Today I finished making my grill shell for my rat rod. Are there any unique
and cool ideas out there for the design in the shell?
I've seen some impressive spider webs and the original look of the simple
metal bars, and I'm on the fence of considering doing some type of spider
web. Opinions? Other ideas?
I've attached a picture of the grill shell I made.
Thanks for the ideas. If I do a web, it will be asymmetrical like the one you
pictured here. I've attached a few pictures of the rat rod. I have the bed but
do not have it on yet.
I'm not much of a rat rod guy, and find most are just a bunch of junk thrown together after parking beside the scrap pile and bolting on every last piece laying there, ......they have to have a cohesive theme to look good...I find the spiderweb and similar grills too "gimmicky" to look good...but I don't like tractor grills on them either....symmetrical looks better IMO....asymmetrical is how ricers and eurotrash stripe their stuff
Don't be afraid to think outside the box.
I made this with the top halves of two '59 Chrysler grills turned sideways, or you could do the same with a 90's Buick grill
Look at the mesh from a '58 Ford or Chevy, or the honey comb from a 70's Firebird
Lots of possibilities if you look around
I think I may just go with the traditional vertical bars. It shouldn't be too hard
to weld each one on. The mesh stuff looks cheap to me, and I'm still second
guessing the spider web look.
I agree about thinking outside the box...The web thing has been on almost every rat rod... Do something new that no one has done.. I did that same thing here on my son's truck,, When we came to building the bed,, We wanted something no one had done... So we took front ford fenders and turn them backwards for the bed sides..(thinking outside the box) Here's the result to that...
Don't rush it... Sit and look at it a while,, Something will come to you..:mwink:
Came out nice... The two things I hope you don't mine me pointing out is....You want to try to keep the top of the grill shell at or close to the same height as the top of the cowl,,The other thing I would be worried about is the bottom look's very close to the ground...
All 30's cars I've ever seen, the radiator is set either behind the grill shell or at the very back (30's grill shells are typically 6-12" deep) and not right up against the front of the shell, so the radiator cap is actually under the hood. A lot of these radiators also have a gooseneck fill that elbows back and up into the underhood area. Move the radiator back and that alone would enable you to remove about 4" from what your grill shell at the top.
Radiator itself looks to be about 4"+ too high in the chassis.
If needed you can get an inline radiator cap/T-junction for the upper radiator hose, my stock 2000 Dakota 4-cylinder has one factory, then your grill shell could fit a lot tighter to the top of the radiator you have, no need to be able to get to the cap on the actual radiator with the inline one.
Raise the cab?? If you follow the body lines, and door window opening lip on the cab right now and project it forward, the top of the grill shell would likely need to be 8"+ lower to look right.
If you don't raise the cab, motor looks like it needs to go down a bunch, or half of it will be above the hood line.
If you are trying to maintain a low look to everything, you need Drop spindles up front, to lower it frame and all, then raise the cab to get a more correct height on the frame and still look low.
I tend to agree that the rad is too high in the chassis too.
When you are in the seat, you should just be able to see over the top of the shell. From the angle/perspective of the pic, it appears the shell will block some of your forward view.
I'm thinking this is kind of the look you are going for. you may need to slant it more like this to get it in perspective.
Variation on the web theme, made with many spiders...
Any of these early rods will not look right (and yours is no exception) until you get the radiator back to the middle of the front tire in side view. T-bucket type cars can also look good with the radiator to the rear of the front tires. Nothing....and I mean NOTHING looks good with the radiator ahead of the front tires.
This next week I am shortening the grill about 5 inches.
There is NO possible way to move the radiator back from where it
sits right now. It's already as far back as it can go with an electric fan
and clears the front of the motor by an inch.
I shortened the grill today about 6 inches. Looks much better!
Also pulled it out away from the radiator like you guys said
to put the design in the middle.
Now it's sitting down very close to the top of the radiator and
is about 5 inches off the ground.
Also, got the bed sides put on today. It's starting to come together!
Looking better
Are you going to have any kind of fenders on it?
Now, if it were mine, I'd be tempted to whack the top by about 25% of the height of the side windows (I'm guessing around 4-5"), weld the last few inches of the hood to the cowl to smooth out that area, and maybe hide the master cylinder under the floor boards
Then I would give it a set of finned aluminum valve covers and a three-jug intake with the little aluminum scoops like the one Too Many Projects posted earlier
Better, but still "looks" like the truck is bent at the firewall in my eyes, like it was put hard into a ditch and frame was bent upwards forward of the firewall.
I'm just looking at the sight line relationship between the body line at the top of the door, the top of the added bed, and sighting forward to the top corner of the grill shell, and shell still looks 4-6" too high, like the hood would have to run uphill from the cab to the grill shell.
Maybe make the grill shell shape like the '28-32 Ford, instead of the wasted space of the pointed '33-34-ish look...and drop the shell and radiator both the needed 4"+??
Or are you going for that early-mid 70's bent in the middle custom look??
It looks like that at the firewall because of how the motor sits. It slants upward towards the grill. I love the grill...it's exactly what I was wanting.
Some camera shots of the motor mounts and surrounding area would help, and of header clearance around the upper A-arms and frame, to see if it is an engine swap kit or something that someone has cobbled together mixing V8/4.3 V6 parts and 2.8 V6/4cyl parts.
Just looking at available pics it looks as if the front of the engine is very high, and very far in front of the firewall.
I'll get some close up pics of what you mentioned.
Does it look like the motor and trans needs to be moved back towards the cab?
Just from what I remember about the mounts when we mounted the motor
in, I think the mounts were possibly welded in or something (not 100% sure).
If this is the case, I guess my only choice would be is to pull the motor and
trans and weld new mounts in the correct place. Seems like I would run into
some fitment complications or something else (seems like it's always
something).
i cropped your picture , i am able to blow it up to get a closer look at it. but i can not save the picture that way. In all fairness that motor needs to be moved back , it looks like you have a good 6 inches. i know you do not want to here this but to do it right you will need to rework the firewall and anything else to plant that motor back and lower in the frame.
Just my 2 cents!
I agree with you now that the largeness of the gap there is really pointed out.
Could this be as simple as pulling the motor and trans and remounting the
motor mounts and then dropping back in? You're also saying to mount it
lower inside the frame?
The only problem I see with that is the crossmember supports the trans...and you can't
lower the crossmember that's already there? So how could I mount the motor/trans lower
than it already is?
It looks like the easiest and best thing to do is pull the motor and trans
and relocate the motor mounts more towards the firewall and lower
inside the frame. This will fix the tilt of the motor and line up the tail
of the trans more with the rear end.
:thumbup: I think you'll come out a lot better this way.
Make sure trans/engine is square in the frame, don't pull trans sideways at rear to point at the slight offset that the pinion is in the rear housing, things have to be square and parallel with each other. Get yourself an inexpensive angle finder so you can get engine, and rear pinion tilt angles correct.
We used square tubing for the trans mount, doesn't have to be round, just miter cuts and welding.
You still wanted the radiator/grillshell lower anyway, didn't you??
I've tack welded, cut off and moved the same part half a dozen times, if not more, during some fab jobs...learned to never finish weld until it ALL fits the plan....after cutting full welds off a couple of times....
And now that I think about it, the way we cut and shortened the frame is
the reason everything is so uneven.
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