Hot Rods BChrismer's Survivor '40 Ford Convertible

In a much better position than where I was last year. LOL

 

That's FOR SURE!

 

Just hung up with the exhaust man. He wanted to start the car, to check for leaks, but didn't know how the stock '40 column switch worked with the start button. I walked him through that, and he fired it up. I asked him how it sounded, but he said he couldn't hear it because it had just started hailing on his metal building. That must mean that the little 12" glass packs are doing better than he expected. LOL

His shop is about 45 minutes from my house, so I will get up early and head up that way before work so I can get him paid and move it out of his shop. I will have to go back up later in the day to pick it up and take it back over to Meeker's shop, where I will be working on it on Saturday to swap out the fuse panel, finish the wiring, redo some of the fuel line because I accidentally ran it where it is interfering with the clutch pedal travel, and try to get the thing buttoned up enough to drive it back to Springfield.

When Pike put the dropped axle back under the car, he used the Pete & Jakes front shock mount kit. Unfortunately, the design on that does NOT work well with a stock wishbone and dropped 40 axle. The inside lip of the wheels rub on the lower shock mount pins. I ordered a new set of shackles for the front, and Dale @Weedburner 40 will be bringing me some of his shock towers so I can relocate the shocks sometime next week.

Yep...I'm getting excited to get this dang thing back on the road.

 

The latest update. (long post)

Drove up to the exhaust shop early on Friday morning, so I could pay the man and get back to work before my Friday morning conference call. I was there long enough to pay him, fire up the car and hear the exhaust, and have a short discussion about coming back up first thing on Saturday, with Mike and his trailer, to pick it up.

I fired the car up and the exhaust sounded great, except for a definite leak at the exhaust manifold. After some inspecting, it was clear that there was hole in the casting near the front bolt on the driver's side. That sucks, but I can more than likely borrow a manifold that Pike has on one of the SBCs sitting in his shop while I search Marketplace for one somewhere near me.

I walked over to the other side and revved the engine two times, guestimating around 3000rpms. That's when it started making a knocking sound and my weekend spiraled out of control.

Because I had committed to getting it out of his shop on Saturday, I meet Meeker up at his shop and he dragged his trailer over to the exhaust shop. As I started the car up to back it out, it then was obvious that the exhaust shop man did NOT listen to me when I told him to make sure he used something to hold the clutch pedal fully extended to the floor when he was fitting the exhaust through the frame. The clutch pedal clearly hits the exhaust with over an inch of travel left between the pedal and the floor. As we were talking about it, he even admitted that he failed to do that, so the car is STILL sitting in his shop and I was not able to finish up all my wiring that was still left, nor further diagnose the source of the knocking. To compound the problem, the exhaust guy tripped and fell down some stairs on Friday night, busted up his face, broke a tooth, and a rib or two, so who knows when he's going to feel good enough to fix the section that is interfering with the clutch pedal.

I called Butch, the guy I bought the 283 from, letting him know I was not calling to gripe, but for some help with thinking through what would have caused a motor that I heard run for over 20 minutes in his shop that had absolutely no knocks to have a knock after sitting for 9 months, and only start the knocking after a half dozen starts. He wants to come up and see what's going on with it, and believes it may just be a carbon buildup knock.

I'm praying that he's right, and running a can of Seafoam through the carb will resolve the knock. If that does, the car will make it to the Gathering at the Roc. If it doesn't stop the knock, then the next step is to dump it back in the corner of my garage, hauling the '58 oil burning and slinging 283 that is in the corner of my garage over to the machine shop, and Butch offered to assemble everything, and then doing a late fall/early winter motor swap AGAIN.

 

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...oncbid=0&ajaxsydconv=1&mmscn=vwrc&FORM=WRVORC

 

Can't click the like button on your last post. Sorry it's going like that.

Dave

 

Dang, your luck needs to change. All this difficulty will make that first drive all the sweeter!

 

Absolutely! This one is making me question my sanity.

 

I had the same problem with my project when I built a nice exhaust pipe. The clutch pedal just wouldn't clear until I welded in a smaller pipe section.

 

awww man....you will make it happen....ain't old cars fun

 

When I put tube headers on my '40 with stroker flathead, I had the exhaust done with 1 7/8" pipes. When he got done, I went to back it off the lift and the clutch pedal bangs into the left pipe. His solution? Heats the pipe up and has me stomp the clutch until it finally clears. I wasn't happy but he was done. Not much room on that side of the car for exhaust. Still that way today all these years later so I guess it works.

Dave

 

Last night, while out at dinner, I got a call from Mike Meeker. He says the wife of the exhaust guy sent him a message and said that on Saturday, the exhaust guy got to ride in an ambulance to the hospital, due to the pain he was in. That's when he was informed that in his fall, he broke his neck, some vertebrae in his back, and several ribs. His wife says he's worried about having my car in the shop and the need to fix the exhaust routing mistake.

I sent them a message to let them know I am not worried about the car, but more concerned that he rest and heal up, but we'll likely come up to pick the car up so I can do the other work I need to regarding the knock and my finish wiring.

Regarding where to go next, Meeker and I will pick up the car, take it to Butch's home shop (the guy I bought the 283 from), and he's gonna help with the diagnosis on the knock. Hopefully we can do that around the schedule of Midwest Forty Ford weekend so that I can have the weeknights next week to do that stuff.

 

It didn't make it to the Midwest Forty Ford Gathering, but I am happy to say that it is back to running good, and I gave it a 19 mile drive back to the house last night.

Butch was able to find the source of the knock. Somehow I must have dropped a wiring connector into the intake while doing my thing, which wound up in the #2 cylinder. Butch pulled the plugs on the driver's side and found the #2 spark plug was "beat to hell" and scoped and fished out all the debris. He said there's some indentations in the top of the piston, but thinks it'll be totally fine to drive. The engine and exhaust sounded great, until I lopped out 14" of pipe that was causing the interference with the clutch pedal.

I wired up my lights, but discovered the brake light switch has gone bad, so Butch followed me home to make sure nobody crunched me along the way at a stop sign.

I'll be calling my "go to" exhaust guy to apologize for cheating on him, and see if he can fit me in later this week to fix the section the other guy didn't get right.

I need to figure out how to wire in the turn signals, as I don't have the wiring diagram for those, and a few other things, but if my exhaust guy can get me in, it'll be coming to the Gathering at the Roc, as planned.

 

Turn signals have been covered here many times. If you don't want to search, just lay out what you have and expect (park lights?) and we will get you there. It may require an ohmmeter and some testing, but it can be done.

 

Yeah, I have done turn signals in the coupe, stake truck, panel truck, the beater mordor, but I have slept since then.

The turn signal switch in the convertible looks to be the Speedway Standard Turn Signal Switch, and I have the diagram for it. I'm going to have to rip out all the wiring for the back end of the car, as it is a mess with multiple random splices here and there. I'll also take that time to relocate the switch to behind the column drop so it isn't such an eyesore.

 

You should be good then. Try not to drop anything else down the engine!

 

No doubt!!!

 

Exhaust man is going to squeeze me in on Tuesday of next week, just two days before the planned road trip to Bartlesville. Life is an adventure!

 

Looking forward seeing it. I'll save ya place..

 

Spent some time out in the garage this evening.
Items on my to do list for tonight.
- swap brake light switch with a low pressure Harley switch. I've got brake lights now!
- Adjust the clutch so it fully disengages with room to the floor.
- Stick an 18" piece of flexible exhaust repair pipe as a temporary fix until the visit to the GOOD exhaust guy to do it right.
- Swap bulbs in the parking lamp sockets so they match.
- Wired up the cigar lighter so I can keep my phone charged while I am using DigiHUD for my speedometer.
- wired up my little Bluetooth amp.

Items still needing to be done:
- Adjust brakes
- Reroute the fuel line forward of the electric fuel pump.


Regarding my temporary exhaust repair, I didn't put any clamps on it but it seems to be "good enough for the girls I've gone out with" and will let me run around town in it for the next few days.

I do need to check the timing. I think it needs a little advance as it seems to break up a bit at higher rpms when I'm accelerating to shift from 2nd to 3rd. Steer me right if my logic is off on that thought.

But...I'm feeling good about the trip to Bartlesville!

 

On those old small blocks, the rule of thumb for timing was advance it until it pings, then back it off two degrees. Those 283's like ignition advance.

 

I’ve got a good long hill not to far from my house with a buddy who lives at the bottom. I’ve charged that hill and messed with the timing at the end of his driveway enough times that I think he also knows how to time it now lol.

good luck on your adventure to the roc

 

if it wasn't for the last minute...nothing would get done...
good news on dispensing of your knock.... what was the world like without borescopes .....
see you for a hot hamburger.....

 

Apparently it was a bit more advanced than what it liked. I put a timing light on it, with the vacuum advance unplugged and vacuum blocked off and the timing mark was showing up at 12:00. Backed out the advance to the timing tab and it drove much better.

 

Washed up the car on Monday night. It's as clean as it's gonna be for the Gathering at the Roc.

This morning I am running the convertible down to get the exhaust fixed so I don't have the "temporary" flex tube in place.

Later, I will be picking up a new 12-6v instrument cluster voltage reducer from the O'Reilly store to replace the one I had bought from Amazon that I suspect has gone bad. Neither my temp or gas gauges are working when they once had. I have misplaced my last "good" multimeter, so I bought a replacement one last night at the Harbor Freight. I like their little $20 Ames DM300 pocket multimeter because you can set it for an audible tone when checking continuity, and they are convenient, but apparently easy to misplace, too. ;-)

I still have a little mush in the brake pedal, so I will likely be bleeding brakes again tonight.

 

The skies were overcast on the way to the exhaust shop to replace my temporary fix.


Mark had me ride up on the lift so i could hold the clutch to the floor while he did his pipe bending magic.


The ride home was exciting. When I started it to back it off the lift, it backfired in the intake and shot a vinyl vacuum cap off the fitting. In the manifold.

I also ran it out of gas in an industrial park, but fortunately I had thought to throw my lawnmower gas can into the car for such an occasion. A quick stop to the gas station and a few more gallons of the good stuff, and I got it back home.

New rubber vacuum cap installed and timing checked again. Seems good for now.

 

Slightly off topic, but this helpful hit just came to mind and I felt it needed to be shared:

IF your exhaust guy tells you to ride up on the lift to hold the clutch pedal down as he's fitting stuff, it's highly advisable to use the restroom before going up and whatever you do, DO NOT drink the big insulated cup full of coffee while you're up there.



Back on track, I did make a run over to O'Reilly and picked up a VRC604, a '60s to '70s era Ford Gauge Cluster Voltage Regulator. Ford used 6v gauges in their vehicles into the 70's, and you can run your gauge power for the fuel, oil, and temp gauges from them. I had bought a solid state one from Amazon, but it already failed. The new one is working like a charm and I now have working temp and fuel gauges. I have yet to buy the copper fittings to install my early Ford oil pressure sender.

 

Because '40 Ford stock tail lamps tend to direct the light UPWARDS, they are nearly invisible at night when they are on. I decided that I probably should steal the United Pacific LED lenses out of my coupe and put them in the convertible, and ordered a new set to go back into the coupe. Heck, I might even fix the passenger side fixture in the coupe so it ALWAYS works now, too.

This afternoon, I made a run over to the hardware store to buy some copper fittings to allow me to install an early Ford oil pressure switch in the 283, so all my stock gauges work with the exception of the volt meter.

After fixing the gauge wiring, I remembered that Ben Sandy had given me some 60ohm resistors, so I soldered up a lead wire to run to my voltmeter, but haven't installed it yet.

 

Just a thought about your volt meter. Instead of a fixed 60ohm resistor i used a adjustable 0-100 ohm resistor. That way I could dial in the exact positions I wanted the voltmeter to operate at. Think I ended up around 65ohms total. But allowed me to fine tune the needed placement form 12V - 14V running.