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57 Altered Wheelbase Gasser


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I had to weather up the headers a bit, they never stay clean for long! I got them mounted up and I'm waiting on the paint on the front clip to harden so I can buff it out, probably tomorrow. By the way, I want to give a big thank you to Clay Kemp, I discussed how to make collectors for these headers with him and he gave me some really great advice. Here's the photos:

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I'm thinking this may be the reason you don't see old Fords all jacked up like old Chevys, the body mounts are way forward on a Ford compared to a Chevy. I also had to use humongous 4" collectors because of my inexperience building headers, I'll do better next time. I need to find something better to make headers out of, that copper wire is a, uh, problem to bend. If I had softer material to work with I'd bend them back a little farther, but that ain't gonna happen! Having said all of that, at this point, she is what she is. I've seen way too many cars win Best of Show with no regard for mechanical probability. There is also several other things I'd change, I'll do better on the next one! By the way, I really appreciate the honest input.

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I'm thinking this may be the reason you don't see old Fords all jacked up like old Chevys, the body mounts are way forward on a Ford compared to a Chevy. I also had to use humongous 4" collectors because of my inexperience building headers, I'll do better next time. I need to find something better to make headers out of, that copper wire is a, uh, problem to bend. If I had softer material to work with I'd bend them back a little farther, but that ain't gonna happen! Having said all of that, at this point, she is what she is. I've seen way too many cars win Best of Show with no regard for mechanical probability. There is also several other things I'd change, I'll do better on the next one! By the way, I really appreciate the honest input.

Looks good so far like the color and nice job on the engine.

solid core solder works well for headers you might try a hardware store the sizes you were seeing were rosin core.

Edited by bobthehobbyguy
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Thanks for the tip, I looked everywhere and those were the only two sizes I found. I think the big box stores have limited the little guys on what they will carry, but I'll continue looking. Another idea that was mentioned was annealing the wire to make it easier to bend. There's also a couple of things I would do differently next time.

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Well, I went to rub out the front fenders and there was a problem with the paint. For some reason, after sitting for a week to dry, the paint was not dry. I have no idea how this happened, so it went into the purple pond. I'll try again later in the week.

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Well, I went to rub out the front fenders and there was a problem with the paint. For some reason, after sitting for a week to dry, the paint was not dry. I have no idea how this happened, so it went into the purple pond. I'll try again later in the week.

Oh man, that sucks big time. I really hate when that happens to me.

If the paint was not dry, maybe you should use a dehydrator.

That is one thing that living in Brazil saves you from. All my enamel paint jobs dry in a couple of hours on summer, and in a day on winter. Tamiya lacquer spray paint? Give it 20 minutes, and you can hold the body on your hand already.

The one time I had the very same problem you had, I used old enamel paint thinned with even older thinner. That thing took almost a month to get hard.

Another thing that can ruin your day is to use lacquer thinner on enamel paint. That will slow down the drying time and take the shine away.

On the headers, usually the Gasser builders use long horizontal tubes to avoid the wheels.

The Ford cars were a lot better made than the Chevrolets, and had more body mounts, with bigger rubber insulation. The frames also had the belly out format, to help protecting the car against side impacts.

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Edited by Lovefordgalaxie
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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...
  • 4 months later...

It's been a looong time since I worked on this build, my old 59 Ford 1:1 keeps me busy in the summer and then we recently moved so I had to build a new shop in the basement. Anyhoo, I finally redid all of the bodywork, not as good as the first time, and got some paint on her. I went with pearl red and white with flat clearcoat for something different. Here's some photos:

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