Thanks for the tip. Is there anything specific that has to be done before/ during break in? I've heard special oil to help break in the cam and an oil pressure gauge is a must have. This is a first time thing for me
I've been plugging away at the roadster far more than my sedan, summer is almost here for convertible season! The pitman arm was touching the split bones so I torched it red hot then bent it over and re-tapered the hole. That freed a little space! next up was building a box for the fuel tank, battery, dog, or whatever else decides to come along for a cruise. +Stain
As you can see on the above pictures, I cannibalized some original 1950 exhaust manifolds to make junk headers. I mostly made them to check clearances, however they clearly looked amateur. So I picked up some assorted bends and flanges and made my own, properly this time Cut it, grind it, turn it, tack it, cut it, twist it, torch re-weld it, then sort of polished. Pretty happy with it, have no idea what to do with it now though... maybe I'll just let it rust until I figure it out. RUST NEVER SLEEPS
Then was the fun part, time to make things fancy. Engine went gold, chassis went black. Made one hell of a mess painting the chassis inside.. oops.
Then the body. Used a brush to paint the inside and the bottom because I learned from my mistakes Then I loaded it in a pickup and brought it to my place of employment for paint! I didn't think the firewall was flat enough for gloss black paint so I wanted to do a design. The brake cylinder sits inside the firewall as well so there was an ugly plate that needed covering. Well I wasn't real happy with how the firewall looked so I smelled change in the air. A few days before I discovered the process of engine turning, the art of scratching material with overlapping circles creating a interesting pattern. First, I practiced on an old ipod in a drill press(stainless backing) The problem with doing a sheet the size of a firewall is the throat depth of the average drill press is not even close to big enough to reach the center of a 32' sheet. Improvising was necessary. I discovered this ancient drill press in an old shed, looks home built. I plugged it in and flicked the switch but was just heard a click, followed with disappointment. Took apart the mangled switch and hotwired it, tada! came to life. The next issue was making the drill press so I could scrub below the base line. With a bit of modification I made exactly what I was looking for, for free I used an aluminum sheet, about 14 ga? and marked a 1" grid with pencil As you can see, I cut a 2x5 down so the drill could mount on top and the sheet could slide under. Then just had to modify the drill's travel and it was perfect. Drill started smoking once so I got an unintentional coffee break until the old beast cooled down. Then trimmed with a jigsaw Well I suppose that's about it for now. I better get out there, car doesn't build itself
The Jalopy Journal
