Once again, a half-car pseudo-teardrop

[groys02]

Greetings!
'Been quite a while since I've been active on here. Last time around, I'd built a sort-of teardrop out of the back half of a 4-door neon, with a scratch-built front end. Used that off-n-on for several years, and then got out of Neons... and sold the NeonLyte to another central-Iowa camper.

Since then, I've revisited the English Fords that I've been fond of for about 50 yrs now. I bought a '58 Anglia (2-dr sedan), which is nearly done now... I guess we'd call it a "resto-mod"; semi-restored, but in a modified form. (83 Corolla drive-train)
While it was under reconstruction, I bought a '59 Prefect (4-dr sedan), figuring to rob a few parts from it for the Anglia... but mostly to turn 2/3 of it into a sort-of teardrop, as I'd done with the Neon.
And I'm currently tearing down the Prefect, getting ready for the slicing-and-dicing.
Now, if only I can figure out the picture-hosting thing..............

(looks like I first put them in my album, then link them to here... so I'll have to upload some more pics to album. stay tuned.)

 

[groys02]

Okay, a few more pics added to my album, so I'll try inserting them in the body of the thread.

Assuming I pull that off, pic one is of my '58 English Ford Anglia alongside my '59 Prefect (4-dr version). I got the parts car primarily to chop up into a small teardrop-style trailer for the Anglia to pull around. The Anglia has the whole drive-train from an '83 Corolla wagon, so it should be capable enough... out with the tiny 1180cc flathead engine, and in with a 1600cc Toyota 4AC + 5-spd. I've been driving the Anglia around the neighborhood for the last couple years... no hot-rod, but way peppier than the stock format was.

For the last week I've been tearing down the parts car. Engine/trans out now... hood, fenders, all 4 doors removed... etc.

With an old version of CorelDraw, I've tried to mock up what the car/camper will look like... 12" shorter, taken out of front door and roof... new floor will eliminate driveshaft tunnel... rear torsion-bar half-axles will allow trunk floor to drop much lower, so plenty of room for feet below the galley. This layout should provide something over 7' of room front-to-back, and interior of car is approx 4' wide.
When I did the Neon version of this scheme previously, I used all the stock floor & rear suspension, and it still only weighed approx 750#... so I figure the Prefect version will be lighter, somewhat, than that.

 

[groys02]

Well... now the old car shell has been gutted, and this morning I cut off the front section.
I'll add some bracing, both side-to-side and diagonally, to stiffen the shell before cutting the floor out. I'm going with torsion bar half-axles, so that I can keep the floor flat, front to rear.
I'll also remove 12" of the car body's length, which will give me a bit over 7' from face of dash to inside of back-panel, and will have the centerline of rear wheels approx. 40% of the way forward from the rear. (I picked up both of those suggestions on this forum.)

 

[groys02]

And the casters are on the body temporarily, front & back & midway, so when I cut the 12" out of the body I can 'simply' roll the front part back to the rear part, and began welding them back together again.
And then start building the new frame & floor..........

 

[groys02]

And the dismantling continues...
Over the last few days I've removed the floor in a couple big sections, after adding some EMT-tubing triangulation to preserve the shape of the shell, once minus both floor & firewall. [I don't know if that was absolutely necessary, but why risk things getting warped?]
The front half of the floor was definitely a lot easier to remove than the rear half... some pretty substantial stamped steel bracing in the area around the front of the leaf springs. [I still have a chunk of that to remove.] But, all-in-all, it went pretty smoothly.
I'll have some tidying up to do of the remaining bits of flooring, before figuring out the frame... already checked with the local steel supplier on what dimensions of rectangular tubing are 'normal', so as not to design something that relies on hard-to-get bits.

Got the torsion half-axles by mail yesterday... the wheels a few days earlier. Wheels are 13" x 4.5" wide, 4x4.5" lug-spacing. Half-axles are rated for 935lbs, which should be comfortably more than the camper/trailer will weigh... and the axle assembly is very compact, with approx. 1.5" between mounting plate flange and inboard edge of rim... so the frame won't need to take much out of the interior space for the floor. And the hub assembly is bolted onto the frame part via a splined shaft, so I can dial in the ride height after the frame is built & assembled.
So far, so good.............

 

[groys02]

Went ahead today, and cut that 12" of length out of the car body. The proverbial point of no return.

Shoved the pieces together, and they fit pretty well... a little minor trimming to do here n there, and then I'll separate the big pieces again and grind the edges to be welded clean of paint, rust, etc. Then I can get back to actually welding it all back together again.

Because of the slight tapering down of the top of front door, I'll have to do some little pie-cuts to bring drip rail back into alignment. Nuisance-some work, but not nearly so bad as chopping a top, which I've gotten talked into twice before..........

 

[groys02]

Got the 2 halves of the trailer-to-be prepped... rejoined, with either sleeves [rocker area] or backing strips [roof cuts], and countersunk SS pop-rivets holding it all together. Even the 'jog' in the drip-rail mostly disappeared, so a little hammer & dolly work, and I can weld that up.
Still waiting on frame steel, but I'll be a few days getting this welded together..........

 

[groys02]

[hope I don't accidentally post twice today... but I don't see what I thought I just posted]

Got a start on welding seams back together again yesterday. Went into town today, and picked up the new steel for building frame [11ga 1x3 and 2x3 rect tubing] and front/firewall area [20ga sheet steel]. That, plus the torsion axles already gotten, and the tongue jack which came a few days ago, makes for all the basics now on hand... so time for lots of cutting/shaping/welding. More later..........

 

[groys02]

Another couple days, some more work done. Cleaned up the remnants of flooring from the inner rocker panels today... then mocked up the location of the 2x3 frame rail at the rear of the camper-to-be... and clamped the wheel-plus-half-axle to the 2x3. Looks like it'll work out okay, with the wheel/tire about where it needs to be, and the mounting flange for the half-axle where it needs to be, when the frame rail is where I want it to be.

[hope that made sense] Big relief, for the sketched-out plans falling into place, so far.......

 

[groys02]

One side of frame pieces tacked together, and carefully flipped over....

 

[groys02]

Had to clear out the shop yesterday to repair the wife's car.
This morning got back to work on the teardrop... winched the frame forward, into position, from underneath the body shell.
Tight fit, but worked out reasonably well. A little tweaking with its position, and I can start welding the it in place.......

 

[groys02]

Semi-productive day, for a geezer.
Initial welding done, body-shell-to-frame... wheels & torsion half-axles installed... on her feet at last.
Time to finish up welding, on body splicing from earlier, and more thoroughly between car inner rockers and new frame.
If I can wait that long, then I'll return to fabricating the front panel with spare recess.

 

[groys02]

Tongue jack added... now fitting new front panel halves, and spare recess.

'Some beading here & there for stiffening purposes. Back of the spare recess will be added later, as I think I'll need all the access I can get for welding recess to side panels. Made myself a lot more work by forming 2 halves of a radius with bead roller, but I really didn't want just a right angle there... so it goes.

 

[Shadow Catcher]

Encountered the BedBug at CRA last year, it is however four down. Lots of neat ideas i.e. where the gas tank was is a water tank. AC where the engine was.

 

[groys02]

I've seen 2 articles about the BedBug... they had fun putting that together.
I drove old air-cooled beetles for quite a few years, so it has nostalgia appeal for me as well.

 

[groys02]

Some more work done in last few days:

I assembled the parts of front-facing spare tire well, and it's no problem getting the spare in & out of it with tongue jack in vertical position [a relief].
Sliced front door & removed 12" of same, like I did with body shell. Pop-riveted & tack-welded together to check fit.
Reassembled doors to check alignment... need to tweak front one a bit before welding seam, as there's little-to-no gap at top between it & rear door, but not too bad [another big relief].
Front half-door will be welded shut, with a simple smoked plexiglass window in place, maybe sliding up & down with screen on outside?... access via stock rear doors, from either side.
Assuming I put a 3" memory foam mattress on the floor, it looks to have approx 3'6" of height from top of mattress to underside of roof... 7'6" of interior length and a bit over 4' of width---3' or so width in foot well under galley.

 

[groys02]

Tweaked the passenger-side half-door for better fit... still just tacked together, though.

Today, welded in a 12" piece of an overhead garage door brace [salvaged after door got run into], with the carriage bolt from a 64-65 Mustang spare tie-down kit I bought online.
Installed spare. Formed Mustang washer from kit fits the center opening of the spare tire fine... wing-nut spins on... tire seems secure.
Unfortunately, the tongue weight's coming up. Batteries & galley construction etc, along with a rear bumper, will offset that a little, but it's probably a good 100# of tongue weight at present. We'll see. Not a problem if I'm hauling the teardrop around with my Ranger, but 100# on the rear end of the Anglia would mess with its balance some. [Stock weight of the Anglia was only 1670#, and I probably haven't raised it by much.] Time will tell.

 

[groys02]

Today, the first half of filling in between front of half-door and the new front panel. Cut a whole series of slits in the front edge of filler piece [made from skin of 12" section removed from front door], and curled it around a large socket to make the corner between it & front panel a little 'softer'. Had to create a new piece to fill between that and the top of cowl.
Tack-welded all down the front corner, and more thoroughly around new cowl filler.
Now, to do the other side.........

 

[groys02]

Today, got the driver's side filler panel welded in place. Went a lot quicker, after wrestling a lot with the other side.

And, a front shot, now that both sides of front panel are trimmed up:

 

[aggie79-HILO]

Nice work! I wish I had your skills. That is going to be a fantastic build!