GTOPat's 24 Hours of LeMons Bluesmobile Build

[gtopat]

   Part 1. An Introduction

     I really should start off with a thank you, because without this board, I'd still be ripping my hair out trying to find my Bluesmobile. I'm sure I exasperated most of you through my incessant emails/PM's/general pestering as I chased down every conceivable lead trying to find a 74 Monaco to turn into a race car. I usually take pride in being able to find any car/part anytime/where. (Road racing early 80s Renault Fuego Turbos quickly hones automotive detective skills). What I thought would be an easy process, (how hard/expensive can it be to find a generally undesirable mid-70 Chrysler full-sizer?) turned into a months-long ordeal that finally resulted in my garage being clogged with an enormous Plymouth.

    For those that don't know, I build cars to race in 24 Hours of Lemons. A knockoff of that "other" race in France, Lemons races are endurance races, between 14.5-24 hours, held throughout the year at road-courses around the country. As entry-level road racing, the cars are ostensibly built for $500, excluding safety equipment. Banger racing it is not as contact and overly aggressive driving is sternly penalized, but given the cost constraints, vehicle quality is often questionable and mechanical failures are common. The overall winner of the race, along with class-winners, earn a trophy and prize money, but the grand prize at each event, known as the "Index of Effluency" is awarded to those that bring the coolest/oddest/most-hopeless car and finishes the best. Think of it as a most-with-the-least sort of thing. After we won the "IOE" trophy with our Fuego Turbo and its miserable 1.6L engine, I decided I needed more Chrysler big-blocks in my life, and what's more hopeless on an a racetrack than a mid-70s Detroit land-yacht?



    I found my Gran Fury on Craigslist, where it was being advertised as a demo derby car. As I was painfully close to buying Richard's green 74 Monaco, I did some wheeler-dealing and was able to score the Fury at a much more "lemony" price. It didn't have the 360/727, which I didn't really want anyway, and I let the seller pull the front bumper off to bolt to another derby car. Via the we-crash forum, I reached out to the seller of this topless 74 and negotiated to pull the front clip off of it. It was in the same neck-of-the-woods as the Fury so I figured I'd scoop them all up at once.



    

[AZBlues]

Very cool. As you may know, the body lines between Fury and Monaco don't line up, but that's nothing that some creative bodywork or fender combining can't resolve. The hoods are the same, though.

[cynot]

Very cool! Can't wait to see your progress! A friend of mine ran the Lemons race a while back, he said it was a blast.

[gtopat]

Part 2. Road Trip to the Middle West

    I packed up my buddy's truck and hit the interstate for flyover country. As our drive would take me through Ohio, I thought I'd stop in at the junkyard spanks79 found a couple years back. Wandering through fields of old metal hunting for treasures is a personal hobby and some Google detective work netted me an address. I crossed my fingers hoping a junkyard-score could save me a day and several hundred miles on the road, but kept the topless SD car as a backup plan.



I'm a Ford guy at heart so the state of this 66 Fairlane was hard to swallow. Like most of the stuff in the yard, it was far beyond saving.



This late 70's Ranchero Squire was an exception to the rule and remarkably complete. If I didn't have a Fury to pick up, I would have dragged it home. The yard was like none I'd ever been to before, incredible old iron that's been sitting for decades. I could have spent a whole day just wandering and taking pictures but it was already mid-afternoon by the time I'd arrived and the gruff man at the front said he'd be leaving in a couple hours.



Score! The badly-rotted-but-original big-block '74 Dodge Monaco Mt. Sterling police car I'd drooled over in pictures. It almost appeared as if no-one had touched it in the years since Spanks79 had photographed it, though I'll admit I arranged the passenger headlight bezel and turn signal lenses for this picture. I met with the proprietor's right hand man and made a deal over the phone. For a high but ultimately not-unreasonable amount I pulled off the header panel and grille, the front bumper, headlight bezels (both cracked) and the LF headlight bracket. Buried in the mud were both turn signal lenses so I dug them out shoved them back into their badly warped housings. About the only thing salvageable left on it now is the rear bumper, though the LF fender could also be used to clip to a Royal fender (it was rotted through behind the wheel). I didn't have the time to find the Gran Furys I know are there, a shame because I could use some parts. I'll have to make another ~8 hour trip out, that place was that cool.

Back on the road, I called the guy with the roofless '74 in South Dakota, to let him know I wouldn't be coming. As of today, I know he still has the car and is looking to move it. If anyone wants it, drop me a PM and I'll get you his contact information. His preference is to move the whole thing out, but he's reasonable to talk to.

In Iowa, I picked up my Fury from a guy who buys and sells derby cars. It had come out of South Dakota and (for a 70's Chrysler) little rust. Fenders behind the front wheels, the RR wheel well and trunk floor extension and a couple bubbles in the seams under the vinyl roof. Sitting bumper-less in his driveway, I was so excited I overlooked some damage it had sustained as he'd moved it around his property. All the bumper fillers had been ripped off, a quarter panel extension and taillight smashed, the fuel tank crushed. All a consequence of the front-end loader that had been used to shove it around. But I didn't really care, I was saving it from a derby fate. Something I did notice was the overwhelming stench of mouse turds and death that permeated from the interior, something that hasn't fully dissipated to this day. We mounted up the least-dry-rotted high tractions we could find and using the same front-end loader, shoved it onto a U-haul tow dolly. Yes, it will fit. Barely.

[gtopat]

Jan 13, 2016 8:32:35 GMT -5 cynot said:

Very cool! Can't wait to see your progress! A friend of mine ran the Lemons race a while back, he said it was a blast.

Which one did he run? We go up and down the east coast, but I'm hoping to have this car done for the race in Joliet this summer.

Jan 12, 2016 23:51:12 GMT -5 AZBlues said:
Very cool. As you may know, the body lines between Fury and Monaco don't line up, but that's nothing that some creative bodywork or fender combining can't resolve. The hoods are the same, though.

Yep, we'll be using just a Monaco header/grille/bumper on the Fury. I don't think anyone besides the guys on this forum will notice!

[spanks79]

I'm glad you were able to score the rest of the parts off the old Mt Sterling car. I can rest easy now, there is nothing else worth having off that car. I will say that is a neat place to visit, the folks running the place are interesting as well. Note the passenger door skin. That was collateral damage from us trying to get the door open to remove the seat last spring. That skin would be a cool piece to hang on the wall.

With all this parts swapping, keep in mind I'm looking for a evaporator core!

[gtopat]

Part 3. C-Body Scavenging

    Christmas time I was on the road again, visiting family, which also allowed me to expand my search area. Sometime before I bought it, someone had used my Fury as a parts donor. Gone was all the hardware for the hood, along with most of the windshield wiper components. Including replacing the trim pieces that had been damaged, I had a fairly extensive list. I again wandered over to the we-crash board and put up a flag. Stripping a big Fury? I got cash. The response was almost overwhelming. I eventually took up an offer from a guy in central NY who was prepping a '74 Fury III hardtop. As soon as I saw the car in person, I immediately recognized it from here.



Once upon a time, I'd considered making an offer on it, but ultimately I decided I wanted a pillared car. He'd had it shipped up from Florida and was happy to make a few bucks back. We talked the finer points of LeMons racing as he was genuinely interested, in return he spit some derby knowledge at me. I know derbying is a touchy subject around here (and the C-body world in general) but I've always thought they looked like a blast. Only because I've been so busy building LeMons cars have I not run one yet. Though I'll probably end up doing a early Panther-platform car, as he highly recommended them. His shop was buried in Crown Vics.



I ultimately made off with the all the hood hardware, the wiper motor and switch, a nice 12o speedo and dash bezel, the bumper fillers, taillight and dual-headlight brackets (they are the exact same part number for the 74/75 Fury/Monaco) along with some other little stuff. At least some of that rust-free '74 III will live on.

Though I'd taken a big chunk out of my list, there was still a big hole in my Fury where the 360 used to live. For obvious reasons, I wanted to fill that hole with a 440, so while still in NY, I fired up Craigslist and was instantly rewarded.



A couple emails and a weekend netted me a 57k mile motor from a '78 Winnebago class-c motorhome which was being scrapped. Complete, 850CFM(!) Thermoquad to oil pan. 452 heads, low compression, oversize cooling ports and titanically heavy rods make for the perfect LeMons powerplant.



I still have a few more bits to chase down, but I have some leads I hope to follow up on in the next month or so. I stupidly forgot the torque converter when I yanked the 440 out of the 'bago, so another trip to NY appears imminent. spanks79 , I didn't forget about that evap core as much it slipped my mind. When I hit up the couple of horribly rotted Monacos 58hemifury turned me on to, I'll grab one.

[AZBlues]

Wow, you are getting busy. This will be a fun thread for sure.

[gtopat]

It's been slow going but the cold weather finally broke last week and we finally started getting things accomplished. Aside from some suspension and a bit of underhood wiring, deconstruction is complete. We drained out 15 gallons of bad gas and sent the tank out to get cleaned. I got the Monaco header panel mocked up and mounted, along with the headlights. I discovered the different shape of the Fury's fenders means the Monaco bezels hang over a fraction of an inch on the top outer corners, but for us, it isn't a huge deal. I'm happy with the way the nose is taking shape.



I laid down a thick coat of gloss Rustoleum, thinned at varying percentages with acetone, with a Harbor Freight paint gun. The resulting blotchy, satiny finish means it's a real 20-footer. I got most of the window trim back on, but between disappeared clips and denting a few pieces, I did not finish the frustrating process.



The real progress was made on the inside. All the measuring and bending is complete and the 1.75x.120 six-point cage has started going in. The main hoop, halo and down bars are in, the backstays, doorbars, harness bar and floor plates still to go. The front-left A-pillar down bar looks like it may interfere with spotlight mounting, we'll know when we get the cage in its final position. Sorry for the lousy pictures, it was getting dark.

Finally, a big, heavy box turned up from Summit Racing...



Hooker 5113s, which were annoyingly nearly as much as I paid for the car. Fingers crossed they fit, they will make fabricating the rest of the exhaust much easier and they look badass.

[gtopat]

Part whatever: 3 1/2 weeks to go!

Apologies for the lack of updates, life has been getting in the way of the build. Now race weekend is right around the corner. Time to panic thrash!

A big weight has been lifted. Literally. The 'bago 440 is in, using the Schumacher conversion mounts. They are really nice pieces, but beware, the long bolt for the LH perch is a royal bitch to get in and get a nut on. Still, once its installed, everything lines up nice.



The Hooker 5113s "fit" in the sense of the word. They don't hit the frame, steering or torsion beams. What they don't clear is the shifter linkage. Now my car didn't come with the linkage as the drivetrain had been pulled, so I had to piece bits together from what I found in junkyards. A few hours of grinding, bending and futzing, I came up with an ugly but functional solution. I'd be curious to see what other guys running the 5113s did.

The decals came from a guy on ebay. I ordered his full kit but ended up peeling most of it off as it was too "busy" in bright white, and left no space for our race numbers.



The spotlight is a correct Unity S6 I had lying around from an old Crown Vic. I called up Unity who were happy to supply me with the correct Gran Fury mount. Sadly the handle interfered with the A-pillar down-bar of the roll cage, so the light is purely decorative. I cut the shaft in half and clamped it tight into the mount. I received another lump of disappointment from the race series organizer who shot down the screen-accurate pushbar for safety reasons. I chalk it up to the compromise needed to make a Bluesmobile race car.

We leave for Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park on August 12th. So that leaves about 3-1/2 weeks to rebuild the front suspension, rebuild the steering, replace all the brakes, build a cooling system, build a transmission cooler, wire up the charging system, find and install a driveshaft, finish the roll cage, install a race seat, replace the wheels and tires and about 100 other little things, before we start the engine for the first time. Fingers crossed.

[AZBlues]

A pushbar is unsafe but they let people make BMWs into garbage trucks? Minivans into airplanes? And about a hundred other examples? I'd mount the pushbar anyway, and if anyone makes noise about it, unbolt it.

[gtopat]

Jul 19, 2016 21:22:39 GMT -5 AZBlues said:

A pushbar is unsafe but they let people make BMWs into garbage trucks? Minivans into airplanes? And about a hundred other examples? I'd mount the pushbar anyway, and if anyone makes noise about it, unbolt it.

The argument the boss made was the pushbar fell under the "no nerf bars or crash bars" rather than added bodywork. He gave me green light on making one out of wet tissue paper and balsa wood but I didn't want to half-ass it. The time I'd have spent welding one up will be put to good use.

[spanks79]

Looks like you guys did well!

www.facebook.com/24hoursoflemons/?fref=nf

[Steam McQueen]

- Great job, Pat!

[gtopat]

Thanks guys! It was a mad thrash but the car finally hit the track last weekend. I'll do a full writeup as soon as I get my bearings straight.