Thread: The Roofus Special

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The thought crossed my mind to build it like a 2 seater bonneville streamliner... move the nose forward so the end of the caddy hood ends at my original firewall. It would probably be a 140" wheelbase but it should be very fast looking.

What do y'all think?

Are you thinking of something like this?

Originally Posted by stovens

Are you thinking of something like this?

More along the lines of this one.

Pics

5" Jaeger speedo and tach



Whippet radiator

Nice gauges. What's the little one on the bottom of the tach, a clock?
I think your parts will start dictating your total design, although I wouldn't use that fish tank, too big for a functional overflow tank!

Thought about it a while.... I am going to continue to work on the track nose. The car needs to shrink a little though to pull it all off.

The cowl will need to be pinched a little to get the lines to work out right (who really needs THAT much foot room anyways?). The nose is gonna get a little smaller and a little lower at the front. Those pretty cam covers are actually going to poke through the hood a little at the front. The door openings are also gonna get smaller (shorter front to back and shallower).

I'm going to try and pack everything into a 100" wheelbase.


The Whippet radiator and MG gauges will go towards dad's T rebuild.

I spent a couple of frustrating days working on roofus. The heat and humidity in Memphis was aweful.

I had a heck of a time trying to make the transition from the boat tail to the track nose.

I started trying to mock up the original roof pieces.









Kinda OK, but I wasn't really feeling it.

On to plan B.

Another ROOF ! ...and a jaguar roof to boot! A 1979 Jaguar XJS to be specific.

It was a donor jag that was bought for the front and rear suspensions. I had planned on making fender skirts out of the roof.



Cut down the middle like I did the tail.

Time to cut. And bend up some new angles. (I made lots of scrap, but got lots of practice with the shrinker)









It looks like crap...too square. Does not flow with the rest of the car.

It fits the curve front to back pretty well though.

On to plan C

The cowl top needed a bigger radius. Time to make more angle pieces.

I dropped the roof panel down. Instead of trying to make the XJS roof make the whole bend, I decided to only make it do part of the bend. I positioned it down lower on the car.

Picked up a pair of 16x4 space saver spares at pull-a-part on Saturday.

The plan is to cut the centers out and convert the outers to be used for use with the wire wheels. I will be converting my 15x5.5 wheels to 16x4.

Going to play with forming the dimples for the spoke nipples using a press. Not sure if I will need to add heat or form it cold.

If it works, these will be the front wheels. I want skinny 18's for the rear wheels.

Found another pretty car to influence the build. Don't know if I like this nose better or not.

Turns out the XK transmission won't work with the bellhousing that I have, front bearing retainer and seal are way different. I pissed away a good bit of time trying to figure out if I could swap input shafts....I finally accepted defeat and decided to use the OD trans.

Good news is that I found a new clutch and pressure plate when I pulled the trans.

Bad news is that the engine needs to move rearward a couple of inches to make everything fit in a 100" wheelbase.

Break out the sawsall!





I laid the stock jag front suspension on the table to see what 100" looked like. Don't worry, only spindles, hubs and brakes will be used.

Right now there is a tube that goes under the sump in the oil pan, I am going to re-arrange the framework so that I have a hole for the sump/belhousing to fit in and lower the motor a little more. That jag motor is a tall son of a bitch for a little car.

I don't know... It looks like you are cutting up a side of beef.
Certainly,...... you have vision!