Disassembly: The Easy Part of The Story

At this point, with the car in Houston, I decided that the only way to do the project would be to take this car apart. Not only is there no way to do an adequate job on something like this with it all together, but the body was easily removable being held on with only two bolts. Further, since it was never completed there really wasn't that much to remove.

I first removed simple things that I knew would not go back on the car, such as the wiring which wasn't entirely complete, was naturally old and bad looking, and certainly nothing special. From there I carefully removed the steering column, gas tank, window mechanisms, seats shells, and anything else that would be in the way from removing the body from the chassis. Then some friends helped me lift the body off (I estimate that it weighs around 300 lbs with the remaining glass in it). What was left looked remarkably like a sprint car chassis though somewhat rusty.

The most important part of this is the issue of marking, labeling, tagging, bagging and generally making lots of notes and plenty of pictures. Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to remember where pieces are, where they go, and how they go. And I don't claim to have a photographic memory.

That said, I carefully took off the steering links as well as the suspension. The torsion bars came away easily, on both front and back, and that left the axles both front and rear. The rear axle in this car is a particular quickchange which was made prior to 1950 when the Halibrand company moved from Carson City to Torrance and changed their markings on their products. It is known in the trade as a Champ model, as compared to a V8 model, mostly because the housing is largely a casting from a Ford Model A differential as compared to the later Ford differentials. The important part of quickchange differentials is that they include a housing for a spur gear arrangement on the back. This arrangement allows for an easily changeable final drive ratio (easy as removing the cover plate, replacing the gears inside and putting the cover back on). Sprint cars to this day still use these to optimize gearing for differences in racetrack lengths, though the Halibrand company has changed hands since Ted Halibrand founded it and there are several other makers of these.

The other difference about this rear axle is the axle tube ends. The axle shafts inside the tubes "float" without bearings at the wheel end of the tubes. The downside of this in racing is, should the axle shaft break, the whole axle and wheel assembly could leave the tube, ruining your day. To this end, stop measures were employed and in this case, Jud used an alloy 'dish" which bolts fast to the hub, but has a massive 4.5" bearing made up of 10 ball bearings. I'd never seen anything like this previously, but in doing research with some of the vintage race car community, I heard about similar stops. All of this came apart fairly easily including pulling the wheel hubs off of the keyed axles (one of the axles did not have a key in the keyway to hold the hub on). My quickchange has no spur gears in it, but when I took off the plate, it looked like it had never been used at all. No oil or grease residue whatsoever, and positively pristine.

I need to talk also about the wheel hubs. Three wheels on the car are from what I believe was the front wheels of a mid '30s sprint or AAA car. They are the rudge splined style (as compared to the Dayton style), and have knock offs straight from a race car of that period (more on wheels in another post). The fourth wheel is from a Jaguar XK120, but they are all the same diameter and same spline hub (52mm I believe). The rear hubs are a combination of what I believe are Jaguar centers welded to an outer disc which is bolted to the disc brake rotors (more about brakes later). All of the lug holes are still present, and while the weld is nicely ground down, the mismatch of holes from the two pieces is a little disconcerting. He was worried about the axle coming out of the tube, but not about these hubs disintegrating. The front axle is a solid one, though I believe it came from an aftermarket manufacturer for speed equipment (transverse spring perches have been ground off). The spindles appear to be Ford, and the hubs while similar to the rear, are not welded together but simply bolted together with the disc rotor.

Brakes. When I bought the car I was told it had Halibrand brakes. I of course never knew Halibrand made brakes. Differentials, yes, wheels, of course, but brakes? And I still believe this, though there are no calipers, only three rotors and only one half of one caliper holder. It would make sense though, since oval track cars in '53 used early disc brakes, and Jaguar equipped Sterling Moss' C-type Jag to win LeMans that year with Dunlop discs. So, Jud would probably have wanted this on his ultimate sportscar, and he had the opportunity to do it. There is debate on the effectiveness of early disc brakes since the mechanism could get sticky from dirt and brake lining dust. They were in large part the result of WWII use on aircraft, and in fact the Jag brakes were simply redesigned from the Dunlop airplane units. I suspect would have known their shortcomings, and that makes me think he knew they could be made to work. One thing included in Jud's set up on this was a brake booster (that I believe was later used on the early T-Birds), but oddly was mounted near the back axle. Hoses were on it, as were firm and soft lines for the rest of the braking system including brass junctions.

With all of this removed, I was looking at a bare frame, something that Jud must have welded up some night a long time ago...

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