Projects 1957 Hillman Husky 392 hemi build thread

Drilled a hole in the plug and got a 1/4" ratchet in there and got it in. I could only find a 3/8" NPTF plug so I think it may be a little tighter than an NPT plug. The plug isn't in all the way from what I can see. I think it would need to go in another 1/16" to be flush. I'll work on it a little more this weekend to try and sink it in.

Was tough with the small ratchet so I'll try with a longer handle. It's probably fine where it is but I want to make sure it's not near the distributor gear.

Thanks for all the advice.

 

Spent a little time collecting tools at Harbor Freight yesterday. I wasn't aware that they had ratchets with different tooth counts. I knew with the ratchet I had I was only able to turn about one click before running out of room. Sometimes I couldn't even get one click. So while at Harbor I saw they had 32, 45, 72 tooth count ratchets. I got a couple of 72 tooth count long handles and some shorter ones too. Brought them home and got to work on tightening that galley plug. Wasn't easy at all even getting the allen wrench in there but I eventually did.

I probably got a couple of more turns on the plug and called it a day. The plug is in there good and tight.

Also decided to yank the original Chrysler distributor and went with an MSD Pro-Billet Ready to Run distributor. The old one had the vacuum can on it and there just wasn't enough room for it between the intake runners and the firewall. I could have made it work but I also wasn't pleased with the amount of slop on the cap. It was a quality cap (I tried several) and there was always a little too much movement.

Need to re-route the choke cable. This distributor and cap sits a little higher than the Chrysler distributor and cap. Makes it a little tougher to get the cap off. Might even need to take a couple of plug wires off to do it.


I'll get it running and then can tidy up the wiring later. In this photo you can also see I finally swapped out the valve cover bolts for studs.

 

Great news husky.

 

Here's a shot of the extra oil pressure gauge. So there's this one and one in the dash. The one in the dash is off a bit.....showed 40 while the one on the engine showed 50.

I may bring it up a tad higher and do a 45 degree fitting on it so it's a little easier to see. Might just leave it the way it is.

 

Fire it up yet??? Make a video when you do, we all wanna hear it!! Good luck.

 

Just read the entire build.Great thread,car looks good.Love the Dasies,They work on any type of car.I have several sets.Can`t wait for a video. A Buddy of mine has one for sale in Dallas and it`s a RHD.Not sure of the year ,though.Hope the oil pressure problem works out for you.

 

The 392 has life again. Fired it up and immediately motor was showing 80 pounds pressure. That's 30 more than we saw before. Idle showed just over 60 psi. After the motor was at operating temp idle was still at 55 so am really happy.

Took a little video just after firing it up. We still had it up above 1,000 RPM's in this video. Those hemi's take a while to get oil up through those heads so the longer we ran it the better it sounded. Ran right on the thermostat (180) and was really smooth. I'll try getting a better video.



Thanks to Gary and everyone else for the pointers.

 

Thanks. Love the wheels too. Took me a while to find those skinnies for the front. Very happy with the way they look.

RHD? Wow, don't see many of those in the states since there are plenty of the LHD. Would be cool to have a RHD Husky. You should get it. Post a picture of it here if you can. Would love to see it.

 

Oh yeah! Thanks Husky, gotta love those inspirational videos.....

 

That is great news.

 

Happy to see that all is well!!

.

 

Thanks Gary. Once we shut the motor off I was kind of at a loss for what to work on next. Spent so long working on this phase and getting the motor to run right that everything else was put on hold.

Now I can get back to it and finish the interior...get the seats put in and things like that. Still need to finish off the PCV set-up and tons of other small details. I better make another list.

 

And now you can start to drive it! That's gonna be a cool video too

 

That may be a little while. Still need to get it all assembled so I can weigh it and figure out what spring rate for the front. It has 700 pounders in there now and I think those are probably too stiff for this car. After new springs then I take it to get it aligned. Nothing is tightened down on the front or rear suspension right now so something would fall off.

Also need to figure out the brakes. They are together but losing pressure somewhere. Once these are done then I can take it around the block for a little fun.

Oh yeah, I need a gas pedal too. There's nothing in there yet. Ordered some parts and they should be here later today

 

Tomorrow hope to get to work on a gas pedal. The original one in there now hits the firewall. Might be able to move it down a little if not I'll go with a Lokar Midnight Series pedal.

Even with the big hemi in there we managed to keep the clutch and brake pedals nearly in their stock location except they sit about an inch lower. Pedal ratio on the clutch is 4:1 which is what the McLeod hydraulic throw out bearing and ABS Brake Assist called for. There was little to no room to move the pedals to the left to create space for the gas pedal. Thought about turning the tops 90 degrees sideways but figured if it was good enough for stock it would work work for me.


This set-up requires a narrow shoe. The shoes I'm wearing now are too wide and make it tough to use the gas pedal where it is. Will have less room when carpet is added so will probably move the location of the gas pedal a little. In this picture you can see there is room to move it down some.


It's hard to tell but the gas pedal is just barely hitting the firewall where we had to open it up for the hemi heads. You can see the old hole where the pedal linkage used to go through.



I'll probably end up using this Lokar pedal since it's already set-up for a cable. This pedal is 2"x7" and the original pedal was 1.5"x7.


In addition to the cable and pedal I got extra spacers for the pedal in case I need to tweak the location.

 

Be careful I ran into the gas pedal being too close to the brake pedal problem in a modern OT car. The guy behind me sure was pissed off the first time away from a stop light and my different bigger pair of shoes and I stomped on the gas to get away at the light and pressed the brake pedal at the same time. took a few second to figure out just WTF had happened.

 

Not as disastrous as stomping on the clutch instead of the brakes......

 

I have a few of these OT small cars and the pedals are all similar and close together. I'll wear some skinny Adidas while driving.

 

Didn't have much time for the car today. Had just enough time to head to the auto store to find a hose with a 90 degree bend for the PCV air intake. This takes clean air from the air cleaner in to the oil fill tube which goes in the front of the valley pan. Not very exciting but I can cross one more task off the list. Still need to add the PCV to the back of the valley pan.

 

Nice CLEAN instal.

 

Thanks. Sometimes these little details take a lot of time. Could have just got a length of hose but I prefer the look of a pre-formed hose so the routing is clean. Even with this it's a temp set-up as the hose I used was for water/coolant. Need to replace it with a fuel hose so it doesn't swell and fall apart.

 

Is there any space to the left of the clutch pedal, if you moved the sheet metal? An extra inch of width right there might be very nice to have.

 

No extra room. The clutch is all the way to the left already. There is a body brace directly net to the clutch pedal so I can't even bend the top of the pedal over.

Pedal pads used to sit about an inch higher but we moved them a little to clear the firewall overhang.



Pedal is less than 1/2" away from this floor brace.



Here's a pedal set-up from one of my other Hillmans. This one is stock. You can see the brake and clutch pedals sit a little higher since they have not been modified. Same cramped set-up but there is a little more room to the right of the gas pedal. Other than that the two set-ups are nearly the same.

 

Got the new pedal in today. Looks like it will work ok. Routed the cable up and to the carb without too much trouble. The gas pedal is just a little too close to the firewall though. The top doesn't have enough room to add carpet so I'll move he pedal down 1/2". Of course the base of the pedal can't move so we'll need to redrill the pedal itself to move it down.

Going to find a way to also move the clutch and brake pedals to the left about 1/2" or so. Right now there just isn't quite enough room for the gas pedal.

 

Crossed a couple of more items off the to do list.


This is the batter door. This sits under where the rear seat will attach.



The battery sits a bit below the door. Will probably add a sheet of rubber just in case.

 

Also worked on the rear seat back. We had to weld in some new hinges. The original hinges broke and then another owner brazed in another set.

Hinges are a little offset. Thanks to my buddy Larry for fabbing these up and sending to me.




May need to add a backing plate to the other side of the hinge on the body/floor side as this set-up is fairly weak. There's a little too much metal flex where the hinge attaches to the floor.

 

Also got the gas pedal installed and functional. It's a little weird but seems to work ok.

Gonna need small shoes for sure. My buddy with a 32 Ford says it will be fine and that the pedals on his car have even less room. So the gas pedal now sits 1/2" lower than it was before.

 

Spent time trying to get the brakes working. Bled them before turning on the power. Got a good firm pedal and then turned on the ignition which powered up the brake pump. Don't like the sounds I'm hearing.

Here's what they sounded like. The initial sound is ok. Louder than I'd like but no Dynamat on the floor yet. The second bucket o' bolts in the dryer sound is ot ok. I'm being told it's a bad check valve. It makes the sound when powered off so it's not the pump motor itself. I have a new check valve on the way and also a new "whisper quite " pump on the way. The one I have is a couple of years old and I'm being told the new version is much more quiet.

 

Husky
That new throttle pedal matches up nicely with the oem pedals.
It kinda resembles a two hole Anglia grill.
Like you said; you may need to wear some Formula One driving shoes to fit those pedals.