Ace-Garageguy

Thanks for the link, Art. It states Thompson's car "has a large titanium tube running the full length of the car on the right. The fuel tanks are inside it, and the seat and engine are carried by supporting framework". This is a direct word-for-word quote from the article. It sounds like the large-diameter titanium tube may well be a significant part of the structure (though it would HAVE to be offset far to the right of centerline to allow the low engine placement seen in the photos of the exterior), with a tubular space-frame of conventional design making up the remainder of the structure. As I noted above, Eric Rickman's article "Little Cars for the Big Race" on page 44 of the May 1965 Hot Rod Magazine (one of the few missing from my collection) has more info. Does anyone here have that issue? Here's a link to a photo of Rickman's that is implied to be of the car during construction. http://www.hotrod.com/articles/hrxp-1205-a-year-in-the-life-of-eric-rickman-1965/#hrxp-1205-a-year-in-the-life-of-eric-rickman-1965-061 Scroll to photo 22/76. If this is in fact the car in question, it appears to be largely a space-frame...though what's actually on the other side is impossible to tell from this shot. EDIT: It looks like we're still lacking anything definitive in photographic evidence. On closer examination of the photo, it appears to me to NOT be a shot of Thompson's '65 car. It does NOT appear to be front-wheel-drive, it has NO visible front half-shafts, and it has a large centrifugal supercharger. There is what appears to be a transfer case at the REAR of the engine, and a driveshaft running to the REAR of the car.

Art, as I said, when I see a photograph of the chassis built as you describe, I'll believe it...but not until then. Thompson was a hero of mine growing up, is largely responsible for why I refuse to accept that just because something hasn't been done before, that's no reason to say it CAN'T be done (as long as basic common sense and understanding of engineering and material principles are part of the equation too) and I know most of his cars inside-out...other than the '65 FWD car and the '67 development of the FWD concept (to which he added 4-wheel steering, to make it even more "interesting"). As far as what I posted above being "essentially the layout of a Lotus", well yeah...I'm fully aware of that and I named it as such in my own text. We've had disagreements about several technical and historical issues in the past, and I've always been able to back my position with reputable sources and documentation. And again, I said I didn't discount the "large titanium tube" business, but that until I see PROOF, I'll not believe it. But if anybody would have built something so unusual, it would have been Thompson.

Wasn't any way to foresee the furnace fan motor bearing going bad, and the slave cylinder in the truck was just barely weeping until it took the massive dump in the frigid temps. I've been able to nurse weeping slaves for years, literally. Of course, that was in the days when the bodies were made of METAL, and you could just buy the damm seals, hone the bodies, and drive another 200,000 miles. But some fool engineer who had a bean-counter's gun to his head thought it would be a good idea to design THIS slave body out of some kind of plastic, and it simply split. (I'm sure the replacement piece of substandard Chinese crapp I get to replace it will be doing good to last 2 years...the first one lasted 28) I wouldn't really call either scenario the result of "negligence" exactly. And neither of these are "kick in the butt" problems, just petty annoyances on New Year's Day...but Happy New Year to everyone anyway. PS It's really GREAT to be self-reliant. My indoor temp is back up to 52F and rising nicely. Didn't have to pay holiday rates to some HVAC guy, or call the hook to tow my truck, rent a car, and wait for some hacker to fix it, probably wrong.

Thanks Peter. It'll be all right. Just the universe reminding me not to take things too seriously, and to deal with stuff as it comes up instead of putting it off as long as possible. Hmmmm...those sound like good New Year's resolutions. PS I got the truck jury-rigged enough so I can go out and get something to finish the jury-rig on the furnace. It's 40F in here right now.

Surely you jest. I spent an enjoyable evening cleaning off my bench in anticipation of getting some quality building time today and tomorrow. The universe had other plans. I'm now warming my hands over a space-heater after patching my old truck (blew the clutch slave cylinder this morning) enough so I can go out and get something to patch my furnace blower motor (it died in screaming agony shortly after midnight). Real life's a bidge sometimes.

So, this AM shortly after the stroke of midnight, the fan motor bearing on my heater goes out. Of course it's the coldest day of the year so far (16F) with forecast colder the next few. Been working on it all morning to come up with with a patch until I can buy a motor later in the week (because of course, in this oh-so-much-better throw-away world the dweebs have created, I can't just buy the dammed bearing). And when I go out to my trusty old truck, she blows the clutch slave cylinder. Fixin' to hike up to O'Reillys to get one now. Hope this isn't the shape of things to come for 2018.

I've had a lot of similar problems with Optima batteries over the last several years, which is why I no longer use them unless the client demands one...in which case I refuse to stand behind them, even if I install one. I've gone back to conventional lead-acid batteries for the cars I build where I specify all the components.

Cold weather kills batteries. Always good to have at least a small charger and a long extension cord handy in the winter.

I'm not saying the assertion is completely wrong, as I just don't know. I really do NOT claim to know everything. But I DO know a pretty fair bit about structures, and until I see a photograph of one huge tube used as a race-car chassis, I'll have to refuse to believe it. What I DO know is that none of the cars cited above were based on big titanium tubes. I would hazard a guess that somebody not familiar with race car construction misinterpreted the phrase "titanium tube chassis" to mean one big tube, when it in fact means a conventional tubular chassis fabricated from small diameter titanium tubes. Interestingly though, a monocoque chassis with a roughly circular or ovoid cross-section CAN be loosely thought of as being a big tube. Aircraft fuselages and missiles are built that way too. BUT...in that case, the "tube" is built up of multiple alloy sheets bonded or riveted together, and it's necessary to include box-sections and ribs / bulkheads, as a pure tube has poor strength in bending if its walls are not adequately supported, either by the thickness of the material, or by box-section and rib / bulkhead elements. Below is a drawing of an early Lotus monocoque chassis built up from aluminum sheet, into a rough approximation of a "tube".

Yup. ALL "canopy" glues are basically the same stuff and behave similarly. Some are runnier, some tack up quicker, but they are all PVA and do just what you said. I tried the MKK, and it worked so well, I never bothered trying any others.

Lacquer has a hard surface, which is one reason it produces such a "deep" gloss when polished correctly. A hard surface makes it tougher to sand, but the results are worth it.

Thanks. Good to know. All of mine are Kidde.

I recommend Micro Krystal Klear. Bear in mind that none of these white PVA (polyvinyl-acetate) glues have much wet strength, and windows will usually need to be fixtured in position while drying

This image appears to be an early engineering / concept drawing of the 1965 Thompson FWD roadster. It would also appear that the radiator ducting is being designed here, to clear a reversed quick-change final drive assembly, driving the front wheels. The May 1965 Hot Rod Magazine article (page 44)shows the car nekkid, and it is definitely a conventional tubular space-frame, not some black-magic single titanium tube as has been alluded to. Still, I await independent corroboration. A too-hot nitro load for the last round of qualifying is cited in the Hot Rod Deluxe article, and could have conceivably contributed to the crank breaking, but at this point in history, I seriously doubt we'll ever really know. There has been so much discussion of the relative merits and failures of these cars, and so much written and talked about that has no basis in fact whatsoever, and quotes from M.T. himself describing how the deck was time and time again stacked against him (much of what he said is verifiably true), that arguing with nothing but memories to back up the positions of people who weren't there is pointless.

Yup. http://www.modelcargarage.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=356 There's a learning curve, but if you have a functioning brain, it's not difficult to figure out what they will do without bending. And though they bend fairly easily, they also straighten out fairly easily as well.

"Polishing" WILL NOT REMOVE ORANGE PEEL. It has to be sanded flat FIRST, and THEN polished. Sand up to 12,000 grit, wet, then polish. In the course of doing this, you naturally run the risk of sanding through the paint, and if you do, all you need to do is spray more paint, then re-sand and polish as necessary. Incidentally...Duplicolor straight rattlecan black should not need clear to develop a really fine gloss, but it may take 5 coats of paint to have enough to sand and polish if you get much peel.

Yes, it should ALWAYS be SOP to drain a tank prior to removing it...as well as keeping any sources of possible ignition FAR away. The manufacturers, in their non-hands-on, not-car-guys infinite wisdom, however, have nickel-and-dimed the drain plugs off of many fuel tanks, so you're kinda screwed when you go to drain some of them. Gasoline weighs about 6 1/2 pounds per gallon, so 10 gallons left in the tank is about 65 pounds. Handling that kind of weight overhead, sloshing around, with open lines, is a recipe for disaster. And a single drop of cold gasoline falling on a hot work-light bulb will crack the glass and start a fire instantly. I've seen fools with electric space-hearers in their bays too. Every toolbox needs it's OWN regularly maintained LARGE fire extinguisher, as well as extinguishers mounted on lift posts, and on the wall in FRONT of every work bay.

This is what I mean about all the wrong information floating around. The 1962 Harvey Aluminum cars ran Buicks (there were three), and looked relatively conventional for a mid-engined formula car, shown below. For the 1963 Harvey Aluminum "rollerskate" cars (blue, as shown in the post above and the cutaway drawing, all with tubular frames as shown, but only one of titanium) the Buick engines were replaced with smallblock Chevy engines. In '63, two of the earlier cars also ran with Chevy V8 engines, but under the "Harcraft" banner (a marketing division of Harvey Aluminum). The 1963 "rollerskate" cars were substantially modified and rebuilt as the Sears Allstate Specials for 1964, and had Ford 4-cam engines based on aluminum Fairlane bottom-ends. The red one is shown in the post above, next to the blue Harvey car it was built from (actually, the red Allstate #83 car was not on the titanium chassis...the #82 Allstate car was...). For 1965, there was no Harvey Aluminum-sponsored car listed either in the finishers OR the failed-to-qualify list. Micky Thompson's 1965 Indy entry, the M/T Challenger Wheel Special (black & white photo below) was an entirely new design again, front-engined (Chevrolet-derived), front-wheel-drive, and uncompetitive for several possible reasons, all of which have been argued endlessly. According to race accounts from the period, and not with 50 years of hindsight and speculation clouding things, the crankshaft in the last qualifying engine broke as the car was almost up to a respectable speed. As both alcohol AND gasoline fuels were run in the '65 race, it's not inconceivable that a fuel mixup might have occurred, but I feel it's unlikely. The engine in Thompson's car had suffered from development problems, the program was behind schedule, and they just ran out of time before getting it right. Honestly, I do NOT know much about the chassis of this design. It's entirely possible Harvey Aluminum was involved with the project, as they were also involved with the casting of Thompson's other products and special parts, but without a definitive reference source, I'll keep silent on what I believe the chassis to be. Thompson skipped 1966 at Indy, but was heavily involved in 1967 with another radical design incorporating 3-valve-per-chamber heads on a Chevy bottom end. The Wynn's-sponsored front-engined roadster also failed to qualify, as did Thompson's '68 entry.

Most likely 'cause there's nobody over there who knows. Microballoon is used frequently in flying RC model planes, but not much in other hobby models. My extensive experience with the stuff comes from real aircraft applications, and years of experimenting on static models.

The tube-frame cars as shown above were heavily modified and rebodied to become the 3 Sears Allstate Specials for 1964, running the Ford DOHC V8.

Dennis is correct. Non-finned aluminum heads were factory stock.

One of the few sports cars you can take out and flog in the snow.

Enamel is usually the problem-child, though it's definitely always a good idea to experiment on one before you commit to painting all your tires.

With a little effort, the Comet-and-toothbrush gets down in the treads just fine. I've been doing it for decades. Bet effort IS required, and we all know how unpopular that is.

The June 1963 Hot Rod Magazine has a full writeup on the "rollerskate" car (the June '63 Road & Track has a comparison of Thompson's rollerskate and the Lotus 29 as well). August '62 Hot Rod has details of the more conventional looking Thompson/Harvey first-generation mid-engined car. There were developments over several years, and it can all get a little confusing...and there's no shortage of just flat wrong information floating around too...as usual. The elliptical cross section was only the skin. The chassis was a relatively conventional tubular spaceframe, built of .050"-wall titanium tube.