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Old 05-08-2009, 08:39 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 19

THE ART DECO ROADSTER PROJECT
4/24/08
Quote:
progress looks good kerry,

is the door the bottom of the car or is there a rocker panel that will go below it??



Thanks for the kind words everyone...

There will be a rocker panel that goes ALMOST to the bottom of the frame. I want the frame to touch if anything does. NOTHING will hang below the frame.
4/25/08
Along with some outside Honeydos, I managed to reshape the front fender buck.

Here was the original bondo buck. Notice the hump in the rear?



And here is the new fender, smooth curve to the back.



It's supposed to rain all weekend but as soon as I can, I'm going to pull the car outside, put this fender on it and take some photos of all the skins and this buck to date so I can check proportions and the 'look'.
5/15/08
When Bennett, Dutch, and I first built the chassis, we decided on an X cross member with mufflers on each side of the X. The inline 6 presented a problem because the split headers are on one side. I ordered some pre-mandrel bent tube from http://Speedwaymotors.com and modified them so swing under the oil pan. There is enough room to drop the pan without pulling the header.

I also welded in some stainless vibration mounts direct to the header.





Been working on the engine. Got it put together with clutch, reinstalled the head, changed out the valve springs, painted it etc.

Then I did some measurements and made the support for the radiator. The stock Corvette cross member positioned the radiator a little high for the nose so I modified it a bit...it's stronger now than ever but the radiator sits about 3" lower.

A new firewall is in process so the old one is missing in this photo. I put all the accessories on the motor so I could do the look and smile bit.


I've got about 3" between the fan and the radiator and there will be a shaped aluminum shroud. The radiator is rubber mounted and I may put some larger rubber which would move it back a bit but I wanted enough space to work on the car. Some of my Imperials have NO space in front of the motor and even changing belts is a pain. The radiator is a 65 Mustang 3 row for the 289 AC model. It should work fine with the warmed over 250 inline and was only $190.

The carb is a 500cfm Edelbrock. The Clifford intake has a 3 .75 square bore mounting pattern and I'll need the Edelbrock adapter which will raise the carb about 1". I have plenty of room under the hood. I probably could have gone with the taller 292 engine...next time.



The motor is set to the right about 1" and the radiator is also and now I've got a straight shot from the steering column to the steering box. You can see the Ujoint.


I got the clutch and everything in today and picked up the slave cylinder. I was all excited until I realized the headers were in the way....I was really thinking dark thoughts until Dan Shady suggested a bellcrank! DUH! That will work better anyway as I can hide the plastic slave cylinder under the floorboard out of sight from the engine compartment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marty Comstock
Oooohkay, hmm. How is the feel of the steering going to be with a lighter motor and body? Any noticable difference do you think, or may you have to desensitize the power rack?

Marty



I have no earthly idea! I expect it will be pretty light from a steering pressure standpoint. I don't know how/if it can be desensitized. Can it? How?

I guess I can run it without the power steering hooked up. It isn't going to weight squat...less than 2000lbs...I doubt I'll need a lot of additional boost. I've been told by a couple mechanics that as long as the power rack is filled with fluid and the hoses are connected together it will be fine without the power steering pump.
5/31/08
I've been fortunate to have made some great friends through this community.

Bennett Chapman, Joe Hartson, Dan Shady, and Barb (Coppretta) Lawrence are some. Last Friday, Joe and Bennett came over and spent a week playing metal and working on my roadster. Dan Shady came over Sunday and Monday and Barb was here for several days.

Joe threatened to have a sign made..."Will shape metal for food!"

We had a blast. Usually at it by 8:30 and went till 9-10pm every night. Bennett left yesterday and Joe left this morning.

We got a huge amount done! Here is some of the work on the front fender.

Joe wanted to focus on making actual parts so he started by making a flexible shape pattern off the bondo buck I made a few weeks back.

Taped up the bondo with low stick masking tape. (Transfer tape doesn't stick well to unpainted bondo)


Then overlaid it with a couple layers of fiberglas strapping tape.



Dan Shady worked on a couple panels...here he is tuning a nose that I think was roughed in by Bob Baisden up at Dutch's last summer. It was pretty close to the new buck.



Joe spend a good bit of time working with a panel that was in the 'pile' trying to make it fit the center top. After a couple days, we scrapped it and started over with new metal which went much faster.



Then Joe worked on the center rear which was an interesting asymmetrical shape.



After Joe and Dan got enough sub panels we started tipping edges.



After some work with the tipping wheel, Joe finished the nose flange by hand.





I started welding the panels together and finishing the seams with Joe's help. Here is the fender where we left it when Joe headed south. Dan Shady made the rear side panel.

A change in approach meant that we did not finish it.


Joe shaped the center side panel and tipped the edge (. I decided after he had it finished that it would be easier to weld an un-flanged panel in place and tip the wheel opening lip as a single unit. I was concerned that if we did it in sections, we could not get a smooth curve.



I'll try and get it finished next week after I catch up on some sleep.

This is not all we did...more later.

Thanks Guys!
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Kerry Pinkerton
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