The "Whatever" Project

[DanStokes]

No, but it can happen. When I get it back in the garage. Right now it's back to the Whatever project. There's a lathe calli g, and it is needed to make a few widgets, thingamajigs, whambosies, and a whole lot of other odds and ends to finish a number of loose ends. Then there's a set of headers to be finished. Loren's valve covers to get on the 283, and ditch those fugly chromed aftermarket valve covers. And on and on until I get to the bottom of the to do list, which is growing daily.

To do lists do that.

[Russell]

For years I could not find the NHRA rule book, I always assumed they only sold hard copies. Drag Week is the closest thing I have ever come to
NHRA tech. Back then I had a 13 second car with the majority of the 10.00 equipment. The main thing they check slower than 10.00 is it has a roll bar, belts and helmet. Someone posted it maybe Beagle? I have a PDF copy on my phone I will email it to Dan.

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

For years I could not find the NHRA rule book, I always assumed they only sold hard copies. Drag Week is the closest thing I have ever come to
NHRA tech. Back then I had a 13 second car with the majority of the 10.00 equipment. The main thing they check slower than 10.00 is it has a roll bar, belts and helmet. Someone posted it maybe Beagle? I have a PDF copy on my phone I will email it to Dan.

Thanks. That'll be a big help. Thinking about building a multipurpose vehicle, of course, is probably foolish. And you all may remember the Beatles song "Fool on the hill". It's not the world spinning around, it's the visions in my head! BTW it's been said before that I have a few screws loose. But I have always been a little eccentric. Remember from the front of this thread that I decided to build a modified dirt car at 19, and I had never built a complete car before. That's the Italian heritage coming thru. Never tell me I can't do something, it'll just make me more determined to do it.

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Hey Loren! Look at the 283 with your valve covers on it! A definite step up from the fugly chromed aftermarket valve covers on it previously. And I'm not going to hammer out the wrinkles and lumps. It goes with the engine.

I took a big Sharpie to the letters. Perfection! Now it looks vintage. Thanks again for the covers...

[DanStokes]

Those are perfect! Unless you were going to make it a "Corvette motor"!

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Of course that's not the only thing I did today. I started on messing with the V8-60 tube axle today.

1st off is getting the kingpin bores round and oversized. That's a 6 blade adjustable hand reamer to enlarge the bores to fit F100 kingpins. I was a little concerned about the possibility of not getting the bores straight. This reamer is long enough to get all of the way through the boss so that it will ream straight. One problem licked. And the final step will be to finish hone the bores for a hand press fit. But first I have to dig out the bushing grinder. And that's going to be a little bit of effort. The garage is currently in the worst shape it's been in for quite a while. Oh well what can I say...

2nd is working on the spindles to get the bushings to work. I'mgoing to ruin a set of bushings one way or another, so I either push a set out of the F1 spindles and see if they are the same od as the F100 bushings, or ream and hone to size the current set of bushings, hoping that there's enough brass portion remaining after that.
Here's an interesting pair of pictures. These are the bearing adapters to fit mid 70s midsize GM disc brake rotors fit. In the right picture, the left adapter fits any 1937 to 1948 Ford passenger car front spindle. The right adapter is for F1 and F100 truck spindles, 1948 to 1956 or 1957. The left hand picture has them stacked with the truck adapter on top of the passenger adapter. Look closely and you can see the diameter differences between them.

And one more thing, the F1 spindles otherwise can be interchanged with the passenger car spindles, getting a bigger spindle pin. Even the kingpin inclination matches and the size. The F100 however have a different kingpin inclination and larger diameter kingpins, 0.860 vs 0.815. Numbers are approximately correct, I'm working off my memory here, so don't quote me on the exact dimensions.

[DanStokes]

Those king pins aren't right. They're the same size for their whole length. Better place an order to England!

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Those king pins aren't right. They're the same size for their whole length. Better place an order to England!

Only the British complicate something that has no need to be complicated. Consider WW1. The Germans are noted for their technology. They made the machine guns on airplanes synchronise their firing with the engine so that the bullets shot thru the propellers without hitting them. This allowed the guns to be in the line of site of the pilots, enhancing their ability to aim.

We, the US, and being in a hurry, stole the design for our aircraft. The British mounted the guns above the path of the propellers, and designed a complicated siting system to compensate for the guns being above the pilots line of site.

The French, being pragmatic, armor plated the propellers, allowing them to shoot thru the path with impunity. Most of the time the bullets made it thru. Some were deflected off at angles. And very infrequently, they came straight back at the pilots, with obvious results. But hey, it was quick, cheap, and mostly worked.

Anyway, back to kingpins. The next step is to figure out if the F100 bushings fit in the F1 spindles. Or conversely, if the F1 bushings can be reamed and honed to fit the F100 kingpins. And there's headers to work on. I was looking at the box of tube bends from Speedway. And the old gray cells got to thinking about tri-Y headers again. But then there's a picture I came across with a really nice looking setup.
Look at that exhaust system! That's a work of art! I'm thinking that a 3 inch diameter 90 degree bend, and the tubes I have, and I could make something similar.

Hey, the 1st set will work for now, just a bit of finish welding to do. But that one above, that's classic!

[DanStokes]

Them's purdy!

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

This is the original way I was going to install the front axle in the Whatever project. Hairpins on both sides with one side fixed and the opposite side free to rotate unbinding the front suspension in roll. And I might be going back to it. I know, just obtained the V8-60 tube axle and fixed its problems. It's wider than I was planning on, however, and would require that I would have to either run spacers on the rear, or different backspacing on the rear wheels.

Spacers are not a prob, the rear axle has grand national speedway hubs with 3 inch long studs. The wheel registers on the center of the drive flange, which has about 2 inches of leeway. It is common for spacers to be used on these rears to fine tune the handling of a racecar, and in some cases, to move the lugnuts out on the studs to get to good threads. Loose wheels eat the lug studs making it difficult if not impossible to get the wheels tight in the same location, so moving the wheel out affords the lugnuts a place to tighten up on.

And different backspacing wheels is doable. However to keep the Rally wheels, I'd have to move the centers inwards, by cutting the welds and moving the centers towards the inside of the wheels. And I just don't feel like it! So back to the tube axle I made.

Now this only affects things a little bit. Sonny now is slightly more defined. He'll get the V8-60 tube axle and the open tube quick change rear axle. And I get to do something to the rear suspension as well. I'm looking at some of the other parts on the shelves for the rear suspension. More to come. Having the back issues recently gave me lots of time to think about the suspension. And that's usually not a good thing...

[DanStokes]

There comes a time in the course of every project when you have to shoot the engineer and begin production.

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Nah! If you remember, when I came to Ann Arbor a bit of training from the Battelle days came with me (our "friend" Aimie hated it). The phrase that the government's training guy told us was the most important thing he would have to say during the week long program was, "Better is the enemy of good enough"!

And I still remember it 35 years later. And I know I'm supposed to embrace the concept. However it is easy to get carried away with stuff that isn't needed for a street going hot rod. But given that I have a sort of enforced pause in garage time right now, thinking, ruminating, and cogitating, not to mention fomenting future plans, is the heights and depth of the amount of effort that I have been able to muster.

Now what was I talking about? Oh yes, readdressing the earlier design criteria and assessing the pros and cons of each design iteration. The rear suspension design is also under reconsideration. A torque arm and Watts linkage to locate the rear axle. There's room for the design after all, and it is a stronger, better geometry design, with just about infinite adjustability.

So what is the solution? Stop rethinking! Okay so I'm still ruminating over the design of both ends of the car...

[Monster]

[Russell]

Redesign is fine as long as you enjoy the build more than the ride. I have familiar with analysis paralysis. Redesign / rework is that considered scope creep?

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Redesign is fine as long as you enjoy the build more than the ride. I have familiar with analysis paralysis. Redesign / rework is that considered scope creep?

YUP! Spent too much time employed by the government. Talk about scope creep. The stories I could tell... But that's another story for another time.