E St. Kruiser50 Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 (edited) Hey Mr. "J" We need more pic's and an update. Been followin' yer build here and haven't seen anything for awhile. Got a '32 roadster with the midget front and belly pan, and watchin' to see how your's goes. Later - dave Edited February 17, 2009 by Treehugger Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Cranky Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Yeah, J, stay focused. Give us more eye candy, will ya? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jairus Posted January 21, 2009 Author Share Posted January 21, 2009 (edited) Sorry guys... it has been a busy week with lots of demands on my time. Good idea, think I will take the afternoon off and work on the Midget. But first, have a bunch of ads to build and a map to draw for a brochure. Unfortunately between those beautiful reference pictures and Art Andersens suggestion that I use smaller diameter wheels.... I have been stymed. I have no such wheels nor approprate tires. Until I find them, this project is really just pissing in the wind. Edited January 21, 2009 by Jairus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Cranky Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Man, I wish I could help you out, J. Sorry. If I had them I'd zap them over to you. Anything to keep this project going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMc Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 issue is those are 6 lug 12" wheels....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randx0 Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Unfortunately between those beautiful reference pictures and Art Andersens suggestion that I use smaller diameter wheels.... I have been stymed. I have no such wheels nor approprate tires. Until I find them, this project is really just pissing in the wind. would 1/32 wheels work? there may be some in the slot car section or maybe smaller scale truck wheels Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMc Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 Watching Powerblock TV this past wknd Courtney had a '40s sprint car..with wire wheels Why not use some lindberg 1/32 wires and resin up some tires.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James W Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 Hey, I saw Courtney this weekend too, don't remember any wheels though. Lets keep this thread alive so Jairus has to work on it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jairus Posted February 3, 2009 Author Share Posted February 3, 2009 Hey, no worries dudes! Found a set of 1/32 slot car wheels and tires that will work PERFECT for the front! Diameter is right on and the tires even have the correct tread and sidewall detail. PLUS... they are already chromed! I must have not have quite burned off all my karma yet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunpilotvet Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Body smoothed out and rear axle attached. Time to create motor and radiator mounts up front. Jairus, Your midget looks great. I have the midget as well as the R&C article and considered doing what your doing, but decided to stay with the scale of the kit. Started after Thanksgiving, still lots to do. Still have the rear radius rods to do and I think then I may be ready to paint. Here's some pics If I can get them to post. Modified body and chassis with susp. and engine Much modified Offy. Radius rods from brass tubing polished with SnJ powder Mocked up body This thing is taking quite a long time to build. Doing the engine up was a lot of fun, made a few mistakes but I'll live with them. I built a seat side panel assembly whch fits up into the body. Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
recareyjuancarlos Posted May 31, 2011 Share Posted May 31, 2011 Hi friends. Yours given super valuable information to my modest proyect. Sure !!! I take this ideas on my race car. ( my selected models are the 30´midget at the Museum of the automovile, in Costa Mesa- California ). Gratefully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danno Posted May 31, 2011 Share Posted May 31, 2011 Hey, Jairus! Did this project get finished? I don't recall seeing it. ('Course I don't recall seeing this series of in-progress posts, either, before now.) Looks very interesting; I'd love to see the completed car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMc Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 Hi friends. Yours given super valuable information to my modest proyect. Sure !!! I take this ideas on my race car. ( my selected models are the 30´midget at the Museum of the automovile, in Costa Mesa- California ). Gratefully. heres a link to my pix.....some were posted above..this is a real CA midget, running an Eddie Meyer flattie http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb123/mikemc_photo/Midget/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bladerunner1955 Posted December 27, 2014 Share Posted December 27, 2014 Very nice job on the motor, just picked up a couple of these, well three of them for $10.00 each to build a mini track diorama and if ya don't mind I will use your motor ideas on mine. Oh, and what ever happened to the beautiful race car and the awesome Pan head in these pictures, I ride a 1967 police special and saw the Pan in the back ground, Don the sawman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted December 28, 2014 Share Posted December 28, 2014 Whoa. Glad I ran across this one. I've been looking to cut down some of those big ol' Monogram midgets I picked up cheap. Great info here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horsepower Posted September 22, 2016 Share Posted September 22, 2016 Late for your build, but those six lug hubs are Model T bolt pattern, the old original midgets used the T hubs and made wheels to fit that pattern, when Halibrand made the first one piece wheels they designed a six pin setup with a pressure plate and a single Knock off nut to hold the wheel on. Until the eighties when the new splined wheels replaced the drive hubs with the six pin drive, sprint cars and midgets still used the same model T bolt pattern.Just a little history for you. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misterNNL Posted September 22, 2016 Share Posted September 22, 2016 heres a link to my pix.....some were posted above..this is a real CA midget, running an Eddie Meyer flattie http://s208.photobucket.com/albums/bb123/mikemc_photo/Midget/I tried to access this and it is marked as private. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Anderson Posted September 23, 2016 Share Posted September 23, 2016 Late for your build, but those six lug hubs are Model T bolt pattern, the old original midgets used the T hubs and made wheels to fit that pattern, when Halibrand made the first one piece wheels they designed a six pin setup with a pressure plate and a single Knock off nut to hold the wheel on. Until the eighties when the new splined wheels replaced the drive hubs with the six pin drive, sprint cars and midgets still used the same model T bolt pattern.Just a little history for you. ?Except that there were no 6-lug wheels used on Model T's--the first all steel wheels were wire wheels almost exactly like were used on the very earliest Model A's--and were 5-lug. Prior to late 1925, Model T Fords came with only non-demountable wooden wheels (after about 1917 or so, demountable rims could be had, but still the wooden wheels were more or less permanently attached. However, most Midgets with drum brakes did use Model A Ford brake drums along with narrowed Model A rear axles, and up front, Model A Ford spindles--even Model A Houdialle hydraulic shock absorbers.Art Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horsepower Posted September 23, 2016 Share Posted September 23, 2016 Except that there were no 6-lug wheels used on Model T's--the first all steel wheels were wire wheels almost exactly like were used on the very earliest Model A's--and were 5-lug. Prior to late 1925, Model T Fords came with only non-demountable wooden wheels (after about 1917 or so, demountable rims could be had, but still the wooden wheels were more or less permanently attached. However, most Midgets with drum brakes did use Model A Ford brake drums along with narrowed Model A rear axles, and up front, Model A Ford spindles--even Model A Houdialle hydraulic shock absorbers.ArtModel T Hubs, not wheels, they had six rivets holding the drums to the hubs, the used just the s machined hub and bearings, this came from an article in Open Wheel magazine that covered the restoration of an early Kurtis midget. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Anderson Posted September 24, 2016 Share Posted September 24, 2016 Model T Hubs, not wheels, they had six rivets holding the drums to the hubs, the used just the s machined hub and bearings, this came from an article in Open Wheel magazine that covered the restoration of an early Kurtis midget.Delton, that would have been an oddball then. I grew up knowing Midget Racing Photographer, car owner, and Historian Ed Hitze (writer of the first history of both Frank Kurtis and Kurtis Kraft)---who had not only a pair of rail frame midgets in his garage, but also a 1949-vintage Kurtis Offy midget. In addition, I met, broke bread with Frank Kurtis here in Lafayette a couple of times when he was visting Hitze--much of what I say here comes from those long visits, and not a few beers, BTW. Consider that Kurtis-Kraft produced approximately 1,500 Midgets from late 1945 until Frank Kurtis sold that part of his business to Johnny Pawl of Crown Point, Indiana in the early 1950's. Of those approximately 1500 Midgets, about 340 were complete cars, with the rest being chassis only, chassis with bodywork, evven kits for chassis )the frame tubing cut, bent to shape, even "fishmouthed" for tee-joint welding. Hiis early cars did use Model A Ford front spindles & hubs (I got a set of refurbished Model A Ford brake shoes from Robert Rice, the father of USAC Midget Champion Larry Rice (the Larry Rice of Saturday Night Thunder) who lived just 20 miles south of where I am sitting writing this. When Crosley cars hit the streets in 1947, a transition was made to Crosley front spindles,, even the pioneering Crosley front disc brakes. In the late 1940's, Ted Halibrand introduced his "Quick Change Rear End", which was engineered to bold up directly to 1928-48 Ford rear axle assemblies. In addtion, NO Model T Ford had any front brakes of any sort--the only drums were on the rear axle, and those were parking brakes only. As for those "rivets" in a Model T hub, the writer is 6 "rivets" short, as all Model T Ford wooden artillery wheels were 12-spoke, and they were NOT assembled to their hubs with rivets, but BOLTS. In addition, a Model T front axle had a C-shape at each end, with a kingpin going through the spindlle, AND both teh upper and lower "ears" at the ends of that axle--exactly the opposite of every other carmaker's solid front axle, and certainly 1 pin or bolt more than any Ford passenger car hub 1928-48 (Ford did make 5-lug spindles for Model T's in 1926-27, for those cars mounting the then-new Ford "Welded Steel Spoke Wheels". From what you describe, the midget in question as written up in "Open Wheel" had to have been very much a home-build, with a Kurtis frame and bodywork.Along the way, Kurtis sold, as I mentioned above, raw chassis and body panels, to any and all comers--which accounted for the majority of what today are called Kurtis Midgets. A real reason for this was the production of 12" rims by Crosley, a size that was much harder to find beforehand--until Halibrand began production of magnesium alloy wheels for racing, in 1949.With all those midgets having been produced, complete, or at least in chassis form, by Kurtis, it's little wonder that many car owners (and Midgets were, at their outset, a low-bucks operation, particularly if an owner opted for a Ford V8-60, or a Drake (built by Dale Drake of Meyer-Draike Offenhauser beginning in 1945) which were water-cooled conversions of the Harley Davidson Pan Head Vee-Twin of the 1930's), even Elto 2-cycle outboard motors dating from the 1920's. Midget racing was, for many outside of AAA (American Automobile Association) and even California Racing Association (CRA), coupled with the ready availability of a fairly low-cost state-of-the-then-art tubular frame and essentially a mass-produced body shell (Kurtis had made stamped aluminum panels for P-51 Mustangs during WW-II, and had a small stamping press--his midget noses and tail cones were made by welding two stamped halves in aluminum!), with hoods, side panels and belly pans hand-formed by the legendary racing body craftsman, Myron Stevens) to fit each individual car or chassis sold.At any rate, the vast bulk of Kurtis Midgets used Model A and later Ford V8 spindles and hubs though.Art Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horsepower Posted September 24, 2016 Share Posted September 24, 2016 Quite possible, just repeated what was printed, it WAS one of the early outboard powered cars, I just assumed by the one big exhaust pipe and the fuel castor oil mix that it was some kind of two stroke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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