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Next video up, Rust removal click bait!

And some metal shaping too!

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Bench Racing Forums

The Bench Racing Forum is the place to ask questions and have a discussion about the products we make and sell.

The forums can be found in the tool bar above and to the left, click that tab and join me in the forums.

There we can discuss the products offered, your project or just ask a question about your build. I would much rather have a conversation here than on social media pages.

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LA Roadster Show 2017

We are in preparations to be at the 2017 LA Roadster show in Pomona, CA at the Fairplex on June 17-18th (Fathers Day weekend) in two locations this year. We will have our indoor booth again this year, but will also have a spot out in the swap area.

So far we plan on bringing out three ’32 frames with our full X members with show pricing. One will be pinched for 28/29 Model A use. We will also have our accessory K-member legs, stock style brake pedal sets and other bolt on chassis parts.

If you want to pre-order any of the product and have us deliver at the show, give us a call @ 866-553-8996

 

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New product in the store!

As promised earlier, we have the 57-60 F100 and 55-59 GM truck Dakota IFS kits available in the store. These are for the stock arm Dakota suspension systems. If you want air bag systems, any of the kits that would fit any of the Dakota two wheel drive systems should work in our kit. However, we are getting hit pretty hard to do a dedicated IFS kit with tubular control arms and air bags. So we are going to do our best to get them drawn up and in production before Christmas!

Also in the works are engine mounts for the Dakota IFS kits. I think we have the Chevy engine mount systems ready to go and will be in the store in a few weeks. The Ford Windsor style mounts are still in need of some work to make them what we want. And if we can, the LIMA series (429-460) engine mounts also. These of course are going to require a rear sump oil pan to clear the rack and pinion like any other IFS kit on the market.

2015-11-13 13.38.32Keep an eye peeled for our new line of rear suspension kits too! There will be three kits ranging from near stock to work with your nearly stock Dakota IFS and a lowered kit as well as a hammered kit with a 5 plus inch C-notch built into the boxing system. These kits will be an un-parallel and unequal length four bar with a panhard rod. A moderately low roll center that works with pickups and all come with 100% anti-squat at ride height and minimal changes in pinion angle to curb any driveline vibration. Heavy duty construction with greasable polyurethane bushings and RideTECH shocks.

We are also working on the ’32 Ford chassis components, The front and rear bolt in crossmembers should be in production by mid-January. We are also considering a full bolt in X-member similar to our ’32 system for the 33-34 Ford frames. Let us know in the comment section what you think and what you would like to see in that kit.

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1953-64 Studebaker frame

I have discontinued all the Studebaker products and do not have a desire to continue the product line. Our fixturing was damaged in our move in the beginning of 2020 and the low volume of sales does not warrant the reconstruction of the fixturing. I am not interested in selling plans to build your own. I will entertain a licensing program for those with the capacity for production only.

 

We have been working on a complete replacement frame for the Studebaker coupe. We had built a complete frame for a customer a few years back where we integrated one of our Studebaker clips and an early C4 Corvette rear suspension. We also learned what does and doesn’t work to make a frame that fits the stock body without modification. Well, very few and simple modifications anyway. Those tiny foot-well boxes behind the front seat have got to go. What we are delivering is a frame with significant improvements in strength. And almost all the stock body mounts are located in stock locations and stock body rubbers are used. No need to alter your front fenders, stock components fit.

Straighter frame rails and more clearance for exhaust systems. We keep the entire frame profile slim for good ground clearance as well as give you room for future modifications. We made the rear kickup quite a bit different by utilizing more space under the stock floor. This gives  us better places to attach the triangulated four bars and still not have to modify the floor. This rear kick up is also slightly narrower so that if you decide to do a mini-tub on the rear you have frame clearance to run up to a 275 wide rear tire on a 9″ wheel.

Full Frame for 53-64 Studebaker coupes.
Full Frame for 53-64 Studebaker coupes.
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Shop update: 10/04/2013

Been a busy few weeks, lots of jobs in and out and progress made on the more long term jobs. The good news is, as we clear out these jobs, the new Dakota Kits are eminent!

Just wrapped up a Vintage Air install on Ron Shives’ 1957 Chevy Hardtop. Such a nice car, we removed the AirTique unit installed a decade or more ago that never quite worked properly and installed a new Vintage Air sure-fit unit. In went a Vintage Air Front Runner package and radiator relocation to the 6 cylinder position so that we had room for a Volvo 850 two speed cooling fan. We also upgraded to a Borgeson Delphi 600 power steering box, Flaming River steering column and did some routine maintenance for him. Overall the car turned out fantastic, very nice daily driver now.

Dr Marvelus is going to town on Tony’s 60 Bonneville, pretty rusty car in all the structural areas, so look for updates on that soon.

Larry Ivy’s 34 PU is roller status, cab goes on and the controls are going in soon.

More importantly, Bob’s 32 5W chassis will be going together next week in preparation for the Deuce Day show. We are doing the second build out of our “Bolt – In” center X-member! These will be available in the store very soon.

And the news you are waiting for, the Dakota kits are in process as soon as Bob’s 32 frame comes off. First up will be the 65-66 frames and the 53-56 and 57-60’s immediately after.

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1957 Oldsmobile build

Latest out of the shop is Ray Castor’s 1957 Oldsmobile. Ray brought us this car last year just before we got really deep into the 51 Chevy PU For Metro AA. It initially came in for some front suspension work. As we are to understand this car was purchased from Desert Valley Auto, same guys with the TV Show. It had already been sand blasted, painted and subframed with an early 80’s GM full-size clip. Most likely an Oldsmobile because ray told us it had an Olds 455 in it. He found a 1958 Olds 371 J2 engine and trans, had it rebuilt and installed by yet another shop. The problem came when he went to put his tires on it, they didn’t fit under the fenderwell very well at all. The tires actually stuck outside the fenders by a half inch or so and the front crossmember was less than 2″ off the ground.

Notice the hood fitment and tire locations.

 

So the first thing to determine was what condition the car was in and what we could do to fix the botched front clip installation. On tear down things became very evident that the persons installing the clip made more than a few mistakes besides choosing the wrong clip for the car.

The entire clip besides being mounted very low on the chassis, was off center a bit and the right side spindle was a full inch behind where it should be as well as being a few degrees off, lower on the Left side. You can see just how high the engine was placed in the chassis. So high in fact that the installer trimmed the upper webbing out of the center X member for transmission clearance. The wobbly engine mounts were pretty comical too. It was about at this point we realized just how hard of a hit this car had taken at some point. There was evidence of a fairly severe diagonal in the whole car.

Next move was to get it on the chassis table and square it up, then start the decision making on what to repair this car with. Of all the choices available, one stood out as something new for me to try. The late 70’s to mid 80’s Jaguar XJ sedan. My friend Scott Zekanis did a similar installation on his 1957 Buick sedan a few years back and has had good success with it. I did my research and found that the Oldsmobile is less than 100 pounds heavier than the Jaguar and had very similar weight distribution. Plus the track width was in the range we were looking for. The stock Olds front had to be close to 59″ wide. The rear axle was right on the money at 59″ so it stands to reason at this point in automotive history that the track widths matched, that and a bit of careful tape measuring and internet sleuthing.

A few phone calls and internet searches, I had myself a line on a 1985 Jaguar XJ6 Vanden Plas. Nice enough car and the price was more than good. Time to strip both cars down, Ray made the decision to use both the front and rear suspensions from the Jaguar (good choice!) as the rear axle in this car was also an unknown. It was stock but if the car was wrecked pretty bad, there might be issues with bent axles or what not. Besides, it just made perfect sense to do a fully independent suspension. Brian and Dr Marvelus AirArced the front clip off after locking the car to the table and Brian and I also disassembled the front and rear subframes from the Jag.

 

Pressure washed clean and time to start figuring out how to make this all work. This was more work that any of us figured. Still not sure if dropping the engine out the bottom was a good choice or not. Regardless, it came apart and the suspension was pretty decent.

 

 

Old clip off, Jaguar front mocked into place, I made my measurements and drew up new frame rails in my 3D software. Made the decision to use as much of the stock Jaguar suspension components as possible. This meant also rubber mounting the front and rear suspensions to give the old Olds the best ride quality possible.

 

 

One of the things that was going to make this a difficult build was the owners insisting on keeping the Factory AC and heaters in place. If you will notice the large black box where we would normally hang a power booster from, that is the AC Evaporator case. This didn’t cause us problems for the frame and engine placement.

Frame clip installed and ready for the engine and trans.
One of our Winged Early Olds engine mounts in place as well as the new shock mounts.

Front end finished to a stopping point, we turned our attention to the rear suspension. It really surprised us how well the whole Jaguar IRS fit while still in it’s cage. I determined that to rubber mount the stock Jaguar rear cage, a section of frame rail would need to be replaced and a bit of the trunk floor coped in for the new bit of frame rail.

 

Trunk floor coped and frame sections ready to install 
Frame rail sections installed and the rear axle assembled for mock up of the trailing arm mounts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The stock Jaguar trailing arms are critical if you intend on rubber mounting the cage like we did here. If you leave them out you will get some serious tire shake or worse. We also installed this rear axle with 3º of pinion up which goes against all the internet experts out there. I am not willing to just follow trends, so actual investigation went into doing this. The three degrees up not only allowed for a better driveline angle for our universal joints, it also gave us a tiny bit of anti-squat! Yeah, traction is cool!

 

The wrap up was fairly boring stuff, rush to finish meant the camera phone was in my office out of harms way for the most part. We had a custom made radiator done, rebuilt the core support, ran brake lines, installed a hydroboost system with the stock Jaguar master cylinder under the floor, built an exhaust system that snaked it’s way through everything and made engine brackets to hold the air compressor and alternator properly. Didn’t get any final pictures before it left, but if you attend the Goodguys shows, you are likely to run into this car.

 

almost done
Dr Marvelus working on the throttle linkage
Engine and brackets installed

 

Fired up and running, next stop is getting it tuned up! Noice the wheel placement now as well as the slightly lower ride height!

 

The little bit I got to drive the car was pretty darned cool. Very smooth, very controlled. I think once Ray gets the engine and transmission sorted out, he is going to have one hell of a daily driver on his hands. You can say I am a believer in the Jag conversions. Not an easy job compared to other popular choices out there, but for an ambitious home installer or a customer that wants pretty much the best of comfort and good handling this is a solid choice.