The Mad Hatter 1950 mud racer

[GBM]

The whole argument about the satin color for the paint isnt really about the color. It is really about me not wanting to get this truck perfectly straight for a "good" paint job. If I go glossy, I will feel the need to make it completely straight and flawless. It is a personal demon of mine and it just bugs me. If it is satin I dont worry as much. Her last one was slick and I got the body nearly perfect for only building it in 3 weeks.

we started with this


and 3 weeks later this was the result

then a week after that



that was actually her very first time she placed in a race. this was a bog pit and no one got through it. she made it the furthest because the truck was able to hit second before the deepest part and she stood on the rev limiter till I yelled over the intercom to let off. the pic with the mud in the air, you can barely see the truck and the mud was about 4-5 feet deep.

[mr48chev]

I've never quite understood that concept as to me the dings show up just as much in primer or satin or don't show the dents used car lot white.

But the satin look is in and her chosen dark satin green will look pretty good on the truck and look fantastic when the mud's flying and she is grabbing second. I wonder if they can mix Forrester green in a satin?

[GBM]

i have been trying to find some forrest green satin. There is a local orschelns and I was told that they might have some satin green tractor paint. if all else fails I will just get some forrest green paint and satin clear.

[GBM]

Worked some more on the truck last night. plumbed the front brakes and had to do a little grinding on the calipers to clear the wheels. we have a few different sets of tires and wheel combos we run. We had to make sure all will clear. My daughter was telling her boyfriend that he wasnt working fast enough and he needed to speed up. She will be a good manager....lol


At my house, mud racing is a family affair. My oldest boy (12) is excellent with numbers and very creative. he helped build and design the front cage section that the front clip mounts to. I am teaching him how to operate the plasma table and the difference in bolt grades and how things go together. he designed and built the whole front of the cage with my help. he cut the brackets and bent the tubing himself.

[xpickup]

GBM, great job on the trucks. It is always great to see the kids helping out and being involved. My almost 6 year old loves coming out and help me when I am not cutting or welding.

Shannon

[GBM]

My son enjoyed bending tube. we stopped on the truck and I started teaching him angles and sound deflection and so forth. He is a sponge and wants to learn old school pinstriping. I will be ordering him supplies this week and buying an old fridge or two for him to practice on. then he can stripe my motorcycles and other hot rods I work on.

We decided to work on the exhaust on my bike. this is what we came up with and it sounds really great.



i have to teach him welding now. pretty soon he will be fabbing things up on his own. I am thinking about giving him my old 63 willys truck that I shortened a 3/4 chevy 4x4 frame for.

[wayne4252004]

Awesome ride. Keep us updated and plenty of picks. What gears are you running? I'd like to put a big block in mine as well. Were the inner fenders most of the problem?
Thanks,
Wayne

[GBM]

We run 4.10s in the rear with 3.73s in the front. This allows the front tires to spin faster and help my daughter steer. it also keeps the rear end from trying to come around to the front. since we run in the mud, the little difference doesnt hurt anything and it really helps keep the truck straight.

As far as the inner fender wells, that is a monster in its own. I have put big blocks in camaro sub'd AD trucks before with no problems. On all of those, I recessed the firewall to give me more room. For the classes we run, we cannot modify the firewall at all. This is ok because we just set the cab back a few inches and that will help with weight transfer. What that did though, made it impossible to use the stock inner fenders. The part on the front where the inner fenders bulge to meet the radiator support was only 1" on each side from the exhaust port. I tried to cut it down to fit, but all I ended up doing was ruining a decent inner fender.

I only have about 3/4 inch of clearance between my fan and my front pulley on my water pump. I wound up mounting an aluminum radiator designed to fit a toyota fj40 landcruiser with a chevy V8 into this truck. I just made tabs and mounted it to the front engine cage. This way the fenders just unbolt and the truck can be raced even after the sheetmetal gets damaged. I have bought a couple more trcks for parts just in case the truck gets away from my daughter and decides to show everyone it's belly.




Note that the drivers side sits lower than the passenger, that is due to the fenders just hanging on loosely. there is about 1" clearance aroundthe radiator when the hood is shut.

[GBM]

A good rule of thumb is always mesure 3-5 times and dril and weld once. It seems that when drilling out the rear cab mounts, the cab slid to the driverside about 1". I was rilling from the bottom up. This being a 1950, it as the spring shackle style cab mounts. I replaced those with a newer design (pancake poly bushings). I really oticed this only after lining up the front end. This makes the center of the grill about 1.5" to the passengerside of the center of the bumper.

This is really bugging me, bt fixing it would require me to break loose all the tacks onthe roll cage, re drill the floor, make a sheet metal washer to build u strength around the new holes, break loose all the tacks on the front engine cage, and a few more lttle items. I think that since ths is a mud racer, I might just suck up the 1" offset. I dont think itwill be lon and se will have this truck into the wall or on it's side so maybe I shouldnt worry too much.

Since the truck has a tilt bed (for cleaning and repairs) I decided to make a hine gusset. I found a sheet of 12 ga diamond plate and decided to use that. I am running out of funds, time, and steel.



Then I turned my attention back into the cab. I decided to rob the old shifter out of last years race truck. It isnt the best one, but it is a hurst and I can change the gates for the new reverse pattern valve body. It also has the built in button for the transbrake and my daughter used that shifter all last year. Her muscle memory should transition easily into this truck. Last year's truck, the shifter wasnt set close enough to the driver and you had to reach over a little bit to shift. In some of the videos, I could see her leaning a little bit to shift. I eiminated that in this new truck. The shifter is right next to the driver and you dont have to move more than 6-7 inches to go from the shifter to the steering wheel.

Again, used the 12 ga dimond plate for this ad cut everything out on my cnc plasma table. The steel is a bit rusty, but she isyoung and can use a wire wheel o it and clean it up before painting.

[GBM]

I have been doing a ton of work to this little truck, but most snt picture worthy.

Made fuel tank straps, mounted the fuel pump, filter, regulator and ran the 1/2 id hose. Been doing a ton of welding on the cage, made traction link mounts and set the anti aquat to about 40%. This should help in weight transfer and still keep the rear pinion from moving.

Did a final trim on the fenders. Now I am using some .25" solid round stock to trim the fenders with. I am bending them and forming them to the fender edge and fully welding them in. This will keep the fenders from tearing up my tires if and when they may contact.



Then we decided itwas time to start removing the old paint. My son wants to learn to do custom hnd pinstriping and paint. Igave him the DA sander,aroll of 80 grit and some instructions. He is doing a fine job.



There is still abuh too and the firs race for points is the 6th of april. I figure if I kep working till 2a each night I should get it finished and lethe have a day to get used to the transbrake andhow hard this will launch. We will see, mother nature isnt cooperating with us and it i har t keep the shop hot enuogh to lay paint. I might have to call in a favor and use a friends paint booth

[GBM]

I finally got the title in for this truck. Come to find out that I am the second owner. Dang I cut up a 1 oner truck. It was purchased locally and spent it entire life as a hardware store truck.

The fellow that brought me the title told me the story of this truck. Based on this story, I would have restored this truck if Ihad known prior. Th truck has never beenmre than 40 miles from my area ad was very well kept. The fellow that brought me the title thought the truck looked good especially since it was his family's truck. They didnt know that I bought it and dragged it out of some woods. He was tickled to learn that m 17 y/o daughter will beracing the truck and how much she likes it.

[GBM]

some updates with pictures.

we didnt make the first race of the year. we will make the one at the end of the month and the truck will be comeplete and fully painted.

mounted the tranny cooler in the bed and gave it an electric fan. running a transbrake, heat builds quickly and needs to be cooled or we burn up the trans.




everything is painted except for the cab. I dropped them off at a friends shop and they applied the color. we decided to use summit racing urethane, jade moss metallic and it came out excellent.

we didnt take out any dents and that floored the painter. I informed him that it took 63 years for this truck to get this much character and I am not about to take that away from this truck.

[GBM]

Motor came back from the maching shop and we put it in. then came the task of building the fenderwell headers.

[GBM]

I also changed up the dash. I angled the gauges more towards the driver and installed larger faced gauges. I installed the switches and fuses and wired the entire truck. I moved the master kill switch to its own little panel for ease in shut off. The tach was moved to an easy to see location and the shift light was relocated to the drivers roll cage where it shines right at you and you dont have to look away from the mud pit.



I also made a traction link. this will keep the pinion from moving all over and allow the suspension to travel. I set it at 45% antisquat. this will allow the rear to still squat and have the weight transfer I am looking to get. simple and light weight, yet strong enough to handle all the horsepower.

[SCHRUMGMC]

Awesome Truck man

[OrrieG]

I am following this, fun build. I noticed that the steering shaft does not have a support at the universal next to the headers, but assumed you wanted to get the headers sorted out first? I think its great that your daughter is a gear head, one of mine is, the other knows enough to not get cheated by mechanics.

[SCHRUMGMC]

Where will you be mud sliding ?

[wayne4252004]

The truck is looking mean! Awesome.

[GBM]

We race all over missouri, eastern kansas,and northern arkansas.

I got the ignition squared away and the motor came to life.


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the cab will get painted tomorrow and hopefully the vinyl letters and graphics hopefully will be done by friday. Still have to tune it and launch it a few times to set the suspension.

[GBM]

got the truck finished and ready to race. we missed 2 races, but are ready for some big money races!!

[mr48chev]

She sounds pretty happy and that truck sounds pretty healthy. Now we need a photo of her with the truck and a first place trophy.

[starterman99]

WAY COOL....I like that color and the character.looks good and sounds great.hope your daughter does great and wins lots of races.

[GBM]

It has been a while since i updated. We have had a few rain outs. Finally saturday we raced. My daughter ditched her senior prom in order to race.





She raced in 3 classes. Women's Open, Men's super stock, and mens street stock

She placed 1st in the womens, 2nd in the 2 other classes. She was beat by a 850 hp s10. He only beat her by a second or less.

This is my daughter and the only person to beat her. She handed him his trophies and congradulated him. Everyone was very impressed with her racing and sportmanship.

[GBM]

A couple videos. if you see the red light illuminated in the upper right of the windshield, means she is running over 6800 rpm on our big block!!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...60364442536557
The s10 that beat her
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...43766006920540
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...79636301396667

[GBM]

Oh and I forgot to mention, she DID race her women's class in her prom dress!!!