Another build thread? Yep, my track-style T

[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".

[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!!!!!!!!

[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

[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

[stovens]

Jim
What are you going to panel the sides with? I imagine insulation isn't a issue there? 2 and a 1/2 hours wow!

[roadster32]

JR only just found your build thread, keep up the good work, very interesting.

[Whiplash23T]

Now now Don, Jim is happly married with children,there must be another way of getting garage time without the messy divorce!!
Although the extremely romantic idea has some appeal for any guy, but that can also backfire and one ends up too worn out to crawl out to the garage.

[J. Robinson]

Don - I may take your advice next year when she is retired, too. School starts up again in two weeks and she'll be back at work; if I took over the household chores, she'd be thrilled! Of course, when she comes home at the end of a day, she'll expect to see progress on that list... Right now, though, I need to stay on good terms - she is a fabulous seamstress and I am going to need some upholstery work on the roadster soon...

Stovens - I am going to frame in between the steel uprights with 2 x 3 lumber (because it's the same width) set at 24 inches on center. The ends will be framed with 2 x 4 lumber set 16" on center. Then I will clad it with T-111 vertical grooved plywood siding. I am using that because it matches the siding on the entryway and garage front of my house and this garage is visible from the street.

Roadster32 - Welcome. Hopefully I'll have some progress to show here before too much longer. By the way, cool avatar.

Whiplash - Happily married 39 years this month! Our only son is 35. And you're right, even though my wife is only a year younger than me, she can wear me out any time she chooses...

[J. Robinson]

Well, it took me a while in all this heat, but here it is. I still have some work to do on the inside, but the exterior is finished. The funny thing, to me, is that it looks smaller now that you can't see through it... Anyway, it won't be long now and I'll finally be back to work on the roadster... Oh yeah, total cost? About $6400.