Ace-Garageguy Posted September 22, 2012 Posted September 22, 2012 (edited) I started this one a long time ago, intending to build a pretty much state-of-the-art dry-lakes racer from just before Pearl Harbor. It's 4-cyl. Ford powered with a Riley overhead-valve conversion, a Columbia 2-speed rear end from a '40 Ford, Packard rear wire wheels and tires, a '37 Ford tubular front axle with longitudinal quarter-elliptic leaf springs, all hung from '32 rails. Welded-shut doors, a sheetmetal tonneau and a Miller race-car radiator shell finish off the look. Frame started as an AMT '32 blobular part, so I cut off the molded axle and fabbed kicked up rear rails. Rear rail mods done, '40 crossmember installed to hang the Columbia, and the '37 front axle, 'bones and springs mocked up. Had to make a hood to mate the '29 cowl and the Miller radiator shell..... ....so I made templates of both ends and filled in between.... Also scratch-built a hard tonneau from .020" styrene to get a center seating position... Little car on its wheels.... And today with the hood fitted better, the rear deck cut out, first coat of primer, and the hole in the tonneau finished... Edited October 8, 2012 by Ace-Garageguy 1
doggie427 Posted September 23, 2012 Posted September 23, 2012 Beautiful start Bill. This is a very underrepresented era in modelling. Can I ask you where the Miller rad shell came from ?
Joker Posted September 23, 2012 Posted September 23, 2012 You had me at "Blobular"....hahaha Nice combo of parts and great Hot Rod era. I'm sure the historians will chime in with more trivia on it.
cobraman Posted September 23, 2012 Posted September 23, 2012 Thats a great start. It will be very cool.
H.A.K Posted September 23, 2012 Posted September 23, 2012 Oh I like that a lot. This looks real good.
Agent G Posted September 23, 2012 Posted September 23, 2012 Oh yeah! My favorite, dry lakes racing. Looking good! G
Gluhead Posted September 23, 2012 Posted September 23, 2012 This. is. rad. What's the Miller shell from?
Ace-Garageguy Posted September 23, 2012 Author Posted September 23, 2012 Glad you guys like the vintage dry-lakes thing. For those who asked, the Miller radiator shell is a resin copy I made from a vintage Aurora kit part. 1
Albie D Posted September 24, 2012 Posted September 24, 2012 Funny, I was just leafing through the Throttle Magazine book and now this comes up. Looking forward to this!
vintagedragfan Posted September 24, 2012 Posted September 24, 2012 very cool Bill, I like it, great era!
Ace-Garageguy Posted October 8, 2012 Author Posted October 8, 2012 Revell Model A engine salvaged from a gluebomb. (Was put together with contact cement.) '39 Ford gearbox from a gluebomb Ala Kart. Have to scratch an adapter, and will be semi-scratching the head. Revell made a Riley 2-port (background) as did AMT, but nobody made a kit Riley 4-port, which was a lot faster. Coming along. Thinned the oil-pan rail a bit too. 1
Dennis Lacy Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Are you still in need of Riley 4 Port reference pictures? I just realised I have a bunch of close-ups that I took at our local Antique Nationals this past June. 1
Ace-Garageguy Posted October 8, 2012 Author Posted October 8, 2012 Are you still in need of Riley 4 Port reference pictures? I just realised I have a bunch of close-ups that I took at our local Antique Nationals this past June. Man, that would be fantastic. I have a few, but most are of incomplete engines or only one side, or of questionable accuracy.
dimebolt Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Cool build Ace. Good progress so far. Lookin awesome. Corey
Ace-Garageguy Posted October 9, 2012 Author Posted October 9, 2012 As usual gentlemen, I thank you all for your interest and kind comments. An extra special thanks to Dennis Lacy for sending me some great refrence pix of 1:1 Riley 4-port head conversions for the Model A-B-C blocks. Now I have no excuse for not getting it right. 1
stavanzer Posted February 1, 2019 Posted February 1, 2019 So, How is it coming? I'm really curious about the 4 port Riley head.
Ace-Garageguy Posted February 1, 2019 Author Posted February 1, 2019 31 minutes ago, alexis said: So, How is it coming? I'm really curious about the 4 port Riley head. Stalled due to research. Dennis Lacey sent me some great reference pix of a real head, but I went off down the rabbit hole of what would have been the absolute trickest carbs to have used back then. I settled on either Amals or SUs, which, as side-drafts, would have eliminated the 90o direction change in flow from using down-drafts. Easily worth a few HP. As a what-if, state-of-the-art car built by somebody with knowledge of European practice as well as American, these would be naturals. Anyway, that's where she stuck. I've been looking for the easiest-to-scratch-build, or some old ones that look like the stuff from the '50s I can copy.
Mr. Metallic Posted February 1, 2019 Posted February 1, 2019 2 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said: Stalled due to research. Dennis Lacey sent me some great reference pix of a real head, but I went off down the rabbit hole of what would have been the absolute trickest carbs to have used back then. I settled on either Amals or SUs, which, as side-drafts, would have eliminated the 90o direction change in flow from using down-drafts. Easily worth a few HP. As a what-if, state-of-the-art car built by somebody with knowledge of European practice as well as American, these would be naturals. Anyway, that's where she stuck. I've been looking for the easiest-to-scratch-build, or some old ones that look like the stuff from the '50s I can copy. If you have solid reference, maybe one of the 3D printing guys could make something?
Ace-Garageguy Posted February 1, 2019 Author Posted February 1, 2019 17 minutes ago, Mr. Metallic said: If you have solid reference, maybe one of the 3D printing guys could make something? I'm sure somebody could, but I'm an old-school scratchbuilder from wayback, and I have a miniature mill and lathe. I can make what I need, as soon as I decide exactly what that will be. Both Amal and SU carbs were around well before the time this build represents, but getting info as to what specific carb was available in what bore and when has so far used up all the time I had available to research it, with no concrete results. I'm kinda anal-retentive about making certain something COULD have been built during a particular time period, whether anything like it actually WAS...and I'll even fudge the accuracy of how I choose to model something, so long as I KNOW it's fudged. 1
Ace-Garageguy Posted October 25, 2022 Author Posted October 25, 2022 2 hours ago, stavanzer said: Any Updates, BIll? Thanks for your interest. I got looking for real car reference photos showing the quite long '40 Ford rear radius rods, split like on the model, and found examples. Then I started trying to nail down period photos of a front quarter-elliptic spring setup (which I already knew to have been used), with appropriate lateral location of the axle. The springs aren't sufficient, so something like a Panhard bar would be necessary. And that's where the build stalled. I know how I'd do it today...but I wanted to find a similar in-period example. As stated, I know similar setups were tried, I've seen period shots, but hadn't found quite what I was looking for. Without correct location, a solid-front-axle car can develop the dreaded "death wobble", and it's a serious consideration on a car built for top speed runs. I try to keep my models real, and represent the way things should be done in full scale. 1
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