Big news is that tomorrow, our new waterjet arrives. They sent photos of it today being loaded in Chicago. Should be here tomorrow morning. I'm expecting a day of heavy lifting and toting. Machinery moving is always a tense time. Lots of places for things to go wrong...
But lack of actual work has been replaced with some mental effort. I'm currently in a sort of Catch 22. I can't button up the rear quarter upholstery until I get the window regs back in. And I can't put the window regs in until I decide on what's going on the exterior quarter panel. My car comes with the standard quarter trim with the thin chrome insert. Like many of the chrome items on these cars, they are beginning to look dated. What I saw in the 50's cars as a kid, I'm beginning to see in the 60's cars as an adult. The overall design remains fresh, but the small details begin to age design-wise. I had considered just welding up the trim holes and going with a cleaner look but that's an awful lot of sheet metal expanse w/o any detail - which is why the quarter trim was put there in the first place. BTW, this is the sort of thing Chip Foose is so good at. He has a great eye for detail. He occasionally chops cars up more than I prefer, but his eye for small detail is excellent.
Which leads me to the title of this post - brake scoops. I've always liked the Shelby brake scoops and put a pair on my 67 fstbk. For SusieQ, I'm leaning towards the faux 68 California Special scoops. After trying to win an original pair off Ebay for less than a gazillion dollars I ordered a pair of knock-offs. Which was basically a waste of $60. The ones I ended up with are good for nothing more than skeet practice - 'PULL' - 'BOOM'. No mounting studs on the back and not even close to matching the 1/4 profile. Lesson learned.
I'm thinking then either Tony Branda or Maier Racing if I decide to go with the stock scoops. They both have two studs for good securing. Alternatively there are the Eleanor scoops but for my tastes they are just a tad large - esp for a convertible. Ring Bros have some cool scoops - but again - too over the top for a convertible. What I really want just isn't available. Which means I either make a pair of one-offs from scratch - or I just go with the original style but from a decent vendor. If I make a pair, I'm going to make them out of sheet steel but still leave them as bolt-on. I like the seam detail of a bolt-on rather than filling them in. My only hesitation is the sheet metal forming. Going to need a little profile to the outer surface and I've no experience with hammer/leather shot work. But what can wrong? If I hate them - toss'em and go with stock.
All suggestions / opinions welcomed. Maybe you guys have seen some other alternatives for this area that you like. I'm all ears!!!! Thanks!
rj
Personally, I prefer scoops that are blended in without seams. It would be fun to fabricate custom scoops with steel but that would take some skills and if I were to go to that kind of trouble I'd find a way to make them functional. :-)
ReplyDeleteAlex, I was thinking a bass speaker grill and some LED's - then some 21 inch wheels, slam that sucker. You know - pimp my Mustang :) :)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, since I already have the interior tore apart - making them functional only seems natural doesn't it? It's a big step though as you can imagine the effort needed to make both sides identical. I'm wondering if I might find some scoop on another brand of car that could be incorporated into a frame. The frame probably wouldn't be too hard to fab. It's the 3D profile on the scoop itself that will be hard to duplicate left and right.
rj
Boy, that's a tough decision RJ. It's all up to personal taste on which scoops to use. Fabricating scoops from metal is possible, but a ton of work. Another option is to make your fiberglass molds. That's also time consuming, but when you're done, you have molds you could use to make more. And like Alex said, if you're going to all that trouble, I'd make them functional too.
ReplyDeleteYes Dennis, fiberglass would be a much easier medium to work with - which is probably why they went with fiberglass in the first place. Well I have a few more weeks to ponder as the waterjet arrived today and I'll have my hands full connecting power, water and air to this monster.
ReplyDeleteOn that note, I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and can find a little time to squeeze in on the girls over the Holidays. The cars....I'm talking about the cars of course :)
Good luck on the waterjet! Do you happen to also have a CNC Mill? Billet aluminum scoops maybe? Have a great weekend!
ReplyDeleteWaterjet huh? Hmmmmmmmm.......
ReplyDelete