Projects Im getting Married! Project 46 ford begins!

Closer

 

Paint is good as it’s getting for the trip, interior is about half done. Checking off smaller and smaller boxes. Finally replaced the shattered turn signal lense with a good one and made a rubber gasket for it while I was there. Seems like there was residue from an old one on the lenses. Hopefully it seals up well. Long as it doesn’t hold water in and cuts down on things rattling I’ll be happy enough.

 

Several years ago I thought “let’s flatten this panel a little better” and grabbed sand paper that was off by an entire zero. Yikes is an under statement


I’ve sanded to and polished it over the years to no avail. In low light. It’s perfect. In direct sunlight it’s like a cat drug another angry cat up the dang thing anyhow here’s a photo of it not looking horrific lol.

got another good chunk of time in yesterday and I’m on to pre trip checks and preventative maintenance until it’s time to put the new seat upholstery together. I’m thinking front seats should be done and installed Friday or Saturday night and the back maybe Monday? Gonna be cutting it close

 

If it wasn't for the last minute...nothing would get done
Go man go

 

@winduptoy looking forward to your road trip coverage really enjoyed it last year

 

OK...
I will take that under advisement....
was planning on leaving Tuesday, taking an easy cruise up into Kansas and meeting folks that are coming thru from Colorado, but they had to bow out at the last minute....opening a room...oh that's another thread....I'm stopping in Ponca City to have FSI re-do a dizzy...they offered to update at no cost...so why not?
Still planning on Thursday early afternoon arrival just the depart day/time is cast in jello....
Party on.....

 

I’ll keep an eye out for ya along the way

 

Gonna be close! the remaining list is pretty small, I just broke it down to each little step for this last few days. I’m knocking like 15 things off a night front seat is probably 90% done but the back seat just hit the first muslin. Fits like a glove! Now all that’s left is everything lol

 

Keep going man. You're so close. You got this.

 

If you haven't got to it, JB weld makes a great two-part glass and plastic adhesive that dries clear. Give it 24 hours and that lens will last a few more decades. Always enjoyed your thread.

 

Thanks @Bandit Billy ! The broke one is still on the counter I’ll glue it together and set it back for a spare just in case

 

One screw away from having the front seat 100% done! Back seat is being sewn up while I type this. The roc is hurdling towards us and I think we are gonna be ready!

back out to the shop, I’ll post photos when it’s all together

 

Yessss!!!!!

 

Oh shit it’s go time! Say a prayer and hit the road! No more things to check off!

 

Enjoy the trip! Hope it's uneventful and we shall see you tomorrow!

 

Stopping for burgers, weather is phenomenal.
Car feels great. Should be in barrtlesville just in time to find a shaded spot to BS

 

Made it! Pretty easy drive but about 50 miles to go the timing chain cover starting dumping oil out the bottom.
Gonna rtv it tonight and cross our fingers for the reliability Run tomorrow. Show is looking insane and this is just 400 cars in the host parking lot two days before the show!

 

Day one of of our surreal feeling adventure is in the books. Full update when I’m back home

 

Well we made it there and back! Full report later

 

Well shit I guess it’s later!

Not sure how to break this all into segments so I’ll just pick a spot and go

Aside from the 7 or so hours cleaning the car we spent… man I would guess close to a hundred hours each working on the interior the last few weeks before the trip.

rebuilding and painting seat frames, foaming them, flat patterning the covers then making the diamond pleated inserts, the piping on and on and on. But eventually it was done. I also did new carpet and floor Matt’s while we were at it

 

We still need to do the sun visors, the back seat arm rests, package tray and a few little tweaks but wow was it worth it. I spent from 9am to 5pm Sunday almost entirely on that seat and I’m not even slightly uncomfortable or sore after roughly four days of being in the car a ton.

also the two inch thick high density foam changed my ergonomics and the gas pedal that every 46-8 ford owner I’ve ever talked to hates gave me zero issue! Really happy to have this all done for the most part it made the roughly 600 miles trip way better than it would have been

 

From there my mornings looked like this.

about 50 miles from our destination on the way down I realized we were very low oil. I slowed down and tried to baby it to the closest gas station. I made a rough guess and put 1.5 quarts in and noticed the puddle of oil on the front cross member. It was just dumping out of the bottom of the timing chain cover. What is a small leak when farting around 8 miles at a time in town is a damn gusher when you’re driving all day.

every morning I work up at 6, waited for the sun to come up. Brake cleaned a rag and wiped it and blindly smeared black etc in hopes of slowing it down

 

The next day we went on the reliability run, the oil seemed to have slowed but was obviously still leaking too much. I also started getting a weird surge/ pause that felt like shit in a fuel filter.

the first country road of the run was nice and twisty but the heaves from I assume
Cement trucks or something very heavy priced to much and I’m assuming that’s when I started breaking things. this whole weekend is phenomenal and you really do need to do thurs threw Sunday morning. Do it all and you’ll only see a dozen cars you missed in the photos after. 500 registered cars and all of them pretty damn cool. We fought an insane head wind on the last leg of the run that was so loud I couldn’t even hear if my car was running. I was talking Tom
Branch in his gold roadster for about 15 miles though so as least the view was great
Another morning in the cold. Waiting for the sun to come up I realized a hood prop and a flashlight with a magnet need added to the road kit

 

The day of the show was great I had gotten a lot of sleep the night before and missed Saturday night fun because I sat down and woke up five hours later lol. I’m sure John Jackson aka not stock will have fantastic video to share later so I won’t bother with my snaps but it was great to see a million familiar faces. Did take this photo though. I mean who didn’t take 500 shots of it this weekend? After talking to @cactus1 at the show and looking at the shape of the flange and seal on open cars where you can actually see it I decided to add more rtv when we got back to the house. Waited an hour wiped it down with a clean rag since brake clean and heat seem opposed to each other and smeared on another pass blindly shushing I had packed a small mirror like the one I left on my work bench at home.

let it drive all night and crossed my fingers. Don’t think I lost enough on the drive to the show and back that day so I didn’t even add any.

However when I went inside I started seeing who had water pumps on the shelf. I had noticed my rare fuel filter pauses really felt like slamming on the brakes when the last one squealed my water pump belt.

on the way home we hit a red light and legged the temp gauge to 250+ before I throttlednit and it began to come down. It really wanted to shut the car off

dawned on me the pump could be going out and I didn’t want to be stuck with out one road side loaded up in the morning and by the time we got to the store I knew I would have to change it or be staring at that fluctuating gauge all day.

dang antifreeze cost more than the pump!

I headed to the gas station meet up spot @BigJoeArt and I had planned the night before and my wife went in for donuts and I started setting up a work bench and pulling the alternator out of the way while someone chatted me up long enough to feel that the coolant was cool enough to dump and not burn myself joey rolled up in time to help get the bad pump and fan wiggled threw the maze of hoses and etc out of the car. We compared the new and old pump and sure enough there’s a resistance to the spin that the new one doesn’t have, and a small catch or click.

thinking I had my shit together I found the pump didn’t need the plug I thought it would need so I didn’t have the tool I thought I’d need either.

raustling threw joeys road box proved fruitless so we tore off in the purple meany and avoiding any prosecution found a parts store. Much hammering and wailing resulted in frustration only. No plugs on the shelf curiously an employee found a pump new in the box that
Curiously had lost its plug…. We bought the correct socket and headed back for reassembly lets go! joey cooked along around 70-75 all afternoon as we followed stopping now and then for gas and oil for both of us we made a good spot to stop and had lunch and oil i think I was down about a quart or a half? Can’t remember but it was close enough to top off and feel like I didn’t need to worry the rest of the ride home scenic views lol well it had felt kinda warm most of the ride. I wrote it off to a strong cross wind and louvers in the hood. Well when we left joey and headed east on the interstate I took advantage of the tail wind and cranked it to 80. Shortly there after we played the floor is lava and by the time
I found a spot to cool it off my throttle pedal foot was hot not warm.

Fluid was full, clean, doesn’t stink like burnt fluid or give any other signs of bad news. I think I pulled over just in time after flirting with trouble for a couple hours.

best I can tell my trans cooler which is in the radiator has the lines routed too close to the passenger side exhaust. I haven’t driven the car that fast for that long probably ever truthfully so
It was never an issue building up heat the last decade of shorter trips I think longer lines routed away will fix this problem. Stuff you don’t find out very easy if you don’t take long higher speed trips.

I let it cool down under the trees and then took a probably 20-30 mile detour so I could cruise 50 mph and not feel like I’d get run over. Basically drove by the engine heat gauge if it wanted to go
Over 190 I slowed down and the temp Dropped with it. It wasn’t going to cool all the way off just sitting there so figure low speed cruising would have to work.

got to the fast road again said a prayer and tried not to get run over. It had settled enough, and the road flat enough to let me nearly idle it at 60-65 with no trouble. made it home. Found I had busted both upper shock mounts off, lost a bracket in traffic and gained a lot of bugs.

crawled under it this morning and looks like the shocked bottomed before it hit the bump stops and ripped the mount off the passenger side and ripped the bushing out of the eye of the drivers side. But the shocks themselves seem ok. I guess the car has settled enough to make the compression available not feasible when on garbage metro roads and rough back lanes so I’ve a plan in the works for some taller upper mounts.


Made a new post trip list for the car but I’m pretty tired after the last months. We’ll get to it the next couple weeks. Need a bit of recovering after I see that oil bill lol

Planing in a few runs to speedway or the Omaha guys shops before next year to make sure I got those gremlins sorted.


Over all had a great time, would only change me fretting over the car all weekend and getting sleep the month before. Lol maybe next time

 

All in all, I'd say the car did well for having not really hit it hard on a long trip like that before. I feel ya on the hot floor. When I put the new motor in the Chevy and had a friend tune and set the new carbs, he determined it needed a new gas pedal linkage from the pedal to the bell crank on the engine. Worked (works) great...I've always had problems with that linkage and have gone through a couple in the time I've owned the car. Well, one thing he did that I didn't realize, was enlarge the hole that the thing goes through...which happens to be right behind the exhaust of course. No problem and didn't really notice it around town on the short spurts like you said. That first drive to Bartlesville....man, I thought my foot was going to burn off! LOL

Glad you made it all safe and sound. Car and new interior looked great! Wish we would have had more time to visit....I still owe you a drive in the A! LOL

 

That’s was a fun weekend! Prestone stock went up on my trip home too! I forgot to tell you and Sarah how nice your seats looked. Great job!

 

@drdave i think I saw you for 4 minutes lmao

 

@cactus1 thanks Mike! Glad your leak had an easy remedy

 

Looks like a great trip.

I have a strong believe that if everything went perfectly you won't remember the trip. It's the little bumps in the road that you'll remember for years to come.

Car looks great l, seats looks great.

Still bummed I wasn't able to come after all. I'll have work on getting the coupe sorted and make the trip to MO and join yall next time.

 

@redzula thanks man, and we missed ya!