Steam Trunk Industries Ratrod!
I love Ratrods, but many of the ones that you see at shows have become so formulaic that I now find them dull. Stream Trunk Industries has done a brilliant job taking the best of the mainstream Ratrod scene and blending in some Steampunk to build a car that I am seriously lusting after!
It is a truism that the people out there doing the most interesting things and having the most fun often don't have the time or inclination to post what they're up to on the internet. Fortunately, they often have friends that recognize how impossibly cool the things that they're doing are and egg them on!
Fortunately for us, my new friend Annie (follow her on twitter and read her column at Gamer Melodico) is also friends with Tien Linton and Guiness Oathout of Stream Trunk Industries, the builders of this amazing car.
Annie writes:
The fellows of Steam Trunk Industries originally acquired the car from an older gentleman in Southern Indiana, "Way out in the middle of nowhere". They had also recently seen the insides of a jet engine and were fascinated with all the various pipes and tubes. "It looked very mysterious", says Guiness, a lifelong auto enthusiast. "You can't really tell what's inside, or where it's going, and we wanted to try to build the car around that concept". Tien says that they opted for copper instead of rubber or plastic hoses, and the car's design evolved from there.
Everything about this car is gorgeous! I love the prize-fighter-missing-teeth front grill and the copper alternator shield looks like something from the lab of the man who actually invented the 3-phase alternator, Nikola Tesla!
The copper plumbing is SO much prettier that the tired look of braided stainless with anodized fittings!
I also love the improvised found-object air cleaner which I believe, and I may be mistaken here, originally bore the name 'Electrolux' or perhaps 'Kitchenaide.'
Everything about this car is gorgeous. I am particularly impressed with the perfection of the chop/channel job on the cab, the proportions are perfect and that's not always easy to achieve.
I'm not sure where Steam Trunk Industries is located, but I sincerely hope that sometime in the future I'm able to drop by and get a closer look at this beauty!
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Comments
Ratty Rod
I'm not sure I share the enthusiasm for this car. I can understand the appeal of the brass and copper accents - and the air cleaner design is indeed clever and attractive - but there seem to be some important design and fabrication issues.
The front brake/wheel combination does not seem right. There is excessive offset, and this can introduce driveability issues. With the setup pictured, as you turn the wheelbase increases on one side and decreases on the other. Remember how well your old Radio Wagon steered at speed? As shown, the outer front wheel bearings would also be seeing almost all of the load - not best practice. The front wheels would need significant positive camber to work with this particular wheel/brake/axle combination. Probably, either the axle or the brakes are out of something like a more modern Ford van (brake drums would have the same bolt pattern as those early wires). The stock van wheels would surround the brake drums, bringing the front end geometry into line. With the early Ford wire wheels shown (skinny and no offset) the wheels look stuck on. This is wrong, not only because of appearance, but driveability and in particular high speed handling.
There seems to be incorrect shock linkage angularity as well. There is no drag link on the car; proper design would call for this to be parallel to the front radius rods to minimize bump steer. Given the design of the headers, this might not be possible (it is likely that the builder intends for the the drag link to run above the headers -- 'parallel to the ground' is a popular home-built hot rod misconception).
The front axle is out of a car with parallel semi-elliptic springs. It was modified to mount using a Ford transverse spring. The stock axle spring pads are being used for the shock mounts with some slim-shady looking brackets (and are those Grade 8 bolts?). It's not easy to see in these pictures - but - if the transverse leaf spring is attached to that front axle with perches through-drilled into that axle, this could be a problem. There would not be enough 'meat' to attach the spring in this way.
Copper heater core plumbing again achieves the look but could be expected to work harden and crack from vibration and relative engine movement. It does not look like the joints are soldered, so perhaps rubber hose is run inside, although this is unlikely given the small OD and the 90 degree bends.
The scrub line might be too low. If you get a flat, will the body or a portion of the frame hit the ground before the wheel rim? If so, that is a problem.
Just because a hot rod has 'the look' someone likes does not mean that the builder has hit the nail on the head. Proper steering and suspension design can be achieved without losing the look you are after. The reality is that there are some cars out there with design and fabrication challenges, and from the photos this one seems to be one of them.
It's one thing when Steampunk-themed gadgets just basically sit there. When you are building an automobile, factors come into play that should not be neglected. If you ever see this car in the flesh, maybe you can confirm whether or not these potential problems are present on the car as built.
Hey JGN, I only understood
Hey JGN,
I only understood about half of that but it sounds like you know what you're talking about. My understanding is that this is a work in progress so we may not be looking at the final configuration at all.
Anyway, I'm sticking with my "gorgeous" declaration!
I indeed have background with
I indeed have background with the subject matter, so there is no doubt that I will spot some things that others might not notice. But they are important things.
I do want to make the distinction between the cars artistic design and mechanical design. My comments are only directed at the latter. At least from the photos (and this does seem to be a work in progress -- for example, the unsoldered copper heater core lines might be mocked up for photo purposes) the car does show some common errors, like the slim shady front wheels/brakes/axle/suspension setup. These types of errors appear on home built cars of every sort, and depending on the severity make the car a target of ridicule, unpleasant to drive or downright dangerous.
For whatever reason, some of this is endemic to the rat rod culture. It is common to see rat rods with no floorboards, exposed drive shafts, bad welds, no scrub lines, poorly matched components and so on with pointy objects stuck all about. 'Danger' is my middle name, LOL. I could poke fun at leaving the Home Depot bar code labels on; so what, that's just taste. The mechanical issues I raised compromise this automobile. I suspect that regardless of the aesthetics you yourself would have trepidation about a car with fundamental mechanical flaws.
With as much attention as this steampunk rod is likely to get, and given that the car indeed seems to be incomplete, perhaps the builders will choose to address some of the issues. Steampunk is about fanciful, but sound, Victorian-era design and engineering and IMHO this project would be a better testament to that if some of these things were addressed.
The air cleaner is really neat, though. :)
Awesome Rod!
Jake, thanks for the article. It has given me some great ideas for my '63 Dodge stakebed.
Its a Rat...
Well, I also agree with JGN...
I can understand the time it takes to build a car.. I built a ton..but
The car is a ticking time bomb..totally unsafe..not designed well or safe.. .. same setup - dual leaf van axle.... a T bucket in our area had the same one.. hit a bump and the whole thing rip under the car making it flip killing the guys son.. something I could not live with..
and you cant run ford wire wheels on like that.. they must be on ford drums.. the drums support the hub.. the middle of that wheel e will rip right out.. wheels a flying..
I seen them with no floors and driveshafts spinnin right next ya... no front brakes.. some very insane stuff.. but i think alot of these guys do this just to get the reaction..
Jake LOVE your site... gets alot of the general public views.. and this is not what we.. the HOTROD builders want people to think this is what we are building and is cool.. its not it is UNSAFE..
thanks woodguy32
air cleaner
it is a gas heater box.. stewart warner made them.. ran of gasoline.. oh my..
Break it down and start over
X2 on woodguy32's comments.
Annie, glad to hear that you are going to revisit the problem areas.
That entire front end needs to go. Get an original 32 Ford heavy front axle or any of the quality FORGED reproductions and start over. Available dropped.
Make sure you establish a scrub line. Does the car really need to bottom out on speed bumps?
Is your Ackerman set correctly? Can't tell for sure from the photos, but the Ackerman angle looks wrong. It can be tricky to set it right when your tie rod is in front. You want your steering arms set such that an imaginary line from the king pin axis through the tie rod end attachment would intersect at the center of the rear axle. If you get that car up an inch or two you will have enough room to run the tie rod behind the axle.
And please clean up the excessive length of the front flexible brake lines. Too long, too many fittings, hoses pointing the wrong way.
If you all need to learn more about properly setting up a hot rod, check out the HAMB. If you do this, low key your rat rod intentions. LOL
Almost forgot to mention - not a safety issue - you need an air bleed on that up and over copper line that connects the radiator to the water pump.
hmmm
scary
Ahoy, fellows
Thank you for taking the time to look over our project. Zero is a work in progress. Many of the unfinished details were temporarily cleaned up for the sake of taking nice-looking photos. When it is fully assembled and ready to be driven, there will be abundant documentation and photos which more accurately highlight Zero's construction. We graciously appreciate any and all constructive criticism.
Thank you for your insight, we will take these comments into consideration,
SteamTrunkIndustries
Looks awesome
And while I'm NOT an expert, I think you should design it however you want it to look, then engineer to support the design.
Those transverse springs look awesome. Reminds me somewhat of my Spitfire.
Praise For Design
Greetings to Steam Trunk Ind. Design and Fabrication Team. I have lots of respect for your brilliant project Zero, and just want to send you a quick note of encouragement.
You'll probably get comments filled with uninformed suggestions and wrong headed ideas based on preconceptions. Just ignore them... In my experience, whenever creative work gets public exposure the first and loudest noise comes from the envious detractors and self styled experts. (most of these folks have never designed and built anything more complex than a one bucket sandcastle).
It's a beautiful design and red herring issues like bolt quality, scrub line, "slim shady", etc etc, are condescending at best (especially given that the comments are based on photographs of a work in progress) and self-serving at worst. The fact is that art-cars have different mechanical requirements than the C-class BMW and would-be critics should not even try and confuse the two very different requirements. In fact, whether your rat-rod just drives in a parade , off the trailer into a car show, or around the block is entirely a secondary issue ( or completely beside the point) of the clever visual design of this car.
I do have some design suggestions but I will send them to you privately because in my experience public criticism is especially useless to designers. Keep up the good work. I'll be looking forward to its completion. Good Luck.
It is what it is.
Wow,the HAMB was mentioned on a steampunk site! Now,as being more of a lurker than a contributer on the HAMB,as a member I must say that this fits the definition of a RatRod- unsafe. Or at least it looks and sounds to be unsafe. If you're going to take the time-do it right! And if you're taking the time to 'fake' a look w/added items for effect,have those said items look like they serve a purpose(this goes for all you steamers out there too! I'm also a fan/member/real contributer(is that a word?) of SP). ie:added pipeing at the alt.-I can see it goes nowhere.! my2c-sorry.
Most interesting project here in months
It needs work, but what a really nice start. Great cab chop & channel. If only someone out there actually produced a steam power-plant you could just drop in as an ICE replacement. That would MAKE this ride!