Thread: Another project? Sure, why not!!

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Go radical!!! Yellow or orange tinted windows, sky high front end.
Here is some inspiration

Hmmm... Maybe Dave or Tech or one of the other older drag racers can verify this, but if memory serves me, altered class cars still had to run a grille shell... Gassers had fenders, radiators, headlights, and were allowed up to 10% engine setback. Altereds lost the fenders and radiators, but still required a grille shell and had up to 25% engine setback. If you removed the grille shell, that put you in "Competition" class which had no limit on engine setback. Comp was dominated by Bantam and Fiat-bodied rail dragsters... Depending on the size of that engine, your class designation would be A/A or B/A with a grille shell or A/C or B/C without.

As for headlights, you could use some of those projector beam bulbs like Jaguars and Cadillacs use. You would have to make nacelles for them, but they could be mounted in the upper corners of the firewall in fairly small holes and be almost invisible...

Never did run Altered or Gas classes, but that seems about right on what the rules used to be.... In them days I ran Super Stock or Modified Production....Never had the budget to step up to the Gassers and Altereds...Then i was detoured to circle burnin' for a number of years and came back to run brackets, top alcohol, and the "Super" classes.... Sure would like to have run one of the altereds though.... My "if money were no object" dream class these days would have to be Pro Stock, they still get to shift!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks flh4speed. I don't know about the motivational speaker thing.........I can't even motivate myself to stay on one project. Yeah, Dan's is coming right along. Today he had off work so we put in another full day and got the rear crossmember built. Took us all day pretty much because we bought some 5 inch diameter pipe and split a section of it in half and added 5 inches to the height so it now is a support for his driveshaft tunnel and also acts as a safety hoop in case the driveshaft gets loose. I took some pictures, but my camera battery is charging.

Gusaroo, that is one bad little altered there. Very cool. You know, there is a tudor sedan sitting in the loft, and I have an extra Chevy engine, and.........nah, I better stick to getting the ones I have now done.

Jim, you are right about altereds needing a grille shell. My Austin Bantam had a model T grille shell, no radiator, but it needed the shell to be a legal altered. That is an idea about the projector lights, they are pretty unobtrusive. I'll keep that in mind.

Dave, I just watched some drags on TV the other day. Those prostock guys sure can shift those gears. You are right about the cost factor though.

Don

Nice to see you working on another project. The bar under the crank pulley looks like it supports the engine, but I'm not sure? Trying to figure it out in the picture. Also, I didn't know you could mount a radiator in the back? How does that work, with an electric fan? This will be a real education thread for me. Great ideas, and beautifull truck. Nice to have the hard top, convertable choices in life. Like Ken's grandson said, let's take the truck instead!
I also really like the flat black paint idea. I've been farting around with the idea of painting my own truck a flat color to hide my lack of perfection on the truck, plus I really like the look. I was thinking of either primer gray or olive.
Is this the big block 460 in the truck?

Originally Posted by J. Robinson

Hmmm... Maybe Dave or Tech or one of the other older drag racers can verify this, but if memory serves me, altered class cars still had to run a grille shell... Gassers had fenders, radiators, headlights, and were allowed up to 10% engine setback. Altereds lost the fenders and radiators, but still required a grille shell and had up to 25% engine setback. If you removed the grille shell, that put you in "Competition" class which had no limit on engine setback. Comp was dominated by Bantam and Fiat-bodied rail dragsters... Depending on the size of that engine, your class designation would be A/A or B/A with a grille shell or A/C or B/C without.

As for headlights, you could use some of those projector beam bulbs like Jaguars and Cadillacs use. You would have to make nacelles for them, but they could be mounted in the upper corners of the firewall in fairly small holes and be almost invisible...

Wow, your memory seems better than mine and I yield to it. I can remember one particular Sunday at Dahio. I was driving a modified 51 Merc flathead in a '48 Ford Tudor, so classed myself in F/Gas. A little later, a hotter F/Gas car showed up. I went back to the pits, yanked the back seat and re-classified myself C/A, then went out and soloed for the trophy. HEY, gimme a break. I was 16 and wanted a trophy!!!!

My buddy put a 429 in his Jeep CJ

Since the motor was so huge, there was no room for a radiator up front, he ended up putting a radiator in the between the roll bars in the back (on the 45 degree bars at the rear). In the summer he ran the fans blowing hot air out, in the winter he reversed the fans and blew the hot air in (actually it was too hot, he ran a bikini top all winter, which was pretty funny). It worked well, never overheated. Only two problems, bleeding the air out of the system was difficult and once he had one of the copper pipes let loose inside the body, sprayed hot water all over him...

Very nice build. What have you done to the Olds or is it mostly stock? I'd like to see a piture of the chassis without the body too. It looks very well planned.

Tom

Steve, yep in stock form these Olds engines were setup exactly the opposite of most American cars............they have one mount in the center of the timing cover and two on the bellhousing. Most American cars put two on the engine and one on the tailshaft of the transmission. What we did was make one crossmember up front that bolts to the stock mounting location with a poly bushing on each end. Then we did exactly the same thing on the transmission except it mounts to a couple of ears we made to bolt onto each side of the transmission. So now the engine actually has 4 mounting points and sits on somewhat of a cradle.

As for the radiator in the back, this will be a first for me too, but others have done it like Littleman from the HAMB (the winner on the Jimmy Shine Show at SoCal). He has a Model A coupe (Deaths Doorstep) that runs a hemi with radiator mounted in the bed. Yeah, an electric fan is a must, and I don't know yet if it will have to run continuously or if airflow going down the road is enough to keep it cool. I plan to build some sort of ducting system to scoop up air from under the car to direct air over it, plus my tonneau cover is punched with 224 louvers. I am also going to louver or somehow vent the tailgate to get more air out. One other good thing will be that I have tons of room back there for a huge radiator, and coupled with the extra water capacity of the long hoses going rearward I should have good cooling ability.

39Deluxe, thanks. It's a 394 out of a '64 Olds 98. It is just a mild build.......30 over, flattop forged pistons, mild cam, heads worked a little with hardened valve seats, and the tripower setup. It was the "red" 394 which was a higher horsepower engine than the "green" one, I think rated at something like 345 HP stock. Gas may be an issue because I think it was 10.5 to 1 stock and is probably pushing 11 to 1 now, but well see how that goes.

The one weak link in the whole thing is the transmission. It is a four speed hydro, and the ones from that year were not the swiftest transmissions around. Bendtsens Transmissions sells a conversion kit to put either a 350 turbo behind it or a stickshift setup. But they get $ 1000 for the 350 one and over $ 1500 for the stick version, so I am going to do that sometime down the road. By the time you add in the cost of a transmission it would tally up to somewhere between $1500 and $2500, and I can't afford that right now. The stock transmission should be fine for a while, I'll just put some seals in it and see what happens.

As for early pictures sans body, I think my Son Dan has some in his computer. He and I started out as partners in this car and I later bought him out when he found his Model A, so he has most of the build pictures. I will have to ask him for some of them.


Don

Hey Don,
Back in my college days I had a '60 Pontiac with a 4-speed Hydro and it launched like nothing else I ever owned. I had a '63 Pontiac right after that with the "new" 3-speed Turbo-Hydramatic trans and it was a dog by comparison. Both cars had 389 two-barrel engines...

You just reminded me of something Jim, The transmission I have behind my '64 Olds engine actually is a cast iron '59 or '60 transmission. I helped a buddy swap a 455 into his Olds and he gave me the engine and transmission. When I put this car together a few years ago I elected to go with the heavier, older transmission. It just seemed better than the aluminum one that came behind the '64. So maybe it won't be too bad anyway. I think the weak part of these was the sluggish shifts.

But hey, I drive like an old man anyway.

Don

The original B&M Hydro-Stick transmissions were made from the old cast iron 4-speed Hydros. They sure didn't have sluggish shifts. I wonder if B&M still make parts for those? Or if you could find a NOS kit somewhere...? Anyway, as light as that truck is (compared to an old Oldsmobile), it may not be a problem.

Uh.., Don.., We ARE old men...

I put a lot of miles on a '53 88 2door with a hyro back when I started driving. I liked the trans but other than the 1-2 shift is was a slow shifter (but smooth). I've been wanting to put a 394 in something for a long time. They are getting harder to find though.

Tom

Yep, I had a cast iron '56 hydro in my altered that was "supposedly" built by B&M, but I never could confirm it. However, it did shift like gangbusters and the injected 301 never hurt it any.

Don

I love pick up trucks!! So if you pm me your address I have a contribution I would like to make to your project. So when you are done will you meet me in Kansas (I think that's half way) so we can race pick up's?
Ken