Technical What did you do with your car today? * NEW*

The same for me.

 

nothing special, moved my 36 3W to its new storage ...now can walk over to drive it.. instead of driving across town which sucked.

 

looks like the valve is shut of- turn the handle 90 degrees it might help

 

Hood on getting close.


Now there's snow on the ground.

 

Picked up the Gen/starter today and tried to finish the fuel line at the tank only to find out the rubber fuel line is one size to small. Getting closer to stuffing the engine and tranny-happy dance time!!!!!

Mike

 

I switched the application method for putting metal flake on my car. In the past, I was adding about an ounce of flake to a quart of clear lacquer. Some parts of the car are about 75% to 80%. Others parts like the trunk lid was about 25% covered. I’m using my spot sandblaster to shoot the flake dry over wet paint. It turns out it is a 2 person job but my new method works great. There is still some white undercoat visible but will be an easy fix. This method allows me to fix any problems that come up
s

 

Wrenched most of the day, nothing to brag about, then took a late afternoon cruise through Samuel P. Taylor State Park, just a few miles from home. If you don't know who he was don't feel bad, if I knew before I had forgotten.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Penfield_Taylor









Then past Nicasio reservoir on the way back. Was bone dry in the drought last summer, now amazingly full.




I love driving this car!

 

Took it 15 miles up the road to a “new” First Sunday of the Month gathering in Signal Hill Ca. Nice parking lots but was shared by a Food4Less which was packed for a Sunday morning. I’d guess 45-50 cars. Parked with few FOMOCO’s.

 

I quit shooting the metal flake wet and started shooting it dry. The back and the passenger side rear fender got dry coated today

 

a little maintenance nance

 

I put in a cigarette lighter so I can recharge my phone and use a Bluetooth speaker for my camping trip with my wife this weekend. It’s a 1960 English Ford Thames van.

 

looks amazing

 

Enjoy your weekend in some Old English Tin.

 

Few things done over several days on my '50 truck.
First, used a rebuild kit on the Holley 4175 that I (rebuilt and) fitted about 15 years ago. The accelerator pump diaphragm had split. it was like a piece of cardboard when I removed it; presumably not helped by the 10% Ethanol that they're putting in regular here nowadays.

Decided to convert the dashpot lid to make it easier to change the dashpot spring, I've always found it a bit tricky to get a used diaphragm to seat around the edge of the housing when changing to a different spring. Initial idea was bore a hole in the lid and fit a cover with an 'O' ring seal; this wasn't possible due to the thin (0.070") casting.

So I decided to machine a new lid from an offcut of billet.

I made the form cutter for the 7/32" radius from a busted slot drill.

Then I machined up a piece for the lid; the narrow groove is there to seat an 'O' ring.

Then I cut the bits to shape and fitted them together.

Here it is fitted on the 'old' Edelbrock intake:

Glad to say that it works OK.
Also needed to change out my intake manifold. It's an Edelbrock performer that I polished when I fitted the Holley. Unfortunately, it has gone porous in the last year, and is weeping coolant under the thermostat housing. I will TIG weld this up and pressure test it for my next SBC build, but didn't want to have to do this job under pressure (no pun intended). So I ordered a 'Speedmaster' polished intake from your side of the pond, looked to be pretty much a clone of the Edelbrock in the pictures. The intake turned up in a 'Procomp' box, but looked to be the same as the pics on US ebay. Looked a decent casting, but there were one or two minor issues:

The bloke who spotfaces the manifold boltholes must have taken the day off when my intake was made. I ran a spotfacer tool along the round holes in the manifold taking off just enough metal to get a flat seat.

Had to use a facer pulled in from the back on the left hand hole in this photo, there's no way of getting a straight shot at it with a conventional tool. This manifold also has slots for the (two each side) central holes. There adapters supplied that are supposed to allow fitting to the late vertical hole heads or the earlier ones I have. These needed some fitting work with a file before they gave a decent seating. having done all that, the manifold looks good and truck was running really well when I took it out for a drive yesterday.

 

Out with the old...in with the new.
Trial fit went well and tomorrow I will seal it and start to rebuild the roof.

 

Swapped out the Daisys on my '56 Chev for Steelies with poverty caps.

 

Daybreak at Surfers Paradise. Best day of the year, so far!

Beat traffic back to the shop and finally got around to cutting down and reworking the outer shock towers on the Falcon, so I have more compression travel.

 

Mixed up a batch of my secret sauce for a very durable and water proof coating that I use for wood. OK, it's not a secret. I save all my ABS plastic scraps and put them in a large mason jar, then cover the scraps with enough high grade "skull & crossbones" acetone and leave it overnight. Next morning the ABS has completely dissolved with the thicker mix settling to the bottom. I start off with a quick light coat of the thinner mix from the upper contents of the jar.
It is effective for the same reason that ATF and acetone penetrate so well, being much thinner at the molecular level. As soon as the first coat flashes off ( almost instantly) I mix the heavier settled dissolved ABS with the rest and lay down a heavy coat. Dries quickly to a very durable waterproof coating you cannot press a thumbnail into.
It's all about penetration and adhesion.
If you try this use all safety precautions and work in a well ventilated area. Just thought I would share one of the things I picked up from my 50 plus years as an automotive and industrial painter.

 

Helluvan idea! Can you post a close up pic?

 

The wood is oak. It just looks like brushed on Rustoleum. I only use it for protecting wood that will be unseen, which in my case is all of it on this car. I never did try to spray it or cover with a finish paint but I'm sure it is possible. Kind of a crappy pic.
Just to add another use. If you had a structurally solid steel assembly with holes or gaps 1/8" or more a thick application of this same mix will fill the voids and become watertight. It needs much longer to fully cure though and can be recoated several times.

 

One of my best friends and fellow HAMBer in St. Louis tripped across what I hope is a good deal on a 312 and Fordomatic since mine is getting real tired. Anyway, made the deal and will pick it up in a couple weeks on my way back from Indy. I’m just thankful that some people think they need to update these old cars and put some late model motor and transmission in them and then sell the good running old stuff for cheap.

 

Thanks

 

I have been making some progress on the Stude ! I found some foam board at Hobby Lobby for the door panels, used some velcro to attach it with. I thought the surface was plastic like yard signs are made out of but it is paper so time will tell how it holds up. But the main purpose is to protect my arms. I backed the distributor up a couple notches to get the vacuum advance where it should be. Mainly just a visual thing but it also moves the window around to the correct location making adjusting the points easier.
Found a couple stock looking breathers at O'reillys and also fixed a stock air cleaner lid replacing the chrome one. After getting this machine moving under it's own power It was obvious the gas pedal was wrong, to far from the floor etc. So I am working on a redesign with a homemade hinged pedal which looks to be promising.
This motor has a couple hours of run time on it and I went back through the valves once and all was fine. But I do not leave things to chance. These heads have some large valve springs and rocker arm clearance is always a issue that has to be looked at so I pulled each arm one at the time and all was well until cylinders 5 and 4 where each showed a little interference. For the time being I clearanced the rockers and buttoned it back up. I will look at it again but I think problem will be the rocker stud holes are off. Seeing these are the same cylinders when you swap the heads side to side. After a quick Google search this is a common problem on World product heads. Oh well, Fuck it ! run it.

 

This showed up via the big brown truck today. Ordered in mid November for a Christmas present for......um the car!

ADDCO out of Florida. Hot of the press.

 

Finally got the roof of. now I can fix a little rust around yhe edges and get the mew raingutters on

 

Recent swap meet find was a pair of Dart SHP 64cc 180 aluminum heads, which will replace the 74cc open chamber heads on my '39 Chev's engine. I've wanted to boost compression a bit, but figured some extra HP and torque couldn't hurt either. So when I found these heads for about half price I snatched them up. A report I found on these heads done by Motor Trend showed they bolted a pair on a SBC 350 crate engine with 8.5:1 c.r., and it dyno tested 358 hp, 379 torque prior to swapping the heads. After the swap the engine tested at 419 hp, and 417 torque, with just the head change. Hope I get similar results.
I bought a set of ARP stud kits, and some quality Fel-Pro gaskets designed for these heads. Just have to decide if I paint them red to match my engine, or flaunt the natural aluminum finish? Will be swapping them out this weekend.

 

That's a really neat project.

 

Hood provides quite a contrast between the outside and what's under it. Pretty nifty 409.

 

Bigger

 

Always show off the aluminum! At least that is my opinion.