Iron Spade Cycles
Member
Hey guys my name is Travis and I'm building a rat of sorts almost entirely from scratch on as little a budget as humanly possible. LOL No actually I started building this car back in 1999 while attending Metropolitan State College of Denver for Industrial Design. I had a department director and professor who was a big hotrod guy from way back walk me through the chassis design and building of a jig table for my senior experience class I needed to graduate. The frame is made from tapered and Z'd 2x4 steel tubing with quarter elliptical springs front and rear. I'm using a 41 Chevy truck front beam axle I found in an old abandoned junk yard just south of Denver. The rear axle is a Chevy 10 bolt from a late 80's Camaro also found in the junk yard. I got that far and then the project was shelved for 10 years.
Fast forward to today and the project has become a priority once again. All along I wanted to build a 29-30'ish Ford, either a roadster or sedan. I've played with the idea of a hand formed alloy body as well as finding an older original Model A body and grafting it on.
I've decided to do something just a bit different. I'm building the body entirely from Marine grade mahogany plywood and board stock. It will be a 30'ish roadster pickup with a 12 inch extended cab. (I'm 6'3" and feel a little cramped in a regular cab) The body will have a 1x1 steel sub-frame that will be hidden within the 1/4" wood skins. I want to use bronze fasteners at all the wood joints and emphasize the fasteners like rivets on an old airplane. Once finished the car will get multiple coats of auto grade clear to bring out the beauty of the wood with some pin-striping to accent the lines of the car.
The power plant I'm using will be a 300 Inline six from a late 80's Ford F250, but with 3 Stromberg 48's and a pair of handmade 3to1 lake style header pipes. Tranny is a C6 with a 3.42 rear ratio. The motor will make about 300HP and 400 foot-pounds of torque when finished and I'm looking for a finished car weight of around 1500-lbs. Great power/weight ratio but the torque with twist the tires at will. LOL.
As of today the chassis is in a rough assembly with the engine/trans sitting on blocks to complete the layout of all the things I still need to weld to the frame. I still need a handful of parts to make her a roller but she is coming along nicely. All total so far I have about $900 invested. I figure another $200 or so for steel and wood to build the body and another $1000 to finish the chassis. That's still a hell of a custom for under $3K when finished.
Also I need a set of bone stock 15x6 or 15x7 wheels for a Chevy 5-4.75 bolt pattern. The crustier the better since I'll just blast them and powder coat when the project is finished. Tires are going to be a big ticket item as the ones I want are the old school bias ply Firestones from Coker.
Anyway as soon as I get to a point where its presentable I'll start a build thread. Talk more then. Later Travis
Fast forward to today and the project has become a priority once again. All along I wanted to build a 29-30'ish Ford, either a roadster or sedan. I've played with the idea of a hand formed alloy body as well as finding an older original Model A body and grafting it on.
I've decided to do something just a bit different. I'm building the body entirely from Marine grade mahogany plywood and board stock. It will be a 30'ish roadster pickup with a 12 inch extended cab. (I'm 6'3" and feel a little cramped in a regular cab) The body will have a 1x1 steel sub-frame that will be hidden within the 1/4" wood skins. I want to use bronze fasteners at all the wood joints and emphasize the fasteners like rivets on an old airplane. Once finished the car will get multiple coats of auto grade clear to bring out the beauty of the wood with some pin-striping to accent the lines of the car.
The power plant I'm using will be a 300 Inline six from a late 80's Ford F250, but with 3 Stromberg 48's and a pair of handmade 3to1 lake style header pipes. Tranny is a C6 with a 3.42 rear ratio. The motor will make about 300HP and 400 foot-pounds of torque when finished and I'm looking for a finished car weight of around 1500-lbs. Great power/weight ratio but the torque with twist the tires at will. LOL.
As of today the chassis is in a rough assembly with the engine/trans sitting on blocks to complete the layout of all the things I still need to weld to the frame. I still need a handful of parts to make her a roller but she is coming along nicely. All total so far I have about $900 invested. I figure another $200 or so for steel and wood to build the body and another $1000 to finish the chassis. That's still a hell of a custom for under $3K when finished.
Also I need a set of bone stock 15x6 or 15x7 wheels for a Chevy 5-4.75 bolt pattern. The crustier the better since I'll just blast them and powder coat when the project is finished. Tires are going to be a big ticket item as the ones I want are the old school bias ply Firestones from Coker.
Anyway as soon as I get to a point where its presentable I'll start a build thread. Talk more then. Later Travis
