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Post by Joe Marshall on Feb 5, 2009 8:29:22 GMT -6
After sitting on the wall for 20yrs Pops and I had the itch to put the nos track in the 75 F/A, (thanks B.S.), and clean it up to take to a few shows. Now we are, (well mainly pops), is elbow deep in a ground up restoration project. So what I wanted to do is document the history of the sled and show some photos of the progress as it is coming together. Back in 1983 I bought two 75 F/A 440 sleds that were sitting in a barn yard for a few years for $100.00. As you can see by the photo the cows got hungry at some point and ate the seats off the sleds.
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Post by nitrofa340 on Feb 5, 2009 9:21:59 GMT -6
Joe that is some cool photos and information. Please keep the pictures and stories coming if you have more. Great stuff.
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Post by magnumal on Feb 5, 2009 13:41:52 GMT -6
Very nice . Brings back memories of when my nephew couldn't understand how my 74 400 twister ran in D stock ;D
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Post by Ruppsforever on Feb 5, 2009 19:24:42 GMT -6
GREAT PICS AND AWESOME STORY !!!!! THANKS ALOT FOR SHARING IT !!!!!
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Post by Joe Marshall on Feb 6, 2009 8:56:07 GMT -6
The 1985 season was all about getting down to business. We went from running 7 sleds down to just two. The Rupp F/A and the 76 merc s/t. The Yamaha GPX 433 was put to rest that year. They had us about 50% of the time in 84 but we found over 3/10's in testing and it was game over for them. The merc was also flying. At the local races we were 1/2 tracking alot of the field. Here we are taking care of the fear'd 77srx in AA. Why people didn't belive that this sled couldn't compete in AA was also put to rest. 7.4 seconds for 750 ft. Completely stock. Here we are at the 85 world series. The holy grail of drag racing! I think we were eliminated in the semi finals that year with the rupp F/A. As you can see we had our big rig displaying the rupp colors. Who is that in the background? Ander who? We are talking here with John Becker on the srx 340. We tested with John in Galena, Ill alot. He would go on to win 3 B stock titles and jump up into A stock and place. That was a REALLLY fast 340 srx. He had the B stock field covered by 8 sled lengths. That should of been an A stocker all along. The merc 340 merc s/t was an A stocker! I guess that was the benefit of being a major manufactuer still in business helping right the rule book. As you can see we still were working on getting the front down. The only other rupp we saw this year was another F/A out of Ohio. Note to rupp racers, do not line up next to each other in the staging padock, you will eliminate each other in the heats. And look who was late on the light. The boss wasn't to happy about that. What a time to be taking a nap. Never happened again. #131 on the track but #1 in the hearts of race fans! More to come!
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Post by magnumal on Feb 6, 2009 10:58:18 GMT -6
Love it keep um comming ;D Do you remember that guy from Ohio we had one guy that use to come to New York Grass Drags every year that was very fast ran all the way up to A stock on his RUPP F/A If you said his name I would remember
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Post by Joe Marshall on Feb 10, 2009 8:36:00 GMT -6
1986 - 87 season: We were focused on making the finals at the world series in 86. Gone were the days of sleeping at the line. We were running at the front throught the rounds Pops keeping an eye on the hardware We ended up finishing 4th in 86. It was a good result but we wanted more. My bro drove to the intermediate B stock title on my sled that year and Pete driving for John Becker covered the field without to much trouble on the 340 srx. 87 was a dream year gone bad. At the local races we would have to leave the sled on the trailer or show up at the last minute otherwise nobody wanted to race us. We were accused of cheating and of the sled not being in a stock configuration, ect, ect. The funny thing was the people doing the most bitching were the ones doing the most cheating. Hell they wouldn't have air boxes or stock exhaust. One guy tried to get us thrown out because he claimed that the ski's we not stock. At least once a year someone would beat us. But we never filed a protest we would just invite them to the world series saying that they could probably win. Not one ever showed up because they actually have tech. The world series were in Iowa that year. We brought the 75 rupp f/a and the 76 merc s/t and we were flying! The weather was hot and the ice was melting. We rejetted the carbs for the hot weather and the yamaha's all had the yamabogs. In B stock we won every heat race and were thrown out of the final. The offical told Faist Yamaha that they made the final. Faist stepped up and told the offical no the Rupp is in the final. The offical told him to get to the line or get thrown out. In AA it was the same story win every heat and get thrown out of the final. We were in a lane for the final when the offical came over and told us we had to move over a lane because the Yamaha wanted that lane. SOB! What could we do? The offical was wearing all Yamaha gear. So when we were moving the sled over they threw the green light. The Yamaha won from the lane we were in. How Pops didn't clock the offical I don't know. The following week we went to the Gov. cup in Wis. and blew the AA World Series Champion off the track. That was it for us. Packed it up and never went back and never will go back. We sold the AA stocker to some guys in Ill. We told them that we would leave it set up the way we had it and to document everything as it was. A year later we saw them at a local race brake torcing the sled and getting crushed. IF IT AIN"T BROKE DON"T TRY TO FIT IT. So in my next installment we will actually get into the restoration part of the story.
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Post by rupparooney on Feb 10, 2009 9:17:10 GMT -6
Joe, Thanks for sharing the pictures and the stories, what a nice piece of Rupp history>>>> ;D
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Post by rog929 on Feb 11, 2009 14:23:34 GMT -6
sweeeeeeeeet
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Post by bankRUPPt on Feb 14, 2009 18:38:30 GMT -6
Great story. Thanks for taking the time to put up the photos and sharing!
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Post by samoyed on Feb 14, 2009 22:34:05 GMT -6
Very interesting!! Great photos. Waiting to see and read more!!
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Post by Joe Marshall on Feb 16, 2009 9:09:55 GMT -6
Restoration Part-1: So when we went to put the new NOS track in we saw that we may have an issue. We knew that the top of the tunnel was a little bit scraped up but this was what it looked like. Note the dual fuel pumps! No we didn't run 44mm carbs. The second pump was for the slide rail lube system. You will see on the rebuilding photos a brass nipple on each slide rail that taps down through the sliders. The hyfax were then machined out like a car tire to allow the lube to flow the entire length of the rails. So the decision was made to have the top section replaced. Now if we could only find a donor. One nice thing about being the rupp dealer and organizing trips to St. Germain every year for your customers is that you become good friends. The parents would leave about every February for a week with about 25 other rupp riders. Pops you need to send me some photos from the 70's of your trips! I will get some of those posted soon. Anyway back to the donor program. Pops has a good friend that he sold a Rally to in 76. Jim said the sled has been sitting in around taking up space told pops to just take it. So we had a donor. The back of the donor sled tunnel was bent from an impact so it was a good fit. The rest of the donor sled was ok. We will use what we need off of the sled and then sell the rest of it to the scrap yard for scrap metal. The aluminum tunnel wasn't in great shape but for the price it was just fine. This next photo may be painful to some of you rupp fans out there so viewer discression is advised. Ok for all of you who were freaking out about scraping the remainder of the donor sled it was a joke. Take a deep breath and count to 10. In the next installment we will start to show the rebuilding progress.
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magnumforce
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NEW EMAIL ADRESS:ruppster@ymail.com Microsoft took away my hotmail account after 12 years, so....
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Post by magnumforce on Feb 18, 2009 23:32:34 GMT -6
Nice history and pics Joe! really appreciated and enjoyed them.
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Post by Joe Marshall on Feb 24, 2009 19:52:06 GMT -6
So the restoration started by taking the bulk head to the sand blasting booth. Iowa salt was not kind to the steel. There was a significant amount of corrosion. The other issue was that the front left top plate was sprung so this needed to be re-welded. Some of those local races were in corn fields back in the day. Lets say it was a challenge just to stay upright. The tunnel repair came out pretty good. Although the aluminum welder wasn't to happy. Apparently the donor sled aluminum was not in good shape and welding it was a B@*^ch. But if you closely at the finished product I think it came out pretty good. Of course I have to give Pops props for putting the polishing wheel to it. Every bolt and nut was put though a process to take the corrosion off and then was finished with metal paint The chain case was blasted with walnut shells. We don't want to polish the engine or chain case. We felt that we wanted it to look just like it did when we were running it. Notice that the secondary stationary sleeve looks like a mirror. This is how it was run back in the day. You could eat off the clutches. Pops is on a roll and tackled the suspension with a mission. I think the mission was to be able to perform open heart surgery with any of the parts. Notice the slide lubercation nipples at the front of the slide rails. Notice the factory aluminum cross brace. This required some welding as well. I think all of the aluminum cross braces cracked at some point. The original skies! Alright all you gear heads out there, go ahead and take a moment and drool. As Honer says, MMMMMM Beer. Lets not forget about the drive axle! Here is photo of pops and me out riding around the homestead And pops giving rides in the original cutter sled. I remember riding in this thing when I was 7. Mom and Pop would be on the 73 nitro 440, which he still has, and the 3 kids in the cutter riding to the area supper club. Oh ya pop I also remember the cutter hitch breaking and the 3 of us kids doing a forward flip watching you and mom riding off into the night not even noticing we weren't with you. I am still getting mental therapy for that one. More to come soon!
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Post by bankRUPPt on Feb 24, 2009 21:16:13 GMT -6
Lookin' good. The top of the tunnel turned out nice. I like those skis!
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Post by Rupp440 on Feb 25, 2009 21:56:22 GMT -6
Joe look's real good nice patch job on the tunnel keep up the good work
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Post by Sticks on Mar 5, 2009 19:58:33 GMT -6
Nice job on the restro. Did you run the 3 or 4 band track back in the day?
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Post by racingelvis on Mar 5, 2009 20:51:58 GMT -6
looks great joe. and thanks for sharing all the old info and pics you have. thats awesome and so is your f/a. b.s. 171
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Post by Joe Marshall on Mar 6, 2009 7:31:07 GMT -6
Sticks,
We opted for the 4-band track. We met a guy at a race early on that had a wooden leg from a 3-band on a 440 coming undone.
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Post by Sticks on Mar 6, 2009 8:36:41 GMT -6
Makes me not what to use a cleated track ever! Those Cat guys can keep em! Why do you suppose Rupp went with the cleated track for just that one sled?.
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