Mocking Up

Guess what!?

We've decided to take the bellytank project out for this weekend!

Seems a logistic nightmare but would be so cool if we "Can"

well... the mocking up has already started!

Saturday 21TH NOV "Trash Can" Tees launch!

As insiders may know... it was a major birth & may took a while... but finaly here they are!!!

Saturday 21th & 22th of Nov... Rocking Jalopy's Motorama Autotron Rosmalen, Trashers will launch the sale of NL's first droptank racer t-shirts!
Come and get your vintage looking T at our stand!

Trash Can VFF Tees... Looking good for a good cause!

Getting ready for Rockin Jalopy's Motorama

Yes! counting off days to upcoming weekend!
Rockin Jalopy's Motorama indoor Hot Rod & Kustom show at Autotron Rosmalen.
Promissing to be a blast!

Quickchange

To get the gearing we want in a early Ford rear axle, we had to get a Quickchange centre section. For those unfamiliar with this: it replaces the centre section of a early Ford rear axle. It has a horizontal shaft, going from the front (power in) to the rear, through a set of gears, which are available in all kinds of ratios, and back in the differential.

We managed to get one on ebay for a reasonable price. Turns out that seller Jim lives 110 miles from Bonneville, and he is a regular visitor ! Besides that he owns a KILLER 34 coupe, one of the very, very best I've seen. Nice guy !

Rear end challenges are solved !

We finally found a suitable early ford banjo. Turns out our Dutch Australian mate Henry Norberhuis had several axles to choose from ! We picked up the latest he had, together with a set of juice brakes. Only downside was that all axles Henry had in stock missed their pinion shafts, so we have to purchase a new set of crown and pinion. And we are all very poor...

Here's another look at that rear end. We're contemplating a early Ford banjo, but considering the desired end ratio, we'd need a quickchange, and they're mucho dinero !

Rear end challenges

Almost immediately we ran into a problem. We chose our 9" Ford rear axle for parts availability. Only to find out that the yoke where normally the propshaft is attached to, is out of the axle's centreline.

Because of space limitations, the gearbox is attached directly to the rear end, not using a propshaft. This is not gonna work...

What have we been up to ?!?

Yep, it's been a while since our last topic, now that we're all up&runnin' after all our holidays, here's what we've been up to !

First of all we set up a chassis-table in our workshop. On this we are able to set up every major component up in any angle or position we'd like.

We cleaned our 9" Ford rear end, and put it up on the table.

Donated: a 9" diff !

And thanks to Mark Spooner from the UK (aka 296moon) we are also the greasy owners of a diff for that 9" Ford rear axle ! It's origins are not the sexiest, chekc out the little trucky-thingy under which it came out of !

Seems to be in good nick, and it has 2.78 gears, so suitable for our high speed aspirations !

Thanx Mark !

Rear end donated !

Thanks to Jerome Volkering we now have a 9" Ford rear axle case; ugly but a goodie !

Greasy stuff !

Last week we opened the bottom end of our engine, and we were happy to find that oil was everywhere, and so far so good: no cracks found !

Final disassembly will be done asap, so we can drop the bare block and crank in the diptank for a couple of days to start with a squeaky clean base. The engine will be gone thru completely, so block and crank are probably the only parts we'll use, and then heavily modified: billet steel main caps, perhaps a sturdy girdle, so we can rev her up to 4800-5000 rpm.

Bellytank set up at speedfest 2008

ran in to this pic of the bellytank set up at last year's Speedfest 2008
Can you imagine...
It's already happening!

Cheers Skip'

New motor ! well, 1932 new that is...

We picked the motor yesterday, heavy as hell ! But strong lads as we are, we pulled it out with our bare hands, dropped it on a skateboard, and wheeled it into our shop !

Here she is, in all her Greasy Glory !

Scary face, and he isn't driving yet !

Our designated driver Sascha holds the new steeringwheel, and is already scared sh1tless by just the thought of driving our tank on the Salt !

Donor heart found !

A deal has been done, (thank you Arie !) and we're happy to announce that we found an engine at last ! It is a Ford model B engine, possibly a bit later then 1932, in good nick, and complete enough for us.
No pics yet, as we have to pick it up next week, but this plan is starting to come together now !

Imagine this: this engine has done it's duty calmly for probably many years, now resting for an unknown number of years, only to be woken up by a bunch of racers, prepping it to do 5000rpm's on The Holy Salt of Bonneville, heeeeeehaaaaa !!

Come back here next week for piccas !

We need directions !

And this new addition to our parts bin will give us directions just fine 'n' dandy ! brand spanking new, but still oldskool, is this butterfly steeringwheel, on it's way from the US as we speak. It even comes with an instrument panel, to mount that ancient Sun tach in !

In the shop we put it on temporarily stands, just waiting for the chassis-table of Hanzel, on which we are able to set everything up and weld the chassis together.

Movin' the tank to the garage

Last week we decided to move the tank to Rod City Garage, and make this cool place our dedicated clubhouse and workshop. We all have our own lockups, but being alltogether in one shop has its benefits !

The tank at 4,25 mtr (that's some 14 ft for our non-metric followers) kinda fits in a Opel Omega Wagon...NOT !

"When going abroad, you need rubbers young man !"

Thanks to Edwin we managed to obtain some rubber, Good year frontrunners 28x4.5x15 to be precise.

So up front we are almost good to go, up next are rear tires in huge diameter please !

What do we need ? Parts, parts, parts and then some !

Building a racecar from the ground up requires lots of skills, patience, money and parts. We've got the skills, we more or less have the patience, and money is slowly coming in (we could do with some more, winkwink, nudgenudge).

What we need on parts is a long list ! Well, at least we have the tank itself !

If you can help us out with these parts, please contact us thru this blog !

9"Ford third member, 1:2.80 gear ratio or somewhat in that region.
clutch housing for a M40 gearbox of a Volvo Amazon
cool airplane style steering wheel
race style battery
power shut off switch
inertia fuel stop
gauges
seatbelts suitable for racing, six point harnass
fire extinguishing system or parts for it
15" steel rims, 4-5 inches wide, 5x4.5" wheel stud pattern
18"steel rims, 4-5 inches wide, 5x4.5" wheel stud pattern
18" tires, 4-5 inches wide, tallest available.

We will add parts in the near future for sure !

Sponsors, donations, all for the Salty Cause !

Good friend Perry very kindly donated a complete and even chromed and drilled Model A frontend for our bellytank. Kool !!

visit his kool stuff at: http://www.rodshop.nl/ !

We took off the discs and Wilwood calipers, we won't be using no frontbrakes !

SCTA Rule Book 2009: so that's how we should do this !

Met up with Tilly at SINS 2009, and boy did he had a super contribution to our Salty aspirations: the 2009 SCTA rule book ! Very hot of the presses, just out in the US, and it is already in our greasy hands !

This book tells us all about classifications, safety measures, general rules and technical queries about building one hot SaltShaker !

Tilly is Da Man ! Thanks !

We've got some questions about this blog, some people still don't seem to know what a bellytank and saltlake racing is all about...


Thats why we decided to ad some old time pics of bellytanks on salt ;-)










Here's also a link to get your warmed up & Informed... and to see what we're up to in the future!
http://www.saltflats.com/

Info about the tank:

Where does one find one of these bellytanks in the Netherlands?
Well, we actually found one in the free ads paper !

After dragging the 4,5 meters long 'drop' home it seemed in pretty good shape!

In the early days these 'bellytanks' were used for their perfect low drag and being leightweight you couldn't wish for anything better !

It was bolted underneath an F4 fighter plane in 1972 and dropped above sea somewhere when it was empty of gas

We cut it in half to see witch member would fit, Erwin didn't!

How it all started

We all have our own different ideas on how our perfect car would look like. Club-member Erwin for instance has had a weak spot for land-speed-racers since he first drove his home-build soap-box down a hill just 6 years old ! Now some 30+ years later Erwin wants to make his dream come true and convinced the rest of us to help alongon this crazy ride.