Thread: The Roofus Special

Tweet

Wow, that is awesome looking, how does it make you feel, is it in line of the picture of the car that is in your head??

I like that look!

That is some motivation... I like it.
Stay on it and you will be driving it soon!

Very cool look!! It's good to have a visualization of the finished deal for motivation!

Looks great! It takes fortitude to build a car from the ground up like this. What do you have to do for titling a home built car in Kentucky?

All of that tropical moisture pumped in by the former hurricane made it difficult to get interested in doing anything in th shop. I did get some outdoor pics of my 1960 Jaguar MK2 though.

It's gettin' there, Flipper!

Hey, thanks for giving me that PhotoBucket Image File tip some time back! It worked great once I uploaded the proper sized files into the bucket!

I stripped it down (body panels off and engine and trans removed) and rolled it on its side so I could weld up the bottom seams.




I love the fish shape that the body has



After I was done welding, I put the motor back.



I really need to figure out floor supports

Here is where I was on the front suspension. I-beam lower control arm parallel to the ground, transverse leaf spring just above that, and jag spindles.



The original plan when I started this build was somewhat parallel upper arm that attaches to the top of the frame rail.



I'm not really feeling it. It takes away from the swoop.

Attaching to the side of the frame helps a little.



The "way out there" alternative is the miller-ish, air-foil idea. Make a swoopy tube a-arm and shroud it in sheetmetal. The idea is to go under/around the frame rail with the upper arm. mounting point would be on the back side of the frame rail, up high. .....squint real hard and you might see it.

The mock-up pieces are just there to suggest ideas for the upper arms profile. Real arms will have triangulation.

The curved tube idea is based on this cars suspension. The air foil "axle" is really the upper control arm.





My version would be more of a "dropped axle" and would be made of steel instead of cast aluminum.

This car has the same style suspension on both ends (IFS, IRS and FWD in 1935!)

I started the morning by swapping in the new balljoints.





gotta cut the bolts down.



supporting the weight under the spindle shows what the extra leverage does to the spring rate. I gotta add some leaves back to the pack. The tire is going to be even farther outboard.



I shimmed the ride height back up and bolted the hub on to get a more realistic picture of the a-arm's environment

I was having a hard time explaining to dad what I wanted to do, so I broke out the posterboard. Think airplane wing as an upper a-arm.





it needs a ball joint pocket




slimmer pocket , more front to back shape

Scew it. I'l just use bailing wire!


I put the spring pack back to what I thought was stock only to find one more leaf afterwards (the one just above the clamps)


It did raise it up.


...still not sure what the upper arm is going to look like.

Hang in there it will come! Keep at it!

Glad to see an update, Flipper! I truly love seeing something coming together from cast away pieces & parts, and a little of the artist's eye influencing the process. Looking forward to more updates as you move forward on the build.