Progress on the Whippet

I made a mount for the battery out of angle iron, I don't have a good picture but, it just follows the perimeter of the battery then has a clamp that goes over the top.

 It's been slow going on the Whippet lately but, I have been able to get a few things done.  The above picture shows the rear panel that I made to tie the rear together.  I made it from 18 gauge.  Its hard to do long bends without a brake but, if you take your time you can do it with some clamps, angle iron and hammer/dolly work.

This is just a shot of the inside of the panel.

I cut down the decklid to make it fit better and installed the taillights. 

I installed a piano hinge on the bottom of the decklid and got some spring latches for the top that I haven't mounted yet.  I am currently working on bleeding the brakes after installing all new brake components from Thompson's Garage and a new 48' ford style master cylinder from Speedway Motors. 

Till next time keep your ears and eyes open for hidden car treasure!

Chevy Coupe Frame Fabrication and Painting, Suspension

Here I added some crossmember bracing, sometimes called x-members because of their shape. 

I then added some Ford Mustang springs and Speedway Motors spring mounts. 

Here the frame is upside down for painting.  You can see the 4 link mounts that I welded up.

Tara bought me the headers for Christmas.

I just like these two black and white photos.

These last four are out of order but, they show the body channeled over the frame 6 inches and what it looked like before the channel job.

Unchanneled

Channeled

You can see why I said earlier I should have taken more out of the frame length, it looks funny.

1929 Willy's Whippet, Ford Model A, Hot Rod, Mercury Flathead

Started with a pretty bare Ford Model A Frame

I started this project about 3 years ago with the intention of taking parts I already had, putting them to together and making a rolling project that I could sell and make some coin off.

I made the rear section out of new 2x4 box tubing.  I stepped it up to get the car lower and extended it rearward to use a spring behind banjo rear differential.

I also needed something to occupy my mind that winter, so I rounded everything up and brought it to my garage in October 2009.

1949 Mercury 8CM Flathead

I had an old Ford farm truck that had this Mercury Flathead V8 in it and it still spun over so I yanked it out and started tearing it down.

1936-39 Ford Wide Five Wheels and Brake Drums

I used part of the Model A frame that I cut off to make a rear cross brace and then used c channel from another frame section to make this rear spring perch.

Here is the 1929 Whippet body as I bought it.  I sold it on ebay and I think the guy who bought it died and nobody came to pick it up.  It is a Sport Coupe, it used to have a leather top like a convertible.

1927 Chevrolet Frame Fabrication, Engine, Transmission Placement, 1931 Chevy Coupe Build, Pinion Angle

We cut a few inches off the rear and moved the crossmember forward

So my friend Josh came to Oregon to help me for a week.  He is a welder and would make sure the frame was done correctly.

The rearend was from a Caddilac limo and had this triangulated four link design already built in so it worked great.

Making the sparks fly!

We set the engine in place and the cowl to make sure everything was going to fit.

Here the Ford Model A front crossmember is installed to lower the front end.  You can see that the frame is fully boxed now too.  Always make your body mounts before boxing the frame, I failed to do that on this car.

The motor mounts and the transmission crossmember are installed.  I bought Model A to Chevy 350 motor mounts and modified them to fit the wider frame of a 27' Chevy.  I got a 40' Ford axle off ebay, some 39' Ford spindles off ebay then the rest of the frontend parts from Speedway Motors.

We made some upper shock mounts for the rear.

This is basically the progress Josh and I made for the week.  The transmission angle is -3 degrees and the rear differential pinion angle is +3 degrees so when the suspension compresses under acceleration the drive shaft is at 0 degrees.