This posting is one in a series. If you have not yet read the earlier postings in the series, you’ll need to, as this posting won’t make much sense without having done so! Just do a search using the word “SLURP”.
In my last posting I described the humorous process of cleaning and then refinishing Red’s frame and related components and assemblies.
In this posting I’m going to talk about the incredible “art” aspects inherent in classic auto frames, for those possessing any attention to detail.
I certainly had plenty of time to observe and grasp the significance of some of those details, when I spent the past week’s “leisure hours” doing that messy cleaning and refinishing. I learned a lot.
Take a look at this series of photos of different details on the chassis, and see what YOU see!
Here is the front driver’s side leafspring mount:
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh16/JimGnitecki/Artinherentinaclassicframe001fronts.jpgHere is a relief in the frame, whose purpose I am unable to deduce or remember with the frame cleared of all its various attachments:
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh16/JimGnitecki/Artinherentinaclassicframe002framer.jpgHere is the beautiful forward spring mount for the rear driver’s side leaf spring, with the fascinating parking brake cable mount right adjacent to it:
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh16/JimGnitecki/Artinherentinaclassicframe003rearsp.jpgTake a GOOD look at this boxed section on the passenger side of the frame (there is a mirror image boxed section on the driver’s side):
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh16/JimGnitecki/Artinherentinaclassicframe004rivete.jpgHere is the rear driver’s side shock absorber mount:
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh16/JimGnitecki/Artinherentinaclassicframe005shockm.jpgIf you are observant, and have an aesthetic / style sense, you might have noticed:
- There are NO welds in this frame, except for the amateurish ones done poorly by prior owners of the truck
- Parts are joined together structurally with rivets – not the wimpy kind used these days, but the beefy kind used to build highway and railroad bridges. These are TOUGH. It took me and Randy an average of 10 to 20 minutes EACH RIVET to defeat them when we were removing the multi-riveted mounts for the running boards. And THAT was using hardened drill bits and heavy duty chisels and hammers.
- There are five key kinds of material used: forgings (e.g. brake pedal pieces), stampings (e.g. shock absorber mount), cast pieces (e.g. the lovely rear spring mount), rolled material cut and then forged to correct size and shape (e.g. many of the pieces in that boxed section), and elastomers (e.g. the suspension limit bumpers that limit travel of the front and rear axles)
- The boxed section has been ENTIRELY constructed via riveting of individual pieces. No welding and no bolting. Can you imagine the contortions of man and riveting equipment to achieve that in a high volume assembly setting.
- Many of these pieces are individually beautiful, and it is also obvious that their rivet positions were selected not only for functional suitability but also for balance and beauty. Note for example that the rear shock absorber mount, while a “standardized” part that is pre-stamped for FOUR rivets, and uses only THREE in this application, nevertheless has those 3 rivets in a nicely proportional triangle, whose base is held perfectly level despite the angular mounting of the mount onto the frame which is itself non-level at that specific spot. THAT’s attention to detail
- Note the remnants of “art deco” in many of the design shapes used. This was the tail end of art deco.
My friend Micah Shoemaker, owner of AF1 Racing (Aprilia race team) and a gifted metal fabricator himself, tells me that the complete shunning of welding was likely a corporate reaction to the unsuccessful attempt to use structural welding techniques in the rapid and cheap fabrication of “Victory” ships during World War II (the welds failed due to inadequate impurity control, due to the state of the production welding art at that point in time, and ships sank as a result). The riveting methodology was not only well proven in railway, bridge, building, and ship construction, but also softened the shock loads to the frame components, as there would be a certain amount of small scale flexing versus the harsh rigidity of a weld.
When I compare the quality and aesthetics of these components and techniques to those used in modern vehicles, I am saddened at some of the changes. We seem as a society to now favor cheap appliances with gimmicky features and glossy skins covering subassemblies you really don’t want to look at.
I could stare at these components for a long time, and learn more each time I do so. Our ancestors had class.
In 1955, a vehicle like this truck cost about a year’s pay for an “average” worker. It still does. What we are getting though for the money has changed FOCUS a lot, maybe because WE have changed.
Jim G
