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TQ midget rebody
During the summer of 2010 I was asked by a friend to build a new complete body for a three quarter midget he was restoring. The TQ was from the 1950s and had been repaired modified and crashed throughout its racing life. The owner, Jan Gilmer, has been racing TQ midgets for most of his life. He is a master builder of Crosley engines; wringing lots of power out of their 45 cubic inches.
He had a fiberglas tail section that he liked, so I built a buck of that shape and designed the rest of the body based on other photos Gilmer had collected. the body is constructed of 3003 H14 Aluminum except for the belly pans which are 5052 aluminum. All forming was done with mallets and slappers using a sandbag, stump and various dollies. Wheeling completed the forming in most cases. Upon completion of forming the entire body was planished by hand with steel slappers and dollies to gain strength through strain hardening. The finish is thus not shiny though it is fair within about 3 to 7 thousandths of an inch. No filler will be required prior to paint. The project consumed 500 plus hours of my time over a three month period. The tail section is two pieces, a right and a left side. They join the side panels at about where the drivers elbow would be. The hood is three pieces. The reverse at the windscreen is weld just forward of the point wher it meets the straight part of the hood. At the nose, the chin, or lower one third of the area below the grill is a piece welded in at both sides. I used a shrink die (thumbnail type) in my Eckold copy to pull in the metal around the grill. All in all this was a enjoyable project. It taught me first how much I did not know; and finally the value of patience. We metalshapers have often discussed how to charge. I am glad I was working for a friend, he paid me an additional $500 over my friendly lowball quote. I feel I could now, based on this experience, do another in about 250 hours. At $50 per hour that would be $12,500; which is probably in the range for a serious restorer of an historic racecar. Because this car has history, a proper alloy body and is being restored by Gilmer, a respected man in the TQ world and noted Crosley engine builder, this car may bring $30k to $45K at a sale.
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Richard K |
#2
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Nice job, it all looks great.
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Ross If at first you don't succeed....skydiving is not for you. |
#3
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Great job
Hi Richard
WOW you really did a great job on the alum. body. Thanks for sharing it with the group.
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Steve Hamilton Hamilton Classics Auto Restoration & Metalshaping |
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Beautiful work, thanks for posting it...
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Greg |
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Richard,
That is really nice. Well Done!
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Steve ærugo nunquam dormit |
#6
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Super job, thanks for showing us the pictures.
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Will |
#7
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That's beautiful work Richard. Thanks for showing it. What method did you use to weld to weld the panels together? I'd love to hear that little Crosley all wound out.
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Richard, very nice job on the body, thanks for posting your work.
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Joe Hartson There is more than one way to go to town and they are all correct. |
#9
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NICE work Richard. Do you have any in process photos of the sheet metal?
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Kerry Pinkerton |
#10
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Yes, but I'm lacking a smile in many of them.
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Richard K |
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