school project/streetrod

[t-deth]

ok i took burninbriar's advice and made a thread specifically for streetrod creation advice. basically ive decided upon a car for my streetrod instead of a truck. im not sure what we are going to do with the body but im pretty sure my teacher wants to have us build our own (yea it will take a lot of time) fortunately we have all the necessary eqiup. in our classroom. i was thinking of trying to find an old comet or fairlane or something to that effect at the auto wrecking yard. i have a motor and drivetrain to put in it, i was just wondering how diffucult it would be to build my own body/frame? or if i should just repair the current body/frame and maybe make a few mod. to turn it into a streetrod?

[burninbriar]

Is each student going to build their own rod or are you all working collectively on one ? Also post as many pictures as you can to let us see what you are working with, and also clue us in on comments from youre teacher.
I know there is people on this board who are much better car builders than me so hopefully they will get in on this soon. My concept of street rod is to modify an existing design, but the term street rod is very broad and I dont think it really has limits. Try to find out from youre teacher how far you can take the project, budget, time, and any other limiting factors.

[Camaro Zach]

Well like i said over AIM i'd start with atleast a body/frame to restore and or modify to your liking. There is ALOT of time involved in building a body from scratch even if it is all squared off. Not to mention the geometry involved in building a proper suspension (building chassis from scratch) I think you guys will have plenty to do by modifying a car and end up with something good in the end.

[jniolon]

and you're gonna do this in what amount of time ? 6 weeks ? a semester ?

frames are a little more complicated than just two rails and some cross members..how they are built depends on their use, type of suspension that they support, stresses they will be subjected to due to torque.. you can pretty much cobble a trailer together with some elementary math work..but auto frame work design is a different color of horse.

Zack said it right... the rails are a breeze compared to the suspension geometry. I've been working (albeit slowly) for over 10 years on a '53 f-100 with existing frame but added IFS and new rear susp. you might consider your salvage yard for an IFS and rear suspension and build inbetween to fit. Besides, you're gonna have to know what the body dimensions are before you even start on the frame aren't you ???

This is a very ambitious project (IMHO) for a group of inexperienced rod builders/metal shop students. Your shop teacher believes in the word 'stretch' . But, it should be interesting to watch !!!

[aametalmaster]

The guys at my old HS are building a Jeep rockcrawler. Yes a lot of it was donated by locals and big name companys. The project will be sold at school years end...Bob

[burninbriar]

Hopefully we will get some update from T-deth's class today. My guess is that the teacher probably wants to take a vehicle and do basic repair and some modification. I seriously dought each student is going to be building a $100'000 show quality streetrod , but you never know. I think it will be a fun project to follow regardless.