Projects ***DONE!!!!*** The Cad Powered 1934 Ford 5 Window Project.

So who ended up making your pistons?

 

Very impressive skills, I love what you do.

 

Nice project, rear frame horn modification looks very nice.

Bob

 

I couple of those body to frame pics made me do a double take! They looked like another familar coupe. Maybe I'll have mine back together by the time your done.

 

Progress is coming pretty fast.

 

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. The "dark gray" appears to be more black than gray but I love both colors.

 

Glass is back from the glass shop. Here is the lightweight racer style rear window regulator.



Side glass regulators are always a pain in the balls.



Glass all the way around, yea!




Still in machine shop and camshaft jail...

-Abone.

 

FINALLY!!! got out of piston and machine shop jail.



Crank is in, good time to dial in the bellhousing alignment.



We are pretty hard core traditionalists up in here, but this is one piece of billet aluminum I will NEVER build an engine without. The first time I used one of these, I threw my old school ring compressor that I have had since 1986 right in the trash.



Kind of an odd windage get up, but it works.



And there you go, 1962 Cadillac 390 short block

all together. Mild cam, 9.5 pistons, rock stock other than that.



Tune in next time, this sucker ought to be sitting in the car.

-Abone.

 

Nice! And, I agree on that ring compressor. I recently used one for the first time and it is way too nice compared to my old ones.

 

Forget some of what you did to engine. Hope you did a clean up on ports & gasket match. Have always found pretty easy to smooth out some of those factory ridges behind the valves & do a good valve job, & I think it has got to help

 

I also like to grind off casting ridges on outside of block & heads before a little paint splashed on

 

Awesome!

 

It's coming along nicely!!

 

What cam did you end up with?

 

The cam is from Ross Racing. It is no particular brand that I can tell, but I believe it comes from Camshaft Machine Company in Michigan. It is a "mild performance" grind, emphasis on the mild at 215 degrees @.050, which is perfectly fine for this little motor.

-Abone.

 

Mine's only 220 and 226 .

Hyd. Roller then?

 

Who made the pistons? Cast or Forged?

 

I know that answer. Forged and AutoTec. I had already asked Jeff, that's only reason I know. What did I win?

 

My eternal gratitude...

 

Root is correct. Auto Tec will make whatever you need in a lightweight modern style forged piston. The 390 is a 4 inch bore, so I think it is a fairly common blank. The factory compression ratio is about 10 or 10.5, mine are a little more pump gas friendly, 9.5.

-Abone.

 

Official Cadillac priming tool works great.



But, one side of the rockers only gets oil to the first set of rockers. Took me a while to figure it out, but the long groove goes to the bottom, but equally as important, the oil hole MUST go to the rear.



If not, the oil hole will line up with the oil hole on the front of the rocker and will pump all your oil out of the hole and not let anything get to the rest of the rockers.



Everything now gets wet as Cadillac intended and the little motor still fits in the hole.



I drilled a hole in a nice set of valve covers and a nice intake manifold to make a PVC.





Seat is finished.



And, here is the engine with most of the shiny stuff on it.



Kind of the downhill slide. Probably going to fire the engine next week or the week after.



That's all I got. Happy Labor Day, go have a cold beer.

-Abone.

 

Looks great!

 

We sure would like to see your coupe in Tennessee in the end of May for the Model 40 Mayhem!

 

Be thankful that you found the rocker arm issue when you did!

Someone had installed the rocker shafts on my 331 upside-down and backwards and all that did was eat up a set of rockers and shafts before I got it. My 390 had been assembled by someone that apparently had no idea of how shaft type rockers work. He rebuilt it; it ran for a few minutes, made some funny noises and quit. I got a good deal on a "fresh" motor, knowing it had a problem.

Several bent valves, some bent pushrods and some divots to polish out of the pistons...

 

Looking awesome.

 

Yea!! it runs. I was expecting the carbs to be a bit finicky, but she fired right up and purrs like a kitten.

cad34video (youtube.com)

Still have to do wiring, and fix some knick knacks, but it's kind of downhill from here.


-Abone.

 

Not sure if the video works. Try this.



-Abone.

 

Wow!! Cool!!
Sounds Nice...what do you have for exhaust?

 

most excellent!

 

Sounds crisp!