James2 Posted January 29, 2019 Share Posted January 29, 2019 Looking pretty nice so far, Any chance you can get the nose up some for a more gasser like appearance... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 29, 2019 Author Share Posted January 29, 2019 2 minutes ago, James2 said: Looking pretty nice so far, Any chance you can get the nose up some for a more gasser like appearance... Maybe just for you. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afx Posted January 29, 2019 Share Posted January 29, 2019 Maybe you can weld a few brackets on to get some real altitude! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 29, 2019 Author Share Posted January 29, 2019 ^^^ Yeah baby, now we're talkin'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthehobbyguy Posted January 30, 2019 Share Posted January 30, 2019 Very nice work. Nice fab work. Those springs look great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted April 20, 2019 Author Share Posted April 20, 2019 (edited) Added some reinforcements to the axle ends of the lift bars, and a temporary cross-tube to keep the forward ends parallel. The cross-tube let me place brackets on the chassis in the right place. The axle itself is still sitting in the alignment jigs I made several steps back. Bolt heads are model RR parts. Started making a card-stock floor mockup. Determined necessary clearance for the Hydro Stick gearbox. .Started working out tunnel dimensions and shifter clearance by comparing with a SWC '41 Willys gasser floor. The old Revell kit uses the same gearbox and stick. Checking seat clearance and gearshift position relative to it with card-stock mockups. Rear cockpit panel in place. Edited April 20, 2019 by Ace-Garageguy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted April 20, 2019 Author Share Posted April 20, 2019 (edited) Rear cockpit panel notched for shortened driveshaft, and pinion angle verified correct. There's also a piece of channel in place to receive the upper ends of the rear shocks. Final floor made up in .010" and .020" styrene. Fits like it was supposed to. And it's removable. Edited April 20, 2019 by Ace-Garageguy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afx Posted April 20, 2019 Share Posted April 20, 2019 Nice to see some progress on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Kron Posted April 20, 2019 Share Posted April 20, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said: Fits like it was supposed to. And it's removable. How do you maintain the shape of the transmission cover if it's removable? Is it the heavier .020" stock? If so how did you shape it?The whole setup looks first rate and well engineered. Build on! Edited April 20, 2019 by Bernard Kron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bisc63 Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Coming along SO nicely.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted April 21, 2019 Author Share Posted April 21, 2019 16 hours ago, afx said: Nice to see some progress on this. 8 hours ago, bisc63 said: Coming along SO nicely.... Thanks for the interest, gentlemen. 14 hours ago, Bernard Kron said: How do you maintain the shape of the transmission cover if it's removable? Is it the heavier .020" stock? If so how did you shape it?The whole setup looks first rate and well engineered. Build on! Bernard, thank you too. To answer your question, the floor proper is the .020" stock, as is the rear of the tunnel. The forward section ended up being the .010" stock. To form the curved trans cover and the rear section took some experimenting and a few failures to get a decent final result. In short, you first need a very accurate card-stock template that can be bent to a curve with fingers. Then make a styrene part that duplicates it exactly. Aftermarket styrene stock, whether sheet, tube, or rod, can often be heat-formed and tempered to hold its shape. Depending on the size and shape of the part, it only takes immersion in boiling water for 10-30 seconds to do the trick. Then cool the part in cold water. To get accurate and consistent results and smooth curves, it's necessary to secure the part you're forming to something that will hold its shape. I first tried taping the part to a section of styrene tube that had already been tempered. That worked reasonably well, but wasn't good enough. I ended up making a more elaborate form, but didn't photograph it. It's just a matter of trial-and-error, and rarely takes more than 3 attempts to get it right. Last shot shows the original card-stock template, one of the not-good-enough parts, and the final assembled floor. I found that .010 worked best for the forward end, and it was better to cut the relief for the shifter after the part was formed. The parts are quite delicate and fragile, but once assembled they stiffen up considerably...though it takes very careful file work to avoid cracking .010" sheet once it's tempered. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott8950 Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 very nice work!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rider Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Great stuff going on here. Good luck with the rest of this build. It's quite interesting how many plastics can be machined and formed like aluminium. Many of what works for aluminium can be brought over to many plastics. As you said, trial and error will find the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Kron Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Thanks for the info, Bill. Real looking interior bits a a critical elements. I'll mess with card stock, plastic sheet and tempering it and see where Iand up. On thing that occurs to me is that if you have a kit part that is the correct shape and dimensionally where you want to land up, it could be used as a form to make a thinner, more accurate copy using it as your form. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James2 Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 Very nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted April 21, 2019 Author Share Posted April 21, 2019 41 minutes ago, Bernard Kron said: ...On thing that occurs to me is that if you have a kit part that is the correct shape and dimensionally where you want to land up, it could be used as a form to make a thinner, more accurate copy using it as your form. Absolutely. And to take that idea and run with it a bit, you could also cobble together several pieces from kits into a positive mold, and then vacuum-form .010 sheet over it all. The temperature required to vac-form styrene will temper it too, obviously. What I actually ended up doing to get the taper of the trans cover was to turn a piece of wood dowel to the taper I wanted on the Unimat, (determined from the dimensions the mockup came out to be after careful eyeball-fitting), wrap and tape the sheet around it, and dip it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted April 21, 2019 Author Share Posted April 21, 2019 2 hours ago, Scott8950 said: very nice work!! 22 minutes ago, James2 said: Very nice Thanks, guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted April 21, 2019 Author Share Posted April 21, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, Rider said: Great stuff going on here. Good luck with the rest of this build. It's quite interesting how many plastics can be machined and formed like aluminium. Many of what works for aluminium can be brought over to many plastics. As you said, trial and error will find the way. Thank you too, sir. The shots below show a PVC and styrene mockup I made on the model bench, with the Unimat, to fit a spherical bearing in the firewall of a real '66 Chevelle I'm finishing up. The firewall had already been smoothed and painted candy-blue when I got involved with the project, and the pass-through for the steering column was in the wrong place...slightly, but enough to bugger the firewall. Happily for everyone concerned, I was able to juggle everything just enough to avoid repainting the firewall, but I had to get a dead-on fit for the eyeball. The plastic mockup allowed me to work the end of the upper column and shaft lengths to fit it, and to re-position the steering rack as well (which happily also allowed me to correct a bump-steer problem). I'll duplicate the plastic in aluminum, and we're done. Edited April 21, 2019 by Ace-Garageguy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Kron Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 11 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said: Absolutely. And to take that idea and run with it a bit, you could also cobble together several pieces from kits into a positive mold, and then vacuum-form .010 sheet over it all. The temperature required to vac-form styrene will temper it too, obviously. What I actually ended up doing to get the taper of the trans cover was to turn a piece of wood dowel to the taper I wanted on the Unimat, (determined from the dimensions the mockup came out to be after careful eyeball-fitting), wrap and tape the sheet around it, and dip it. I'm always looking for an attainable variant. In my Unimat-less and vacu-form-free universe the key here is to make a rigid, accurate positive form and then wrap & dip, as it were. Thanx for that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted April 21, 2019 Author Share Posted April 21, 2019 5 minutes ago, Bernard Kron said: I'm always looking for an attainable variant. In my Unimat-less and vacu-form-free universe the key here is to make a rigid, accurate positive form and then wrap & dip, as it were. Thanx for that... If you have a power-drill, you can turn soft wood, shaping it with sandpaper glued to a rigid block. Also, don't overlook common household things that might have the right taper. I just scouted around the kitchen for a couple of minutes and found a mustard bottle, a submarine-dressing bottle, and a couple of knives that could all supply a taper for a trans tunnel. For forming straight curved sections, X-Acto handles work great too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted April 27, 2019 Author Share Posted April 27, 2019 Coupla things I didn't mention last time... I stripped the wheels, thinned the rim on the front to get rid of the fat, toylike look, and shot it with decanted green Duplicolor self-etch. Looks like with some tinkering with tints, I can get a good match for the old Dow7 coating used on magnesium parts. The ancient Revell parts-pack rear wheels, after stripping the chrome, also take SEM black self-etch without any crazing. I'm hoping this stuff will be tough enough to kill the tendency of this wheel-tire combination to melt down at the junction between vinyl and plastic. The wheels still need to be drilled for the 6-bolt pattern this rear axle would have. I made up bosses on the front axle to take pins at the bottom of the shocks. You can see here she's still sitting on the spacer jigs between frame and axle. You also get a little of the effect of narrowing the lips on the front rims here. Using the shocks as jigs, I made up a little structure to take the shock tops. Not elegant engineering, but entirely plausible for the period and class this car represents. In this shot, the support spacer-jigs have been removed, and she's sitting on the springs. Again, notice the effect of the thinner wheel rims. The .020" styrene the main spring-leaves are made from, suitably arched, will support the weight of the chassis at this point, but the shocks will most likely be necessary to support the body etc., which is part of what they're intended to do on this build anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larman Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 A lot of nice work going on here ! I see that you are test fitting 1 seat for your interior. I am pretty sure that the MSP rules were very similar to Gassers and for at least most of the 1960's required 2 bucket seats or a bench seat (gassers). a single seat would probably move the car to Altered class. I am not 100% sure of this, but I know you are trying to keep it as legit as possible, so maybe it is worth checking into further. -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted May 18, 2019 Author Share Posted May 18, 2019 (edited) On 5/17/2019 at 9:46 AM, larman said: A lot of nice work going on here ! I see that you are test fitting 1 seat for your interior. I am pretty sure that the MSP rules were very similar to Gassers and for at least most of the 1960's required 2 bucket seats or a bench seat (gassers). a single seat would probably move the car to Altered class. I am not 100% sure of this, but I know you are trying to keep it as legit as possible, so maybe it is worth checking into further. -Larry Thanks for your interest and comment. I will double check the rules, and I appreciate you bringing that possibility to my attention. If I remember correctly (and it's been some time since I researched this thing) the MSP class rules were closer to altereds than gassers. MSP didn't require street lighting equipment, bumpers, allowed 25% engine setback (rather than the 10% of the gassers), etc. MSP was eventually absorbed into the altered classes. BUT...it's definitely worth checking again, and reading through the rules. Much easier to build it right than to have to go back and correct something. EDIT: I'm researching what the majority of these cars used for cooling at the moment. A similar-engined dragster would have had no radiator, but a gasser with similar power would have one. Packaging a radiator in this chassis is no problem, but accommodating a water-pump and pulleys, which requires spacing the Gilmer-belt blower-drive farther out and coming up with a correct belt-tensioner setup will require some more fiddly fabrication if it's necessary. Running a water pump will also require that I drive the fuel-injection pump from a combo angle-drive under the magneto, or off the back of the blower. HOWEVER, as far back as '58, some guys were already using electric pumps for coolant circulation duty. Brian Chuchua's Bonneville record-breaking, front-blown Corvette ran electric marine pumps, IIRC. This is getting to be much like building a real car. Edited May 18, 2019 by Ace-Garageguy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straightliner59 Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 1 hour ago, Ace-Garageguy said: HOWEVER, as far back as '58, some guys were already using electric pumps for coolant circulation duty. Brian Chuchua's Bonneville record-breaking, front-blown Corvette ran electric marine pumps, IIRC. You'd be fine with the electric pump. Mazmanian ran one in either the Austin or Willys, for sure. I remember seeing it in an old HRM or PHR article. Sorry that's all the help I can be! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted May 18, 2019 Author Share Posted May 18, 2019 45 minutes ago, Straightliner59 said: You'd be fine with the electric pump. Mazmanian ran one in either the Austin or Willys, for sure. I remember seeing it in an old HRM or PHR article. Sorry that's all the help I can be! Thank you sir. That's very helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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