Thread: Bad to the "A-Bone".

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I had an upolstery shop insulate the firewall and floor,
and put down the new carpet....and a new headliner as
well. New kick panels w/speakers, and a Panasonic CD
Sterio....

....I'm rollin' Baby !

Daver.

lookin good,

Looks awesome! Great work. The only thing I would change is to remove the rear fenders too, but that would also change your exhaust design too, so would make it difficult.

Nice work and congrats on a good looking rod. As mentioned previously *If* it were me I would remove the rear fenders as they throw the look of the car off.

Abe

The aprons on the '32 style gas tank bolt to the rear fenders
with 3 bolts on each side, so removal of the fenders is out
of the question. I finished the car on Friday night, and had
it out to a local small town car show today. (Sat) The exhaust
system was a big hit.

Daver.

....take the fenders off ? ....

....I don't think so.

Daver.

I went to a nice "cruise" with the car....one of those
hamburger stand jobs. There is one more, but when the time
changes it's over till next spring. It was my first one. A parking
lot full of cars, and great hamburgers.

A bunch of really nice cars too....4 Model A's, a deuce sedan,
two '34 sedans, Vettes, Cobras, Chevies....55's, 57's....trucks
....you name it. They have a cool raffle (3 tickets/$1) and the
"50/50 draw"....three cash prizes of $50./ea.

At the very end, they had one trophy....a plaque really....for the
coolest car there. Guess what ?....I won "Best Car of the Month".

Daver.

Daver, You have made some great improvements to your A. Can I ask several questions to help constructing my '29 roadster from scratch? I really like your dash and I will look up the Wabbit site, but I have two other questions.

1. I have a Brookville frame with a flat zigzag bulge around the rear pumpkin (8" Maverick) so I wonder what brackets are needed to attach the '32-style gas tank? There must be something other than the bolts to the fenders? I ask this because I am trying to decide between saddle tanks and a '32-style tank.

2. In one of your other threads you showed nice pictures of your brake system. I am just sweating out location of a power brake unit from TCI on my Brookville frame. Even with a 1" notch in the Brookville crossmember the best I can do is locate the center of the brake pedal pivot 41 1/4" from the front radiator hole and "Curt" at Brookville says that is correct, but the TCI instructions say the distance should be 41 3/4" which would require a deeper notch in my crossmember. I am just trying to check this before final welding. So do you have a power brake unit and if so do you have any way to measure the distance from the radiator bolt to the brake pivot? Maybe the steering and exhaust headers are now in the way of the measurement?

3. What is the paint on your rear fenders? I would say some sort of dark metallic aqua, but what do I know? Do you recall the actual paint used?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don, I'd be glad to help....

1. There is a plate....about 1/4 inch thick, about 2' wide, and
about 2 feet long that mounts the tank. It is positioned vert.,
standing on it's side, running from underneath the body, out
the back for the tank to mount to.

There is a flat piece welded at 90 deg on the front, that bolts
to the floor. It is about 1 and 1/2" wide, and about 8-10" long.
My floor is 16 guage steel. I made a 1/8 thick "doubler" where
it bolts through the floor, just for some added strength. It is
a plate, shaped just like the bottom piece. Two bolts here.

The main plate, or the tank mount itself, has two bolts drilled
through the side of the car, in the wheel wells. This is a steel car.
The metal there is very thick. So there's 4 bolts on each side.
You could probably pick the back of the car up with the tank
mount....it is hell-for-stout.

2. I cannot measure from the rad. hole back to the brake pivot,
the steering box, u-joints, and stuff is in the way. The rad. hole
on mine is elongated (about 1" long) for the positioning of the
hood (moving the rad back and forth) so it couldn't be measured
anyway.

There are only two things you need to worry about, pertaining to the the brake system mounting. One....position the assy. so the
brake petal operates fully up and down, and has maximum throw.

And two....where the petal goes through the firewall, it must
clear the steering coulomb. There is only about 3/8" between them.
The steering coulomb has to angle to the left, when looking at it from the driving position. It doesn't mount straight....if it were,
it wouldn't clear the exhaust and stuff.

3. The blue paint is actually a 2004 Ford Explorer color, made up
in an acrylic enamel, with a "harmonizer" (clear resin) added to
the last coat (4 coats) with some extra metallic thrown in. It is
a single stage paint....not a two stage, where a base coat and a
clear cote are used. The clear in the last coat gives it the shine
and the UV protection and all....but will never burn off, like the
clear cote will do, let in the sun too long. I live in the desert.

It can, however, be color sanded and buffed like a two stage
paint job....and it's really thick....compared to a two stage.

Daver.

See those two machine screws above the brake petal arm?
Those are part of a bracket that holds the bottom of the steering
coloumb to the firewall. Not too glamourous....I know. That's
all I had to work with. The coloumb is one and 3/4", and the
bracket was 2"....so I made an adapter sleeve out of a fense
post.....(don't tell anyone )

Daver.

Previous picture....I had to make two layers of fencepost to
tighten the clamp properly....this ain't no showcar, it's my
driver.

I forgot....If you peek under the "tank apron", you will see the
1'' flat piece of angle iron.....welded onto the big tank mount
....that the tank actually bolts to.

Daver,

Thanks for showing some impressive innovation/adaptation! Thanks also for the paint recipe/formulation, that is a really nice color! During my career I designed a fair bit of custom machined aluminum for small instruments, but I always had several professional machinists backing me up, so I can "imagine" the design pretty well but now working alone in my garage I have to face the fabrication details myself and I am amazed at the skill and workmanship of you and a number of others on this Forum.
The nitty details like a slight tilt of the column and the adaptation of the column bracket are valuable to me even though I may have to come up with my own installation details. I guess I will go with the 41 1/4" distance suggested by the Brookville guy and hope that the pedal arm does not hit the transmission case; if it does I figure I could weld reinforcing pieces to the sides of the pedal arm for strength and then grind away up to 1/2" of the pedal arm where it hits the transmission (700R4) now that I have seen your innovations.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don,

....there is a complete story with pictures http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_14...tm.htm#1440871
I am a Moderator at this site, and R/C airplanes is a lifelong
hobby with me. I hope you have a fast ISP and a fast pc because
almost every post has 4 pictures.

I have hundreds of other pics as well. If you want to see how something goes, just ask....and I will try to help you. Also, go
to your local Cruises and Shows. Look how the Guys put the
stuff together, and ask questions. Usually, the guys will tell you
all about it....including the "if I had it to do again" scenerio.

And....thanks for the kind words,

Daver.

Try this....

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_14...tm.htm#1440871

Edit: same link. ( I repaired the link on the previous post )

Daver, Thanks a bunch for the pictures of the brake lines!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder