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Old 05-08-2009, 07:28 PM
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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 2

THE ART DECO ROADSTER PROJECT

After the disappointment with the LoCost project, I thought a bit about what I really wanted. After a few weeks reflection I decided that what I really wanted was to build the aluminum body. The chassis and running gear was just something to hang the aluminum on. Being a street rodder, I immediately thought about rebodying an existing chassis. An S10 chassis came to mind but I wanted something with a little more power and a little bigger.

About this time I ran across an auction on Ebay for a 96 V8 Dodge Dakota and bought it. The Dakota is a mid size pickup. The compact pickups were too small and the full size ones are too large. The Dakota is right in the middle and has a nice 318 MOPAR small block that I'm familiar with.

The plan is to strip the body (selling the parts, cab, interior, front clip, etc), keeping the frame, drivetrain, and all the electronics. A new frame will be built from the front clip rearward and the motor will be relocated to the rear so everything is behind the front wheels and the wheelbase is where I want it (where ever that is, probably less than it is now.) New springs and lowering techniques will bring the chassis to the correct height. I'm not building a race car, just a cruizer.

Lots of folks dinged me on this decision and, as it turned out, for the most part, they were right.

After I got the Dakota home, I pulled the sheet metal off and then got the driveline components out.

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I'd forgotten how ugly this motor was. It's also very tall. Hummm. Carefully labeling all the wires, I pulled the engine and tranny.

About this time, I ran across a Jag rear end for next to nothing and without thinking it through, decided to go with that for the rear. After I pulled all the miscellaneous bits off it looked like this:

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Bennett Chapman is one of my best friends and he offered to let me build the frame in his shop. Since Bennett is an exceptional welder/fabricator and he has this 5x10' very level welding table it was a

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pretty easy decision. Another good friend, Dutch Comstock, had spent the week with Bennett doing some metalshaping with Bennett and he decided to stay over and help out.

I had previously drawn my chassis on graph paper and Bennett quickly put it in AutoCad

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and we started cutting metal. In about 16 hours of work we had this:

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I scrounged around for some roller wheels and tires and found these:

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which will do for mockup. Ultimately, I'd like a set of wires but that's not in the budget at this time.

A few days later, I had the tires on the car, the chassis sitting on blocks of 5" tubing to simulate ride height, and the motor/trans mounted in the car. A sheet of plywood and a bucket seat and here I was:

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making varoom VAROOM noises.....

All this in about 2 months from when the Dakota made it home.
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