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The Roofus Special

150K views 425 replies 50 participants last post by  MARTINSR 
#1 ·
What is the best thing you can do with a rotted out 1954 four door Caddillac?

Build a boat tail speedster!!!

First you gotta cut the roof off!



Then cut the skin free. ....and slice that down the middle



Then cut apart some old porch posts to recycle the free 1x1 tubing. Bend that into a shape that follows the curve of the roof. What the heck bend it so it makes the shape of a 30's Indy car.



Prop up half a roof and see what it looks like. Looks like the ROOFus Special to me.

 
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#127 ·
I came to the realization that I need to work out some of the function details before I get too much farther with the form. I need to figure out the mechanics of the front half of the car.

I slid the back end of the car back a couple of feet so that I would have room on the table for the motor. I ended up making a saw horse out of a suzuki samurai roll bar.







 
#128 ·
Turns out the XK transmission won't work with the bellhousing that I have, front bearing retainer and seal are way different. I pissed away a good bit of time trying to figure out if I could swap input shafts....I finally accepted defeat and decided to use the OD trans.

Good news is that I found a new clutch and pressure plate when I pulled the trans.

Bad news is that the engine needs to move rearward a couple of inches to make everything fit in a 100" wheelbase.

Break out the sawsall!





I laid the stock jag front suspension on the table to see what 100" looked like. Don't worry, only spindles, hubs and brakes will be used.

 
#131 ·
boatbob2 said:
Hi,why are you stuck on a 100 inch wheelbase?a 105 or 110 wheelbase should give you more room for the engine. that 100 inch,is like putting 10 lbs of flop in a 5 lb bag.. :) :(
100 inches seems to be the magic number for early racecars and sportscars. Lots seem to be that size. Also, the smaller I make it, the better it will look with 15" wheels.
 
#132 ·
Flipper_1938 said:
100 inches seems to be the magic number for early racecars and sportscars. Lots seem to be that size.
That's a good point. But MartinSr also makes a very good point. The holy grail of budget oriented scratch built cars, it seems to me, is proportion...not strict adherence to a particular wheelbase.

I face this problem all the time because I use Ford twin I-Beam front suspensions for 20's and 30's era cars. And in stock configuration twin beams are noticeably wider than your typical dropped axle. But by stretching the wheelbase and then scratch building a wider than stock body (which is advantageous in that it provides more cockpit room), I can compensate a bit for the wide track of the axles but still keep the overall proportions of the car within the ballpark so that people will recognize it as an early Ford style. At least that is my goal.

Obviously you are right there in your shop and can see much better than we can see in pictures if all the lines of the car are coming together, including the wheel size in relation to the body length. But before you start cutting too much apart just keep in mind that wheelbase might offer some flexibility that would save you cutting into what you have already done.
 
#134 ·
No pictures to post, but I spent the weekend playing with front end parts. Mostly taking the jag front end apart amd cleaning everything up. Looks like I need to replace lower ball joints on both sides. I also picked up a manual rack and pinion from a Toyota Tercel from Pull-A-Part this morning.

Still sorting out what I want the A-arms to look like.
 
#135 ·
Here is where I started the day. A clean table from the firewall forward.



I had to come up with an idea for a frame that would accept an IFS and look good fenderless. Follow along as I work through this thing and see what I finally came up with. ....all of the blue tube is 1.5"





 
#137 ·








Making a second top rail


The two outer rails will get boxed in and become one rail.

The lower control arm is going to be mounted on the straight piece that runs parrallel to the motor. The upper control arm is going to be mounted on top of the outer frame rail. The spring is going to be a 1933 ford transverse leaf spring.
 
#138 ·
My current goal is something along the lines of this car except the front suspension will be 5-10 inches farther forward so that I can get the spring pack out in front of the grill shell. I will probably do the splash aprons too (but only in the front, the "framerails" will be exposed).



 
#139 ·
Anybody have toughts on exhaust pipes?

The stock manifolds are already split and are very header-ish, but they point down. Exhaust pipes would go underneath the steering shaft and then exit the body. If I use the stock manifolds, I think I have 3 basic options:
1) merge into one pipe under the hood and exit through a hole in the famerail and run a single pipe down low on the body.
2) don't merge, run one through the frame, one above the frame like harley drag pipes
3) don't merge, run one through the frame, one above the frame and merge into a single pipe outside of the body

The other option is to ditch the factory manifolds and build headers.

This thing only will have a 210 cubic inch or so inline six in it so it doesn't NEED really big pipes.

Stock manifolds. FYI the tubing scraps between the framerails at the firewall are just spacers for mock-up.


This car is close enough to use as an example for photoshops if anybody is so inclined.

 
#142 ·
And started on my front suspension.

I found a pretty cool raw material in the junk pile....Uni-strut. I like the factory punched, ebenly spaced oval lightening holes. I cut it down to 1 1/2 x 3/4 channel.

The round tubes that hold the bushings are tractor link bushings from TSC.

The tapered hole for the lower ball joint is from the jaguar parts car.

Way more work than I thought it would be. with all of the trial and error, it took two days for me to figure the first one out.

First I-beam


donor tapered hole


With tapered hole installed


Turning it into an a-arm
 
#146 ·
Flipper_1938 said:
My motor mounts showed up. I ordered 56 chevy V8 rubber biscuits from Rock Auto. The big ones were $.58 each and the small ones were $.54 each (I ordered 20 of each!....less than $33 to my door for all). I plan on using these everywhere I need a rubber mount.

Excellent Idea,may go that route on my RPU.
Do you happen to have the measuremnts of them?
Shane
 
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