I know it passed tech but I got called out on the fuel regulator on the firewall, they went by the 6 inch rule.
We put in a call to the nhra tech director. Jim knows the guy real well. His wife called back to say he is in charollette for the race this weekend. He will call monday or tuesday. We want to know if i can leave the regulator where it is if i disconnect the feed line and plug it with a a-n plug. The line can then be pulled back away from the bellhousing. I will post the response when i get it.
there has been a very unfortunate change of plans. dick wolton the painter was recently diagnosed with cancer. the front end has been put on hold for the moment. all of the work is going into getting everything done that needs to be finished up so the body can go back for the final painting. dick started chemo and radiation last monday. dick is a fighter and says he will beat this. i hope so. he is a very talented guy and a true car guy. it would be a huge loss for the entire area to loose him.
will do. a few months ago I mentioned a few things about dick. this guy has restored several classic cars. his deusenbergs and cords have won pebble beach five times. that's so hard to do when you are going against guys with unlimited budgets. several guys in this area say he is a better body man than jack. that's saying a lot. I will pass all of the comments on. after last week im sure he is not feeling good and could use some nice encouraging words.
o.k., all i know is this crap (cancer) ONLY happens to good people.. it sucks that way. tell your buddy we're hoping for the best. My princess Cheryl, got stage 3 lymphoma, and there isn't a better person on the planet. she is doing well now, slowly getting her energy level back, and fighting the side effects of chemo.. long road for sure. keep us in the loop about Dick, he sounds like a great guy for sure.
thanks steve. it does suck. cancer should be reserved for the rapists thieves and child molesters etc. i hope cheryl is able to still attend drag week.
Tell Dick that people he will never meet or know are holding him in there thoughts. The Hamb is a big place and I am sure that all that read this hope him the best. Get Well Soon Bud !!! Cheryl, you hang in there as well Babe...
My wife beat cancer 16 years ago, beat it so bad it don't dare raise its head again. Yes, chemo is a bitch but it sounds like Dick already has the hard part done; deciding he's going to fight it. Prayers sent.
I stopped by custom car care today. I passed on all of the well wishes to dicks son. he will relay them to dick. dick has received his second round of chemo. its understandable that he was not at work today. he is in good spirits given what he is going through. his son says thanks to everyone. on a happier note the coupe will be returning to the paint shop this Saturday. it should be finish painted in two weeks. I cant wait to see it done.
The body is now back at dicks shop. He was there and looking good all things considered. He said he cant not work. He has to stay busy. While i was picking up the car jim and i were discussing the steering column. i really would prefer the shift buttons on the wheel. Its nice to be able to have both hands on the wheel for the whole pass. Mounting them on the wheel can be a pain due to the air lines wrapping around the column when turning. My friend don francis had come along to help out. He metioned he had a sae brand piece he is not using. This magnesium casting has holes drilled in it for the air lines. There are grooves machined in it with o rings sealing it up. The column passes through it in the center. The casting says in one place. The inner black piece turns inside the casting. I can now hard line to the shift buttons for a much cleaner set up. These are usually found on funny cars. Im about one plasic body away from one. The chassis was scaled friday. It came in at 2500# ready to run.
there is a co2 bottle in the car. a line runs from the bottle to the casting on the column. lines then go to the buttons on the steering wheel. pushing a button sends co2 back to the casting then on to the shift pod on the trans. the pod pushes down on a fork engaging the clutch pack for a gear change. pulling back on the button releases the co2 in the pod disengaging the clutch pack. so to answer the question its like a automatic thats manually shifted. as far as street duty the trans doesn't care if its shifted with levers or air. its only a issue if the bottle goes empty. the bottles weigh 5lbs empty and 8.6 lbs full. the bottles are good for about 500 shifts. we do have spares.
Converting the car to burning nitro has brought about some interesting challenges. The latest is the burst panel issue. All blower manifolds have some sort of pressure release. The spring type are not legal for nitro use. I was going to remove my manifold and start drilling it for the burst panel next week. While i was on the phone with bob walker from hot heads discussing other things he asked how it was going with the car. I told him about my manifold dillema. He said hold on what manifold do you have. I said yours of course. He then said we make a conversion kit for that. No drilling required. there is a adaptor plate that bolt onto the manifold using the existing holes to attach it. So bob came through again. Saving me alot of time and work. It showed up today and ran to illinois to put it on. This kit is top notch. The fit was perfect. The kit also came with two extra panels and gaskets. This kit may also fit other manifolds for those looking to upgrade. i ran a file across the seating area before installing it. i also used a q-tip to apply some anti seize to all of the tapered holes. those little bolts can lock on so tight the heads have to be drilled off. thats not something i want to do on the side of the road. a little rtv on the panel helps prevent cracking.
I got the new steering wheel today. I couldnt put a orange wheel back in the car. This is how it will be setup with the shift buttons. the buttons are in the perfect locations to be pushed with my thumbs. I used the same setup in the 65. the texture of these wheels is perfect for the use of fire protectant gloves. It works great.
With the car scaled i was able to order rear springs and get them installed. With the body off all the welding was finished. With the body in place some areas were not accessable to weld. The anti roll bar and trailer hitch are in now. all of the tubing ends are now capped off. the gas tank mounts are finish welded. The shifter mount and linkage are also done. I spent most of today wrapping that up. We wanted right and left hand threads on the linkage for easy adjustments. Then jim wanted to go further with a hex cut into it. So into the mill it went. The indexing head made short work of it. The torsion bar issues were resolved and the drawings were sent to me. The radiator will be done next week. Things are moving fast again. A lot still needs to be done.
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