Mooneyzs

Danno.... Thanks buddy. you are probably right no one will notice the drive shaft angle except me.... Mike... Thanks Bud. It was great to chat for a bit today. John... Thanks Brother! Tyrone... Thanks Bud! Lee... Thank you. I am much happier with the angle now. although I am doing one more fix which should make it pretty much straight... Alyn... Thank you! David... Thanks and I am trying to make it better. It will be much better when I have a rolling chassis. I need to get some Alclad Chrome on my front axle and I can make it a roller. Dave... Thanks bud. I am hoping so too. I know when I got paint on the chassis it made me realize all of the hard work paid off because I was really happy with how it turned out.

Dave... Thanks mate. I had to challenge myself to see if I could make the clamp and I am pretty happy with the results. Brad.... Thank you my friend. You were the one that introduced me to printing plate and I can't thank you enough. I think you are right about the drive shaft angle. my only concern at this moment is with the cover I am afraid of it being a very close fit to the seat since I never have installed the seat to check the clearance between them. at this point the next time I put the seat into the chassis its gonna stay...lol I have had a few times that I have busted a solder seam putting the seat in an out of the car and had to fix it. now that I have the seat painted. I only want to have to install it once and not have to fix it... . My thoughts are to drop the pinion maybe a 1/16th of an inch or little that I can, then call it good and then I can make the final mount of the rear end and attach the brake line. Leonard... thank you Charlie... Thanks Bud!! I can't wait to put some of your great parts to use. Scott... Thanks Bud, The V-Band clamp took a little time to do but then again it was a few hours worth it . I guess I better not slack off any other details now huh John... Thanks Brother... I appreciate the kind words. I am not sure if this car is worthy for best build of the year and I feel honored from such a talented builder as yourself saying it should be. I need to finish it already . I need to give you a call.

So I got a little more work done on this tonight. Not as much as I hoped but I am making progress. I decided to test fit the drive shaft and cover again but this time with the engine, trans and midplate hooked up so I apologize for more boring pics of it. But then I decided to start scratch building the "V" Band clamp for the one end of the drive shaft cover. Here are the pics..... Here is the drive shaft and couplings in again but with the engine in, This time the Angle doesn't look as bad as it was before but I have thought of a way to lower the angle some more and hoping to finish it up tomorrow: Another test fit with the drive shaft cover with the engine in: Here is the "V" Band clamp that I scratch build. It has a total of 7 pieces and the band portion was made from aluminum printing plate: Here I was test fitting the clamp around the tube I will be using for the drive shaft cover: Here is an image of a brand called Clampco V band clamps, When I used to work with one of the aerospace companies we used to get V band clamps from them: I had to mock it up in the chassis real quick to see what it would look like:

Mike.... Thanks Bud! Bill... Thanks for the kind words. I will make sure to take it easy when I fire it up for the first time Lee... Thanks for compliments on this build. Yeah You won't see much of it but after I was test fitting things tonight I think I have a way to make so it is pretty much straight and you won't see the slight angle. I am not 100% sure if they did have the balistic blankets back then or not. I will show a pic of the restored car and it does have a tranny blanket but it is only around the one section. Here is the only shot I have of the tranny in this car:

John.... Beautiful work Brother.... This turned out killer. I love everything about this build. I think the trunk detail is killer and I loved all of the weathering you did on this build. Everything is top notch. I can't wait to see what's in store next

Paul... Thanks for all the support and believing in me. I have to agree with you that this should look good when done... Well I hope it turns out as good as I would like. I also think that sometimes we can be our own worst critics and I feel I have beat myself up and down over this issue.

John... another nice build man. It looks great!!

Ray... Nice work... this is totally cool!! and looking great!!

Paul... you are correct that the side tins will cover a good portion of the drive shaft and there will be a little bit of it noticeable. I have to agree with you at this point I will get it as good as I can and will let it be and if there is a little angle to it then there is. I know that since I started out with the Revell chassis and hacking it up to almost not using much of it I wished i would of just scratch built the whole chassis by the time I was done heavily modifying it. I bet revell's chassis wasn't even close to what Prudhomme used in this car. I never would of thought about that with the cars getting first place at GSL. I can tell you this on the next funny car I know a lot of mistakes I made and redid that I wouldn't do next time. I would also take into consideration the alignment of the tranny and rear end that I didn't think about when I was getting the stance correct on this one. I will tell you this I don't regret once having to redo parts because the results that I am shooting for I am happy with so far. I love this hobby and each build I do I learn something new every time. I know I have raised the bar on myself with this build challenging myself to go farther than I ever have in the past. I would of loved to of had a chassis drawing of this specific car or even of any funny car builders from back then, that way I could recreate the correct chassis. Here is the tin work back in the fabrication of it, It doesn't cover all of the chassis but a good deal of it: Here is somewhat of a side view with the tires on will cover a lot of it up. also take in account that I will be having the seat belt material for the lap portion of the harness wrap arund the down tube below the seat. But I know that when I display this at a show I will have one of the tires off so you can see the detail to the hubs: Side View of the tins: Inside of the Tins:

Paull.... Thanks man I have a few pics to show what I have done so far. I have been looking at things and I have a couple of options the mid plate will need to stay where its since I have the tin work to the body that fits to the mid plate. I can either try and raise the bell housing and the tranny or I can slightly angle the the transmission a little to raise the end up as well as lower the pinion on the rear end just a tad. I also thought maybe I could raise just the transmission on the bell housing but I may be better off raising both. I am trying to think of the easiest route to take to correct this. Here is a little of the rework with the drive shaft and couplings: Here is a side view. I took a quick measurement and it was a little bigger angle than I originally thought. There is about 1/4" difference in height: Here is a little bit of the start of the drive shaft cover I am trying to fabricate. Right now my plan was to install the couplings, drive shaft and the mount locks inside of the the cover. I know that you would never see that once the cover was installed but I know it would be there. I will be making a V-Band clamp that will go on the end of the transmission and was thinking I would make a bolt on flange on the end that bolts up to the rear end. Let me know your thoughts on this: I do have to add that this has had me stumped and taking me a little longer to figure out because I want to make it look right. Thanks for everyone's help so far.

Very Nice work on the chassis to get it to sit that low. I am gonna take some notes for my '49 that I would like to start on soon. I have a vision of pretty much having mine just about sitting on the rockers.

Keke....Thank you! James.... Thanks for the kind words. I pretty much just winged it for the pattern. The first one I did I messed up and then this one I started from the center and worked my way out each way and turned out much better. well guys I got a little more work done to the dash and just a few more details to add to it. Maybe I will get to it today and possibly have an updated pic to share later. I got the knobs mounted on the dash and I need to paint them as well as getting the speedometer numbers dry brushed.

Lee.... you know I will have to take a look to see if I can do anything with possibly shimming the motor plate at the tranny just a smidge. I could also possibly lower the pinion on the rear end just a tad that may help. I know what you mean with trying to minimize the alignment angle so its not as noticeable. It does bother me a tad but I think when I was lowering the mounts for the rear end to get the correct stance for the car I didn't even consider the the drive shaft and transmission at that point. I am going to take a look at a few ways I could maybe adjust that. You are right at how correcting one problem creates others to drive you nuts.... Gotta love this hobby though. I will be finishing up redoing my couplers and drive shaft today, then I will take a look at what I can do to change the alignment angle of the drive shaft.

Dave... Fantastic work on this. Man it is looking Killer. I love how the front end is turning out. Keep up the great work!

Tyrone... Nice work bud. This is looking great!! You have these things down and can build them in your sleep

Joe.... this is looking great and the chassis is really starting to shape up. I love your work bud!!

John..... Top Notch Work Brother. You are always impressing me and you continue to raise that bar for all of us. This is looking Killer!!!

Hans.... I havent forgotten the oil pressure guage. I just havennt made it yet. I was planning on making it and with Dave's help he told me where some oil ports were located on the block. Dave... thanks bud, I really appreciate it and I will email you when I have more questions.

I went by one of the hobby lobby's thats no too far from my house in hopes of finding one of these kits but they didnt have any. I may have to try another one here in the valley. Gotta love the 40% off coupon lol

This is a nice build and it looks great. Nice job

Arron.... Thanks for the pic. It does help. Paul.... Thanks for the pic of the "V"band clamp. I am very familiar with them since I used to design tooling and test equipment for an aerospace company that I used to worked for. One of the clamp companies we used was clampco. I can totally picture what you are talking about and I have an idea of how I am going to do this, I just hope it turns out as good as the visual I have in my head lol. Dave....thanks for posting the pics. Now I know what I need to do to the end piece of the lenco tranny to modify it. I just want to say a big thanks and appreciate your guys help it has given me a solution on how to fix this. I just hope I can make you guys proud. Stay tuned and I hope to have some good progress to show on it. Thanks again.

Michael... Nice start on is build. I can tell you that ammonia works well to strip chrome. I have used it many times before and worked good for me and it didn't take very long for it to work.

This is looking great and I love the weathering on it.

Hey Glen... Thank you for the kind words and for following along with this build. Feel free to save any of the pics or if you have any questions on how I did things feel free to ask and I will be more than happy to help out.

Paul... Thank you for all of your help with this drive shaft and coupling. I am going to add the star and clamps like you suggested. I got onto the lenco website to take a look at the parts. My one question I have is I believe that the way I originally set up the drive shaft and couplings, it looks like I put the couplings on backwards. Do you know if there were any configurations where the couplings were arranged the direction I put them by chance. One thing I have been thinking about is flipping my couplings around and adapt the star portion as well as changing the diameter of the drive shaft. I have been trying to figure out how I could use my existing parts with out having to redo everything because I want to make things right. I also understand that there is only so much we can do as modelers to make it as accurate as possible and only a few of us would really know that it's not "correct". I really wish I had pics of the drive shaft and couplings to see how it was set up on this restored car since I have been basing the build on those pics from the snake racing website. Dave,,,, thank you my friend for all of your help as well. You know I never though about adding a driveshaft cover. I have to agree that I don't think the NHRA would allow the exposed driveshaft being so close to the drivers legs and the chance for anything to get caught by the spinning driveshaft. Thank you for taking the time to look this up in the 1974 rule book. Do you happen to have any pics showing something like Paul has mentioned with v-band clamps. I am now trying to think how to create the mating parts that would go on the rear end and transmission to add this cover and clamp. Or should I make this cover just over the are exposed in the driver seat area and then open under the seat. Not sure if this makes sense how I am describing it. Hans..... Thank for the link. I had found some of those pics before when I was searching when I started this project. I just wish there were more pics of the chassis and these little details that can't be seen. Paul and Dave..... I want you both to know how much I appreciate you guys helping me with this. It means a lot to me that you are trying to help me make this as accurate as possible.