Thread: Everybody that is currently building a car...

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Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Yup Brick, the odds are against us gearheads. Just makes building Hot Rods and racers that much more fun!!! My only problem is keeping up with these kids when it's time to work on the cars!!!! Been a long time since I've been out in the shop till 11PM every night wrenching on a race car!!! Just another sign of old age, I guess.

As with many things, you can take the man out of the race car, but you can't take racing out of the man. Now if we could just get some elderly, retired mod chassis guy up here next summer to be a "consultant" on the chassis, maybe we could go fast!!! HEY MIKE!!!! These things ain't nothing like setting up a sprint car!!! Looked all over the car, no torsion bars anywhere!!!!!!!!

all of them turn left. the first mod. mustang i built i put a ply. front end under it. couldn't buy dif. length bars for it so i cut the right torsion bar to get the wt. i needed and welded it back together, lasted a season that way without breaking., then i went to coil overs. i wish i could help you set that thing up.

Made some good progress this weekend, Mike. The Monte bodied car is almost buttoned up, got the aluminum done for the interior today. Should be in the paint booth by Tuesday night, put in a fresh bullet on Thursday, on the track Friday and Saturday night.... Going to finish out the season with this car, then switch to IMCA mod and maybe a late model for next season..... Now If I could just figure out how to keep up with these dang kidswhen it comes to working on stuff....Way more energy then I have!!!!!! and possibly like my friend Lyle said the other day, "checked the date on your birth certificate lately?"...

Well I put pictures of the Caravan seat in an old thread and it vanished with no response, but I was still able to summon up the old thread which is now misnamed about the end of last years rod season when it really turned out to be about how to install a Caravan middle seat in a Model-A roadster. So here is a mockup of the seat in my '29. Is it too high for a 2" chopped windshield? The wooden blocks total 4 1/2" but I can use the stock retractable seatbelts if I leave it at that height.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Made some good progress this weekend, Mike. The Monte bodied car is almost buttoned up, got the aluminum done for the interior today. Should be in the paint booth by Tuesday night, put in a fresh bullet on Thursday, on the track Friday and Saturday night.... Going to finish out the season with this car, then switch to IMCA mod and maybe a late model for next season..... Now If I could just figure out how to keep up with these dang kidswhen it comes to working on stuff....Way more energy then I have!!!!!! and possibly like my friend Lyle said the other day, "checked the date on your birth certificate lately?"...

what you like in energy, you'll make up in know how. those IMCA mod. are a lot of fun. are you doing it in the dirt?

Originally Posted by Don Shillady

Well I put pictures of the Caravan seat in an old thread and it vanished with no response, but I was still able to summon up the old thread which is now misnamed about the end of last years rod season when it really turned out to be about how to install a Caravan middle seat in a Model-A roadster. So here is a mockup of the seat in my '29. Is it too high for a 2" chopped windshield? The wooden blocks total 4 1/2" but I can use the stock retractable seatbelts if I leave it at that height.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

looking good don.

Yes it is, a caravan seat huh? Pretty crafty Don you krafty ol' devil you!!

Age and cunning will over come sooner or later Dave!!

I got my new Cragers mounted and they are looking good! I love those old style wheels, they never go out of style.

yup, all dirt around here, Mike.

The Crager's are perfect for the car, Brick!!! Great choice!!!

Seat looks good, Don. Anybody needs a Caravan seat that size, got one in my basement being used for auxillary seating when my kid has too many friends over......

Nice wheels Brick! Actually I got the idea for the Caravan seat from C9X who also had a red one in his '30 roadster. I had to do a lot more cutting of the side frame of the seat bottom than he did because the Bebops 'glass body has a wide lip around the bottom of the door to seal out splashes but I was able to rewrap the seat cover around the flat springs after I took out the side rails. Today I may finish the hard part which is making the brackets under the seat out of angle iron. It looks like there might be room for a roll bar behind each corner of the seat but it would be tight. I will probably omit the roll bar since this will be a street cruiser. I would like to hear from C9X as to why he lowered the seat in his '30 cause if I do that I lose the factory seat belt mounts. Also I hesitate to build the seat brackets for a 4 1/2" height when I don't know how much clearance I would have with a 2" chopped windshield. Since I know the chopped windshield will be 12" high I will mock up some cardboard for a windshield today and check out the height before I finish the angle iron brackets. I know only a few folks are interested in this process but it helps me plan just to talk about it and just gave me the idea to try a cardboard windhield for measurement; so the Forum is really helping me! Dave what happened to the Ranchero? two years ago I sold a rough '66 Ranchero to a guy who had a '66 Ranchero drag car and he snapped up my Ranchero because he thought it would be neat to have a Ranchero tow car for his Ranchero drag car. I wanted to fix up that Ranchero but the interior was all ripped up and to my wife that made it junk. That's why I have to use a nice seat for the '29.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don, Jay's email link is active in his profile so just send him an email direct.

Just some thoughts on seat height. There are a couple reasons to have the seat (or portion thereof) lower. First, from a cosmetic point of view, having the seat back top protrude above the passenger compartment back rail looks "awkward", not very pleasing to the eye and looks haphazard. Second, if the back is below the back body panel, the seat can be made to slide back a little further yielding more leg room. Looks like you've got some bracing there, and you may be putting an upholstery bulkhead there, but still looks like you could gain another inch or so. Depending on your build you may need the lower cushion portion elevated so shortening the backrest frame work would be in order, or you may be able to drop the whole seat structure some, maybe a combination of the two processes. You can also drop the seatback height a small amount by "rocking" the whole seat assembly back. It will plant your butt lower, thus lowering your head, and give you more thigh support (more important for long drive comfort than some folks realize). Like anything else, too much of that will cause other discomfort, but you should consider playing with it. After all, you're building a custom setup for you. Placing the seat is pretty critical for comfort and safety. I can't emphasize enough that you have all elements of fitment, steering column & wheel, all pedals, windshield, location of door handles, gauges, and everything else you're going to interact with in place. It's easy to get the cart before the horse in haste and later learn that you could have organized yourself differently to effect a more comfortable outcome. Focus more on comfort, and style, before the act of mounting. Make the mounting conform to what you need/want rather than the other way around.

Bob, thanks for a helpful reply. Actually it is easy to tuck the back of the seat at least 1" further back under the lip of the rear deck and yes there is a 1" square tubing frame back there, but when I set it up that way the edge of the deck was evident in the back of my neck. I will take your idea seriously and maybe just use a 4" height and that will allow me to get maybe 1" further back but there is a limit because the seat back is thin and I don't want to feel the top edge of the rear deck on my neck. I think it is fortunate that overall the seat is pretty close to comfortable for me but my wife would like that extra 1" extension. With your knowlege of early Ford tech specs what do you say about the tall windshield of the stock '28-'29 model versus the much lower '31 Deluxe windshield. It seems to me that a 12" high 2" chopped '29 windshield is only a bit lower than the stock '31 Deluxe height which I believe was 13" high? Also I looked in the member list for "C9" and "C9x" and missed him somehow. I think he is also on the HAMB site also. In addition the new member list does not seem to indicate the e-mail addresses? I'll look again.

OK Bob, I found him in the members list and clicking on his ID produced his e-mail address. Maybe he can make some useful comments. There is some possibility that the '29 body is slightly higher than his '30 allowing the seat to go back further and/or the use of a flat floor in the 'glass body allowed a little more vertical clearance than the metal floor in the metal roadster body. But for your comment, the picture shows the seat extending a bit above the back lip but with a slight change in angle of the seat it is easy to tuck the seat back under the lip of the rear deck.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

[QUOTE= With your knowlege of early Ford tech specs what do you say about the tall windshield of the stock '28-'29 model versus the much lower '31 Deluxe windshield. It seems to me that a 12" high 2" chopped '29 windshield is only a bit lower than the stock '31 Deluxe height which I believe was 13" high? [/QUOTE]

Well, that's not so cut and dried. It comes down to a mix of taste, theme, and personal wants/needs.

Personally, when it comes to roadsters (as opposed to convertible/cariolets), not necessarily coupes or sedans, a chop is always a good thing visually. Especially so with the T's and A's. To my eye, once any of those have been lowered, the visual balance needs to be brought into line with a top/windshield chop. How much gets complicated by the above stated criteria. At least 2", and sometimes more. If someone were doing a resto-rod, two tone paint, wire wheels, not much lowering or rake, stock height might get it, but a chop would still make the car look less "gawkish". Especially if a stock appearing top is used, as they are somewhat "spindley" looking, less mass/height helps. Some folks go for too much (my opinion) chop, say 4-5" under the belief that some is good, more is enough, and too much is the best. If you're building a cartoon car that might work, but otherwise it compromises the balance of proportions and results in operating compromises that get tiresome in a hurry. Fenderless cars can take a little more chop than fendered cars..............again, a balance of visual mass. In your case you're not doing a vintage traditional style (ala resto-rod), probably best described as "mid-era" traditional (since I made that up I'll call it '70's-'80's based). Balancing your need to please the bride, meaning least amount of ambient discomfort (least being the operative word ) I'd say the 2" would be functionally adequate, while minimally pleasing esthetically. If you're running topless (I don't see any top frame mounts in your pics) a slight rearward rake to the windshield would give the impression of more chop if that is desired. You've limited yourself to playing with this sort of thing by having already painted the car, but if you're careful, and do some mocking up (as you noted with cardboard earlier), you can play with some options to see what suits your tastes/objectives. Always remember to roll the car out of the shop, step back say 20 feet at least, and look at what you propose to do from multiple angles. You'd be surprised (or maybe not) how what looks good in the confines of the garage doesn't always play well in the outside world of a broader perspective. A corollary is, what might seem good on a measuring tape, doesn't always play well esthetically either.

Bob, I agree and your sense of what looks right is valuable. I had assumed that with a dropped axle and a dropped headlight bar a stock height windshield would definitely look awkward, but don't tell my wife that we are not building a restorod. I may add a luggage rack on the rear bumper just to make it look a little more like a Model A and provide another layer of protection for the rumble-seat-gas-tank and maybe even use it once in a while to haul something. Thus I think a 2" chop is probably "necessary" for proportionality as viewed from the side since I presently have a definite rake with the coilovers in the top hole and a 5" dropped front axle.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don, my Ranchero is on the back burner for awhile. Thought I was retired but I guess not!!! Got a ton of customer stuff to get done, and now a couple race cars to take care of...... I just can't stand being bored!!!

Retired! Retired! Your the busiest "retired" guy I have ever seen!! Your going to have to tell the boys that your stuff needs time too! How many of "Yours" now, 5? HeHeHe! Ya, thats slowing down alright! I guess you'll have time to paint mine in a week or so huh!!

I love this site, there is enough information here to build a hotrod from scratch! And correctly I Will add! Your going to have a great looking car Don, "MMMMMMM with a little help from my friends"