1960 Studebaker Lark VI

[rohrt]

impressive metal work. Subscribing

[bread_and_water]

impressive metal work. Subscribing

Thank you!
I have a few updates. I wasn't happy with how I set the rear shackle at first basically it raised the rear too much and I would need a 3" block to lower it. I pulled the bumper and hole sawed through the ends of the frame rails to slide a poly bushing sleeve into. I ordered longer shackles than I knew I needed just in case so I still need to trim the ends.





I also decided to go with an OEM style dorman LS1 intake rather than the cast aluminum one to save about 20lbs.



I've also been working on some radiator mounts and came up with these. They'll have a rubber pad on the bottom to protect the radiator.









I'm trying to make a strong push on the sheetmetal work so the other night I worked on the firewall.







And one last thing I bought a staggered set of tires to help with fitting them more easily than the other set. I was planning on running 255s all around but when I got them and startedd looking at clearances I realized one the front was going to rub and two the rear still had a lot of fender to fill up. I ended up buying a pair of 235s for the front which are also about an inch shorter then the 255s and a pair of 275s for the rear that are about a half inch shorter.





The rear will be lower than this when it's done.

[OLDFLM]

GREAT progress! And I think that staggered look on those grey centered CL205s will be PERFECT! This car is gonna be AWESOME!!

[Centerforce]

The dimples on the rad mounts look sweet!

[bread_and_water]

Spent a little time last night laying out a section of the passenger floor skin.

[Larry R]

Wow, another Studebaker build and a very nice build at that! I say that because I am in the process of building a 1951 bullet nose into a Pro-Touring car. It has a stock Stude frame with a first gen Camaro front clip that has GW upper and lower control arms, a Guldstrand sway bar and disc brakes. The rear suspension uses stock Stude springs, Cal-Tracs and a Studebaker sway bar, really! I got it at a junk yard and it bolted right on. Engine is a gen 1 350 with a Weiand 177 blower and a Holley HP throttle body EFI on top. Trans is a TH400 switch-pitch torque converter backed up with a Gear Vendors overdrive. The rear end is a narrowed 70 Camaro 12 bolt with Moser axles and no C clips. It has a high effort, quick ratio Trans Am steering box with an Ididit steering column. I am getting close to having it on the road and can't wait.

Again, it is really nice to see a Studebaker Pro-Touring especially done as nice as yours.

[bread_and_water]

Thank you! That sounds like an awesome Stude you're building as well.

[bread_and_water]

Did a bunch of work on the floor over the weekend and hoping to continue the momentum over memorial weekend.
First I transferred the cardboard templates over to sheet metal and cut the pieces out.



Then I added some bead roll features to one section and liked how it came out.



Then ran the rest of the pieces.

[68EFIvert]

You are doing a great job on the build. I am really liking it!

[bread_and_water]

You are doing a great job on the build. I am really liking it!

Thanks! I addressed a clearance issue the other night with the oil pan. Originally I had hoped on running the GM performance muscle car swap pan but didn't realize the sump hung down so low so I picked up the Holley 302-2 pan which brings it up higher than the front crossmember. And while I was under there I went ahead and bolted up a high capacity trick flow pan for the 4l60e.



I also started working on placement of a transmission cooler and fan combo from Derale. There isn't enough room around the radiator for a cooler so I'm going to try and utilize the original air inlet for the heater core to direct cool air through the fluid cooler and into dual puller fans. I may try to recess the cooler and fans into the fender panal as well for a cleaner look.

[Larry R]

FWIW, the transmission cooler in my Stude is mounted under the passenger side floor outside of the frame rail. I blocked the rear of the cooler to force the incoming air via the scoop to go through the cooler. It does stick down a bit but is still higher than the exhaust pipes.

[bread_and_water]

I considered running tandem long but compact dual pass coolers mounted on a piece of angle along the frame but was concerned about adequate airflow to them.

[bread_and_water]

Finished up the transmission mount and tacked in the first floor panel.

[bread_and_water]

Dug in on Monday for about 10 hours and got most of the floor tacked in place. I had cut more of the driver's side toe boards and up into the firewall because with the larger front tires I was going to have to create more clearance but with the 235s it doesn't need it, but that's why there's an extra piece of metal on that side.

As I was creating the replacement pieces I also made sure to reuse the stock body to frame mounts and reattach the new sheetmetal to the original structure under the floor. That's what the four welds around the bolt holes are in the previous post.

[beater65]

Looks fantastic.

Nice work sir

[bread_and_water]

Looks fantastic.

Nice work sir

Thanks! Started working on the transmission tunnel and am pretty satisfied with the templates ​so far. I'm thinking about trying to make this out of one piece of sheet metal but we'll see how that goes.

[bread_and_water]

Started working on the tunnel today and got pretty far along. Took one swing at it and I think it came out alright for the first time making a more complex piece like this. I ended up having to make it in two pieces because when I laid out the templates the corners of the outer "wing" parts overlapped each other.

I'm hoping to have the rear section made and all of it tacked in place by the end of this weekend.

This was all done with an unmodified Eastwood manual bead roller.











This last photo was just for my own motivational purposes.

[Larry R]

Nice work.

[wfo guy]

You're doing good. Having good ideas to start with is very good. Most of us that love good metal work hate to cover it up in the end.

[bread_and_water]

You're doing good. Having good ideas to start with is very good. Most of us that love good metal work hate to cover it up in the end.

Thank you, yeah it's too bad it all gets covered up in the end.

I continued work on the firewall and driveshaft tunnel over the weekend and made good progress on both.











These were just to compare how bad the floor was when I started.