1938 Chev

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

1938 Chev

slab · BRANT COUNTY, ONT

Looking forward to following your build. Looks like a great project.

fleet 51 · PORTLAND, ONT

HI MIKE : GOOD NEWS on the chevy re-start !! -- You have already done a ton of nice work on it and no doubt the future for it will be very bright !! Keep us informed on your progress , as we are all watching -- Thanks again for the up-date -- LATER -- DON / Fleet 51

Nickeleye · COURTICE, ONT

Can't wait to see how it comes along

Chris Stapley · CAMPBELLFORD, ONT

Very cool Mike, ever need a second set of hands,just whistle!

Marten · RICHMOND, ONT

Hi Mike,
Looking forward to watching this build.

wuga · PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY, ONT

Mike

Glad that car finally got some breathing space. If the build is as ingenious as your truck and as beautiful as the bike, it will be a winner, no doubt.

Warren

RV · SIMCOE, ONT

Hey Mike

Cool car! Here is some pictures of my 1937 Chevy. I have been working on it for the last three winter. Hopefully this winter I get to paint it and maybe get it on the road in the spring.

Ray

Marten · RICHMOND, ONT

OHHHH this should be good, the race is on. Fastest and nicest, who will win. Looking forward to this guys, keep us posted.

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Well it's in the shop. Measured up wheel diameter, ride height, axle clearance etc and drew up the rear clip in CAD. Frame will be straight back from the B pillar.

Some .188" steel on the table, and 5 minutes later, 4 pieces cut out. The large hole will be for mounting threaded bungs for the lower control arm. The small holes I welded 1/4" nuts to the inside for bolting up fuel and brake lines.

Squared up the pair of sides, spaced them with a couple of pieces of 2" X 2" tubing and tacked them together.

Squared and leveled my frame table and set them up.

Cat in the Hat · BRANTFORD, ONT

Nice work Mike.....

Ninop69 · THORNHILL, ONT

WOW!......... Nice toy you have there!! Will be following this build for sure, good luck and have fun!

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Got to spend a little bit of time on it this weekend. Made up the rear section behind the axle kick up and tacked it in. Measured and cut the mid rails and tacked them into place.

Picked up my order from Horton hot rods on Saturday. Full Ride tech air suspension. It's expensive, but it's really nice stuff. Only thing I am leery of are the ball joints and tie rods, no name on them. I have put a lot of ball joints in and the only ones I will buy any more are MOOG. Too many failures of others. Got an rack and sway bar for the front too.

Fordy Acres Car Farm · DORCHESTER, ONT

Coming along very nicely - you guys and your CNC machines make me envious!

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Notched the cross member for 4 X 2 rails and tacked them in place, Measured and calculated ride height, wheel base etc and positioned the front cross member to where it should go. Tack welded the frame and cross members to the frame table. Saves clamps and nothing moves.

Now to connect the two rails together. The most direct way between 2 points is a straight line. Boring. So, some drawing, figuring and guess work I cut out a set of pieces and curved them to fit. Nothing elaborate, just used a piece of heavy tubing over a piece of channel in a press and slowly worked it till it fit.

Welded them into place on the back side with MIG. I will grind out a fillet on the out side of the joint and properly TIG it together after I get the whole frame together and can rotate it to a better position.

Next is the hard part of filing in the top and bottom.

Mr Samis · BRIGHTON, ONT

Mike , your making me wanna get out in my shop and build my frame. Looks awesome so far!

Ninop69 · THORNHILL, ONT

WOW!! I love this fabrication porn! Keep it coming!!

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Front suspension all tacked in to place.

Body off and sitting in the corner.

Located the rear diff in place and set pinion angle. Cut plates to tack weld in it to place. This will hold it solid while I make up the rear suspension mounts and brackets.

Made up some lower control arms out of 1" DOM tubing. After much trial and error and head scratching I come up with lower axle and bag mount combination.

-- Edited by Lightspeed Mike on Wednesday 21st of October 2015 06:54:06 PM

Marten · RICHMOND, ONT

anyone else see pictures, all I get are little x's. Might be my computer.

Cat in the Hat · BRANTFORD, ONT

Martin. Your seeing X s. Because its FRAME PORN!

Good work Mike

slim · DUNDAS, ONT

must of copped and pasted from the he man women hater site .... unless you are a member they will not show....... I see them fine.....

henrys57wagon · WOODLAWN, ONT

Don't see any of these. All the others I can see.

Lightspeed Mike wrote:

Front suspension all tacked in to place.
Body off and sitting in the corner.
Located the rear diff in place and set pinion angle. Cut plates to tack weld in it to place. This will hold it solid while I make up the rear suspension mounts and brackets.
Made up some lower control arms out of 1" DOM tubing. After much trial and error and head scratching I come up with lower axle and bag mount combination.

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

slim wrote:
must of copped and pasted from the he man women hater site .... unless you are a member they will not show....... I see them fine.....

Yes it was copied and pasted, saves me more time to work on my car. Or I'm just lazy.......

Did see them Marten after Henry's 57 put them up.

V2addict · CRAIGHURST, ONT

Lightspeed Mike, what gauge structural tube did you use on your frame? when I was researching this for my own build I read that .177 (3/16") was what I was recommended, later I realized that most manufactures were using 11g structural tube, so I always thought I have built the frame much heavier than I needed, maybe not?

Thank you,

Angelo

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

I am using 3/16 tubing and plate for the frame. I looking at others and found Fatman Fab was using this. I know most manufacturers thinner material but their stuff is all stamped, all the creases and fold etc make the frame more ridged. Cost is only slightly more in the big picture of building the car and a few extra pounds too. If you look at after market stuff a lot of it is 10 gauge or .134". That stuff is harder to get.

V2addict · CRAIGHURST, ONT

Lightspeed Mike wrote:

I am using 3/16 tubing and plate for the frame. I looking at others and found Fatman Fab was using this. I know most manufacturers thinner material but their stuff is all stamped, all the creases and fold etc make the frame more ridged. Cost is only slightly more in the big picture of building the car and a few extra pounds too. If you look at after market stuff a lot of it is 10 gauge or .134". That stuff is harder to get.

That makes sense, I also went right to Fat Man as they were the first I had found in the magazine when I was researching frame fabrication and of course I built from scratch for around $600 material, of course then I added the Hiet's Supper Ride and and and, still only about 1/8 the price of a store bought frame. But a hell of lot more fun.

Angelo

Marten · RICHMOND, ONT

Hi Mike, must be my computer. I still don't see them. Clearly some people see them.

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

I reloaded the pictures, can you see them now?

Offset · HALIBURTON, ONT

I don't see them either.

henrys57wagon · WOODLAWN, ONT

I can see I can see!!

Marten · RICHMOND, ONT

me to, me to. Looks great Mike. Clearly I have to many things on the go as I seem to have trouble getting into the shop after looking after the rest of my life.

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Made upper bag mounts and tacked them into place.

Found a donor truck with a 5.3LS engine in it. Didn't expect the weather to hold out this long and figured it would stay put till spring. Plans changed and I got it home today. Another reason for my neighbors to hate me. Found it about a month ago with a for sale sign on it. $550 plus a hundred bucks to friend and he it hauled home for me.

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Rear shocks mounts were made up and installed. Machined a threaded bung to accept a 1/2" bolt and made up a at ride height shock mock up out of 1" square tubing. That located where the upper mount was to go. Drilled a hole in the shock mount cross member at that location and installed the rear shocks. Just a set of Speedway street rod shocks. Installing them on an angle gives me a little more suspension travel.

Next part I found the hardest so far, locating and installing the upper control arms. I first had to cap the top of the rear frame rails. I cut a couple of pieces of 3/16" just wide enough to sit on top of the side pieces so I could get a nice outside corner joint. Formed the bends by hand just tweeking them as needed to follow the rail.

I measured up length required and made upper arms out of 1" DOM tubing. Trying hold the arm in the right plane and angle to be able make a template to measure and cut. Then have be able to locate the exact spot and angle on the other side. One thing I find great about having CNC plasma cut parts is being able to use them to check measurements side to side. If the parts fit the same side to side you know everything is straight and square.

Bradshaw · NORWOOD, ONT

Awesome!

dave · TORONTO, ONT

Beautiful work, I love it. That will be a nice ride for sure

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Thanks for the comments guys.

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Started to put the front suspension together and found the lower shock mount was hitting the wheel well before full turn at ride height. I wasn't very impressed after spending large $$ for ride tech control arms. I made up some new mounts to go on the top of the control arm. It's not perfect, the wheels will hit the mount at full drop, but it's the best compromise I could find.

Then I could locate and fab up the upper mount. Ride tech gives you brackets with the shocks, I'd rather make my own.

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Spend some time capping the rear rails.

With everything about done on the top side that I could do. I had to release the frame from the jig to flip it over. I welded in some X bracing to help hold shape because the frame isn't fully welded yet.

I wondered how much the frame would spring after I cut the tack welds. 5 minutes later, I found out. About 1/2" in the rear and 1/4" in the front.

I knew it would because I have only welded on the top. I figure it will move again once I weld the bottom so I'm not worried about that right now. It didn't twist, just curled a little bit.

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Lifted the frame off the table and put it on it's side to do some welding. My horizontal welds look way better than my vertical uphill welds.

Since I'd rather look at a good MIG weld rather than a sloppy TIG weld, most of it got done that way. I would rather TIG it all but my TIG skills aren't that great yet. I'm still practicing and getting better. All super critical stuff got TIG'd.

With the sides welded I lifted the frame and rolled the table back under. My push around fork lift is another tool in the shop I couldn't live with out.

Next hard part was capping the front frame kick up on the bottom side. Ended up cutting the pieces I had cut in to 2 to make it a little easier to form.

Rochie · LONDON, ONT

Nice work Mike looking great

Marten · RICHMOND, ONT

Hi Mike, getting caught up on the news. Looking great. For us uninformed what makes TIG better then MIG welding? I see a spring ride for sure now. lol

Marten

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Marten wrote:
. For us uninformed what makes TIG better then MIG welding?
Marten

With TIG you have better heat and filler control than MIG. MIG is a constant filler wire feed, it also inputs the heat. TIG is an "electric torch" and you can add filler when you need it.

You can also vary the power on the fly with control from your foot pedal.

Pop quiz time.

Who introduced TIG welding in building cars for racing?

toomuchjunk · S/W ONTARIO

Lightspeed Mike wrote:
Marten wrote:
. For us uninformed what makes TIG better then MIG welding?
Marten
With TIG you have better heat and filler control than MIG. MIG is a constant filler wire feed, it also inputs the heat. TIG is an "electric torch" and you can add filler when you need it.
You can also vary the power on the fly with control from your foot pedal.
Pop quiz time.
Who introduced TIG welding in building cars for racing?

Answer --wait for it,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,STAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Builderrhys · SARNIA, ONT

chips wrote:

Another difference is this ..... once a Mig weld has been started, you can NOT change the amperage (heat) or the speed at which the filler wire is being fed. With Tig, the operator feeds in (by hand) as little or as much filler material is needed AND can vary the amperage (heat) through a foot pedal or through a rotary switch/dial on the Tig torch handle.

-- Edited by chips on Wednesday 30th of December 2015 10:07:28 PM

Not so, I use a Miller Optima and can change both amperage and feed (through pulsing) on my MIG. I run Manual Pulse and the Synergic Pulser to get my desired results. Rhys.

-- Edited by Builderrhys on Thursday 31st of December 2015 09:13:16 AM

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

I finished welding the bottom side, flipped it over to finish the top and set it back on the frame table to see how much the frame had twisted back. I was surprised and very happy to see see most of the curl came back after welding up the bottom. The only 2 spots still out were on the right rear in front of the axle, it was off the table by 1/16". The right rear behind the axle was up .3 degrees. The 1/2" curl at the back and the 1/4" curl at the front were gone. I decided to try a few shrinks to see if I could get them any better. The curl behind came out back to level and got the gap down to about .020". Close enough for me.

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

With most of the chassis work done I wanted to get it off the table cause next is body fitment time. Bolted on the wheels and dropped it on the floor.

Ride height is right on the money, just like I planned it.

The X brace is temporary, it was in there while I was welding and rotating the frame. I am going to be putting in a proper center X member after I figure out the driveline install which can't be done till the body is on. But when I do I get to use my new toy. Of course the first thing I did after I got it was convert it to full hydraulic. Works mint, bent a 1.5" tube to 180 degrees perfectly.

Chris Stapley · CAMPBELLFORD, ONT

I was going to mention that the X frame looked a little light,but what do I know...

Lightspeed Mike · BELLEVILLE, ONT

Started cutting the floor out to fit it on the new chassis. I braced the body first and checked and adjusted the door gaps.

Made up some new front mounts and bolted it down.

There was a lot more head scratching than picture taking during this session.

Marten · RICHMOND, ONT

Wow looking great. I think I need a bigger shop.

taz 76regal · INNISFIL, ONT

looks great from start hows all the progress goining