[the shadow]

During my “on & off” build I was always looking to acquiring needed/missing parts for the midget. When I got the project it was missing one magnesium wheel. Just by dumb luck I found one on eBay & bought it, quickly. You see the 5 lug 12” magnesium midget wheels are super hard to find (one collector told me he didn’t even know they made them?), & if I hadn’t found one I would have either had to run a crappy old 12” steel wheel that came with the car or switch all the wheels to 6 lug costing me more to switch over all the hubs etc. I took the other steel wheel I got to work & blasted the rust off then sanded, primed & painted it.. I wanted to use this wheel because it was made skinny just to be mounted on the front inside left of the car. It was made by welding a fabricated 12” wheel rim to a Model-T ford drake drum center. I was told this was a common early trick they used to make midget racing wheels. That same ebay’r was a vintage midget racer & restorer that was liquidation his stock, he had everything I could want but I had very little cash at that time. What he did sell me was the needed 5 lug wheel + 2 good 12” slicks with tubes, a 13” midget steering wheel, a couple raw aluminum hub castings & a set of used v8-60 headers.
I purchased an eddie meyer front plate to get rid of the stock water pumps & cast mount & needed to get the engine in the frame permanently, so I consulted one of my uncles on how his brother did it & he showed me pic’s of the mount they used. It was a bent piece of 5/8” pipe that mounted off the face of the block & was secured to the frame with pads. This set up also doubles as a front hand hold when lifting the engine in & out of the frame for service. By grabbing this bar with one had & the rear tube of the header with the other 2 people can pull the engine & I/O out in one shot. I measured up what I would need then bent & welded one up to fit. I also took some time to see if the stock v8-60 aluminum heads would polish up, they did.
More of the build later.....