Another build thread? Yep, my track-style T

[J. Robinson]

Hi Perley. Hadn't heard from you in a while. I was beginning to wonder if you were sick or something. Anyway, I'm flattered that you find me to be an inspiration. It makes you feel good when you try something you haven't done before and it works, doesn't it? I guess that's why I like fabrication. Half the stuff I do I've never done before... at least not the same way...

OK, I've put this off almost until the last minute, but I've got to get it done sooner or later... It's time to put the reinforcement in the body. I dread doing fiberglass work because it's itchy; it's not difficult, just itchy, but it has to be done.

The first part isn't bad. I began by making poster board patterns for the wood reinforcement pieces. The next step was to duplicate the patterns in wood. I cheated a little bit here; instead of doing all this at home with hand tools, I utilized the shop at school to make these pieces. I could have done it all at home with a skill saw, jig saw, and a body grinder, but with a complete school shop at my access, why not speed up the process? First, I planed some 2 x 4 material down to 1 5/16" thick to match the depth of the lip around the top of the body. Next, I used the miter saw and band saw to cut the pieces to shape.

The vertical pieces in the body needed to be tapered in thickness from the 1 5/16" thickness at the top to 3/4" thickness at the bottom, so I used the jointer to do that. Finally, I used the radial arm saw, with the blade raised to about 3/32" above the table, to put kerf cuts across the pieces so they could be bent to fit inside the body. The sharper a piece needs to bend, the more kerf cuts are necessary. I ended up making the front verticals twice. I initially made the kerf cuts so they were parallel to the bottom of each piece. When I tried to fit the pieces in the body I discovered that they needed the cuts made the opposite direction so that the wood could twist as it conformed to the body.

Once everything was trimmed to fit, I glued the wood into the body. Having worked as both a body man and a wood shop teacher, it was inevitable that I would eventually combine the two; I discovered some years ago that ordinary automotive body filler is both and excellent wood filler and a very strong adhesive. I used auto body filler to glue the wood reinforcement into the body. I simply mixed the stuff up, slathered it on the back of the wood pieces about 1/4" thick, and then clamped the pieces in place. The body filler fills up any void between the wood and the body and the excess oozes out the sides. I scraped the excess off with my bondo spreader and packed it into the crevices between the wood and the bars inside the body. In 15 or 20 minutes the clamps can be removed and move on to the next piece.

Finally, all the wood was finalized and further strengthened with the application of a layer of fiberglass mat and polyester resin. This is the part I dislike (Did I say it's itchy?); I'm glad it's done! After it's cured completely I will have to knock any lumps, etc. off with a grinder. That process can also be itchy and I will do that outdoors, but the worst is over.

[Itoldyouso]

I'm itching just watching you do it. I'm like you, I hate fiberglassing.

Looks good though Jim. You really are getting closer and closer to that big day. When do you think the car will be on the road?

Don

[OFT]

Looking good, (I'm one of the lucky ones-fiberglassing does not itch). Wish I'd known your body filler trick when I glassed my '23 track T. That is a whole lot easier looking than mat-resin and trying to put in place by yourself.

Keep up the good work and the tidbits of knowledge flowing.

Earl

[bluestang67]

I even heard of the Don itch and talk about wearing panty hose , I'll stick to all steel , the grinding dust washes off . Jim this Track is moving fast , doesn't take you long either when you put your mind to it .

[36tudoor]

I think the build is great and I appreciate you taking the time to document it. I have one concern though. It appears that your head would be dangerously close to the roll bar. It hurts bad enough to hit a padded rollbar with a helmet on, without one would really hurt. Of course my concern may be completely unjustified since I don't know what kind of seat or restraint system you plan on using.

I'm looking forward to the rest of your build. Thanks.
Bill

[J. Robinson]

Don - I'm shooting for the Turkey Run, but there's still an awful lot to be done. Even if I overcme all the mechanical stuff, I've still got to go through the hell of applying for a title...

Earl - You're lucky! All I have to do is walk past someone working with fiberglass and I'll itch for hours!

Bobby - I've gotta get this thing done; I already have ideas for the next one!

Bill - Yes, a roll bar can give you a nasty bump on the head (speaking from experience), but if your head meets the pavement that's even worse... Actually, this roll bar is a bit of a compromise. I need it to complete the track roadster theme, but I also want it to be functional. At the same time, I need to keep it at a height where I can put a top on this car for long trips, soooo.... It clears my head by about an inch.

[36tudoor]

I just happened to think about you saying that your head would be one inch away from the roll bar and I thought I'd make that one inch of foam padding. Well, that wouldn't look very good and I don't really know how effective it would be. Then it came to me. Why not suspend a headrest from your roll bar like some race cars have. Then you wouldn't have to worry about your head making contact with the bar behind you.

Sorry, that's the last thing I'll say about the roll bar. Sometimes I get hung up on these things.

[J. Robinson]

That's OK Bill. I often obsess about things like this... Actually, the roll bar is slightly behind me as well as being about an inch higher than the top of my head, so I may not be as likely to bump into it as I would if it was directly overhead. The headrest idea has merit and I may consider it at some point. Interestingly, most of the real track roadsters of the post-war era had very low roll bars that usually only reached to about the top of the driver's shoulders!

Being an old stock car racer and having eaten concrete retaining walls on numerous occasions, I am a firm believer in seat belts and wear mine faithfully. My coupe has the seat belts/harnesses out of a '95 Hyundai Elantra. This car will be equipped with belts also to keep me down in the seat. I have included bracketry on the roll cage to accommodate full racing harnesses if I decide to use them. At the very least, it will have lap belts.

[Dave Severson]

The inside of the body looks great!

Me too on the belts....I've crashed with them and without them....Conclusion is that I would much rather have them on!!!!!!

[Shea Laking]

Mr. Robinson,

Just took the last couple of evenings reading through all 30 pages of your build thread....Dear God, but your work is impressive and inspirational.

This thread was actually what inspired me to join this forum... I found it through a link from another site, but couldn't see the pictures just by lurking! There's a whole lotta good info (and helpful folks) on this site-love it!

Regards,
Shea

[J. Robinson]

Welcome! Yes, this is a great site. There are lots of friendly and helpful people here.

Please, call me Jim. If you call me Mr.Robinson I think I'm at school dealing with my students!

Seriously, I'm glad you find my work inspirational. If you think I'm good, be sure to look at the build threads by Itoldyouso, Ken Thurm, Brianrupnow, and Hotrod46, among others. Tons of good stuff here...

[J. Robinson]

Well, I'm getting down to the dregs of little things to do before disassembly. I have completed the wooding of the body, ordered my windshield frame, sent the hood sides off for louvering, and finished the bolt holes in the top of the roll bar (I enlarged the holes, welded 3/8" i.d. tubing through them, and ground them flush). I'm at the point of making a "punch list" for completion.

Near the top of that list is a mount for the battery. I am using the same small size battery that Don (Itoldyouso) has in his roadster. This little thing solves a major problem for me because there is no good place to put a full-size automotive battery. The fuel cell takes up all the space inside the rear deck. In order to run a full-size battery, I was going to have to cut a hole in the floor under the passenger seat and suspended the battery on the frame rail. Now I have a choice; I can mount the battery under the floor (this battery can be mounted in any position) or I can put it inside the car on the firewall. Regardless, I needed to make a battery box or mount.

The pictures below are pretty self-explanatory. I made the main part of the box from 2" thinwall (1/8") angle. The retaining bracket is made from 1/8" x 2" flat stock and a small T-hinge. The latch is a little piece of 1" angle, a 5/16-18 x 1 bolt and a wing nut.

[J. Robinson]

I got my windshield frame and stanchions yesterday afternoon. I ordered the "Performer" windshield from Total Performance and I am very pleased with it. To start with, the Performer w/s is only 14" tall and with the slanted stanchions it lays back about 15 degrees. The look fits well with the track-style theme of this car.

As with all the fiberglass T bodies I have worked on in the past, the corners of the cowl needed to be "massaged" a bit to make the stanchions fit correctly. I began by assembling the stanchions to the frame and then protecting everything with a layer of masking tape. The underside of the stanchions were carefully taped to avoid wrinkles in the tape.

I sanded the cowl corners with 40 grit on a D/A sander and then the windshield was put in place, centered, and anchored to the cowl with 2" masking tape. I also cut a piece of scrap wood and taped it between the top of the w/s frame and the roll bar as a brace.

With everything temporarily in place, I added a masking tape "dam" under each stanchion, mixed up some body filler, and packed it into the gaps under the stanchions. I actually did one side at a time because some care is needed with this step.

After the filler was in place on both sides and hardened, I removed the bolts holding the stanchions to the frame, pulled the stanchions off (the masking tape on the underside kept them from sticking), and removed the frame. The body filler was left with an imprint of the stanchion. It was now just a matter of working the filler to final shape with 80 grit sandpaper.

[J. Robinson]

More pics...

[J. Robinson]

With the stanchions now fitting the body, they need to be attached. Every body is a bit different depending on how the reinforcement is configured. In this case, the rear bolt passes through the wood reinforcement and gets secured with a T-nut in the wood. The front bolt passes through the body just in front of the reinforcement tubing under the dash. There is no room for wood reinforcement in that space, so it will just have a large body washer and a flange nut.

This is simply a matter of drilling holes in the appropriate places and installing the necessary hardware. Once the stanchions are bolted in place, the windshield frame can be installed and everything tightened up.