KustomKreeps

Fitted jig to locate mounting positions for front panels.


Radiator and grill support brackets.


Bumper mounts tacked into position.


Notched out for radiator surround.

Reduced front of chassis to clear front panels.


Surround in position.


Front panel fitted.


Sub-frame removed for final welding & notching for steering arms. This shot can give you an idea of how we attached the front sub into what was a full chassis/uni-body car.



All welded and bolted back in. Note xtra cross member installed, this ties the Hudson front together as there is no chassis running through to the back.


Notched to allow full travel of the steering arms.


Rods by Reid front end all tig welded. Looks good and is nice and strong.


Extra bracing added to cross member. You can also see some of the gusseting that strengthens up frame. Thick plate with circles cut, welded in and out.


Front brace and rad support completed along with the attachment points for the panels. Trans brace is lurking below on the ground.


Done. Ready for the certifier to take a quick look this weekend. For such a project its good to have him follow along. Better to get any issues he might have delt to now than latter when its all painted up and assembled. 
Once thats done we will throw the panels on to make sure it all fits then rip em off and get the heavy old beast up on the rotisserie again.

Front end is all tacked up and sitting on its wheels!

Happy times.
Been some time since it has been rolling and its a good feeling seeing it all together upfront again.

Air out its sitting pretty much where we wanted it. If you enlarge the above pic you will see the trans cross member is bleeping low. have a couple of inch clearance at this point air out. Ride height is about 2.5 inch higher so say 100mm or 110mm or so.

Engine is offset 20mm to get clearance for the PS pump. Not really noticeable even when you are told.

If you have been twisted enough to follow along with the progress of the build then you know the rear ends shockwave airbags mounts are adjustable. At the moment is in the middle setting. May bring it up to the highest setting. I do love that rake but the extra inch at the back will help level the carbs a bit along with all the other obvious benefits. Time will tell.


Cross support and trans mount are all made up. Folded top hat with a flat bottom similar to the original Hudson braces. 

Bolt in for ease of access if in the future we ever need to do work under there. Front brace helps for body flex etc.

Pic above gives a better idea of how low the braces are. Just lower than the trans pan to help protect it a bit with luck. You can also see eight (4 per side) front access holes to the bolts that let you remove the whole front clip. The whole idea with all this is ease of maintenance for future work.


Next is taking out the engine. Welding up everything. Brace up some bits with some gazeting. Notching the front rails for bit more clearance on the steering arms. Drilling the panels holes and ya ... golden. Oh and trim those long ass rails and add the rads front brace. Sigh list goes on.

And talking about panels... 

Flockie held them in place as i took a gander. Instant grin when I steeped back to have a look.

We did this not only just to see how it would look but to check the tire clearance as there was a bit of concern the inner guard my hit the tire air out. Nope it was fine with heaps of room. You can see how much longer the chassis rails are as well. Easier to make em shorter than longer was the idea.

And talking of Flockie who is doing the welding, math and all the hard stuff at the moment for me.... BAM

Looking pretty happy with him self and rightly so. He has done some great work.
Go like him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flockieschassis/

Oh and for a laugh check out my Buick gravel track fun vid on youtube here.

Things are looking good.

Surgery was required & the firewall was cut up a lil bit. This has meant the engine could be brought back a bit whats solved a raft of issues.

• Clearances for PS rack hose connections solved. It was right up against the sump. But now we have ample room.
• Able to bring the engine into the center more. Its now only slightly offset by about 20mil.
• Engine mounts will work way better.
• Able to get the carbs to the ideal flat positioning as it was on a bit of an angle.
• Positioning for bracing to join the two sides of the rails will be better. Being able to go under the engine in a bolt in set up.
• How the trans will sit along with the two piece drive shaft will be way better and pretty much flat whilst not having to modify the floor pan other than maybe slightly at the very front. 
• The distributor will be hidden more. I wanted wires out of sight as much as possible so this suits me. Being a pertronix unit I shouldn't need to get to it much but if needs be will still be able to with out to much hassles.
• Weight and center of gravity move a bit more back behind the front wheels instead of over them.
• better clearances for sump.

Doing all this means we may have a heap of room up front. Not what I really want but we will have to wait and see how it all looks with the alt, PS pump, radiator and fans. the custom fan shroud I was envisioning may need to be bigger than I was thinking to help fill the gap. 
Time will tell. once I have the panels on & rad in.

Speaking of the radiator. i have decided to keep the original Hudson radiator. Its getting re-cored by a local shop Timaru Radiator Repairs. Russell the guy in charge is a top man and been bloody helpful with some great input. Gave options for different cores etc for the old four core copper rad that included different row spacing etc.
Since the tanks are off etc im getting him to do a few other modifications. moving the bottom outlet to the other side to match the Nailheads inlet then shifting the radiators top inlet to the center to match the Nailheads centrally mounted thermostat. Thinking of using a flexy hose to give it that vintage look you see in all the old 50's and 60s mags. Plus the ribbing will go with the fins on the engine.
Since its not a great idea to have the filler at the same point as the inlet due to pressure etc im getting it moved to one side on the top but im also getting a dummy one added to the opposite side. This is merely to please my OCD nature. when im standing with the hood up looking down at the engine I want to see the top hose running center rad to center engine then two caps to add balance on either side. My train of thought was with just the one to one side it would be a bit lopsided for the look im after. The dummy will also have a dummy overflow pipe just to keep it symmetrical. OCD much? /twitch


A slight notching is needed on the chassis rail above for the steering arm.


The engine mounts minus the side supports shown. Along with PS hose clearance. 

Once the trans is lifted slightly and bolted up it will get the carbs flat along with increasing clearances around the racks hose fittings & rocker covers. Hard to tell from that photo but its looking like very little if any modifications will be required to the floor pan. Will pop it in soon to have a look. Should still be nice and tucked up even at air out.

A look at the old Hudson rad and where everything is being shifted to.

Been ages since I have posted. I find at this time of year i can make an excuse out of anything to put work aside and stay inside being nice and warm.
Winter here in New Zealand.
My mate Flockie who is doing the brunt of the work has been pulling some long ass hours at work as well and only recently has been able to find a bit of time to get back on to the Hudson.

Still as I last said its time to move on to the front end.
Loaded up the Nailhead and took it to the Hudson den so measurements could be made.


Plonked the engine up front along with the front rack just to take a look.

Decided to raise up the low / air height a bit from 2" to 3".



Front chassis tacked & assembled. Reid front end in position.

Further bracing is still to be added.

The whole front sub is bolt in/out. The four holes you see (lower right) is where the front bolts attach. The rear ones obviously are not shown. Some of the bracing will be removed as its just there to hold everything in position.

The front clip will be in and out a few more times as things are drilled, welded and god knows what. But still the basic structure is now laid.

Slight modification is needed to the rails for better clearances of the front rack.


Engine will be in soon enough. Seems like there is heaps of room for it.

So things are still progressing.

With the car now off the rotisserie its time to start looking at the front end.
As is blatantly obvious there is a slight lack of one currently. Its laying outside somewhere.
The old Hudsons one although fine in the days of dirt track NASCAR was a little lacking for what I was after. That being an updated drive train with disk brakes, power steering, airbags and room to fit the engine & trans in. Unfortunately the heavy old setup fell short on pretty much all these points.

Now I think I have already rambled on about the process of deciding what to do up front and so wont go on about it to much. Basically it boils down to shelving ideas such as restoring & updating the old setup, to a Fatmans front clip, to Jag IFS, to a Holden HQ-HW setup, to the current custom made setup that is made to my ride height, weight, drive style with zero bump steering, anti dive and all that guff. It also meets all the rigorous New Zealand certification requirements.

The little progress we did on Saturday was just assembling the fronts hubs & brakes along with nailing down the desired and final air out height up front. So nothing to hardcore.

Using a Wilwood setup. Main thoughts being I already had Wilwood at the back, they sell the complete hub & brake kit so things should fit together easy, and they should give no worries with stopping the heavy hung of iron. Also the kit should fit under most 15" wheels but would be fine with larger wheels upto say 20inch. - yes im still unsure what im using wheel wise.

The kit used is a 6 piston, vented, drilled & slotted 12.19" rotors with ford stud ( part no. 140-10741-D ) purchased from Summit who had them on special and nicely also chucked in stainless hose brake kit for free valued at near $60 USD. Nice perk that will make it not only fit all together easier but will look sweet as well. I must admit I think Summit Racing is one of my favorite stores in the world *~*'



Bearings and aluminum hubs all fitted together nice. packed up with high temp grease. Of course Wilwood would have to be different and used bleeping star shaped T40 & T45 headed bolts. And naturally we had to drop everything to pop down to the local engineering shop to pick up  a half inch set so we could torque em up.
Once back said newly purchased sockets firstly snapped trying to torque to a small 20 or 25lbs then twisted trying to do the next size ups 40lbs. Was more than disappointed with Teng Tools quality and they will be going back. these happened to be the only ones they had in imperial at the time.
It will all be pulled off anyway when we go to paint everything but still... holdups and crap tools. Sure many of you know the frustration of it all.

And whats one of my posts with out a bunch of photos...
Setup on the welding table.




Sitting in front of the car. Drilled holes in the shock bars at air out/low height and have it set to that. This is the car at our original ride height. note the 25mm/1 inch bar up front under the car. Bleeping low and we have decided to raise the front up another inch so will have two inch clearance at this lowest point when air out. Will also give a slight rake to the car whats cool. The rear can be raised or lowed as well as its on its middle setting but we are planing to keep it there currently.


And to give a better idea of how high it currently is.. a pic of yours truly standing next to the car. Love how the roof looks chopped but its still factory. Again note this is air out not at ride height.

Off the rotisserie.
Sitting at Air out lowest height.

Looking at assembling front clip this week at some point.
Then from there its fabricating the new front ends rails etc and getting it all together.

Been one of those months that I have seemed to be playing catchup the whole time. Works flatout crazy but seems to be finally settling down as the Easter break approaches.
The few breaks from work flashed by. One was a pretty cool car show we took the Buick to “Timaru Caroline Bay Rock n Hop” and the other was a mission to the docks to collect the 50 buick grille and other parts that landed from the states.

Flockie has been busy as well but lately has been able to get back into the project.
C-Notching the rear so we can get down nice and low.

A few pics of the progress so far:
Note the forum seems to be resizing the images weird. Making them squished in so if you want a better look click the images to see it in the correct proportions.

Initial cuts to the frame and boot floor.

Check out the gravel that fell out of the rails that piled up in the inner bottom wheel tub And thats after a bit of a cleanup..

Moser Diff with Wilwood break mockup to check clearances & how much of a notch is needed.

Few more cuts made for the top links to fit etc. More cuts are needed to get the diff to sit where we need it air out/lowered.

Flockie got his plasma cutter out and made up the plates needed for the C-Notch then tacked in place. As you can tell from this pic to the above a lot was cut out to accommodate the new rails. The angles are bent to keep the original bump stops that we will be reusing.

Process of welding it all together started along with the internal braces.

First side done!

And both sides done.

Again the forum is messing with images squishing them. so click em to see the images in correct proportions.

Im pretty happy with how its turned out.
Next will be the other ridetech triangulated four link bars.

Only issue and it isn’t a biggie is the place i had planed to put the airtank & compressors etc was the floor that the c-notch has now invaded. Tank may still fit in the space not sure yet but im thinking it will need to be moved or parcel tray massaged what could be more of a pain than its worth.

Now that some of the old crap is off the rear its time to start the cutting and welding madness! God damn but i am excited!

So as you can gather from the above posts the springs etc have all been ripped on out.
I chose a RideTech Triangulated 4Link to take its place.
Must say im happy with the product. 5.6mm(0.219inch) wall thickness tubing and 4.8mm(0.188inch) laser CNC brackets – included is brackets for the shockwaves. It just feels sturdy and built right. Ridetech sales reps are great to deal with and more than happy to go over everything making sure the right product was ordered for the car, weight, ride height and driving style.

I chose triangulated for a few reasons. One being no panhard being needed to free up room with luck for the exhaust as not much room under the Hudson for two pipes. Another was i could get tighter wheel to fender clearances due to less or no side to side play compared to a parallel 4link. They should give a much better ride quality than springs whilst being able to cope with rising and lowing the car better as well with bags.

Anyway a refresher of how it was once the big stuff at back was stripped off:

Below you can see the old brace and spring mounts. Flockie dealt to these.

And then fabricated a Hudson bracket kit & pipe support to replace original chassis brace for each side. Good thick 5mm plating.

Welded the four brackets to the car along with the ride tech one. Everything is rust killed and sealed up under the plates.

With bottom bar attached.

Bottom bar & mount.

Right hand side bottom bar done.

Left hand side bottom bar.

And done!
Bottom two bars attached to car via with some nice brackets.


Next is notching the chassis to allow diff, rising the unscraped section of trunk floor a bit and attaching the top triangulated bars.
Flockie just sees the gear and the car, visualizes so quickly how it will go together, quick glance at the NZ certification rule book to make sure its good then attacks it.

On a cold Wednesday a txt msg came across saying the rotisserie has showed up.
What better day to flip the old tank on its side and waterblast the underside.

Assembly didn’t take long. Straight forward process of slotting it all together really and checking the pins.
A quick bit of fab work and some welding and it was all connected to the car whilst still sitting on supports.
Sledge hammer was brought into play to whack out the supports.
And the car floated there like some crudy jetsons hovercar. ^^

Releasing the pins it sat level. A good sign. Was a bit worried it might not of been centered and would flip to one side.
We slowly rotated it and clearances worked just fine. Flockie nailed it. Rotated nice and smooth with little effort required.
Now if any of you have even tried trussing up a bird or something on a BBQ rotisserie you might appreciate how well we did getting a huge old car so well balanced. I know for one i have popped a chicken or something on to find it is off kilter slightly as it turns. Resulting in all kinds of grief from worn out motor to drive it to one side hitting the pan as it rotates.

And behold the HoverHudson!



As you can see in the above image – its a tad dirty under the car. Dry as a bone and no rot to be seen. Everything is nice and straight just dirty.

The rotisserie is on wheels so moving it about is a breeze.
With the forks of the tractor it was brought outside for another water blast.

The amount of gravel, rat turds, dust and crud that came off the bottom of the old beast was amazing. Think some of the rails had been solid silt and dirt. Some gravel is still trapped in the rails.

And as much as i would like to blame the light rain that had started i must confess that the reason i got so saturated was my glee i was having as i blasted the shit out of the old car.

Day latter it had dried up a bit.

Will be back out on Sunday to scrape more crud off it.

Got asked if i have any pics of the car from when it was in storage.
The better half did a quick search pulled these off the interwebs.
Since it was off the road since 1969 im guessing it also had other older accommodation at some point.
Three owner car so i guess the person who took these was the second owner who had it for a handful of months & we purchased from.

And a few old photos we got given of the car & scanned from before it was painted mid 60s. Dated on the back 1962.