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Old 05-08-2009, 08:40 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 20

THE ART DECO ROADSTER PROJECT
5/31/08
Regarding the slave cylinder, I did order one from my parts house but it did not fit the tranny snout inside the bellhousing so rather than fight with trying to figure which make, model, and year was the correct one...if there was one...I decided to go back to the external slave. I did find a metal slave though.

The clutch fork was a challenge. The local parts houses couldn't get them and the dealer wanted $150! Rather than hassle with digging in a junkyard, I just ordered a new one from Speedway for 18 bucks. I got several neet things from Speedway.

It took me a day to make the mount and bellcrank but primarily because I was trying to make Grant Leeser (Gleeser) proud and match the motor mounts Grant made. There isn't a straight line in it and I even drilled some holes...

It's painted the same color as the bellhousing but you can see it if you look for it. The front part mounts to the bellhousing to the block by two bolts and the rear uses the bolts that hold the tranny to the bellhousing. The master and slave cylinder are the same bore so it's a 1:1 ratio on the bellcrank.



I made some aluminum clevises and there will be a spring to keep any load off the throwout bearing except when pushed.



The whole thing is below the floor level except for a tiny bit up by the right corner of the footwell where the clutch fork is higher than the floorboard...about the size of a pack of Lucky Strikes.. I'll make a 'bump' for it in the floorboard/tranny tunnel.
6/1/08
While Joe and Dan were working on the fender, Bennett started on the floor pans. I had previously done a new front hoop spaced 1" further back to give some clearance for the longer engine. The first thing we did was mount a wooden mockup and fit it to the hoop. To locate the steering column we cut a large hole, positioned the column where we wanted it for comfort, and used wooden blocks larger than the hole in the firewall that were screwed in place. This gave us an exact template to use to cut the 16ga steel firewall which was installed after all the floorpan mockup was done. The steel firewall will ultimately have an engine turned aluminum panel fastened to the outside...probably by panel adhesive.



In the photo below you can see the plywood blocks we used to locate the steering column at the firewall. We took great pains to make sure the gearshift/steering column/seat position was right.

Next was to make hoops over my floor braces. These were 2x1/4" bar flat heated and bent over a piece of 6" material then welded in place. The front brace was not cut out at the bottom to act as a safety hoop in case the driveshaft fails. The Corvette driveshaft has no travel up/down or side to side so the tunnel can be smaller than in a car with a moveable rear end.



When I picked up the driveshaft about Day 4, we discovered it could be installed easily even with the bottom in the rear brace so we welded it back in place for additional rigidity in the floor brace.



Bennett welded strips of metal to my original floorpans to make templates for the new space. Moving the firewall back 1" changed the shape of the area.

Once he cut the blanks out and marked the beads, my son Kris, and Barb helped him do the beads on the Pullmax using beading dies he got from Stan Fulton. These dies have a neat feature that 'coins' the end to close the beads.



With the drivers side floorpan in place, we made Barb try out the seating position and make appropriate VAROOM noises. You can see the steering column hole. The steering shaft is a straight shot to the Corvette front with a neat support bearing in the center and a single Ujoint on each end.



Bennett is a CAD guy and I tend to work from templates. With no CAD capability available at my shop, we took this approach to laying out the tranny hump.

A large piece of cardboard was bent lengthwise so it was flexible enough to fit up to the firewall opening as well as the driveshaft tunnel and marked.

Yes, the beads are UP. This is so they won't hold water when the inevitable happens and I'm caught in the rain. On the floorboards, the beads run to the end. They rest on a turned flange on the firewall and rear and the turned up ends you see in the photo below are now cut off.



This was the result, a perfect template.



We transfered the cardboard to metal, added the flat part on the sides and the flanges and bent it to profile with the gokart slick. My wife noticed the HF ewheel in one of the fenders posted yesterday..."What is that useless thing doing in the photo?" she asked. I have a gokart slick in it. It works poorly even for that but I can't bring myself to cut the dang thing up.

Still it works for the gokart slick a little and I didn't take time to move the slick to one of our other frames.



The cockpit back is large and definitely a 3 person job to manage on the Pullmax.




A little slapper action flattens out the warpage caused buy stretching the beads. On the back the beads do not go to the end and we used the kick shrinker to pull things back into shape.



The floorpans, driveshaft tunnel, and tranny tunnel are welded together and come in and out of the car as a unit. The rear panel will go in last.

Bennett was pleased with the result and I'm tickled pink! Thanks Bennett!

I still have to do a new side panel for the drivers side tranny hump. There is about 2" of foot space that I'm going to reclaim with come custom metalshaping.

Here you can see my new custom driveshaft in place. This was made by Huntsville Driveshaft from an S10 driveshaft which they shortened and balanced with a yoke for the Corvette Ujoing. Cost $185 including the S10 unit.



The other major accomplishment of this week was the starting of the modified Chevy 250 inline 6. Joe is an old hand at engines and took a break from shaping to hook things up. I decided to ditch the HEI distributor in favor of a more traditional points system. I picked up the distributor Saturday morning but we quickly found out it was a dud. The shaft was bored off center and it would not install. A new one was not available until Tuesday afternoon . Also the electric fuel pump I had turned out to be a dud. It ran but didn't pump. Decided to go with an original style pump and that was not available until Tuesday either. In the meantime, we wired up some cheap guages, verified oil pressure, did a preliminary set on the lifter adjustment, mounted the carb and got ready to go.


I also found a water outlet that matched some formed hoses. In the background you can see the cast aluminum Offenhauser valve cover that Rondo provided.



Guess what's happening here?




VAROOM, VAROOM! Motor sounds great. We let it get to temperature, adjusted the valves, set the timing and just smiled a while then shut her down and got back to work.

I can't begin to thank Joe, Bennett, Dan, and Barb enough for their help. We had a blast and got a tremendous amount done. I work MUCH MUCH harder when someone is working with me and this 7 day period of at least 14 hour days by the crew probably represents a month of effort at my normal pace.

The day will come when I will return the favor for them.
6/5/08
Weighted the car last night. The front is 981 and the rear is 873...total 1854lbs. Not a lot more to add...the aluminum won't weight much. Interior, gas tank and gas, dash, pedal assembly's...probably 500lbs.

Matt Inscho (Kustom Chop Shop in Decatur, Alabama) came over this week to get some help making door skins for a 31 Chevy. I'll post some photos on that saga later.

Anyway, Matt has done a lot of tanks from various materials, steel, stainless, and aluminum.

I've decided to take everyone's advice and drop the tanks down to frame level. With the recent installation of the driveshaft, I can do a tank on either side of the driveshaft right behind the rear interior panel and tie them together below and above the driveshaft so they act as a single tank.

I'm leaning toward .125 aluminum for the tanks. They'll be installed with straps so there will be no flanges to vibrate and crack.

Bennett Chapman is coming back tomorrow for a few days...we hope to get the brakes working and drive around the block.....
6/5/08
Bennett Chapman is here for a few days and our goal is to have a running and driving frame before he leaves Tuesday night.

Making progress.

On Friday before Bennett got here I worked on the tranny tunnel. The plan was to increase leg room by cutting into the sides as well as making a small hump for the bellcrank system.



I made a Burt Buck for the complicated part at the front that will do for mocking up the pedal positions.



This gives me about 3" more foot room width. Now we can hang the pedals.

We mocked up the pedal location and plumbed in the clutch master/slave. We ended up tweeking the bellcrank ratios a bit and still have some work to do but it works.

We then started putting the coilovers on the front suspension.

We had to make shock mounts for the top and bottom of the shocks.



I don't have spring compressors so we pulled the upper control arm in order to install the coilovers.



Came out really well. Still have to do a little "pretty work" on the lowers but it will do to make a test drive.



Today we installed new calipers and started running the brake lines. Bennett has a set of "Imperial Eastman" tubing benders and flaring tools that are just awesome! State of the art.



After we got the rear lines up to the firewall we decided to make the permanent mounts for the clutch and Break pedals and master cylinders. they bolt in and can be removed from the access panel under the hood if necessary.





Hopefully we'll finish up the brakes tomorrow.

We're going to narrow the driveshaft tunnel so the seats will fit. We've got way more space around the shaft than we need and when we pick up the 4" the seats I have will fit.
6/11/08
Dang! Stuff happens.

We got a lot done but ran into some issues that we just couldn't get resolved before Bennett had to leave. Yesterday we finished plumbing the brakes and started bleeding the brake lines. While we were tightening the ever present leaky fittings, we noticed the master cylinder was leaking internally. DANG!#$@@&&^

This morning I called ECI and found out what kind of master cylinder it was. Turns out to be a 84 Chevette 7/8" bore from a power brake model. They are cheap...about $20 and the non power version is in stock everywhere. It was used on many GM cars throughout the 80's and 90's. The power version however is not a stock item. We looked everywhere and finally found one 60 miles away. We made the trip...40 bucks worth of gas to get a 20 buck part...yeah I know....

Got back about 2pm and just couldn't get everything done in time.

I really wanted to get a photo of Bennett driving the car. He's worked so hard on it.

It's just a thing though. It'll get done. Thanks to the help from Bennett, Joe Hartson, Grant Leeser and quite a few others, I'm months ahead of schedule.


Quote:
How will a car like this be registered, and insured? I have always had an issue in k.c. mo. on insuring a REAL value to a creation of this sorts. WHat do you plan to do on this?

Just thinking out load.



Bill, Alabama has a process for registering a scratch built car. I have to fill out some paperwork and someone from the DMV will come out and inspect the car. Insuring is easy. There are several insurers of special interest vehicles and street rods that advertise in Hemmings and other magazines.
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