Daily Archives: December 25, 2015

Alert!! SIAM is back in the shop

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Picture as found in Dallas, TX

Picture as found in Dallas, TX

I have been longing to resume my restoration of the 1954 SIAM Crosley H-Mod.  So I recovered it from its dry storage location and switched it with one of the Eldens.

First thing to do was redo the steering wheel assembly.  As found, the steering box is the Crosley box with a long single rod from the box through the firewall to the steering wheel.  The upper support of that rod was a 1 1/4″ tube with some wood bushes for the rod to ride in and the steering wheel was bolted on with a key and nut.  That steering rod had been lengthened when built and was not straight.  So as you turned the steering wheel the rod turned in an arc, binding on the wood bushes.

The fix was to cut out the bad section and ordered a modern steering coupling with a 36 spline rod, new rod and a quick disconnect for the steering wheel.  The H-Mods are a small cockpit and fairly large steering wheel so I wanted a removable steering wheel to aid egress for my large butt.  I retained the original steering wheel with adapters to the quick disconnect.

This makes me feel much more comfortable.  Next is back to the engine in the engine stand and fire it back up and resuming all the other body work etc.

The History of the Falconer Rebody

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It has always been a question of mine on the true validity of the Falconer body on my Elden MK10C.  The previous owner had the car re bodied but the top cockpit is different from the original Falconer design. The reason was under Lee Stohr’s ownership he converted the car from an outboard suspension to front inboard with rockers and modifications were needed in the cockpit body panel to clear the rockers.

A few days ago Allan D. helped me inventory the spare body panels I have accumulated over the several acquisitions.  When I bought the 74 MK10C from South Carolina it came with Lee Stohr’s original body.  I have toyed with the idea of putting that body back on so Allan D. and I setup the panels and low and behold this is what we found.  The following pictures show what transpired:

picture 1

 

The first picture shows the Swift type nose cone Lee Stohr used and the cockpit, but with something missing.  Also note the rear engine cover very similar in design as the Falconer.

Falconer original vs as now

If you notice the original Elden Falconer Body work, copied from a picture on Race-Cars.com, there is a bubble in front of the cockpit opening, assume to deflect air over the drivers head.  By using Lee Stohrs middle section incorporating the inboard rockers the Falconer bump was eliminated.  I will say I wish I had the bubble as the wall of air off the nose is very annoying at 100 mph, trying to lift my helmet off!

So the mold I have is the final product of the current Falconer body style.  What is great I now understand the evolution of this cockpit body panel and the rest is original Falconer.

Fianl Falconer mold

Thanks to Lee Stohr for the picture of his car in 1980, and Race-Cars.com for their tremendous archive.