the build 1

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09/09/09. The intention was to build a new chassis to take the Mini body, I ordered up a new altered chassis kit from Jonny Mental, it was sitting in Steve Fields workshop while he built his Black Pig Too. When he was unhappy with the front end on his car, I had a change of mind and arranged to take this off his hands, get a new bottom dragster rail bent up by Jonny and make (Have made) a Comp Coupe. While I like dragsters, I have never really wanted to build one, I always like something which does look like a car of some sorts, one of my old favorite cars was The Chicken/Crescent Coupe, I have ordered a new Fiat Topolino body off Paul Bland in North Wales which will be modified to suit.

I bought the Dana axle from the old Bee Sting car but when it came down from the north we found its "HUGE" making Steve's 9 inch look like a Pop axle. this would be OK if it was going to sit behind me, but I am going to have problems with getting my legs over it, also we have found it is way too wide, again OK if on a altered like it was intended for but not a dragster/comp coupe. someone was selling a narrowed live Jag axle the other week, but this was 10 inch's too narrow, so it looks like I am going to have to sell the one I have and locate one the right size (37 inch's)

I am looking for a 351 V4 Cleveland with C4 box for the rest of the running gear.

23/09/09 As I said , the axle I have is just too big, well at the HRDs I managed to locate a Ford 9 inch which is 35 1/4 inch's wide, while its about a inch too narrow, I can at least fit spacers (No problem as long as they are the solid type)
After a phone call from Alan who has it, the cheque will be on its way north today and it will be coming down in a few weeks time.

Just before the Halloween Showdown, I phoned Alan to see if he was going to the event and bring the axle down, he had, had a heart attack and could not make it so as I was going up north on holiday the week after I arranged to pick it up.

8/11/09 When I came home from holiday last week we picked up the axle, it’s now sitting in my MOT office.

I will be dropping off the axle to Steve's in the next couple of weeks, then the chassis proper can be started.

As to the Dana axle, it has now gone to a good home.

14/11/09 At long last there has been a little work on getting the chassis made, Steve bent up the drop tube last weekend and made the ends to take the kingpins (No don’t ask me what the other one is for, could just be a spare)

22/11/09 Steve again has been very busy with a few more things done to finish the front end. Most slingshots only have a 2 bar front end and use the torsion bar as the bottom link, with the Crescent Coupe, it uses a 4 bar plus the torsion bar link, so I looked at the photos and designed some bat wings, I gave Steve the drawing and as you can see has now made them up. Also I measured and drew up a design for the wheel spacers and one of my sons friends knocked them up. The hubs are quite big and the stud pattern is 5 inch pcd, so I had to slightly modify the wheels to fit (elongate the holes a little and take a bit out the middle.)

23/11/09 On Friday, I started to strip the paint off the wheels, I done one and it was not too bad underneath, but when I done the second one today I found out why they were painted in the first place. The wheels are "Rocket Racing" they have alloy centers with steels rims, then they where chromed, you see by the photo that one had not survived that good, I had planed to re-spray them again anyway, so that is not much of a problem.

The other thing I done today was to try the spacers to see if they fitted, they do "Just like a glove"

27/11/09. Steve has surpassed himself again, I cant thank him enough for his work. Below are the new torsion bars and fixings (They are made to look like torsion bars, but are fixed, the suspension will be in the chassis.)

30/11/09 This is the front end nearly finish with just the welding on the torsion bar mounts to do, I think its looking very good.

I had a email from Paul to say the body has been started and I have ask for him to take some lay-up shots.

Also I am going up to Steve's in the near future and taking the rear axle and wheels to start setting up the chassis.

1/12/09 Here is the finished front axle and a photo of Crescent Coupes, its as close as we can get without seeing the real thing

14/12/09 Last weekend I went down to deepest Wiltshire to Steve's shed to start to sort out the chassis, I got down there Saturday morning and met Steve there. The plan was to draw out the chassis in 1/3 scale so we knew where everything was going to fit, even though we want it to look as much as we can to the Crescent Coupe, we know its going to be longer (And maybe a little higher do to the new rules on roll cages). I have been scaling all the photos I have of the front end and all in front of the engine will be as near as we can get to the real thing, the wheel base is 162 inches apposed to the original 140, but I will go into that later.

All was going well until we tried fitting in the top cockpit tube, not anything we would do would make it sit above the rear axle, after about 3 hours and 8 pm we called it a day and went back to Steve's (Lesley was away for the night.)

You will see a new hub in some of the photos above, this was designed by Steve and made up by his friend Steve as a prototype, when I got to Steve's there was a new 17" rim and set of spokes sitting there, so we quickly (And loosely) spoked it up and here it is just done and sitting on the front axle (Looks nice don't you think?)

And fitted to my axle and a faint chassis drawing

After that we changed and hit the town for a quick drink (Yes I had a pint) and some food, went back and I had night trying to work out what the problem was with the chassis. I woke up about 8 (After about 4 times) and it dawned on me, I had ordered up a altered chassis and am now making a slingshot.

I got up to find Lesley was back home and she made us the biggest breakfast I have had for years, Thanks Lesley.

The first thing I done when we got back to the shed was to measure up Steve's chassis and found the bend started from just behind the firewall and the altered one about 18" back, I put a rule in the new position on the plan and it looked just like it should. That plan was rolled up (And later chucked into the fire) and a new sheet put down with the new top tube in place, its looking good, the new top tube has already been organized and should ready for the weekend.

I have also made a decision that as I still plan to use a 351 Ford, I am going to use the FMX box and converter out of The Cunning Plan, this is so we know the exact measurement between the axle and firewall (went under the car today and its 33 1/2 inches) This will be taken out in the next week or so, I was looking and might already have found another bell housing as the one on there now has been cut about to fit on the Chrysler engine.

Steve is working on the Black Pig Too at the moment and as soon as its back in the back of the truck he will be starting to build the main cage.

more updates soon

22/12/09 I am not really one for nice shiny things, but as it looks like it had a Monza style filler cap, this dropped through the door today, ordered from fleebay

Received a email from Steve this morning, the new top rail is being done as we speak, also the bottom tube is having two small bends in at the same time. He hopes that the work putting the chassis together will start in the new year, I am in no great rush and am very gratefully for all that he and Lesley are doing for me.

This will be the last entry before Christmas (And maybe the New Year) So I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

19/01/10

I have learnt something today, no matter how much you measure and re measure it doesn’t mean its right.

Over the last couple of weeks between MOTs and snow, I managed to get the gearbox out of the Cunning Plan. It’s a Ford FMX auto; about ten years ago it was heavily modified with extra clutches and a full manual selector. It’s been a very good reliable box and matched with the 3800 RPM converter, should work great in the new car.

The problem is that when I fitted the Chrysler to the front of it, it had the have a bit cut out for the starter, also I want to use a ultra bell housing but they only make them for the C4 box’s.

The other week I borrowed a C4 bell housing from my mate Steve, when I sat the two together on the floor, the C4 is 20 mm lower than the FMX, so I have decided to make/have made a adapter to fit a C4 bell housing to the FMX box. Unlike most auto box’s, the FMX bell housing is bolted from the outside by four big bolts while the rest are bolted from inside the housing.

I measured it up and drew it out full size on a program I have, printed it out and placed it on the FMX housing, it fitted, I went on to search for a suitable bit of alloy plate, this I found on Ebay and at a really good price delivered to the garage.

I put the plan on the plate a centre punched where (I thought) the main hole should be, checked it again with the plan and then drilled pilot holes. I stuck the bell housing on the plate and it was wrong for some reason.

I had already centre punched the centre of the plate and made a horizontal and vertical lines from it, I marked out the centre hole and placed the bell housing back on lining it up with the marks I found I needed to make the holes about 3 mm lower than I had put them, I turned to plate the other way up and had someone hold the housing in place while I dropped a punch down each hole and marked them,

I double checked and when happy I drilled them.

When I measured the distance between top and bottom holes, I thought that they would be the same distance above and below the centre line and marked them up as such, how wrong was I! It seems not, they are a little below it.

I am going to get a friend to machine out the centre hole, shape the plate and make a mating ring to match the FMX and C4 holes. (The FMX has a 150 mm tight fit hole around the pump and the C4 is 160 mm) this will keep the two in line, so I won’t have any problems with misalignment .

As you can see by the photos, the bolt holes on the C4 are not even, so I will wait until the plate is machined up and do the same as the FMX by putting the bell housing on it and centre punching the holes. (Steve said to ask my mate to run up a punch which is a tight fit with the holes)

In the photo of the plate above, you can see the drilled holes (Marked) and the punched holes just above

14/02/10 I am still waiting for the adaptor to come back (He has done it, we checked it on the box but he has taken it back with the C4 bell housing to drill and tap the holes.)
But the most important part of the car is now sitting outside in my van, this is in the shape of a 351 Cleveland, that I found on the www.eurodragster.com Jeff Bull swap meet and was owned by a very nice man called Terry down in Worthing. To save me just going down to Sussex to pick it up, Linda, my daughter Lesley and myself paid a visit to my Mums in Eastbourne for the weekend and picked it up on the way home. I would like to Thank Terry for helping me fit it safely into the van, It is always great to see my mum and great to at long last to have a engine.
Its already got some Mickey Thompson rocker covers, Edelbrock Performer manifold with 650 Vac Sec Holley and other bits and pieces. Terry said it was running when taken out of the Mustang it was in, so will be fitted as it is, tried and if OK will be rebuilt when time and money allows.

Also with the engine came a good standard FMX box, this I will either put to one side or put back into the Mini so that it can be run up if needed.

while waiting for the adaptor to be finished, I took to time to give my box a good clean, I am waiting for some etch primer and it will be then painted. I have taken a look inside and even after nearly ten years, the oil was very clean with no sign of any metal, so the pan was put back on and like the engine will be run as it is, I have not had any problems with it, so its "Don't fix what's not broken"

Been busy today and had to find out what heads are fitted to the engine, it has the manifold for the 4v heads but does it have them, the answer is "NO" so I am going to have to buy another one to fit, I can see that as it is, I am going to loose power as the miss match on the ports are so bad (See photos) The inside of the engine is very clean and it turns over with no problems, I did not really want to strip it down, but as the top is off, I might as well get a new cam and other bits at the same time, its pointless just sticking on another manifold and leaving it there. I have got a 750 double pumper which will go on at some time.

Also today, Ian turned up with the gearbox adaptor plate and ring, The ring is a tight fit around the pump and then it fits tight into the C4 bell housing, this mean that every thing will line up. I trial fitted it and its a perfect fit so I am very happy with it, A big thanks goes to Ian (Smiler) for doing it for free.

21/02/10 If you have been following this, you will see a prototype of the front wheel, below are ones made for my car. when we fitted the ones above to the stub axle, there was not much clearance at the back, so Steve altered the design and had the rear bearing seat set not so deep to give the clearance needed.

Here is the build up and what they look like on the axle (Again big thanks to Steve for doing such a good job as normal.)

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