1956 Nomad gasser build

[firstgenaddict]

Nice looking Nomad there Dave.

Regarding the tri fives and this Nomad... I have begun to take a liking to the 56's and I especially like the Copper with the cream 2 tone.
My dad raced a D gas -55 2dr post in the mid 60's- he talked about helping a friend turn a 56 wagon into a gasser-speaking of the insulation he said - they rolled it onto the roof and sprayed it down with kero and set it on fire to burn all of the insulation and undercoating off the car.
I think he said it was run in B gas with a W motor 348 or 409 & 4 spd.'

The two of us have been talking about building a tri five or a straight axle vette to run in the SEG South Eastern Gassers sanctioned races - they run A-F Gas on a 1967 NHRA rule book.
No electronics, clutch shifted 3 or 4 speed, only period correct wheels etc and they allow a slight weight advantage(IIRC 100lbs) if you run a period correct mechanical fuel injection set up.

Quain Stott started the series a decade or just over ago and told me he thought maybe they would run some exhibitions for a year or two and that would be it, that was 7 years ago and at that time he was amazed at it's growth.

Quain still has the remains of this drag car built and raced in Kansas City and then brought to upstate SC & traded by Jim Little with the blue plexi hood scoop and cage as a drag car to Stott Chevrolet in 1969-1970 - it's a 67 camaro conv SS 396 4 spd.
I have been trying to get him to drag it out and lets figure out where it was sold new and more history for 15 years at least.

[Too Many Projects]

This week, I kept finding "things" I needed to do before welding the floor in. The inner wall patch I was making needed the strap piece shaped to follow the inner wheel house. So I used the stretcher to put the shape in it.





Then I went to weld it to the side wall patch. I thought it would be a good idea to hold the pieces together with a large magnet. Then I couldn't get the mig gun to weld worth a dang. It kept sputtering like I didn't have the gas turned on and seemed to run out of wire. I kept turning up the pressure on the gas and feed rate on the wire until it looked decent, but then the puddle would run away. After 10 minutes of trying to figure out what happened to the welder, I realized the magnet was interfering with the process and moved the weld further away from it. I never considered the magnetic force on this would have such a drastic effect. Live and learn.





It followed the curvature nicely, but still didn't follow the wall offset, so back in the shrinker to pull the sides in.





OK, got that done, now I have to final weld the A pillar braces to the rocker, so got that done.



THEN I got to final prep of the pan. Punched 136 holes in the rocker flanges and tunnel seam, cleaned off the EDP where I need to weld and clamped it in.









We have a special vice grip with a U shape that holds the panels tight to weld thru, but the flanges were too short, so I had to move a pair of standard vise grips down the line and clamped every one on both sides for a tight fit.







Look Mom, no clamps. It's part of the body now.