Project PT-57, 1957 Truck, Built By Hot Rod Jim's

[fleet]

Originally Posted by rat_rod_russell

Sorry for my long absence been busy catching up the customers projects and getting sick for almost 2 full weeks doing nothing but sleeping and now I'm trying to recover my strength. Nothing like knowing a month ago I just picked that rear end up and put it on the table, now I can't budge it.

Good to see the pics.

Likely SEMA thrashes have been many 'supermen' aka car builders... kryptonite.

I hope you recover completely soon.

[rat_rod_russell]

Originally Posted by -Freak-

O' my. This is a unique and extremely well thought out build.
It kind of makes me wish i was building a truck instead.

Do you have higher resolution versions of the HDR pics?
They are to small for my monitor resolution to look good as wallpaper.

clicking opens them up to 1024x768 bet if you'll tell me what size you want it I'll post it up.

Now my question

A guy came by the shop today and told me he saw the Pt-57 in a magazine. I have no clue what he's talking about. Has anyone else seen it or did I just waste 3-4 hours looking for it?

Thanks
-Russell

[Porterbuilt]

Originally Posted by rat_rod_russell

clicking opens them up to 1024x768 bet if you'll tell me what size you want it I'll post it up.

Now my question

A guy came by the shop today and told me he saw the Pt-57 in a magazine. I have no clue what he's talking about. Has anyone else seen it or did I just waste 3-4 hours looking for it?

Thanks
-Russell

Last months Street Trucks "SEMA coverage".

[rat_rod_russell]

Seriously thanks for that, I ordered a copy I hope to see it this week and I scan it in and post whats there.

But before that I've got some bad news

I BROKE IT AGAIN!!!!




This time I killed the two bolts holding the dif plate into the car. They were grade 8 1/2" and they both snapped after 2-3 days of long hard burn outs on the Pilots playing with various rear shock settings. Then the next day, I'm leaving a parking lot and bam. The rear end is jumping up and down. With the front two bolts snapped the rear rigid mount I built as a replacement quickly with scrap from around the shop (during breakage #3 when I snapped the OE Corvette mount) this was the only thing holding the diff in the car and the CV's kept it centered so I could get stopped.

Now I'm sure everyone is wondering why there's a strap on the diff, that's how I got home, with a ratchet strap holding the diff down to the frame and X'd to keep it centered. I was about 20 miles from the shop and it was one of those days where everyone was gone along with my truck and trailer. So I had to drive it home, very, very slowly.

So on to the real fix now and what will hopefully be the production mount. I kept patching the old system and prototype adapter to just see what, and in what order, things would break when we take away the torque tube and transmission from the system. Obviously the first thing that needs to be addressed is the lack of support that would keep the differential from rotating around the rear axle center line. Just like the diff on a live axle car the IRS diff is forced up from the pinion yoke rotating backwards around the rear axle center line during positive acceleration. So instead of a rear lower mount (like a stock C5) I'm going to give the diff a mount up top so it will be pulling down against this new mount instead of trying to crush it. Then on the front I'm going to keep the two bolts and bushing into the adapter plate from the bottom for support during negative acceleration while the clutch is engaging the motor and the transmission is in gear. The diff at that point is hammered into the frame or in this case into a pair of rubber bushings. But I'm going to add two lateral bolts on top of the diff plate to give these two bolts more mechanical advantage over the differential case and keep the nose down under positive and negative acceleration. We will now have a grand total of 6 bolts (4x 1/2" and 5x 5/8's) holding the diff in place and set up in a way that different bolts will all be loaded a little differently and spread the force out. Take a look at the pretty picture soldworks made for me, lol you can also see the new lighter plate with a little Hot Rod Jim bling,



What’s this mean about the truck, she goes on the lift. The bed comes off, most of the rear suspension, gas tank, turbo’s, exhaust, several lines and more. And we get to play setup on the new diff mounts. I'm also going to fix up several other things that have been peeving me and add in some quick disconnects on the wiring so when I get the new frame banged out the body swap will be quick and painless. So let the fun begin.

-Russell

[GregWeld]

I had the three bolts holding the steering box to the frame on my 1969 Mercedes 280SL.... as it turns out -- they were simply over torqued when the car was restored.... They sheared just like your bolts - and had that "crystalized" look at the shear line.

[rat_rod_russell]

Originally Posted by GregWeld

I had the three bolts holding the steering box to the frame on my 1969 Mercedes 280SL.... as it turns out -- they were simply over torqued when the car was restored.... They sheared just like your bolts - and had that "crystalized" look at the shear line.

After the second breakage I thought I had it stacked nicely with rubber on both sided of the frame. So it went bolt, washer, rubber, frame, rubber, diff adapter from bottom to top. But when I got up under the rear end you could see that the bolts both snapped right where the threads ended in the adapter. So now we'll have 6 bolts holding it in instead of just the 4.

-R^3

[bob442]

Originally Posted by rat_rod_russell

Hey Russell, one of the members directed me to your project, i'm very interested in the C5/6 pinion adaptor, as i want to swap in a C5 IRS in my F body, i would greatly love your help and a guess price of the adaptor, if you could PM i'd love to chat with you.

Oh ya, Your truck is a piece...of Art! the chassis looked so appealing in raw metal. shoulda just cleared it but yellow works awesome too!

Bob

[rat_rod_russell]

Originally Posted by bob442

Hey Russell, one of the members directed me to your project, i'm very interested in the C5/6 pinion adaptor, as i want to swap in a C5 IRS in my F body, i would greatly love your help and a guess price of the adaptor, if you could PM i'd love to chat with you.

Oh ya, Your truck is a piece...of Art! the chassis looked so appealing in raw metal. shoulda just cleared it but yellow works awesome too!

Bob

Bob

Thanks for the kind words, I'll get that PM out asap. I won't have a price for the diff adapter until I'm sure there not going to break in this setup.

But for now

BIG NEWS, ITS DRIFT TIME
What better racing type to make an attempt to break my new differential combo. We'll be in Houston on March 28th at Grand Sport Speedway sliding around with the best of them and of course I'll have as much video as I can get. You can read more about it here.

http://fabricatedmotorsports.com/for...p?topic=1413.0

-R^3

[rat_rod_russell]

So we didn't make the drifting event. I started fixing thing, one thing led to another and we ended up not making it. Sunday morning at 3:30 My buddy Kelly and I sat down, made a list of what we needed to do and at the very least we needed 10 more hours worth of work. Had we not been awake for 20+ hours at that point we would have keep banging on it. I didn't want a repeat of Optima where I get the car together then bring it back and have to rip into it again to fix something that was half assed of overlooked because we rushed it.

Prototype parts are one thing but I found pinched lines from the oil back on the turbo, the shaft pivot had been installed with a grade 2 bolt and had twisted, I see 10-15 pounds worth of steal on the front that made up a last minuet radiator support and gussets that can all go, and I want to get my inner fender in finally.


So onto the rear end. And the mods I was working on for the truck to make it a better street car and way better for drifting.

-Steering Arms
The truck only had about 46 degrees of turn in, good for smooth course racing but it was a little tough in town making tight corners. So I made up a new set of steering arms that moved the rack back .5" inches increasing the steering angle to 57 degrees.

The old arm is shown here on top with the new arm on bottom, notice that the lower plate on the new are is also clearances to allow the outer tie rod room to move up into and clear the steering under real hard cornering.



The pile of inter cooler just that came out.



For the diff and the race I decided I really wanted to get in there and see what things were doing, so you can see almost everything that ended coming off.

[rat_rod_russell]

-New Diff Mount

The old diff coming out weighted 92 lbs. You can see the new rear mount on the diff. The old system tried to use the OE corvette mounts and added a few, that failed honorably. So this is what I've come up with to fix it. The rear plate is the big difference but I've moved the front upper mounts too and upgraded to 5/8' hardware. The rear we drilled out the threads since all but 1 of the rear plate holes go through the aluminum and captured the bolt on the other side to ensure a much better hold to the case.









-Whats next

I'm going to get the turbos coated and mod the exhaust a little. Some of the wrap was getting ripped up on bottom with all the gravel in the area.

Gas tank mod, it had a little leak, lets just say I got a little full of my self with the tabs and slots and made an awesomely complicated section that I couldn't weld all to well and now it leaks, a lot.

Wiring, I'm re arranging some of the ISIS boxes for ease of access and changing some of the wiring to more secured locations.

Brake cooling ducts, with the inner coolers out of the way it'll be easy now the back is getting a neat trick too.

Finish out the roll cage

Later
-Russell