QC97Z's LTX powered '27 T Bucket Roadster Build!

[QC97Z]

Holy crap guys! Life has been a wild ride to say the least since....scrolling up...2013????
So, I'm 35 now, and shit's been interesting for several years. Been doing a lot of growing up. Starting to feel older and on blood pressure pills already;
I won't go into a ton of detail, but life is good, I still have my 97 Z (although it's for sale...) and FINALLY got motivated again for the '27 Roadster in late 2017.

I will be updating the build thread again as things move along! Already dumped a bunch of money in it, and looking back at my foolish estimates on how much $$ this will take...I was WAAAYYY off as usual.
Plan is to be assembled/running by Winter 2019, tear it down and paint, and have it ready and on the road by Summer 2020.

So glad to see you all still kickin' here, and that some of you haven't forgotten about lil 'ol me. This is my only form of social media that I really participate in besides snapchat on occasion. I'm a hermit now!

More to come SOON! I won't fall off the radar again (at least for awhile....) Items for sale from the build that I've decided not to use will be in the FS section, some good stuff!
To the top....

[QC97Z]

So I had to read back through the thread to re-familiarize myself, because it's been THAT LONG. For all of you folks that have been following this and saw me drop off the face of the Earth, I'm truly sorry for leaving you all hanging.
I ended up buying my first house (still living there) in November of 2013. Home ownership, chicks that have come and gone, bills, other motorcycles, lots of side work for other people's cars, and a job that gets tough on me have all played a part.
My place in the world has changed dramatically, as have my interests and responsibilities. I'm now sitting pretty good - emotionally, physically, financially. Took on a new position at Deere in Technical Support, where I get to help dealer techs figure out issues with machines remotely - right up my alley. There will be some travel involved too, which is great for me since I don't seem to get out much.
Any of you guys that deal with anxiety and depression - I now know exactly how you feel and what you go through. I've been there these past 6 years. To hell and back.

To catch you up on the build (YES, I will be posting pics soon), I've learned some things:
-DON'T put your trust in shops you don't know. They will screw you over. Get a hard estimate, and stick to that estimate. Get up the shop's ass if the work isn't "almost" complete and the estimate/money runs out.
-NOTHING costs what you think it will.
-There are always more than 3-5,000 ways to skin a cat when it comes to hot rod building. As soon as you think you have a plan of attack, there are tons of other ways to achieve the same goal, or someone else has done it in a way that looks cooler. Or, as soon as you get something done - you think of a cooler way yourself.

Since the last post with pics, there have been 2 major roadblocks that I've overcome.
1) Body work. I am NOT a body guy, and fiberglass is a dying art.
I've had my car to 3 body shops now. The first is in Barrington, IL (I won't mention their name, PM me if you are in that area and want to stay away from them). They took $2K of my money, had my car for over a year, and did very little with it. What they did do, ended up having to be ripped out and re-done by someone else. The guys there know what they're doing mechanically and with old stuff, they're just not really that great with custom fiberglass body fabrication. They built the trans tunnel, which turned out pretty nice. Everything else was not very good.
The second shop was much more local to me. The guy had my car for 4 months, didn't take a deposit from me, and didn't do squat with it. I ended up taking the car back and searching for another shop.
The third and final shop that actually did decent work and finished it (to the tune of about $9K.....that's another story altogether) is a Corvette specialist with custom fabricating experience. They finished the car up in a matter of a few months and it looks pretty good. It will need a bit more massaging before paint, but TONS better than anyone else. I can take it from here.

2) Title work. Illinois has extremely strict rules for titling a "custom street rod". Not only are the rules strict, but the folks in Springfield enforcing these rules aren't even totally educated on them, and everyone I talked to had a different idea of what the rules actually are and how they'd be enforced. I was actually told at one point that the car would have to have all emissions and safety systems of any 2017 vehicle if the title were to be a 2017 "street rod".
I ended up getting ahold of the manufacturer of the chassis. Being that they are a licensed automobile manufacturer AND car dealer, they were able to get me a clean title with VIN and just did a title transfer....after a couple months of emailing back and forth.
Maybe they should have mentioned they could get me a clean title from the beginning.....

So now, body work is done and I have a clean, clear, Illinois title in my name as a 1927 Ford Roadster. Sweet! Now onto some pics when I can get back into my photobucket account...

[popo8]

So I had to read back through the thread to re-familiarize myself, because it's been THAT LONG. For all of you folks that have been following this and saw me drop off the face of the Earth, I'm truly sorry for leaving you all hanging.
I ended up buying my first house (still living there) in November of 2013. Home ownership, chicks that have come and gone, bills, other motorcycles, lots of side work for other people's cars, and a job that gets tough on me have all played a part.
My place in the world has changed dramatically, as have my interests and responsibilities. I'm now sitting pretty good - emotionally, physically, financially. Took on a new position at Deere in Technical Support, where I get to help dealer techs figure out issues with machines remotely - right up my alley. There will be some travel involved too, which is great for me since I don't seem to get out much.
Any of you guys that deal with anxiety and depression - I now know exactly how you feel and what you go through. I've been there these past 6 years. To hell and back.

To catch you up on the build (YES, I will be posting pics soon), I've learned some things:
-DON'T put your trust in shops you don't know. They will screw you over. Get a hard estimate, and stick to that estimate. Get up the shop's ass if the work isn't "almost" complete and the estimate/money runs out.
-NOTHING costs what you think it will.
-There are always more than 3-5,000 ways to skin a cat when it comes to hot rod building. As soon as you think you have a plan of attack, there are tons of other ways to achieve the same goal, or someone else has done it in a way that looks cooler. Or, as soon as you get something done - you think of a cooler way yourself.

Since the last post with pics, there have been 2 major roadblocks that I've overcome.
1) Body work. I am NOT a body guy, and fiberglass is a dying art.
I've had my car to 3 body shops now. The first is in Barrington, IL (I won't mention their name, PM me if you are in that area and want to stay away from them). They took $2K of my money, had my car for over a year, and did very little with it. What they did do, ended up having to be ripped out and re-done by someone else. The guys there know what they're doing mechanically and with old stuff, they're just not really that great with custom fiberglass body fabrication. They built the trans tunnel, which turned out pretty nice. Everything else was not very good.
The second shop was much more local to me. The guy had my car for 4 months, didn't take a deposit from me, and didn't do squat with it. I ended up taking the car back and searching for another shop.
The third and final shop that actually did decent work and finished it (to the tune of about $9K.....that's another story altogether) is a Corvette specialist with custom fabricating experience. They finished the car up in a matter of a few months and it looks pretty good. It will need a bit more massaging before paint, but TONS better than anyone else. I can take it from here.

2) Title work. Illinois has extremely strict rules for titling a "custom street rod". Not only are the rules strict, but the folks in Springfield enforcing these rules aren't even totally educated on them, and everyone I talked to had a different idea of what the rules actually are and how they'd be enforced. I was actually told at one point that the car would have to have all emissions and safety systems of any 2017 vehicle if the title were to be a 2017 "street rod".
I ended up getting ahold of the manufacturer of the chassis. Being that they are a licensed automobile manufacturer AND car dealer, they were able to get me a clean title with VIN and just did a title transfer....after a couple months of emailing back and forth.
Maybe they should have mentioned they could get me a clean title from the beginning.....

So now, body work is done and I have a clean, clear, Illinois title in my name as a 1927 Ford Roadster. Sweet! Now onto some pics when I can get back into my photobucket account...

Dear Gawd man... the car stuff alone sounds like a nightmare... glad u persisted though.

Also,

Happy for u for getting thebrest of ur stuff in line... life happens to all of us, sometimes without warning. Believe me, we understand.

Now...

Looking forward to those pics .

LTXtech.com is my drug...

[QC97Z]

Since my extra stupid-long hiatus, some developments have happened. The car still looked the same as the last pic set in the thread prior to heading to the first body shop, and all the first body shop effectively did with my $2K was waste time and money, but made an OK trans tunnel. It can be seen in some of the later pics.
At the Corvette shop, some work finally got underway! First, they started by realizing that the right side of the body, as it swept around from the rear to the right, was pulled in toward the center of the car a couple inches at the top! This looked horrendous when they tried to start working on the doors. Keep in mind that most T-buckets only have one door, or no doors at all. This one is.....special? They ended up taking a sawzall to it, and resetting it with body plastic.
Next the door halves got put together, notched for the hinges, and getting them hung:


Once they got hung and straightened out, the tiny little bearjaw latches that the first body shop said would never work.....were in and latching! Way better than stupid shed door things the first rod shop was suggesting. Safety first!
These will end up eventually being actuated by a small chrome steel ball lever I picked up from a hot rod parts site.


Then they started slinging A LOT of body plastic, and blocking it, and body plastic, and blocking it....


I don't think I mentioned this before, but after thinking for awhile about what I wanted to do for taillights (and probably having watched Straight Outta Compton), I had an epiphany - what about '64 Impala taillights, turned on their sides and set up toward the top of the body, right on the corners so the lenses would face straight back? The body shop guy says (while smoking a cigarette and simultaneously using an oxygen tank) - I LIKE IT!





Pretty unique, eh?

After that, it was time for more blocking...


That's enough for now. Tune in tomorrow for more!

[QC97Z]

Ready for more? Along with the taillights, I thought a flush-mounted LED reverse light, centered in the back of the body and set a little higher, would look really neat. So, that went in next.


Next we discussed plans for the windshield. I had bought some cool smooth-style short posts that were just a cast piece, and we wanted the hardware to be hidden. I lined them up how I wanted as far as angle and distance from the back surface of the cowl, and marked them. Holes were pre-drilled at the appropriate angles, and the posts were sent off to a local machine shop to be drilled and tapped to the appropriate angle. I would do work like this at my place, and a handheld power drill probably would have been fine, but I didn't want to take a chance, screw it up, have to buy new posts, etc. Keep in mind, everything I had done at the body shop takes time - and costs money. Some things are better off just leaving to the pros.
Never mind the horrible looking windshield template; this was just cut to help align the posts properly. The guys at the body shop ended up making a really nice masonite template with a slight arc at the top. I DID NOT like the straight windshield look with a curved cowl. Just didn't do it for me.





Here's how the body looks today! Primered and not quite paint-ready, but there will be plenty of stuff to do before that ever gets close to happening.







Doesn't this look mean??


And a good side view:

[QC97Z]

Sometime in the last couple years, I also was thinking about fuel management. I wanted to keep this thing injected, so I worked with a company out in California that builds custom fuel tanks, and had them build another one just like pictured on the car, but raw (ready to be chromed), has custom baffles in it to help prevent slosh/fuel starvation on the line/fittings side and keep a solid gauge reading on the sender side, a custom sender flange, and an internal return line that sends returned fuel back to the middle of the tank to prevent the return/supply swirl.
Turned out pretty sweet I think....

[QC97Z]

As of now you've seen the latest on the car. At the moment, my DD is in the garage undergoing some surgery (timing set, water pump, tensioner, heater hoses, transmission solenoids, new trans line, all new front suspension components, new control arms in rear, etc) and the roadster is trapped in the other garage bay.

Soon, it will head out to get a seat frame built. As much as I'd like to buy a tubing bender, a bunch of tube, and dick around with it for awhile, I'm wanting to maintain some progress - so it will go to the machine/fab shop that did the windshield posts. It's local (like a 6 minute drive from the house) and it will only take a couple weeks. They're a popular place and need to keep their space freed up for new work - so they have incentive to get it done quickly.

I have tons of parts from Jegs and Summit waiting for me at the house, along with tons of other parts in the attic.
There won't be a ton of progress on the car for probably about a month or so, but i will definitely post and put up some pics of parts I have, my plans for the car, how my vision has changed over the years for it, etc.

Currently there are a couple of major hurdles to get over before "the fun part" starts - I have to figure out pedals. The first pedal set I showed in my thread wasn't going to work - even with the swing pedals separated from the master cylinders. The T56 is so long and the chassis is so narrow, I had to come up with something else.
So, I picked up a Wilwood 3-in-1 set, they're floor mounted and race-style. The master cylinders are mounted right to the assembly with front/rear bias bar integrated, it's a pretty nice package. They look pretty mean too, black and full of holes - which I will likely model my custom fabricated shifter out of. However, I still don't know if they're gonna fit! Since the trans tunnel is flared, they'll have less room the further forward they're pushed. Because of this....I have to know where I'm going to be sitting in the car, hence why the seat needs to come first. You can see them in this old pic before it left for the first body shop that made the tunnel. Even without the tunnel taking up a couple extra inches of width, it's pretty tight!


That's all for now folks. See you soon!


Once the pedals are figured out, I can set up and get my steering column mounted. From there, it's all fun stuff!

[shownomercy]

That is screaming for a big ole gear driven F1x up front.

Just sayin.

[QC97Z]

That is screaming for a big ole gear driven F1x up front.

Just sayin.

Lol! It's already going to have way more power than it needs with just a cam. How much do you think this thing weighs???

That would be pretty awesome though...

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