Purple Powder Pickup

[benT]

"Purple Powder Pickup"
We've been picking at this project off and on for a few years now, so I thought this would be a good time to start a build thread. Maybe this will provoke us to get this build done!

A few years ago my uncle Dennis who does much of the powdering at our shop expressed interest in having a hot rod for himself. He's been on every trip dad and I have made with our '27's and wanted one for his own. Dennis is on a tight budget like most of us, so after a few brainstorming sessions, we decided the best way to proceed is to use as much of the leftover parts we have from our various builds and build a frame. Obviously, there are some items that have to be bought or are in our opinion, worth it for safety. We would powdercoat or ceramic coat as much as possible to be able to use this as a rolling example of our shop's work.

We figured that a '23 would be the way to go as far as expense, and availability. The theme is an early -sixties type T, with a nice rubber rake, steelies, whitewalls, etc. The body will be a metallic purple with a silver metallic chassis.

Engine: '66 283 that was formerly in my dad's '27. We freshened up the engine with a hone job, new rings, seals, gaskets, etc. The heads are older World Products and we gave it a fresh valve job ans seals. Intake is a swap meet special cleaned an powdercoated Silver Sparkle. The valvecovers were another $25 swap meet item that we cleaned and coated. Accessories are picked from our pile of stuff in the shop...

Body: We first started off looking at the MAS bodies when we were visiting relatives in MN. they were decent and we figured adequate for the nature of this project. Soon after, MAS went out of business, but we connected with the body builder and made a trip out there to buy one. We ended up buying three bodies and beds as they were decent and real cheap. We still have two and if we get this done, I have a few ideas for another one! We have only made cuts to the body to be able to put in on the frame at this point. The rest of the reinforcing, bodywork, etc will come later.

Frame: Decided on an untapered frame utilizing 2"x3"x3/16" rectangular mild steel. I used a variety of frame plans from Youngsters, to Spirit, to Chester's for the layout. Its pretty typical, and we used a 3" round tube for the front member. We bought the spring perch and engine mounts from RPM.

Chassis/Suspension:We acquired a 50's ford straight axle and figured with a bit of grinding, we might just be able to polish a turd. We first disassembled it and media blasted it. We pulled out the torches and started cutting off the spring perches and the arms on the spindles. With quite a bit of grinding, we were able to get it looking presentable. We then laid out a pattern and proceeded to drill 1" holes through the web to give it the drilled look. The batwing brackets were from RPM. We were able to clean up the spindles to allow for bolt-on arms to fit. We then ordered the economy disc brake kit from speedway. The truck spindles are similar, but he spindle bushing spacer will not work. Speedway got us in touch with their supplier and we were able to get ones that did work. Front suspension will be a buggy spring and either friction shocks or some small hot rod ones..not sure yet. Rear axle will be an S10 axle we pulled from the pic a part. Late 90's with a 3.42 posi. We will be using RPM shock mounts and panhard bar bracket of our own design. We are also building the front and back hairpins.

Current Status:Here's where we are at now. The engine is mocked up and the the body is placed. We are about ready to get the front steering figured out and mocked up. Rear end is ready to be mounted.

More updates soon!

 

[EX JUNK]

I am IMPRESSED, Ben. You guys do excellent work so keep the thread going as it is very informative, especially for a budget minded builder.

Jim

 

[TbucketMike]

AWESOME!! Can't wait to see this project come together! I really like that Silver Sparkle powdercoating! Do you also do a clear coat on the silver sparkle or does it come out like that? Looks great!

 

[Mike J]

Nice work! Nice equipment! and especially, Nice shop! I used to have a large shop, but gave it up to move to Florida. Oh well, a "small" 2 car garage will have to do. Keep the pics coming.

 

[jcunning]

Looks really good. Good to see you guys got it started.

 

[benT]

AWESOME!! Can't wait to see this project come together! I really like that Silver Sparkle powdercoating! Do you also do a clear coat on the silver sparkle or does it come out like that? Looks great!

Mike, the Silver Sparkle has a clear coat. We do this to almost all silvers for durability and UV stability. The chassis will be the same color.

 

[benT]

Nice work! Nice equipment! and especially, Nice shop! I used to have a large shop, but gave it up to move to Florida. Oh well, a "small" 2 car garage will have to do. Keep the pics coming.

Thanks! Actually, most of those pics were from the old shop where we were really crammed in. The "Hot Rod" shop got overrun by the Coating shop as business expanded and tools and such kept creeping. We moved at the beginning of the year into a 8,300 sq ft building and built out a separate Hot Rod shop area for our cars, tools and builds. The last shot show the build area in the Hot Rod shop. Only 4 of us have keys to it.

 

[Dirt-T]

Ben , where are you located? Need some powdercoating.
Terry

 

[sstock]

Looks great, always liked a drilled front axle, can't wait to see some of that powder coating on frame and suspension

 

[jestermetalwerx]

Really coming together

 

[benT]

Been a while since I posed in this thread. I'd like to say we got a lot accomplished, but it's been pretty busy in the coating shop. Here is a quick update on the progress:

We were originally planning on using an old '52 F1 steering box and column from an old project we had. When we disassembled the box, we realized that the box needed a full rebuild and cost of parts weren't too cheap. We decided on keeping the box for a later project and budget and go with a Vega box mounted in a slingshot style arrangement like Spirit uses. We got one of the inexpensive re-pop boxes and purchased a mount from Spirit. It is a really well made piece, but we felt it hung the box a bit lower than we liked. We did some trimming and welding and snugged it up some. This type of mount required a pitman arm with an offset bend, and conveniently I had an original one in the stash. Here is a few pics of the box mounted:

We cut up the original steering shaft and will be re-using the solid 3/4" shaft stock and a portion of the tube. We purchases some bearings for the top and bottom of the tube for $2 bucks a piece (they fit garden tractors...go figure) . We haven't built it yet as we need to set the length and mounting angle after the floor and seat is done.

We decided to get going on the floor. We squared up the body and made a template from cardboard. We transferred the pattern to 3/4" sanded plywood. The floor got cut out with beveled edges so it fit snugly in the body. We checked levelness again and started glassing in the top. Today we laid in a few layers of cloth to get the floor set in place. We'll follow up with glassing the bottom with some cloth and then some glass mat on both sides. Next up is fitting and glassing in some wood reinforcing and then on to the tunnel.

 

[Jim Henderson]

Looks good!!

 

[Bennett]

Thumbs up!

 

[jmr122848]

Ben
doing something similar, how did you deal with the splines on the arm? Thanks
Mike

 

[benT]

Mike: Not sure what you mean. The pitman arm we used is a Vega arm with splines to match the box. Its not all the way on in the photos yet. Spirit sells arms like this as well with the Vega spline.

 

[Dino]

Ben Thanks for posting that Sprint sells them. I wondering who sold that pitman arm.

 

[benT]

About time for another installment: Note I included a lot of photos in this installment as I thought it might be beneficial to anyone wanting to build their own hairpin radius rods.
Going with our “budget” theme, we tackled the hairpin radius rods. Since this build will be early 60’s theme (with a few upgrades such as disc brakes), we wanted traditional hairpins. RPM makes some nice ones and so does Speedway, but I wanted to tackle these ourselves. I first started by drawing out the hairpins out in cad to get a pattern. I printed them out full size at work, and used them to make a jig. I know you can probably make four of these radius rods without a jig, but I wanted them to be consistent, and wanted to be able to make more down the road. When I was drawing them out, I figured out the angle the front and back hairpins would need to be so I could make one jig that would serve both the 27” and 36” lengths.


I laid out the pattern of the hairpins on a scrap sheet of white painted aluminum and then mounted this to peice of ¾” plywood left over from the floor. I then used 1” angle and tube and some carriage bolts to finish out the jig. The 1” tubes serve as clamps to hold the tube in place while tacking together.



Once the jig was finished we started tackling the bars. We used 7/8” DOM tube which is fairly consistent with traditional radius rods from Speedway or CCR. We are planning on a brace in the middle - if not, I’d probably use 1” like RPM uses. We have a small tubing bender from Woodward Fab that has a 7/8” die. It’s not really made for tubing this thick, but after a few mods to reinforce it, we were able to grunt through the necessary bends.



Once the tubes were bent, we were able to use the jig to mark them for cutting. Once cut and coped and fitted, they were tacked up the in the jig and then finished welded on the fab table.




Once welded, each tube was tapped with a 5/8” RH tap. The 7/8” is the perfect size and did not require drilling out like the 1” we used on my ‘27’s rear four bars. If you are uneasy about tapping before welding, you can do this step earlier, but it is much easier to clamp after they are welded together.


Here is the final product minus the custom ‘P’’s that we had Ron Pope (RPM) cnc plasma cut for us. These will be trimmed and welded in shortly. We still have some sanding and smoothing on the welds to do.


We then tackled the mounts. Using 3/8” plate the RH side received a triangular mount and on the LH side we fit the piece to weld flush to the steering box mount already in place. These were cut on our plasma then ground and sanded. Both of these will receive a gusset from the mount to the frame when we are finish welding the frame. I will note that on both of these mounts, there is a 1” OD x ½” ID x 1” long tube welded on the back side to shoulder the bolt. Since we are using bushed ends and not heims, I don’t feel as confident in just mounting to the 3/8” plate – the shouldered bolt is a better solution in my opinion.



Next on the list is to tackle is welding on the rear end brackets and fabbing the rear radius rod frame brackets. More to come!

 

[old round fart]

I love this part of the project. Things happen so fast at this stage. Great going! John

 

[butch27]

Wow great fab pictures. Reminds me of when I started mine in the garage .Took forever but got it done.

 

[EX JUNK]

Great piece of work with a great write up. Thanks, Ben.

Jim