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Under a shady tree Down Under

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retroboy:
Howdy
Many many years ago I ran a little 160" C/D here in South Australia. It was a small block Ford with a 904 Clutchflight. It's fair to say I was one of the many who make up the numbers but didn't get that far - not for lack of enthusiasm.
Here's the old car -




Life family house jobs all got in the way so I sat it out for somewhere over 25 years until I started going to some 1/8 mile races to help a guy who was just starting out. Last year I stumbled across an old 185" wheelbase FED and with my wife's encouragement decided it's time for a second go.
Here I am helping Kymbo out. If you know 5% more than the other guy that makes you a Guru !


We dragged the remains I'd purchased home and found the the  back of the chassis while it looked a but rough and tatty was of legal size tubing but front was under dimensional and bent like a banana and it had a broken and welded front axle. The roll cage looked like it would have fitted some one from Wrestle Mania. Undeterred we just cut the front of the chassis and the roll cage off. So what I kept was the back 5', a 9" with aftermarket axles, a full spool will 4.30 gears and a pair of Convo Pro's with some worn out slicks.


Around we went to a mates who has a tig and a lathe. Two week-ends later and I managed to find a second hand set of front wheels with new tyres hanging in a guys shed and we rolled out into the sunshine with a new front half and a smaller but still giant cage.
At the end of that dream sequence :-






To be Continued ...

GlennLever:
Great

retroboy:
Going well so far – about a month after my wife said “why don’t you build another Dragster I’ve got a rolling car.  I’ve had Fords all my life but I have an open mind about engine choice because  to be honest I’m looking for Quick Cheap and Easy. Turns out I failed in that QCE quest. I knew where my old 904 Clutch-flight was so I managed to grab that and one thing lead to another and over the next few months I had two rebuilder 360 Chryslers in the shed, a Vertex, Racer Brown camshaft, two short 904 transmissions, and a whole bunch of sundries like old cable drive tacho’s, a couple of pairs of five hole mag wheels,  fuel tank etc.




Because I was now committed to Chrysler I needed some sort of induction and I’d been looking for one of two set’s of stack injection hand made by a local racer Jeff During  in the early 1970’s for his twin Mopar powered front engine car “Gemini”. 40 years since he sold them I did manage to trace one set down to about ten years ago but then the trail went stone cold so I purchased a new old stock single venturi set up not unlike a Rons except they were locally made about 25 years ago.

South Australian Jeff Durings Gemini twin engine small block Chrysler powered car from the early 1970's. Can you see why I was looking for his hand crafted fuel injection set up?

rooman:
Is that a Magnum wheel that I can see in the photo montage?

Roo

retroboy:
Yes indeed a pair of 15x10 Magnums a personal favorite and the offset is pretty well neutral so they worked out perfectly. They're getting a bit harder to find now days. A bit of a story while I'm in the mood. Sampson Engineering had a foundry where the wheels were cast at Henley Beach about a mile from home. When I was about 15 I was mighty impressed with Magnum mags I think it might have been partially due to the girls in Bikinis posing with  seductive looks in their advertising and I wasn't overly impressed with high school so I figured I'll quit and go and work in the foundry. Pure Genius.  Wiser heads prevailed as thankfully my Mum and Dad weren't going to have a bar of that idea. 

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