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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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#178 ·
Glad to be working on it again too.

The tall flat frame is bothering me. What do you guys think about running one exhaust pipe out of each side of the car....through the frame rail. Rear manifold would go out the left hand side. Front one would go under the engine and out the right hand side.
 
#179 ·
Just a thought, wouldn't it be easier to run them both out the left side. You could also out a short equalizer tube between the pipes. Harley's been doing it for yrs, I try to do the KISS system (Keep It Simple Student)lol. Didn't feel like saying the other word.lol!
I'm thinking of recycling dryer/washing machine metal to do my body when I get started on my build. Check out this photo that I found cruising model a sites of a roadster..the back tail looks like a 50's Ford truck hood, and simple body..woohoo.
 

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#180 ·
John(Maynor)Hodgen said:
Just a thought, wouldn't it be easier to run them both out the left side. You could also out a short equalizer tube between the pipes. Harley's been doing it for yrs, I try to do the KISS system (Keep It Simple Student)lol. Didn't feel like saying the other word.lol!
I'm thinking of recycling dryer/washing machine metal to do my body when I get started on my build. Check out this photo that I found cruising model a sites of a roadster..the back tail looks like a 50's Ford truck hood, and simple body..woohoo.
The door cut out / body side also looks like it could be a wheel opening and quarter panel from something turned upside down.

Recycleing is fun.
 
#182 ·
I currently have two Ford style front leaf spring packs in my stash. One is what I think is a stock model A spring pack. The other was sold to me as a Posies spring pack from a 34 ford (it does have reversed eyes on the main leaf).

Anybody have any guesses as to how close the spring rates might be between the two? ...and what the rates might be?

Anybody have a guess as to how much the spring pack will compress from free state to being on the ground with a 575 lb motor behind the spring?

I am going to use the transverse spring to hold up the IFS set-up and don't really know where to put the spring crossmember.
 
#183 ·
Flipper_1938 said:
Glad to be working on it again too.

The tall flat frame is bothering me. What do you guys think about running one exhaust pipe out of each side of the car....through the frame rail. Rear manifold would go out the left hand side. Front one would go under the engine and out the right hand side.
First, Let me say :" I just love what you're doing" :welcome:
I think I'd run them side by each out the same side. ;)
What a lot of guys are doing here... They're running open pipes and suppressing the sound by installing coils or springs into the pipes .. they act as baffles and sound quite good :) espiecally on 6 cylinder engines. (Not that loud) :thumbup:
:pimp:
 
#185 ·
Actually started installing the boxing plates. I really want these things tied to the inner tubes. I am making plug welds to secure the plates near the inner horizontal edges of the tubes.



Drilled holes two inches apart and ground away the paint



Clamped in place to transfer weld spot to the 1.5" tube



Welded

 
#186 ·
The alxe I "remembered" being a model A....isn't. I think it is a 1940 unit



I think the spring will be better for this application anyways. The wider spring will put the load out farther on the a-arms.

Now I need to figure out what the crossmember needs to look like. Anybody have any guesses as to how much this spring will compress in this car? ...jag engine with a bunch of set-back vs. stock 40 ford ....I don't have a clue.

Spring will be on top of the lower arms ...I couldn't mock that up.





 
#188 ·
Today, I feeling like putting the crossmember under the spring and securing it with just two BEEFY u-bolts.

I've seen pics of similar set ups on cars in the past. They didn't exactly give me a warm and fuzzy feeling from a safety point of view.

Has anybody seen one actually fail when the front of the car is held up by the u-bolts?
 
#191 ·
speedydeedy said:
How about putting the spring on the floor and set the engine down on it to see how much it compresses?Put a block of wood to protect the oil pan.I think it will drop about 3.5 inches. :thumbup:

I think I am just going to have to wing it (same as everything else). I think I will put the spring where it fits best and then add/remove leaves and or spacers until it works.

Somebody on another board said that a T-bucket style crossmember added a lot of torsional stiffness to the chassis when compared to a ford style crossmember.
 
#192 ·
I was planning on setting it up right at the scrub line for that "stupid low" look. Nothing was going to hang below the frame rails. The car was going to be flat bottomed to be driveable down low. ...then last night I saw this car on Northwest Vintage Speedsters.

It has a really nice shape. I especially like the downward slope of the hood.

The car sits higher than I thought I wanted mine to sit. ...But it looks SO RIGHT! It looks like they dropped the motor down to have a lower hood line.

I think I may raise my car about 3-4 inches and lower the motor by the same amount.







 
#193 ·
The ford axle that you have with the juice brakes is one of the later ones and is a good candidate for use if you like..Speedway has all the rebuild pieces for it and I like the latest pics as that car looks so good..

Sam
 
#194 ·
I guess I should have been a little clearer. The IFS will still be part of the plan. I still like the idea of having the jaguar 4 wheel disc brakes and the knock-off wire wheels too much to go with a ford straight axle.

Lowering of the the drivetrain is what is on my mind right now.
 
#195 ·
Grandpa's Old Ford Garage - DeSoto , Kansas


When you see his picture, you won't believe
he is in his 80's. Be sure to click on page 2, 3 and 4
for more of his cars.
This 84 year old is really talented! http://kansastravel.org/grandpasoldfordgarage.htm Don't forget pages 2 & 3 & 4 ( http://kansastravel.org/grandpasoldfordgarage.htm )

I have been so impressed with the posting of the build of the Boat Tail Speedster. That I can hardly wait to see the next posting . And this is for Flipper 1938, (sorry I don't know your name )Above is an article that I thought you would be very interested in .Sorry I don't know how to post the pictures them self, but if you just click on the hyper link or copy and add to your address Bar. I think you will find this guy of your caliber.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Your Friend, Gene Neal
 
#197 ·
I played with the front end some more. I thought I wanted a t-bucket type spring perch to mount the front srping and a seperate crossmember down low to mount the rack and pinion. I was planning on making a splash apron below the the spring crossmember to hide the rack.







The piece pictured was 2x4. It seeme too bulky so I grabbed a piece of 2x3 and trimmed it to fit between the frame rails. I didn't bother taking pics. It just looked wrong. The straight line going across the front of the car did not play well fith the swoop shapes.
 
#198 ·
So I scrounged around the various junk piles and pulled out a 4x4 transfercase crossmember out of a WW2 era Dodge ambulance (everybody has one of those right?). It kinda looked like a model T rear spring perch, but was way bigger. I cut a piece out of the middle and tried it on for size.

It is going to span between the lower a-arms and the spring will be mounted above the crossmember.

Here it is mocked up, centered under the spring.







 
#199 ·
I also tried it slid forward and rearward to see what grabbed me. (The gray piece in the pic is the 2x3 crossmember I tried. I tried it mound on top of the upper frame rails and also from the bottom side of the upper frame rails...it just looked wrong)

Forward




Rearward




I liked it best slid to the rear.
 
#200 ·
So now that I had an idea of how the spring was going to be attached, I neede to sort out where everything else was going to be.

The radiator is a pretty important piece...so I threw it into the mock-up.









Just adding the radiator made it look more like a car.

...But the radiator that far back just didn't look right.
 
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