Wow, does Tim travel? I hate wiring! Excellent photo essay of how to wire, the RIGHT way! I've said it before and I'll say it again, I CAN'T wait to see this car! Are you going to the Round Up?
I guess I should get in line for Tim's services too! GREAT job Jess, thanks for going to all that effort in posting all those photos and filling us in on the details. Looking good sister! I'll second Megan's request, are we going to have your company at the RoundUp? Pls tell your Dad I said hi and I sure hope he's felling better.
Great post, the wiring details are excellent. I will be using this procedure next year when I rewire my Shoebox, and on any future project. Thanks...
Thanks girls. You two are the greatest. No Round Up for me this year unfortunately. But next year I'll be driving the coupe down there for sure. I'll let him know. He's been feeling better. Can't keep him in the house for long.
Megan and I will probably stop in Omaha overnight in Aug on our way to B'ville. The three of us need to sit down and plan a hot rod girls trip for 2009, maybe to the Pacific Northwest. Maybe we can get a couple more HAMB gals to join us too. Well talk soon.
I'm like others, where have I been? I'll bookmark this thread for sure, mainly because I have a 33 5W. Some may remember my "Someday" barn find.....1933 5W 392 Hemi 4spd. I don't post much, but do come here often. Well, maybe someday I'll see the car in person since a friend of mine just moved to Lincoln. If not, I'm sure I'll see the end result here. Thanks for all your efforts on this thread and good luck with your car. It gives me a real itch to get this build going. Well, "Someday", since I have a couple other cars that were in line first.....
Hey, nice progress on the coupe. I took a great deal of interest in the roof job as I have to do that myself. Looking forward to the next installment. Mart.
You've done a fantastic job. I've just gotta say.. Your old man is one helluva engineer. Keep us posted! Rob
Wow, not sure how I missed this before, but this is an awesome thread! Very thurough, I just read the whole thing straight! And I'm at work! I'd hate to blame you if I got fired haha
Hey all. I have some progress photos for you. Let's start with the headlights... Tim is preparing the wire for the lamps. Ooo, looks like I'll be doing more sandblasting inside this bucket: I went to O'reilly's and bought two 12 volt lamps for these headlights. We found out very quickly that they were 6 volt. Tim was testing the wiring and POP. Guess, that one was a 6 volt. That red ring holds the bulb to the bucket. Another bigger ring goes over the whole thing: Once the wiring was done, he mounted the headlight and fed the wire group through the splash guard. My dad is rummaging through a box of light bulbs which may fit the turn signals. Rats, they don't carry that size bulb in amber. We'll have to figure something out with clear bulbs. We turned off the shop lights and Tim flipped on the headlights. Simply beautiful. My brother Jason and Scotti are standing to the side there.
And now the battery holder... The battery boxes we've come across so far seem too bulky, so my dad opted to just make one. He started with a steel sheet and cut notches into it. Then on the trusty Break, he bent the metal sheet where he had marked it. It gets a little tricky towards the end, but if you slow down and think about the process, it'll come out alright... the second or third time. These battery wires are certainly heavy duty. My dad stripped it, places the shrink tube on, and put the end in place. Since the wire is soooo heavy duty, he used this gadget with the hydraulic press he built. The clamped end looks like this: No wimpy soldering iron here... let's get out the torch. Then the shrink tube was heated, and tah-dah... we have a nice looking battery wire. He drilled holes in the body and inserted a gasket type plug in each hole. The battery will hook to these bolts, so the battery wire for the starter will run under the car. And the end result....
Since the wire is soooo heavy duty, he used this gadget with the hydraulic press he built. [/quote] I love that little press! I bet it is really handy to have. I am working on a new battery tray is well and also a nice SEALED battery to protect the new one! The fit and finish on your car is inspiring, and we haven't even talked paint or uphostery yet!
Hey all. Check out this link that ChevyGirlRox sent me. (Thanks Megan.) http://lowtechblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/hamb-how-to-build-1933-5-window-coupe.html Turns out that Marc (Lowtech) is a fellow HAMBer too. I'm very honored Marc. Thank you.
I have some catching up to do. These photos were taken a couple weeks ago. This is the start of the bracket that will hold the coil on the engine. My dad is making it on the Bridgeport. We will have to hold the coil at an angle or flat on it's site to make it fit. And fast forward to the end result. Shiny new coil too. The wiring has been finished up for a bit too, but I wanted to give you guys the last few details. So I ended the last electrical post at the inside of the firewall. So Tim finished up the wiring that will live on the outside of the firewall. Headlights, grounds, alternator, horn, etc. This is the connector that hooks to the connector on the inside of the firewall. Notice the different wire ends... this is the female side. The other connector will clip into this one, so there will be contact with the male ends. As the electrical work progresses, there will be wires that have to be grounded. I scraped and sanded the paint off the engine block here for one of the grounds. And to the left of the fuel pump, you can sort of see where a ground will be connected to the frame. To get the distributor set up correctly, we had to turn the engine over by hand to get #1 in the correct position. You can also see the new water neck on top of the engine. They had me install the little timing point next to one of the pulleys. This is the point where it becomes very obvious I don't know as much about engines as I should... or at least that I can't intelligently talk about them. This was just a photo showing off the exhaust manifold we scored at the swap meet. It turns out, it's cracked... which led to a string of mutterings I won't repeat here.
The sunday of the World of Wheels in Omaha, I had to attend a wedding shower for my sister's soon-to-be sister-in-law. I missed out on the drilling of the taillight holes in the body. They turned out awesome. We were originally going to use the round 1950 Pontiac taillights, but the body called for these 1941-1948 Chevy taillights. He also got the fuel filter installed. He uses these same filters on the race car's push trucks. He joked it should last for the rest of my life. Plus the battery wire and fuel line were secured to the frame: Here's a good shot of the engine as it was progressing. Fills out a bit, doesn't it? I've gotten so used to seeing the plain red block holding it's place on the frame. Getting close... goosebumps. This shows the new fuel lines coming up from the fuel pump to the carburetor. The PVC tube and vacuum advance tubes were installed. And the new spark plugs, with which I learned to properly set spark plug gaps. And... I got to practice eight times.
And now a valuable safety tip. Safety, safety, safety. My dad drills safety into us kids. We're absolutely required to wear safety glasses when working with most of the equipment in the shop. So many things in the shop can disfugure you in a second... And one of us not wearing a seat belt is unheard of... The time came for us to tighten up the bolts on the front end. Most of these got nice looking new washers and new ny-lok nuts. These ny-loks have a ring on nylon towards the end that will lock the nut on to the bolt. We hadn't been tightening the ny-loks very tight thus far, since they will wear out. And with all the assembly and disassembly, we didn't want to waste any good ny-loks. Anyway, we go to tighten-up some front end components and found that the some of the bolts weren't making it to the nylon end of the nut. My dad used the lathe to shorten the nuts a little. This crappy photo shows the difference: Then, they were installed and tightened: This photo shows both bolts coming through the nylon ring of the ny-lok.
The exhaust system has been an interesting challenge. Take these tubes of various lengths & bends and connect them in a way to wind thru the frame without touching anything else. And, oh yeah, you'll be standing under the car with your arms stretched up above your head. Lots of cutting, sanding, checking angles, recutting, resanding, checking connections, tack welding, pulling apart, bolting up and measuring. My dad decided we should start from the rear of the car to make sure our mufflers were level and thought out. To add a level of complexity, it was also decided that the exhaust should weave thru the frame, and not simply hang under the car... that the exhaust should blend in, not call attention to itself. Here's the driver's side end: I was convinced that this stand was designed by someone who worked on their own a lot... when there's not a kid around to say, "Here. Hold this." I joked about it and he said most muffler shops use something like it. He made his. Just two sizes of pipe, one sliding inside the other, with a metal plate holding the whole thing upright and a v-shaped piece holding the muffler up on top. A vise grip holds the smaller pipe in place against the larger diameter one. After we ran out of free hands, duck tape came into play: This bracket got tack welded onto the muffler end. Part of the bracket will be replaced by a piece of rubber later. Lots more measuring, cutting, sanding, test fitting, tackwelding... lots of patience, which sometimes had a shelf-life. We slowly worked our way towards the front of the car. We wanted both exhaust pipes to end at the same point under the car, so it looked balanced. We constantly took measurements to the pipe from fixed points on the rear end and from the radius rods. Wood spacers kept the pipe sitting certain distances from the frame. The actual piece that connects to the exhaust manifold has been tricky. My dad designed and milled a stainless steel ring to hold the donut on the pipe to the manifold. He tack welded the ring in place. The whole thing bolts up to the manifold. This is looking up into the exhaust manifold. Hmmm... that steering shaft looks like it may be a problem... Here's the passenger side. Funny how one post can represent a whole week's worth of work.
Sunday was engine day. Everything done yesterday was done in the hopes of starting her up by night fall. Tim worked on running spark plug wires to the distributor. We got the hoses hooked up to the radiator: The electric choke was installed on the carburetor: Finally! It was time to start her up. The distributor was aligned perfectly, everything had a good connection, pour in 5 gallons of gas, pour in five quarts of oil, squirt some fuel into the carb, flip on the battery, turn the key, listen to the starter AND.... what the? Come on... start, dang it. The timing light wasn't even flashing, so the spark wasn't going through. We had some options. Was it the newly rebuilt distributor (with magnetic points and not mechanical points), the brand new coil, or the wiring? We took off the distributor cap and checked it out. Everything Tim did was to spec. And he was sure the wiring was correct. While my dad tramped down to the barn to find another distributor, Tim and I tested this distributor with an amp meter. It was fine. And the distributor brought up from the barn confirmed that it wasn't the problem. So now attention goes to the shiny brand new coil. An old not-so-shiny coil proved to work and the engine rumbled to life. Tim and Dad had about thirty seconds to correct the timing before they flagged me to shut her down, since we didn't have any fluid in the radiator. So, here's the final photo from last night, rusty coil and all.
That's awesome, Jess! Great photos and descriptions, too! I'm gonna try to make a trip down there this weekend - I'll give ya a call. Malcolm
Just another reminder that I need a neat and tidy battery box AND new exhaust.....can I borrow your Dad for a weekend??? Love the updates, keep'um coming!
Jess. Awesome thread. It makes me want to look for a '36 Plymouth now. I know, different car but same kinda lines. Thank you again for the much needed inspiration. KNUX!
The Jalopy Journal
