Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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Hopefully my old eyes are seeing it wrong.
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I hope so too. I think I should be ok. I am going to run a Unilite distributor, and they are pretty compact. I took the one my Son is going to use in his 455 out of the box and measured it. It is right under 5 inches in diameter. So that would be a radius of 2.5 plus some clearance room. I have about 4 inches from the center of the distributor hole to the firewall, so I SHOULD be ok, but I have had the same thoughts you did. I probably should go ahead and order my distributor and make sure before I mount the body. I can still slide it back if needed.

Good thought, and thanks for the nice words from everybody.


Don

WOW!!!! I just joined this forum and spent my lunch hour (ofcourse) going thru all 17 pages and i am very impressed at your craftsmanship. Keep up the good work and I vote for the large headlights..

Paul
in St. Paul

Why of course we only do this stuff on our lunch hours.


Ok, that's 3 votes for big headlights, so that's what it will be. Welcome to the forum, and thanks for the nice words. Hang around, this place is lots of fun and I for one have learned a lot from the really smart people on here. ( I'm just pretending)


Don

Don I like how you say Lunch HOURS how many do you get in a day???

Originally Posted by cffisher

Don I like how you say Lunch HOURS how many do you get in a day???

Everytime the boss isn't looking.


I figure all the other guys at work are looking at porn, I look at CHR.


Don

Today the UPS truck had a couple of boxes for me from Speedway. Everytime I get something I ordered it is like Xmas, and I'll bet every one of you are exactly the same way. I'm like a kid and can't get the boxes opened fast enough. We guys are pretty easy to please, give us some chrome goodies and we are happy for the rest of the day.

What the truck brought was my steering parts. I got my u-joint, steering shaft, lower support bearing, and quick disconnect for the steering wheel. I was really impressed with the quality of the quick disconnect, for $ 17.50 it is really a nice piece. You get an anodized part that bolts to the steering wheel (it has a button on the side that you push to remove the wheel) and a weld on adapter for the steering shaft. I like this setup for 2 reasons. First of all I can remove the wheel to make entry easier, and secondly, it will also act as a anti-theft device.

Here are some pictures of the parts I got. I still have to post in short posts because this stupid computer is still freezing up if I type too much at one time. So here is the first part.

Don

Tonight I went over to the shop after work and just got home (it's about 12:30) so it was another long night, but a pretty productive one. I wanted to start figuring out my steering column now that I had the new parts. I am using a reversed Corvair steering box like most T buckets, but mounted in front of the firewall. As I mentioned before, I made up that roll bar to support the lower end of the column and will weld on some reinforcements to go underneath the dash to support the rear of the column and also to tie into my windshield. This skeleton will be the backbone of the T and be much stronger than just wood.

The first thing I did was make up a plate to mount the lower bearing to the roll bar. I made it out of 1/4 inch thick steel plate, and I shaped it like the bearing so it would look better. I am going to weld this plate right to the roll bar and bolt the bearing to it. I then cut a hole in the firewall with a holesaw and put the u-joint on the corvair steering box. The u joint I bought has a 5/8 splined end to go on the corvair shaft, and the other end is a weld on to go on the 3/4 inch round shaft I got. I bought the solid steel shaft for strength, but they also carry a hollow one.

Next I made up a simple rear column support to hold the top of the column to the dash. This is just a temporary mount to give me some idea of what the final one needs to be like. I slipped the 36 inch long steering shaft into the lower mount and then into the u joint, and fastened it to the dash mount. This gave me some idea of what my angles would be.

Here are some pictures of those steps.

Don