Projects Building My First Roadster in San Francisco

During my conversation with my brother on the phone this evening, he said, "You're leaving me hanging." Confused, I asked him what he meant. "I need to know what happened with your welding story!" He was right; I'm slacking here.

Looking at the diagram, I saw I needed to replace fuse number three. I unscrewed the fuse from its socket, rolled my bike out of the garage, kick-started it and was on my way. When I explained my dilemma to Cole Hardware's most senior employee, he ever-so-cautiously led me to the back of the store and pulled the exact fuse I needed off the shelf. Twenty dollars and a two-pack of Reece's later, I was heading home. "That sure is an expensive Reece's," chimed the man at the register.

Back at the house, I dove into my closet with the new fuse. No luck. In my mind, I started drafting my email to the landlords. I thought about where I would hide the welder, and I thought about what it was going to mean for the future of the project. Defeated, I explained the situation to my roommate. We proceeded to test various circuits throughout the house. Nothing worked. I felt a rush of guilt run through me.

Then, as I was about to throw in the towel, I noticed one of the other fuses was a different style. "Wait a second," I said, "This one is actually broken." Much like the fuses on my past car and bike projects, I could see that this one had popped. That's it! I did some fuse shuffling and hit the reset button. The lights were back. I could breathe easy knowing that I didn't cause any serious damage to our beautiful, 101-year-old spot on the Terrace.

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Just like the name of the thread states, this is a roadster being built in San Francisco. Space is still limited, and sometimes I find myself having to make due with simpler tools. It's all part of the fun, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

So, at this point, you're probably wondering what I was working on. Here it is. Pedal mount in place, clutch operational, and brake piston set up.

 

No successful welds were made I ended up bolting the master-cylinder in place; we’ll weld it up when I’m back at David’s.

 

I’ll have replies up soon, but just wanted to check in to report that I’ve been spending a whole lot of time in the garage, and also driving my roadster as much as I can.

Big city roadsters

Big roadster progress. More later!

 

I love the gas welding idea, but I don't think my little garage would play too well to that either at this point. That said, I do enjoy the process. Longtime readers will recall my foray into gas welding at City College of San Francisco.

 

We need you to come to San Francisco to help me get this thing finished!

Thank you! It's been fun to write about, and even more fun to build (most of the time!)

Hey, you're in the club!

Thank ya! We're building speed!

 

As I mentioned before, I'll be sharing more about our latest Barnstormers CC-MC-DC escapade in this week's Jalopy Journal column. I have a few minutes before bed here, so it's time for a looooong overdue thread update. Where were we?

The sun has been out lately, so I took that opportunity to do some painting. For the torque tube and radius rods, I used ultra-traditional appliance paint. Good enough for a refrigerator, good enough for the bottom of this car.
Before I bought these from Donny, he had set them up for the Havenscourt truck. As you can tell by the picture, they were destined to be painted white.

On Sunday morning, I made my way over to the local hardware store and did something somewhat uncharacteristic: I bought a new tool. Knowing I had to get the driveshaft pin in place, I splurged on the right ball-peen hammer, pictured on the right. Here's a photo midway through the pin flattening process. Note the traditional terra firma workbench.

 

After an overnight bath in the Chem-Dip, the speedometer gear got some love. Assembling the torque tube/gaskets/roller bearing/seal/snap ring was a messy process, so no photos were taken. That, however, reminds me. I ended up making my own tools to handle the seal and sleeve installation.

Per my brother's advice, the PVC pipe worked perfectly for the seal. Thank you everyone for the guidance on what direction to make it face. I used a dab of grease to make it stick to the PVC on its way down.

And the other one was spot-on for the sleeve. I spent a total of $15 at Lowes on the pieces. If anyone local wants to do the same, I have about 9.90 feet of extra pipe that you can come pick up. Let me know!

With the torque tube assembled, I went back to the workbench to clean up the radius rod/backing plate hardware using my era-correct tap and die set.

The process is oh-so-satisfying and worked better than expected.

 

By the end of the night on Sunday, I decided it was time to put it all together. And when the car plopped down on the garage floor on all four wheels again, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't extremely excited.

So many feelings here. To see the axles, the shocks, the wishbones, radius rods, drums, backing plates, headlight bar—everything—all together in one place was hard to describe. As the sun set over San Francisco, I kept thinking back to the quote from motorcycle builder Andy Carter:

"It's simple to make something difficult, but it's difficult to make something simple."

The chassis looks simple. And to many people, it is. But for those who have been here for the past 123 pages, you know what it’s taken to get to this point.
The lighting was less than ideal. Once the engine and trans are back in, I'll do a full-fledged shoot. Don't worry.

 

One more, just because. Right now, the frame of 2.0 sits five inches lower than 1.5's. Have I mentioned that I love these cars?

 

Thank you! It really is getting there. The "to-do" list is long, but it's never been shorter. Keep up the great work on your build too. I've been loving your thread.

Thanks, Dennis. A lot to smile about at this stage of the game.

Thanks, Tim. The rails will be body color on the outside and then Eastwood Chassis Black on the inside.

Thank ya. We all have!

Thanks Jeff. Hoping to make it back up to Petaluma soon. The swap is right around the corner!

I think it'll be one of those pictures I'll look back on and say, "Remember when?"

Thanks, Brian. Right back atchya. I'm still planning to be there. We'll miss you this time around, but hopefully we can both have our cars there next year.

 

So, what's next? Right now, the radiator and grille shell are back in position. I'm going to be bending up my brake lines and getting my emergency brake all hooked up. When those steps are finished, it'll be time to drop in the engine and...install the body.

In the meantime, I'm about to pull the trigger on a gas tank. I'm liking everything about this one. I plan to add an external filler cap in the panel between the tack strip and the decklid.