Misc. Mechanical & Metal Fabrication

[Loren]

1976 CJ-5, I think...



Dropped off by a former neighbor who I suppose owed me a favor or two. California condition, has mostly everything thrown in the pile except engine/trans, windshield.

I think my "Private Reserve" yard is about filled to capacity now.

[SuperBuickGuy]

You need to get things of finer vintage, that's just box wine.

[Loren]

Nah, I'm a box-'o-wine kinda person. Stuff I have that's worth anything, it's 'cause I liked it/bought it when it wasn't worth crap, and weirdly that changed. It happens to us guys who never get rid of anything, sometimes...

[Loren]

It was such a warm sunny day here in the middle of November I thought I'd work outside for a little. What you are seeing (which is also in the background of the CJ-5 pic earlier) is a 1949 Studebaker short-bed that was pulled out of a field by yours truly some time back...maybe 15 years ago? A buddy heard it was available for the taking from a guy hired to clear the lot and gave me a call. We spent hours prying it up out of the dried mud on the hottest day of the summer, dealing with goat-head stickers, ants, bees, and a bunch of curious kids behind the fence at an adjoining grade school, finally while winching it up onto a trailer this guy on a motorcycle comes along shouting "That's my car!" Well...to make a long story short it wound up being $300 instead of free.



Over time I pulled the original chassis out along w/ a rust-ball swapped-in 383. A free nineties S-10 frame (from a truck bought at auction by a guy wanting the motor and body parts) got it's front lopped off and the wider front frame from a -free- damaged '79 El Camino was spliced in with some fabrication work. When an acquaintance wanted a junk '70s Ranchero out of his yard I took care of it for him, relieving it of it's 9" rear before dropping it off at scrap and stuck the rr under the Stude (it will need narrowing). I cut the firewall out of the cab and made some improved mounts, a friend parting out a '90s stepside Chevy gave me the bed and one fender to stick on there and figure out how to work it in later. If you are sensing a theme here, yes this whole deal is mostly made out of free stuff...the downside is, it sits for long periods of time because it's kind-of a just-for-the-helluvit project, that only makes progress if I really feel like it and some free part has come along.

I stuck a junk BBC in for a while to see how it fit, then got thinking this might make a nice driver/travelling ride with a mild small block instead. So how about heat/air conditioning then, (from a stripped '88 Cherokee) and a nice tilt wheel steering column (out of a Blazer I parted out years ago). Fabricating a firewall around those things will give me a chance to add some more interior room and have a seating position a little better than original. Hmm...the more I am working on this, the more I am starting to like it.

Yesterday I strung the hvac and column up with some pieces of wire and hay-baling twine, to see how I might best position them, and also hung a set of brake-clutch pedals from a '70s Chevy truck in to start imagining how structure for those items might go. Next time I am at the metal supplier I'll pick up a sheet of 18-gauge cold-roll steel and some cardboard to make templates with, and start building an actual firewall. In the meanwhile I'll slide in behind the wheel every few days, ponder whether I've got all those components in the best place and make adjustments as needed.

[Deaf Bob]

Gotta love So Cali... Stuff saved here in OR tends to rot and become dust unless indoors!
Looks like it will be a fun driver

[Loren]

There's been plenty of rotting happened here too although still mostly surface rust (but, in-out-under and everywhere)...at some point much of this is going to have to go to one of those guys with the acid tank, preferably before it gets much worse. That is where the "free" is going to start morphing out of the deal I'm afraid, seems to me it's like $500 just to do a cab.

[DanStokes]

That ain't rust, that's just a surface finish. You have to have spent years in MI (or other salt-belt area) to REALLY understand rust! I love the rolling stock here in NC - most of it is pristine, especially compared to the stuff from Yankee Land.

Dan

[STINEY]

Shoot son.......'taitn't even flakey yet.............

[Loren]

I'm pretty proud of myself for finally getting rid of something out of my yard this week...a sorta-decent little Saturn front-wheel-drive coupe that our oldest daughter is willing to learn to drive stick-shift in, in exchange for having a free car.

To reward myself, I'm bringing in two new things.

This 6 1/2' 25-ton Verson press brake is another machine that did a good bit of NASA work back in the space-race days, and has continued to run like a clock ever since. The owner has just replaced it with a pricey new one that has features they need and handed this along to me. It also has the distinction of being one of the machines I learned on in my early-twenties, and also having taken about 3 1/2 fingers off a guy's hands once (not mine) when he had been allowing himself the habit of resting body parts between the jaws while using die sets that permitted it then switching to a set that didn't. So anyhow...it's sorta an old friend...but one to be careful of. And...I don't really need it right now. It will get greased up, covered, and put away in a back corner.



Also in the pic, barely, is the front of a 1976 Brummett 22' day-cruiser handed along from my oldest bro who doesn't want to pay to feed the 460 Ford and says it's not that fast. (Brummett the man was known for boat engine building and racing and got himself killed around 1970, his son continued on in their Pasadena CA shop laying up their own hulls.) That heavy motor is right in the middle of the thing like a ski boat w/ a direct-drive prop at a 12* or something angle, I'm sure the reason it "don't go" is, it's plowing the front down (upside is, quick planing). Since I am not a skier and would rather just cruise at a decent speed, I need that motor more toward the rear and it will take the engine turned around and a v-drive box installed to make that happen. So I think this one may sit too...until I come across one of those old Casale boxes, at-least. Something to watch CL for.

[SuperBuickGuy]

I have one of those... says "Chicago" on it though that part is the cheap bit, it's the dies that get spendy

hydrodynamics.... most of the ski boats have their motors in the middle, and they are all pretty fast - dumb question, has he adjusted the cavitation plates? on my last boat, I put dash-adjustables ones on it. It was awesome, in rough water, I could push the nose down to make it ride nice, or go the other direction (nose up) on smooth water... worst case scenario is you would have to put ramps like the pickle-fork hulls use to reduce drag in the front.... the other thing, on direct drives - prop angle makes all the difference in the world.

[squirrel]

I did a little bit of steel fabrication the past few days. Replaced the rear of the frame on the 72 Airstream Safari.

[Loren]

I have one of those... says "Chicago" on it though that part is the cheap bit, it's the dies that get spendy

True that...

hydrodynamics.... most of the ski boats have their motors in the middle, and they are all pretty fast - dumb question, has he adjusted the cavitation plates? on my last boat, I put dash-adjustables ones on it. It was awesome, in rough water, I could push the nose down to make it ride nice, or go the other direction (nose up) on smooth water... worst case scenario is you would have to put ramps like the pickle-fork hulls use to reduce drag in the front.... the other thing, on direct drives - prop angle makes all the difference in the world.

Yeah hydrodynamics is kinda my new subject for the insomnia hours (notice this is written around two-three a.m.). I really know very little about power boats other than some personal anecdote-grade experience, there seems to be a lot of information out there but it's not quite the info I need rather it's mostly guys fooling around with their outboard motor angles and prop depths which is of-course easily done on an outboard. I do not have such options, with all the drivetrain hardware screwed tight into place. I had noticed with our old 18' Chevy 305 I/O how much being able to make running trim angle adjustments helped through different conditions and speeds but one thing that boat always did poorly was pull a skier out of the water with it's weight toward the rear and the prop set deep (under a deep vee). That bow would come up no matter what the trim then it really had a tough time pulling out on top of that up into plane. A proper ski boat with the c/g nearer to the center of the hull, then a prop angle pointed at that c/g, would be far better at getting such a load as a water skier going. But...then back on the other hand, our I/O was a very sweet-handling boat just cruising at half to three-quarter throttle, which is what I want for this. Picture going to Lake Powell in the spring, cruising for miles and miles and camping out up some bizarre-ass little canyon or beach...sun, water, solitude.

There's gotta be a good book out there on powerboats/planing hulls, with the basics explained regarding c/g's, prop placement and angles etc. I don't want to get too seriously into this, being mainly a car-guy...I just want the boat to work. Oh, and uh...that thing about being an old boat...relatively...I like that. Old stuff = good.

Not the greatest pic but here you can see the pretty-far-forward placement of the engine, and drivetrain layout (forward/reverse/neutral box then a straight shot through the hull to the prop).



My belief is, this motor should make 500 hp (I doubt it does anywhere near that now although it sounds like it has plenty of compression and cam) and the boat should go 60-70 in smooth water (it's said to go 40). I would be happy with lower numbers but I sure don't want to be getting passed all the time by guys in bass boats. It looks heavy but to my eye the hull has just about the right amount of "vee" for medium-sized lakes and should have a nice ride. (Any of you guys into flat-bottoms who just want to blast along the river at 90mph...Nnnn, not me I'm too old for that stuff.)

About that cavitation plate: to me, that means something close to the prop to keep both sides of the blade in good water when it's otherwise in an area where turbulence could contribute to excessive, well, cavitation. In this case with the prop well forward of transom under a big sheet of flat fiberglass (and there's a rudder in-between also) it's like, nothing to be done there/it is how it is. Back at the very rear though, we have this:



The dash-controlled motor that drives this is locked-up and looks like no one has ever even used it. Of-course, all a thing like this could do is (with adjustment) push the bow down, it could never bring it up...I think with the motor so far forward the bow is already pushed down enough so this sat. Say if we can get the whole c/g of the boat back, and the prop angle running under it so that the bow wants to come up under power (and get us some better speed, aka efficiency) then this can come in use like it's made for.



Neat little chrome emblem. "Mandella" is a model but as far as I can figure out, they were all Mandellas. In the seventies no one in the U.S. yet equated the name with a guy who was locked away on a little island off South Africa. A little pitting but, I ain't gonna be fixing it. There's enough other stuff to do around here.

[Loren]

I did a little bit of steel fabrication the past few days. Replaced the rear of the frame on the 72 Airstream Safari.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1132612[/ATTACH]

Ya know, Jim, what you need is a nice Verson press brake...

I gather the frame was rusted back there...the sheet metal looks pretty fair, fortunately. Old RV's are fun to work on, the stakes a little lower (than something that needs to go 140mph) and the expenses a little easier...boy, the time commitment though. You are also going to be a pretty good wood-worker at the point you are finished with that...

[SuperBuickGuy]

I'd start with those plates. That is an interesting on-the-fly system - but consider that those make the motor farther forward by lengthening the hull. Seriously, remove them and test it. I do see why you're saying what you are about too far forward, but look at a ski nautique - their motor is relatively in the same place.

[Old Dog]

check out "the nature of boats" by Dave Gerr. A lot of stuff you don't need and several chapters that will help you.