Track Bucket build
- Thread starter thebearded1
- Start date
thebearded1
Active Member
Sorry haven't been on the forums much lately but I have been racing a bit this season. I've done 4 drag races in our little series with one more to go in October and two dirt circle track events too.
I pushed it a little too hard at Williams Grove Speedway and spin into the inside guardrail. Bent the hood, hood side, 2 hairpins, most of the clevis ends, a wheel and partially ripped my cockpit cover a few inches. I straightened out the bent hairpins and ordered new small parts and borrowed a set of wheels and tires and was able to drag race the following weekend! I went over the whole car and checked welds, bolts and made sure nothing else looked out of wack. I sewed up my cover and covered the repair in some more wax. I have a set of wheels coming from a friend just need to meet up with them. A rollbar was already in the plans for this winter before this race and I will be adding a panhard for the rear too to help take the load of repeated hard left turns haha.
I did finally make a hood and modified some hood sides from a 1930 Franklin to fit. I love the look of them and it helps give the car the 50s Lakester look.
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thebearded1
Active Member
Some more photos from Williams Grove
thebearded1
Active Member
And of course I did it right in front of a photographer
thebearded1
Active Member
Some drag racing photos from South Mountain and Mason Dixon
Some great pics. Thank you for sharing.
And if you're going to crash, at least you got a great pic of it. lol
And if you're going to crash, at least you got a great pic of it. lol
thebearded1
Active Member
Working on some upgrades this winter to include stretching the rear frame, adding a bumper, adding a panhard and a bolt in roll bar (only for track use with helmet). The rear frame extension is going to look odd when the roll bar isn't in place so I'm going to try making my own pickup bed for the back out of some 50s Chevy bed parts. Currently in the CAD phase. Hard to get an idea what it will look like since I can't stand far enough away. This cardboard is 28" long but I'm going to shorten to 24" probably. Also going to make the height less as well. I'm going to run a string the length of the garage that is level with the hood to help get an idea of where I want the top of the bed. The bed will likely sit just outside that vertical body line and will use some rubber welting between the bed and body.
thebearded1
Active Member
Rough idea. The bed won't be on during racing but this was a good angle
Buffman
Member
May I suggest running Water Wetter as an additive in the radiator. I've had a couple of them and they all had cooling problems if modified or ran hard. JMHOI've been on this site for a while reading past threads and have gotten a lot of helpful information of it so I figured I would start a build thread. When I purchased the car the previous owner was going in more of a rat rod tractor themed car but i was able to see past that and luckily got it for a low price. My plan has been to make it similar to dirt track roadsters from the 40s and 50s.
Yup thats the exhaust with a rain flap that conveniently was about face height haha. The suspension needed to be redone as he had quarter ellipticals up front and a cateliver style in rear but he mounted all the springs arched up like a smile to get the car lower which resulted in the weight of the car working with the springs rather than against. The car now has quarter elliptical springs front and rear and the mounts have a bolt to adjust ride height slightly but only plan to raise the front when running on dirt tracks. I also re wired the car completely as i didn't trust what was there and the P.O. used switches that weren't not meant for automotive use.
Another issue was the P.O. used a mishimoto radiator that was meant for a honda civic in order to fit it into the Case tractor grill and it was not enough to cool the slant six. After looking up many threads on here and slantsix dot org on how to clean and flush the block I did several flushes, soaks, scrapping and vacuuming from the freeze plugs and got the block running clean but will still be running a piece of screen. Then I had a friend and I modified an aluminum radiator intended for a 65 mustang to fit into a 1917 Dodge Brothers grill shell I picked up at Hershey.
It turned out really well and made the car look a lot better and seems to be cooling it a lot better as well.
thebearded1
Active Member
I've heard about that stuff but wanted to solve the actual problem and so far it has worked well with just water or just antifreeze. I have to switch out to just water in the summer because of track requirements. The current radiator is an aluminum V8 mustang radiator which has greatly increased the cooling capacity. After cleaning the block cooking passages and flushing that has reduced the amount of crud heading towards to radiator. I also put in some stainless steel mesh to catch any remaining bits before it reaches the radiator. I also have an electric fan that I can turn on or off and that has helped while in the staging lanes.
Hey Bearded1, thanks for posting all of the great photos of your one-of-a-kind build. I love seeing someone else’s take on this T bucket example! Keep up the great efforts, and good luck! The build I’m working on right now is also a little off the beaten path, but I’m building it to suit ME! I’ll be posting some pics in the near future.
thebearded1
Active Member
Thanks it's come a long way from what I started with! If I had started from scratch one thing I would have done would have been to use a wider frame and a body that didn't have a raised floor. It does allow the body to sit lower over the frame rails but I wish I sat lower in the car. Since the frame is narrow it prevents me from changing the floor so I could sit between the drive shaft and frame.
I may try making my own windshield frame so I can have a short vertical section that fits to the cowl and then a section above that which is titled back. The angled windshield post brackets are out of my budget.
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