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Old 05-08-2009, 07:36 PM
Kerry Pinkerton's Avatar
Kerry Pinkerton Kerry Pinkerton is offline
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Near Huntsville, Alabama. Just south of the Tennessee line off I65
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Default The Art Deco Imperial Project - Part 6

THE ART DECO ROADSTER PROJECT
6/22/07
More progress but slowly....had a bunch of other stuff this week so haven't made as much progress as I'd planned. But progress is progress.

I decided that the next step was to lock down the floor and sub frame structures relative to the cabin. I had already made the floor pans but after Richard Crees suggested not putting them down till after all the work was done so that I could stand INSIDE the car I decided to go that route. Still I needed all the cross supports welded to the side rail sub frame and all that bolted to the chassis.



There are three main floor supports that will be cut for the drive shaft AFTER the trans tunnel and drive shaft tunnel are welded in place. Until then I need to leave them full width. To provide more temporary support, I've screwed 2x4's to the bottom. In the front, I bent a piece of 1/8"x4" strap to form a loop over the transmission and tie the two front floor supports in place. It will also be a convenient place to join the two transmission tunnel pieces



What you can't see very well is the 2" thick urethane I'm using for body mount pads.

Once I decided where things were going, I welded some 1/2" flange nuts to the top of the frame. A few holes bolts and this is the result. The floor pans will sit over the top and I'll use a chassis punch to make holes for access to the bolts. Most cars unbolt the body from the bottom. I wanted to do it from inside the cabin if I ever have to take it off. The support sit on the 2x2 urethane blocks and are spaced 1/2" off the sides of the frame rails so there is no metal to metal contact between the frame and the cabin structure.



The rear cabin frame was also made from 16 ga 1x1 angle. I shaped one half with the shrinker/stretcher and used some vertical blocks (also known as Ewheel adjuster quills) to make sure they were exactly the same profile.





The two pieces were measured, TIGed together, fit to the car, cut apart, re-measured, re-cut, re-Tiged and finally welded in place. John Buffington was in town and came out to play Tuesday night and he was working on these pieces.



The next thing is to locate the major components such as the gas pedal, seat, brake pedal, steering column, etc. That will tell me where the dash board support goes. When the seat is in it's final position and I know the range of adjustment I can determine what the door opening needs to be so I can actually get in and out of the car without using a crane.

I'll also need to use some of the 1/4" rod to loft the body profiles front to rear. Obviously the profiles determine the shape of the door structures, etc.

6/22/07
Dang it's hot! And I'm moving slow because of it. If I had any brains, I'd work nights and sleep during the day but I doubt the wife would go for that...

Progress.

I built the dashboard hoop angle and welded it in place with a couple braces. The metal will swoop upward from the hood line to the end of the dashboard.

The rear hoop I showed last time was too low so I redid it at the same level as the dashboard hoop.



The brake pedal, gas pedal, and steering column and close to their final location. I had some old 1/2" eye bolts that fit perfectly into holes in the Dakota brake pedal mount and using washers and nuts allowed me to hang the steering column and adjust the angle by running up the nuts. Feels pretty good.



I also put a piece of rod on top of the firewall to represent the flow of the hood and grill shell. You can kind of see the upward swoop of the dashboard hoop. Holding other rods in place looks like the lines will be good....at least what I wanted them to be....time will tell if they're good or not.



In this shot you can see the position of the rear fender. Also notice the outstanding "PROCAR" bucket seats donated to the project by BUGLY tools.



The seating position with the seat all the way back works for my 6'8" son Kris. I'll move the seat forward a bit but still can't toe the firewall. The front door jamb will be right beside the dashboard hoop and getting in and out of the car is pretty easy...even for Kris.

Lots more bracing is in the plan.

I asked Bennett Chapman pick up a set of Rocky Hidden Hinges and latches at the Knoxville Nationals. I've thought about having suicide doors but the rear door line NEEDS to be curved to match the shape of the fender so I guess I'll go with front hinged doors with a vertical front line. The instructions suck! I'll take a hard look at Bennetts truck in a week or two when I go over. He has the same hinges.

The decklid bodywork will come to the level of the back of the seat without the headrest on it. I'm THINKING about a rear end with twin headrests molded into the deck similar to the Pontiac Solstice and many other cars.



it's going to have a pretty useless trunk. The plastic Dakota gas tank fits nicely on top of the Jag rear end under the bodywork. This will keep things simple as all the computer and fuel stuff will work without modifications...I like simple.

7/31/07

I've been kind of distracted with the shrinker project but have been getting some work done.

At Dutch's MetalMeet earlier in July we hung a aluminum nose that was based on a 3/4 scale buck from the original Bugatti design thread. I made the chin of this nose at Dutchs in 06 and Gary Tisdale did the top and sides at MM07. It is a nearly perfect fit:



A little tweeking will get the slope of the upper part to line up with the hood. If you look close, you can see the wires that will make up the buck for the hood, cowl, etc.



A bunch of guys worked on making panels for the fenders using the buck I took up. I've got most the fender panels at about the 80% point. I think I'm going to make a foam buck to help in the final fit up.

Richard Kleinschmidt led the work getting the doors swinging and did a lot of terrific work. Unfortunately we got a little ahead of ourselves and forgot to consider weather stripping and the flanges for the door skin pinch seams. Also I put in the rear door posts (B pillar) and got them uneven side to side. sigh....



I ended up taking out a good bit of the hard work that Richard did just to be able to move things around where I wanted them to be. The HARD part was the door hinge post (A pillar) and I was able to keep what Richard had done completely which was a huge help.

I started by taking out the B pillars and aredoing them so they had the identical curve and orientation. I then made rear door frames from 16 ga and bent them to the correct profile to match the B pillar. A flange was welded on the inside of the door to maintain the curve...another flange will be welded to the outside and it will be where the doorskin pinches over as a standard doorskin mounts.



In this photo you can see both the B pillar and the rear of the door. Not sure of the gap yet, probably about 1/2" between the two. Also need the outside flanges.

One question I have is where/how to mount the door latch.



The bearclaw latch is flat and there isn't a flat spot on the rear door opening. The latch fastens in with 1/4 inch bolts but since it's sitting on a curved surface I'll need to either shim it or ?? to get it right. The striker 'bolt' will mount on the B pillar. Any thoughts on this????

At the front of the car I wanted to make the A pillar very stout:

The photo below is taken from the firewall looking backward. You can also see the Rocky Hidden Hinge that is welded into the pillar structure.



Below is a sketch of the profile of the A pillar. This post was fabricated from various 14 ga angles and welded into it's current configuration. The corners were ground square. In the photo the green line is the aluminum skin. The hollow blue block is a piece of 1/4"x1" aluminum which will be screwed to the pillar. The aluminum skin will be rosette welded to this aluminum.


This photo is taken from outside the car looking rearward.



And finally from outside the car looking forward at the pillar. The upper hinge is clearly visible.



I'm pretty well ready to finish the front door frame and mount the hinges as soon as I decide on the rear door frame to B pillar gap and how I'll need to mount the latch.
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