Dry-lakes scratchbashed '29 Ford/Ardun: Front 4-link, etc., Jan. 26

[Metalmad]

Wow Bill this is awesome ! and what skills you have !

[Ace-Garageguy]

On 1/15/2019 at 9:26 AM, Jantrix said:

...Keep it going!

Thanks. I'm trying, a little every day or so. 

 

On 1/21/2019 at 2:44 PM, Mr. Metallic said:

...It feels like it's actually getting close to a final mock-up before paint. I'm really looking forward to that.

Me too. Closer and closer...  

On 1/21/2019 at 3:08 PM, Earl Marischal said:

...One question, where did the seat come from? Did you make it too?

Thanks for your interest and comments.

The seat is from the old Monogram Kurtis Kraft Indy car, narrowed, with a few holes drilled to give it a surplus aircraft look.

                                                             

On 1/21/2019 at 10:50 PM, Art Laski said:

... Keep it up!

Trying. And thanks to you too for your interest and comment.

[Ace-Garageguy]

On 1/21/2019 at 11:37 PM, Metalmad said:

Wow Bill this is awesome ! and what skills you have !

Thanks. Sometimes it feels like the little car has a will of its own and knows what it wants to be...like I'm only facilitating what's already there. And sometimes, it seems to fight me every step of the way.  

Right now it's in time-out.   

[Earl Marischal]

Thanks Bill. I recognise that seat now.  Have an unbuilt version of kit in my stash.

steve

[Ace-Garageguy]

I had to build frame outriggers to anchor the rear ends of the 4-links. They have to be this wide to clear the front bellypan. They're pinned so I can take this end apart too, for painting and chrome work.

Then I built slide clips inside the rear of the hood that fit tightly over the flanges I made earlier at the front of the cowl. These will keep the panels in exact alignment, but allow the hood and nose to be removed to show off the guts.

Up on her feet, with the major panels installed to give me a little boost to keep going. The 4-links clear the exhaust cutouts in the hood just exactly as they did on the earlier mockup. I've stripped the rear wheels (from the old Monogram Kurtis Kraft Indy racer again) in preparation for making molds of the wheels, and then turning them out of the tires on the lathe. I'll be using the hard plastic tires, as they're white, so I can just sand a little black paint off the raised letters. New wheels will be inserted after painting with the appropriate metalizer and buffed.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Ace-Garageguy

[Mr. Metallic]

Those flanges to align the body are elegant, brilliant, yet simple. Hopefully my brain will allow me to file them away and recall them when I need it

[Ace-Garageguy]

5 hours ago, Mr. Metallic said:

Those flanges to align the body are elegant, brilliant, yet simple. Hopefully my brain will allow me to file them away and recall them when I need it

Glad you think it's an idea you can use. The grippers on the hood itself are a little large and klugey, as they were proof-of-concept, just to see if the idea would work like I thought it would. With more care, they could be made considerably smaller...not quite appearing in-scale, but less obtrusive.

Still, they don't show when the car is assembled, or unless the hood is upside-down, and the flanges on the body that DO show can easily (and correctly) represent panels added to the body shell that would carry 1/4 turn (Dzus) fastener receptacles.

[bobthehobbyguy]

Thanks for showing your techniques for doing the rear spring. Never seems to be done very well.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Not a lot going on, as this old girl's been patiently waiting her turn to get back in progress. One reason is that after assembling all the new body panels and body shell on the suspension, I wasn't entirely happy with the stance. Since stance is hugely important to me, I kinda stepped back and decided to wait before moving forward again. I'm OK with the front end, but the rear looks high and the axle looks too far forward to me in this shot.

Deciding exactly what happened took a little looking backwards at earlier build photos, and they don't tell the entire story. To actually be able to tell what's changed...exactly...the photos you're comparing need to be taken from exactly the same angle and height. Compare the shot above with the two shots below and you'll see what I mean. The angles are slightly different, so the actual position of the axle is difficult to ascertain. And the absence of the bellypans in the upper shot changes the initial impression the car makes too.

The shot immediately below seems to show the axle farther back, with the curve of the top of the tire tangent to the curve of the body line.

The next shot, however, appears to show the axle a little farther forward, and the body higher relative to the tire.

 

The point of this post is that, as stance is extremely important in forming the first-impression of any car, model or full-scale, it's necessary to get your dimensions dead-on early in the game so you can trust them, build to them, and not need to be constantly re-thinking what you should have done in the first place.

I failed to get really good measurements on this one early, and it's taking some effort to find the stance sweet-spot now...and will most likely entail modifying some suspension parts I had thought were pretty much done (except for final finishing).   

Lesson learned...again.  

[Ace-Garageguy]

Not much to look at, but I got the suspension re-sorted. Mostly, she just wanted to say hi, 'cause she was feeling left out when the others on the bench got updates posted.

 

[Straightliner59]

This thing is super cool! Just a great look.

[Pico]

Looking good! I hope it will be finished for the 2023 Southern NNL.

[Paul Payne]

Bill, just discovered this post and I love it! I also have The Birth of Hotrodding and it is my go to guide for all things hot rodding in the golden age. You mentioned fuel injection for an Ardun- I think some of the streamliners ran this set up. I just located a picture in The American Hot Rod by Dean Batchelor of the Reed Bothers belly tanker with a fuel injected Ardun. This was 1954, near the end of the era you are modeling. Really hope to see this car finished!

[alan barton]

Of all your projects, I think this is the one I am most looking forward to seeing finished.  On my first visit to Bonneville in 1992, there was a white with red and blue stripes channelled 29 with a nose remarkably similar to yours and a Ferrari style grille.  It was from the fifties and still racing but I think it might be in a museum now.  I see that car every time I look at your thread..   don't have any digital photos of it but I think i still have print photos in my album. I will have a hunt!

Keep it coming - the hard work is done!

Cheers

Alan

[Ace-Garageguy]

On 6/17/2020 at 2:23 AM, Straightliner59 said:

This thing is super cool! Just a great look.

 

On 6/17/2020 at 10:31 AM, Pico said:

Looking good! I hope it will be finished for the 2023 Southern NNL.

 

On 6/17/2020 at 11:34 AM, Paul Payne said:

Bill, just discovered this post and I love it! ... Really hope to see this car finished!

 

On 6/18/2020 at 5:35 AM, alan barton said:

Of all your projects, I think this is the one I am most looking forward to seeing finished...

Keep it coming - the hard work is done!

Thanks guys. As always, I appreciate your interest and comments. 

And Pico...you just never know.   

[Ace-Garageguy]

I think I'll see if this one can't make it to the show Nov. 5, one way or another, too.

[ea0863]

Bill, I love how you can take junk and turn it into treasure - truly the mark of a master! BTW; if you're taking votes - I hope the next project you pick up is the Allison engine  

[Ace-Garageguy]

18 hours ago, ea0863 said:

Bill, I love how you can take junk and turn it into treasure...

Thank you sir sir. I really have more fun reworking garbage, for some odd reason.   

[Ace-Garageguy]

Well...OK. This is the kind of thing that inevitably slows down my builds, and gets them shelved until I get to another stopping place on something else. Rinse, repeat, with the result being I never finish anything.

So I thought I'd try to punch through this one.

I wanted to use the period Indy tires and wheels from the ancient Monogram Kurtis kit on the rear because they have such nice molded sidewall detail, and the wheels themselves look like early plain-center mags taken from a championship car.

But I wasn't happy with the wheels being molded as one piece with the tires. I want to do the wheels in old Testors buffing metalizer, and that's not a viable option if everything is molded together.

I had the little lathe out to make some small real-car parts, so I figgered I'd see what I could do with some model-car plastic.

First thing was to experiment on the backside of one half, to find out how fine a cut I could get. It was obvious I'd have to sacrifice both a wheel and a tire to get to where I wanted to be.

Starting with the back half of one assembly, I used an X-Axto as the cutting tool to remove the center from the tire. I had to get the speed way down (to avoid melting) to the lowest possible with the normal drive belt options, and it's still a little too fast. In the test, I kinda buggered both the tire and the wheel, but I found out what I needed to know.

Using pretty much the same setup, I was able to get one good wheel and one good tire half.

The back of the wheel needed to be undercut slightly, to fit tight against the tire and not look like a toy. There wasn't any way to grip the wheel internally to turn it with the jaws that are currently on the lathe (and a previous owner had already buggered the wheel center, so it wasn't true), so I used the sliding live-center support and a drill chuck to make a fixture to glue a temporary spindle, dead-square, to the wheel rear face, then let it dry two days.

When it hardened, I was able to use the temporary spindle to hold the wheel, and turn a slight undercut bevel on the wheel rim.

After shaving the inside of the tire just a tad, I got what I wanted...a separate wheel and tire, close fitting. The wheel will run a knockoff, as this little car is supposed to have been built from Indy-car castoffs, among other things, so the center won't show.

So that's it for now. I have to mold and cast both tires and wheels before I can finish this up, so end-of-year isn't too realistic at this point.

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Ace-Garageguy

[CabDriver]

What an ingenious way to use an X-acto - I never thought of doing that!!  I love your threads Bill, I always learn SOMETHING.

And yes, those wheels and tires are really cool

[Bullybeef]

Neat solution on the wheels Bill. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

On 11/2/2022 at 11:41 PM, CabDriver said:

...And yes, those wheels and tires are really cool

 

On 11/3/2022 at 12:33 PM, Bullybeef said:

Neat solution on the wheels Bill. 

Thanks for the interest and comments, gennelmen.  

I'm pretty happy with the way the wheel thing worked, but I still need to diddle the drive pulley setup on the lathe to get her running a little slower for plastic.

[MeatMan]

Really coming along nicely!

[Straightliner59]

You can bet I'll be borrowing this idea!

[NOBLNG]

And I’ll be borrowing this idea for gluing a spindle dead centre on a rim. It’s about the only thing my cheapo lathe is good for since something went wrong with the electronics.🤨 Nice progress Bill!👍

Edited November 5, 2022 by NOBLNG