Thread: One Way To Build A '32 Hyboy

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Looks really nice Ken!!! As always, very well thought out and gorgeous craftsmanship!!!!

Ken, you set the standard for exceptional craftsmanship. Beautiful work!

Bob-Thanks, the problems keep it interesting for me.

Steve-Let me know when you are coming here, I will give you my cell number and I'll take you to lunch in it. Another magazine shot it Friday for a feature. They did everything except take it apart, they must of taken 300 photo's. Should come out in July's issue.

Dave-Thanks, it's getting closer.

Techinspector1-Thank you, I'm glad you like it.

One of the things I have been working on is a new hood release system.I thought of the idea when I was building my red roadster. I think all the systems out there are good, but to me they are to bulky. I wanted something that when I ran the car with out the side panels or with out the hood it would look nice and not show a big mechanism. So I started with with some 5/8 S.S. tubing and built everything inside the tubing, so all you would see is 2 polished rods going from the firewall to the grill shell. So I did that and it worked really well, so this car I'm going to take it one step further and make previsions for the side panels to be released from this same rod with there own release mechanism, and make all the hinge mounts removable.
Ken

Beautiful work, Ken. I'm enjoying your build. Your ideas are educational and inspirational.

I have a couple of questions on your hood mechanism. On my coupe, I used 3/4" square tubing and a toolbox latch up underneath for each side. It holds the hood tops (stock model-A with lower edges trimmed) down fine and is invisible when closed, but if I put hood sides on it, I can't access the latches. I see that your mechanism is basically a tube inside a tube. My questions are (1) how do you keep the inner and outer tubes indexed so the holes stay in line and (2) how will you actuate it? Will you have cables that run inside the car somewhere?

Somehow I have been missing your updates Ken, not sure how, but I did. Gotta say WOW!!!!!! Car is really shaping up to be something very special, so many little details to look at. Fascinating thread for sure.

Don

Great looking release and latch mechanism Ken.... Sure does get a lot of the ugliness out from under the hood! Hope those will be going on the market soon, light years ahead in styling and function compared to the stuff that's out there now!!!!

J. Robinson-Thank you. It's really a machined piece of solid bar inside the tubing that is slotted and notched. If you look at the photo's below you can see little holes drilled in the ends. This will have a roll pin in it that indexes all the slots inside. I put Teflon sleeves inside the tubing so that it works smoothly. Then there are 2 springs inside that the solid bar rest against. One in the front and one in the rear. So when you push on the lever inside the car it releases the side panels and when you pull it it releases the hood mechanism.
If you look at the drawing again you will see a offset in the tubing. This is for a stock fire wall (for my sedan) to mount in the right location.
Again with a LS7 and my firewall being the dry sump tank I can't put any holes in my firewall to mount anything. That's why I'm using a fly by wire throttle. But if you go back to some of my photo's you can see heads of bolts and all kinds of things mounted to it, that's possible because there is actually 3 firewalls in this thing. If I haven't explained this well just ask again.

Don-I thought you were mad at me I read almost every post on this site when I have time, and amazed at what everyone is doing I just don't post enough. Thanks. for your response. I wanted to ask you, on your sons car did you put a front track locating bar on it? I could go back and look at the build but I'm to lazy?

Dave-Thanks, the problem with the things I come up with would be so expensive to produce nobody would pay for it. I make $4.50 an hour so it doesn't matter how long it takes me

Ken

Wow!!!! You're all the way up to $4.50/hr. on your own stuff???? Think I'm still stuck on about $1.85..... I do know what you mean though.... at the standard shop rate for this area I'd have about $15,000.00 in the Camaro so far, and the Ranchero would be almost double that!!!! But hey, it's still fun so it doesn't matter, right?????

Ken,
Very nice hood latch system - I have been trying to figure out how to hold my hood tops down when I am not running with the sides on - (and I really dislike the standard "A" thru '32 latches). I considered bungee cords but thought that tacky even for us East Coasters

Nice Ken. Very high quality workmanship.

That latch system is ingenious, I believe I'd try to put a patent on it before someone else does.

I'm with ntfday, pretty awesome engineering, should have your name on it. It is truely a joy to watch how it's done by some of the best on the planet, we are truely blessed around here.

I see your truck is in a photo studio, will it be in an upcoming rag?

Originally Posted by Ken Thurm

n.

Don-I thought you were mad at me I read almost every post on this site when I have time, and amazed at what everyone is doing I just don't post enough. Thanks. for your response. I wanted to ask you, on your sons car did you put a front track locating bar on it? I could go back and look at the build but I'm to lazy?


Ken

Well, I am kind of upset that you have all these beautiful '32's and I don't, but that is another story altogether!

No, Dan decided that he is not going to go with cross steering, so he nixed the panhard. Biggest reason is that he has a complete Pete and Jakes chrome front end sitting to install, and can't weld any bracketry to it. He is going to use a Flaming River box like I and Don have on our cars.

Ken, your car is outstanding, as are all of your builds. The intricate nature of every bracket and part is just so nice to see. It must be something in the water, because you California rodders really go the extra mile to do things so well. When I lived in SoCal I went to a few cruises and shows, and the level of workmanship done out there is jaw dropping.

I can't wait for every update you do, so don't keep us hanging so long!!

Don

PS, I know what you mean about not being able to charge enough for some of this stuff to make any money at it. Dan has gotten a few PM's from people wanting him to build them a set of nerf bars, but it takes us about 12 hours to do one, or more, so how much could you charge and make it worthwhile????? I even came up with a name for them.......Smerfs Nerfs. I told him we could start calling him Smerf....he didn't see the humor in it.

Fantastic build Ken. I only have one question though. Where is the building where you pile all of your junk? Anyone that builds cars has a massive amount of stuff they know that they will use someday. My basement is full and the only time my shop was that clean was when it was new.

That truck is beautiful too. Keep up the great work.

Tom