In the last Motorama Or Bust update nothing but the chassis was left at Taylor’d Customs as the 1933 Dodge body was sent out to be massaged by Smallwood Custom Paint, and the Latham supercharged Oldsmobile Rocket was getting a new lease on life thanks to Tenant Automotive.
This update starts the weekend after the last –and the day before the frame was to be picked up– and as the clock continues to tick wrenches turn and sparks fly.
Starting at the back of the frame where we left off last, the custom aluminum fuel cell has been delivered and tabs have been added to mock it into place.
It is sitting off-center in the photos, but its final positing will be between the body mount tabs on either side of the rear cradle.
You’ll also notice in the photo above that the upper bag mounts from post three have been reinforced by a length of round tube.
At the lower part of the frame nothces have been added by cutting metal pipe and welding it into the square tubing of the frame.
These notches were made to clear the floor supports so the frame can be tucked up into the body as much as possible for maximum low.
With not a lot of real estate left in the rear, the compressor mounts were sized using an old unit and positioned as low and outside as possible just aft of the body and previously mentioned floor supports.
The compressors will be exposed in this position but this shouldn’t be much of an issue because the large hole in the roof means this car will be a fair weather driver.
Moving to the front the motor mounts –which were little more than flat pieces of metal in updates one through three– have been boxed in so that they can split the weight of the motor and transmission with the box steel transmission cross member.
A grill shell has been sourced from the barn (original origin unknown) and Brian Taylor fabricated the grill from scratch.
In part one I mentioned Blair had some tricks in mind for the straight axle based front suspension, and as of last week the aluminum CNC’d arms arrived.
Unfortunately they were a little too snug to fix over the axle ,so they were quickly wrapped back up for a return trip to the machine shop for some adjustments.
A slight setback but one easily overcome and work continued pushing forward none the less.
With a pressing deadline, and a frame pick up scheduled for the next day, Blair had no other option but to blow through a ton of outstanding chassis work in roughly twelve hours.
This work included making link bars, fabricating mounting points for those same link bars, and figuring out how to affix the steering box.
All of this was done in-house using box steel, flat plate, round tube and a few off the shelf pieces.
Impressively Blair managed to push through the remaining fabrication without a hiccup and the frame was picked up on time Monday morning.
Currently Blair is somewhere between Mexico and Canada on his way back from a quick vacation, but while he was gone Smallwood Custom Paint hustled to get the frame finished and delivered back to the shop in time for Blair’s return.
As you can see below the frame is back at the shop wearing a fresh coat of black paint along with a scissor lift to aid in the final assembly.
The motor however is still on the operating table, apparently the head needs a bit more work, but the body is coming right along.
Remember that significantly rusted out bottom section from part two?
Well a replacement has been fabricated entirely from scratch and the floor, which was welded from the top side before going to the body shop, is now welded up from underneath as well.
Flipped back right side up progress has resumed on getting the body straight as an arrow, not an easy task, but it seems to be going quite well.
As of today there are roughly 17 working days left to get this car together. Crunch time!
