Thursday, January 19, 2012
Shop happenings
Bonneville!
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Bonneville is hot rod mecca. There is just no other way to put it. I've never been to a car event before and seen so much cool stuff everywhere I looked. If you are a car guy or gal, this is a must go to event. You will not be disappointed. A group of local Rusty Nut'ers made the trip this year. One club member was also racing, but he finished up the day we arrived.
Monday, June 20, 2011
My Daily Driver Model A
I've had a few requests for a post on my Model A, so here it is.
I found a 1930 Model A Tudor that a local guy had given up on. He was bored with it and made me a great deal because he wanted to see it turned into something. I set out to build a family hauler that would serve duty as a daily driver but still have all the fun a hot rod should have. The thought of a car with a gas sucking V8 being used everyday wasn’t going to work for me. I’m interested in alternative fuels, so a diesel was a natural choice.
I located a well used bread truck for sale with a Cummins 4BT diesel. After a very noisy 5 hour drive home in it, I got to work pulling the drive train. The Cummins is a tall engine, but surprisingly I was able to fit it under the stock Model A hood.
The chassis is the stock A rails, fully boxed and stepped in the rear. I made my own 2 link rear trailing arms out of some small I-beams and kept the transverse buggy springs front and rear. A 4 inch dropped CE axle and disk brakes all around buttoned up the chassis.
The heart of the drive train is the 4BT engine with a few tweaks to the injection pump. A 5 speed M5R2 transmission and a 9” from a ’59 Ranchero runs 2.72 gears. Surprisingly, those tall gears and the overdrive trans put the Cummins right in its sweet spot for great acceleration and mileage.
I chopped the roof 4 inches and grafted a ’32 Ford gas tank on the rear. The whole car is steel and after some help with the final body work, I painted the car with Custom Shop paint.
I found a stainless bezel from an old farm gas pump that reads “Gas Boy” and I thought with the diesel power it would be ironic to use that for the dash. I filled the dash with a random collection of gauges and my wonderful wife fitted the switches with some rare Motor Agate.
On to the show and tell.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Hey metal, look out!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Give Me Shelter
Making some headway on the shop. The whole process slowed down due to a phenomenon known as April 15th. The mafia..er...IRS gets theirs first.