legendlives

After a quick clean-up and beat out of a few dents the trial-fit works!
Here's the lid in closed:


 
And open:



Positions.

All cleaned up, ready for the next step:



But it looks a bit bare....... So:


 
That's better!

More work on the bootlid and closing panel.


 
On the bootlid I've added a 2mm reinforcement along the lower lip which is welded to the reinforcement panel and edge-welded to the skin.



On the closing panel I've added a vertical blade which will (probably) have a seal along it.


 
Still lots to do but I'm getting there!

Hinge time.
I seem to have forgotten the pictures which show the hinge top mounts, but here are the start of the hinges.
These are made from 3/8" steel tube, the pivot end is 1"cds with a 6061 alloy bush pressed in.



I made them, then realised that although they would work fine it's only a matter of time before someone uses the open boot as a seat, so reinforcements were called for:



These were welded in, and then the top hinge fixing bracket welded to the assembly:


 


Here's the finished hinges in place:


 
All I have to do now is cut the outer skin between the two horizontal brackets and I have a hinged boot!
(There's still plenty to do before it's finished though).

Discuss here - //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/52223-legendlives-38-ford-discussion/?hl=legendlives

The sill step panels are now tack-welded into place (no pics - sorry!) which will allow me to position the body on the chassis (when I've got some extra muscles).
Then, moving around the back I was struck with a dilemma. I want a bootlid in the car, and was going to make up a smooth, flat one (like Prefects have) until my petrol-head daughter insisted that I keep the 'spare wheel' moulding on the back.
So starting with this - the place the spare wheel mounted:


 
I carefully cut around the perimeter which left me with a hole:



And if i then invert the panel I've just cut out, I end up with a very slick, 1938 made bootlid which looks as it should:



I'll cut it along the bottom swage and put hinges at that level, remove the reinforcement strut to smooth it out, and there will be a bonnet-style spring catch hidden beneath the top of the curve.
 

So I made up this hinge panel. Panel is 2mm steel, and the actual hinge brackets are in 3mm:


 


Which is then (tack) welded into the wheelwell:



Bearing in mind that this is now the INSIDE of the boot. The hinge panel and lower part of the 'wheel' will be welded back into the body, and the top cut carefully along the hinge panel and made into the hinged lid panel.

Stay tuned!

Just collected this:


 
One piece flip front. At some stage in it's past someone has bonded in an original steel grille and steel side-vents. I'll remove these and re-glass the holes as I'm aiming for a totally smooth look.
I got it for a straight swap for the original tins, and both I and the swap-ee are more than happy.

Engine mounts.
Started out with a few odd shapes cut from 6mm aluminium plate:



And after welding:


 

These are the weld-on brackets for the mounts, cut from 3mm steel:



The assemblies will sit on the chassis like this:



(this is the back view).

Cut holes for the gauges. The pattern echoes the original pattern that was on the other side.
Small gauges are the 'restored' ones. Tacho is an old Stewart Warner $10 score from a swap meet. Hope it works!
Speedo will eventually live in the centre of the dash.

I guess it would be good to steer the car, so I found this aluminium box which came from a (whisper it) Lada (thanks EURON8! ).
I figure if it was designed to last a million miles around Russia with little or no maintenance then it could steer the 'reaper without any issues.



Mount bracket on right, cut from 10mm plate.

I made three threaded bosses and welded them to the back of the plate. The upper (larger) boss will pass straight through the chassis and is only threaded for the last 20mm, the shorter lower bosses will just be recessed through one side of the chassis and the plate seam welded in.
Lower holes through the plate are also threaded to give the maximum possible thread purchase.



 


Once the engine and rollcage are in place I'll work out the best place for it.

Back at the rear axle, I realised I needed a rear lower tie-bracket to hold the two wishbone pivots together, so after a bit of head-scratching, cutting, drilling and grinding I ended up with these parts:


 
Which after welding together looked like this:


 

 

 

 
It's now a 4-function bracket:
1) It ties the wishbone pivots together and wraps underneath to pick up the bolt-holes on the underside of the pivot brackets.
2) The large aluminium boss in the middle is the parachute pick-up.
3) The two circular brackets on either end are for tie-downs to be hooked to (it will undoubtedly spend some of its time on a trailer).
4) it will provide a strong jacking point.

Baby's going to have a fat ass!



New rear arches, about 3" wider than stock. Arrived at the weekend.

Whilst I was trying on the new panels I thought I'd snap a few pics:


 

 


In the last one you can see a couple of gauges hanging underneath, these are Lucas gauges, probably fitted to the car in the 70's judging by the 'Lucas' logo.
Hey I'll need gauges! Pulled them off and tested them (they are both capillary gauges) and they work fine, so here's the 'before restoration' photo:

More updates posted.

Glovebox lid - had an hour spare so knocked this up:


 


It's in 1.6mm aluminium with returns around the entire perimeter. It's also compound curved to match the dash.

Whilst the body and chassis are waiting for their matrimony I thought I'd have a dabble at the dashboard:

 


It's a stock, steel '38 dash.
The car was always going to be LHD (don't ask), so my initial thought was to just fill all of the holes and leave it smooth, ready to add the dials on the 'new' drivers side, but part-way through this process I decided that it would be nice to have a glovebox to put all of the fuse boxes etc into.
So here we have it. The slots in the bottom are for the wiring to pass through, there is also a slot at the top just in case there is no room to turn the wires.
It's customary in my builds to use some domestic appliance somewhere in the build (my first drag car had steel from a tumble drier, my 105E Anglia had the engine bulkhead made from washing machine sides and my last car the dash was made from steel taken from an old cooker), so the mods on this one are made from a fire surround......



And the (almost) finished dash:


 

Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, here are all of the narrowed rear suspension components:

Narrowing the halfshafts:
I've only got a small-ish lathe to use, so had to come up with an plan that would work without me killing myself with flying shafts!
So stuck shaft 1 into the lathe and turned these two areas. The left-hand side is turned to 32mm, the centre to 28mm:


 
Then hack it into bite size lumps:



Then turn the short yoke internal diameter to a nice interference fit on 28mm:


 
Cut off the 32mm diameter revealing the 28mm internal bore, then press the yoke onto the shaft:


 
This took around 10 tons of pressure, so it's a proper interference fit. Not sure I needed to weld it, but I did anyway:



And here it is next to it's unmodified brother:



The other shaft will be shortened the same way.

So back with the IRS lower arms, these are now welded together and within a few thou of each other in length.
I cut the shock tubes from the original arms and smoothed them off ready to weld back in.



The tubes are welded back in exactly on the weld lines. As there will only be the front shock there will be a bracket which bolts between the shock and the lower hub pivot and takes the rose-joint for the radius arm. More of that later.


 

 
I'm quite happy with the result so far.

Discuss please.

It would be nice to get some feedback.

Link in the sig V

Whilst the chassis awaits it's marriage to the body, I thought I'd start with the axle narrowing.

Cut through the lower arms and removed 160mm of material.The point of no return........



So having chewed through the lower arms I thought I'd better sort out a way of getting them back together, and came up with this tool:


 
Which has a solid boss at one end, and a sliding sleeve at the other end, both machined to fit the holes at the ends of the arm.
When bolted together looks like this:



The ends will be set up level on the bench before I weld them together, but this will hold them solid and at the correct length whilst I weld.

Although this isn't a new idea, I thought I'd flip it round from the way it is usually mounted on solid rear axles, and put the adjustable bits on the chassis.

The mount is made from 3mm steel with 3mm gusset and a 3mm box section internally to give support where the bolt-holes are. So there are 6mm thick side panels with effectively two 3mm vertical blades either side of the hole-line.
'Moveable' brackets are in 5mm steel.



These give 75mm of total adjustment in 15mm increments from this:


 
To this:



Welded on to the chassis:


 
I'm only using one pair of coil-overs which will be mounted in front of the axle.

I have managed to get the rear diff-mount 'gusset' made and in place:



Which you will notice has a captive nut welded into it which is for this:


 
Brake pipe Tee. The feed will come in as a hard-line to the front, and short flexi's will then go out to the calipers from either side.

I've now got the rear 'K' member in place with the cross-strengthening. That's the main frame done then (once I've turned it over and finish welded the underside).
Mounts for rear suspension, gearbox etc will be fitted at a later date, but for now I'm well chuffed with it.


 

 


When it's finish-welded I'll take it home and start making the body fit (it's going to be channelled by about 4"), and then mock-up the cage, engine mounts etc.