easier. I wish I had seen the way you did this before I put the side bars in my body. They are tied to the roll bar, so opening my doors is out of the question now...

dlotraf33 - Thanks for the compliments. There are several really good build threads on this forum. When you have time, check out some of the threads started by Itoldyouso, Ken Thurm, and Brianruppnow.

Funny you should mention my manifold... I built it a few months ago and it is still in my garage, bolted loosely to the engine in the roadster. I was supposed to ship it to Indiana a while back to have the carbs and plumbing installed, but I still haven't done it. I need to make a minor modification to it to include a vacuum port for the PCV system and I am still vacillating on the color. Anyway, I hope to have my home improvement projects finished in another couple of months so I can get back to working steadily on the roadster.

[Whiplash23T]

Hey Jim,Can you help this old dumb blonde fart out please. I have tried to find Brianruppnow build thread and some of the other posters that are quick with a joke or advice, but I keep hitting my head up against the brick wall as I just don't know how?

[J. Robinson]

OK, Whiplash, no problem. Brian has done dozens of threads, though, so you may want to look through the index. If you click on "Members List" at the top of this page it will take you to the beginning of the member directory. Click on the letter "B"; that will skip you past all the "A's". Find "brianrupnow" in the list (I think he's on page 57 or 58 of the "B's") and click on his name; that will take you to his info page. Click on the "Statistics" tab and then click "Find all threads started by brianrupnow". You'll have to scroll through the list to find topics you may be interested in. Below is one of Brian's threads that is typical of the stuff he does - well written and nicely illustrated:
http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28617

[Itoldyouso]

Jim, just got done catching up on your build thread. Glad to see you are still moving ahead.......love the intake setup.

I'm all up for the T bucket Nationals if you want to go sometime. We might have to stop every hour or so though to get the circulation back into our backsides.

Keep us posted on how you are coming with the track t.

Don

[Whiplash23T]

Thanks Jim for your help. Just spend the last hour or so checking out all 10 pages of threads by Brian and skimming through some with titles that jumped out at me,awesome. Now if anybody missis me,that where I be,reading his threads starting 2004 to present.

[J. Robinson]

Thanks, Don. I haven't been moving too fast on it for the last 10 months or so. I spent last summer building a new screen-enclosed porch and an outdoor deck on the back of my house. That led to a couple of other home improvement projects and now I am preparing to build a new garage! I'm trying to get all the expensive stuff done before I retire at the end of May.

The T-bucket Nationals are in Colorado this June, so next year they should be back on this side of the Mississippi. Hopefully I'll have my roadster up and running by then and we can (tenatively) plan on going...

Whiplash - You're welcome. Lots to read there. While you're reading, here's one on a nice T-bucket build by Hotrod48 that may interest you, too: http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30147 and if you like detail to the max, check out Ken Thurm's thread on his Deuce roadster: http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34927 Enjoy!

[Whiplash23T]

Thanks again Jim for the links. Now you and Don talking about the T Bucket Nationals and meeting up is just driving me nuts wth envy. You know humans can send men to the moon but ask them same humans to link the worlds countries together with some bridges so we can partake in some of those neat runs,it is just tooo hard eh!!! Computers have made the world smaller so I shouldn't complain.

[J. Robinson]

In case anybody is curious... I am finally closing in on the time when I will be able to start working on my roadster again. The list of home improvement jobs suddenly got longer a while back when we were invaded by termites! My wife and I came home from the grocery store one Sunday morning to a swarm of the little bastards in our family room. There is very little wood in this house (concrete block walls on a concrete slab), but they had found a way in to the wood trim in the family room and were working their way toward the roof... After the exterminators were finished, we had to repair one wall and replace some trim in the family room. That, of course, led to repainting the whole room, buying some new furniture, rearranging, etc...

Finally, I am back working on my garage that we started a while back. I only get in a few hours every day before the heat sends me indoors for relief. Anyway, here's what I did. I had a slab poured and then had a Carolina Carports 20 x 28 "triple wide" carport installed. Now I am in the process of enclosing the carport to make it into a garage. I did it this way for two reasons: First is cost; by having a steel carport installed and then enclosing it myself I saved several thousand dollars in materials. Second, the carport is rated for 130 mph wind. That's an important consideration here in hurricane land. If I had built a conventional wood frame garage, I would first have had to pay an architect for a set of certified plans (about $600 - $800) and then had an inspection after the frame was up ($500) to verify that I had followed the plans in regards to structural wind resistance. Here's a pic of the carport; I could only go 20 feet deep because I had to stay the appropriate distance from the property line, so I went triple-wide. This is the same depth as the garage that is attached to my house, but six feet wider. It ain't huge, but it'll be like wide open spaces compared to what I'm accustomed to.

As for the roadster - I determined that I didn't like the wood seat frame and back that I built for it, so I threw them out and replaced 'em with a pair of Kirkey aluminum seats from Speedway Motors. I don't have them mounted yet, but with them just sitting in place, the car looks a lot more "racey".

[Itoldyouso]

Sorry to hear about the termites and all the carpentry jobs you have been doing. I for one really miss your updates on the T. You were busting hump there for a while, but life does get in the way sometimes.

Are we going to see you at Turkey Run or will you be home watching reruns of This Old House.

Don

[Dave Severson]

Very kewl (and a huge money saver!) idea on the carport, Jim!!! Nothing like beating the politico's at their own game plus ending up with a better structure to boot!!!

Double atta-boys to Jim for the plan of the month!!!!!!!!

[J. Robinson]

Dave - Thanks for the atta-boys, but I can't take full credit for the idea. A neighbor of mine did this same thing a few years ago and I stole the idea from him... The really amazing part of this structure was how fast it went up. Three guys rolled up here with a dually pickup and tandem trailer loaded with all the pre-fabbed components at ten minutes 'til five in the afternoon. At 7:20 I was signing the invoice and writing the check for the balance owed! Two and one half hours, complete! Mine was the third one they had done that day. The boss said they were working a little slow because of the heat!

Don - I'll be at the Turkey Run; I can set my DVR to record This Old House... If I have any more trouble with termites, I may be watching "Flip This House"! The bad news is my wife keeps watching "Curb Appeal" and getting ideas... Also, now that I'm retired, the "honey do" list has grown substantially.

[Itoldyouso]

[QUOTE=J. Robinson;
The bad news is my wife keeps watching "Curb Appeal" and getting ideas... Also, now that I'm retired, the "honey do" list has grown substantially.[/QUOTE]

Ok Jim, we guys have to stick together. Here is how you get out of all those honey dos. What you want to do is become such a pain in the neck that she shoos you out into the garage to get some peace and quiet. You need to be underfoot constantly (this usually takes about a week). Be at her side every waking moment.........take over the cooking, make her sit with you and watch YOUR tv shows (even if you hate wrestling, make her watch it with you) start reorganizing the whole house, move furniture around, change the location of the pictures on the walls, stuff like that.

Next, start doing all the laundry and put bleach in with the colored stuff and use waaaaaaaaaaay to much fabric softner. Get up at 5 am and "insist" she do housework with you at that time. Believe me, a week of that and she will be pushing you out of the house and into your garage.

If none of that works, start becoming extremely "romantic".....chase her around the house 24-7. That is the last resort, but I guarantee it works. Mine only let me do the laundry one time!!!

Don