Thread: Roadster pickup getting closer

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After talking about english wheels earlier, I got fired up and went to Melbourne and bought one. They were on sale for $239! I'll let you know how it works in a few days...

August 16th! I'll mark it on my calendar. Who all is planning on it? Do we know?

Thanks Brick. Yep, he has to continue tying the skeleton into the firewall, then he can start putting the skin on. That will require a lot of welding and grinding, and will probably take a few days at the shop.

Jim, so you broke down and bought one, huh? That is a good price. Like I mentioned, we have looked at them when we visit HF and they look pretty usable to us. Knowing the way you crank out stuff, I fully expect you to build an entire body on that thing.

BTW, last night we went to the shop and Don came over too. He talked us into taking our 2 T's out for a little spin to go get some dinner. He let Dan drive his T home to stimulate Dan to get his done, and then Don had this great idea that we need to fire up Dan's engine for the first time to hear it run. We sort of made plans to get together during the day Saturday to do that, but we may postpone it a little more. We are going to sand down and repaint Dans engine and transmission black, so it doesn't make sense to put oil and coolant and stuff in it until that is done.

Don

I got the harbour freight one on sale awhile back and it seems to work fine, but i can tell when it flexes though. For the stuff we do they work just fine. It sure beats hammering out a panel and smoothing it with filler.

Originally Posted by hotroddaddy

I got the harbour freight one on sale awhile back and it seems to work fine, but i can tell when it flexes though. For the stuff we do they work just fine. It sure beats hammering out a panel and smoothing it with filler.

There's a tech article on the HAMB on how to brace one so it doesn't flex. I don't have the link, and wouldn't know how to post it if I did.

Ron

What??? He's going to cover that beautiful dark red with black? Too bad; that's a good lookin' color in the pics. I'm looking for a dark red metallic for my roadster's undercarraige... What color is that?

My friend Doug bought the wheel and anvils from HF and going to build he's own frame.
Around the world in 80 day's........hmm I wonder what to do with the other 60 day's'''''''LOL
BradC

Don-Dan's work is superb!
I bought mine from William's Low Buck Tools. It has to have a shackle around it to keep it from flexing when I get in a hurry.
Ken

Thanks Ken. As for English Wheels, I remember that episode of Monster Garage where Jesse James was using one and his comment was "these are great for making blood shoot out from under your fingernails!" Maybe that is why we haven't bought one yet.

Don

Any updates Don or has he changed his mind and going another direction.
BradC

Yep, he has decided to turn it into rock crawler, and..................

No, still plugging away, but piddling tasks so not much is post or picture worthy. Last night we worked on the underdash support bar and will finish that up today. Then we can install the steering column and get the steering box fabbed to the frame.

Dan finished up his transmission hump, well, at least for now. Still some body work to do to make it straighter and a skim coat of filler so it can be painted body color............he is not going to run upholstery or carpeting, so it will all be bare metal inside. He also got the mounts for the bomber seats all done and can now bolt the seats into place.

While he was doing that I pulled and tore down his engine so we can strip the paint off and repaint it a different color. Latest plan calls for it to be sort of an Oldmobile engine gold instead of the maroon that is on it. While we had it apart he considered going to an even more radical cam, but I called Crane the other day and the guy tells me the one we used is actually too radical for normal street driving....................exactly what Dan wants. Gotta have that drive in idle, ya know.

But here are a couple of pictures of what we have gotten done.........nothing major, but we seem to still be on track timewise, at least I hope. Dan is going to take two weeks vacation time in August, that way we can put in some long days in a row and hopefully get some major stuff accomplished.

Don

Why did I believe the rock crawler comment .

That tunnel sure turned out nice.

Sean

Yeah Sean, it isn't like he has changed directions a few times or anything. Every time I see him staring at the car I get worried.

Thanks about the tunnel. It photographs rougher than it is, I guess the lights bounce off the bare metal or something. But it came out fine for what it is. Because of the transmission taking up so much cockpit room it did end up a little big, but there is still a lot of foot room and all. Certainly more than my T has.

Don

Don it's coming along great. The tunnel even looks like a work of art.. If Dan is changing the engine and transmission color, has he decided on a color scheme for the body. I know one black and copper/gold combo roadster, that seem to hit it right and made it to the big times!
Tell Dan to keep posting even the little stuff. The seat mounts and stuff sometimes are the most helpfull, in coming up with a great way to do something nobody else would of thought of. I guess we just like watching your updates!Steve.

A 4X4 RPU, if anyone can pull that off it would you and your boys. If I remember right there isn't that many hill to rock crawl down in florida.
BradC

Thanks guys. Well Steve, I think it shouldn't be too much harder to maintain than gloss, because it will still be enamel, just with a flattener in it. I understand you can't buff it though because it will get shiny.

Yep Brad, the highest hill we have here is like 3 feet above sea level.

Dan and I really got a lot done this weekend. We worked until 5 am Sunday morning, and 1:30 this morning.........a grand total of maybe 25 hours in the two days. What we worked on was getting the underdash support system done so that we could mount the steering column, which will now allow us to mount the steering box to the frame. We couldn't put the box in until we knew the angle of the column.

Originally we were going to build a support that was shaped like the bottom of the '32 dashboard, but Dan had a bright idea to mount a 1.25 round tube from one side to the other, and then hang everything off of it. We had to build side supports first, then the bar, and finally some gussets to tie it to the master cylinder bracket. You could hang the car from that bar.......it is really strong and made the entire front section of the body totally rigid.

We also got the steering column mounted and run through the firewall. For a change we hit it on the nose the first time.........usually we end up missing the mark and having to patch one hole and cut another one. Maybe we are getting better at this stuff, or maybe we just lucked out.

We also got his gas pedal and brake pedal mounted. All small stuff, but more jobs out of the way at least. Here are some pictures of how the underdash stuff came out. The biggest problem is that none of this will be visible once the dash and gas tank cover are installed, but at least we know it's in there.

Don