Technical What did you do with your car today? * NEW*

Changed the oil in my coupe and ran both the coupe and roadster up to temperature.
Photo is not from today. You can tell because there is no snow on the ground.

 

Fooled around with tail lights, tuned up the openings for the lenses along with welding up some pits and divots. Retrieved the bumper from the cold and figured out how to mount the guards; but didn't have the right material up at the garage.

Made up some parking lights out of a couple derelict '40 tail light housings and some '41 Chev stuff. Hopefully they should hide in the recesses of the Caddy grill and only be seen when on.

Started out trying to make some dash knobs; should be fun & interesting.

 

Got out this morning to swap heads on my SBC in the '39 Chev coupe. Got it all torn down, and got the cleanup done. Installed the ARP stud kit for the heads, and then tried to do the torque setting, but only had a 6 point 1/2' deep socket. It seemed to fit the nuts OK, but before I could get to the first step in the 3 stages of torque for these heads the socket slipped. I hate these stupid 12 point nuts!
I stopped and called the local used tool peddler and he had a good 1/2" drive 12 point deep socket for $2, so ran and got it. First time in this store, so had to peruse the inventory. Found a couple bins of wratcheting box end wrenches, and since I'm often irritated by not having more than one in 9/16" and 1/2", I grabbed two of those for $4 ea. too. Good place to stop anyway as my back hurts. So I'll finish the torque work and assembly tomorrow.

 

Took the speedometer out of the Sunliner to install the serviced speedo but when I checked it the odometer was going backwards so I installed the other junkyard speedo and now has 12000 less miles.

 

Broke in a new solid lifter cam. Seems to have went well. Pulled the rocker covers, checked the lash and their all about the same. Going to run it some more before I replace the valve springs with the ones I'm going to run. Not out of the woods yet, but one big hurdle is done.

 

Trying to salvage a SBC intake that someone jacked up to try using it with "straight bolt" Vortex heads. 1st time TIG welding cast aluminum and I think the intake may survive my practice.

Lynn

 

Preparation! Getting my parts washer into operation using Purple
Power. I will be putting a new four banger together for the Model A. It is the Burtz Block. Been getting all the various parts ordered. Just a bit of machine shop work needed. It uses std. 2” SBC Chevy bearings, and that has been the hardest part to get in terms of ready availability.
Next job will be to set up the startup stand for the Model A.

 

Bought these babies. Plan to use one as a dummy unit on my Model A with a ‘modernized’ RC-85 tach. Giddyup.

John

 

Got my new heads bolted on, torqued, and valves adjusted. Need to get valve cover gaskets, RTV, and spark plugs tomorrow. Install intake, and finish tying up loose ends, and she's ready to fire up.

 

I feel like I'm coming down the home stretch on my engine swap. I've been busy getting big stuff in place for final assembly, and now I'm in the stage where there are seemingly a million smaller tasks to complete.

Today I filled the engine with oil, primed the pump, and set my valve lash. Then I installed my intake and torqued it down to specification.

I'm running two Edelbrock AVS2 500cfm carbs, jetted down to work better as a dual quad setup. I absolutely despise the ridiculous tag on the front of the carb, which I feel kinda ruins some of the cool vintage vibe I have going on. I actually called Edelbrock's tech line a while ago to inquire as to whether or not the rivet holes for the tab were blind or not, and the dude laughed and told me that was the first time he'd ever been asked that question. But he confirmed they were. Today, I took a die grinder and carbide burr and ground off the rivets to remove the tags. Which goes a long way in making them at least look a little like AFBs instead of some new fangled carbs.


I'll be busy the rest of this week installing the starter, water pump and belt drive, then throttle cable, linkage and TV cable, and making my power steering lines.

 

Saturday was a wonderful spring day, in February, so I had lunch at Doumar's which has been in this location since 1934, then drove over to get some photos with the USS Wisconsin.

 

Made a new hood scoop for my modified to fit a Hilborn fuel injection stacks , that's if I ever find a Hilborn for a BBC

 

mk1 jeep cherokee metric steering gear box, 30 spline 3/4'' 1 1/8 sector - 71 olds power pitman - stock ford taper 7 degrees - double joint borg u/j 30 inch column


swapped the spring to reversed eye - one 10mm thick length of steel 1 1/4'' wide and a big clamp

 

Poured $50.00 worth of CAM 2 in this pig.

 

That doesn't seem right to me, a SBC engine making >1 hp per cu in with 8.5:1 compression? 258 seems more like it.

 

Agreed, they look MUCH better!

 

Not today, but over the weekend: Saturday I checked the fluids, greased the front end and gave the A pickup a once over, then dark thirty Sunday morning I took off to meet up with about 150 other cars in Apple Valley to take the annual Super Bowl Sunday drive to Peggy Sue's Diner outside of Barstow. After breakfast at the diner I took a side trip to El Mirage dry lake on the way home. Ended up getting home around 250 miles later at abut 3:00.

 

that's cool
been there on one of our trips
my wife likes"then dark thirty Sunday morning" she had not heard that saying before
when in USA we always hit the road "dark thirty" to get a jump on traffic
View attachment 5318780

 

I think it's cool that of all the places in this big world, that it's this little diner on the outskirts of Barstow CA, in the middle of the desert here, that we've both been too. That is something else.

 

We have been there also. We normally stay in Barstow on our way into or out of San Jose. With the Rv we always try to run the desert between Barstow and Needles very early in the morning (before sun up) to avoid those nasty winds.

 

150 cars at Peggy Sue's at one time? Must have taken every seat and then some.
I absolutely love Peggy Sue's. Stopped there a lot in my trucking days.

Ben

 

Yeah, not everyone ate there, and those that did spread out their times in the diner. They served a buffet and it went pretty quick.

 

Good news and not so good ! The good news is that I finally got this Stude on a front end rack to check the thrust angle before I weld it up solid. The bad is that I have to cut my tacks loose and move the drivers side back a short 1/4 in. Oh well not bad for setting it up with a string. I will re-string it to see where it is at compared to the computor.

 

Got rid of the slightly dented moons and the slightly rusted chrome wheels and replaced them with Americans .

 

Fixed up some mounts for my lights, since the bolts couldn't pass thru them anymore. Now to locate where I stashed the bumper irons.
Anyone have any thoughts on the fit and chrome quality of Bob Drake's bumpers?

 

Reinstalled all new parts for the factory a/c in the '64 sport fury

 

Today, I got more of the engine prepped to install. Shouldn't be too much longer until I have this mounted.

 

So after my trip to the alignment shop and finding the thrust angle off by a 1/4 in. ( meaning the rear axle is sitting crooked ) I came home and verified what the machine said. The wheel base was off 3/8 of an inch from one side to the other. I cut the tacks loose on the front spring mounts and could not get any adjustment there. I knew there was no movement in the spring mounts either.
The rear axle I am using has GM F body style mounts which used rubber pads for mounting. I had replaced those with aluminum blocks which had male/female locating dowels/holes. I have never been a fan of those mounts, my plan has always been to switch them out with a Chrysler style pad which would eliminate the block between the spring and the mount. But that was on the back burner until I got this thing running and driving. Now with everything cut loose and unbolted I removed the aluminum blocks and replaced them with a piece of 1/2" steel with a center hole locating it on the spring center bolt. This allows the axle to slid on the 1/2"plate which is located by the center pin.
Now with everything bolted back in place and clamped down I re-adjusted the axle position and got the axle square and tightened down. The only thing left will be welding the plate to the axle mounts after re-checking the thrust angle ( which I thought I had right the first time, I guess the smoke got in my eyes ) The worse part is that what used to take 3 hrs now takes me 3 days !

 

With the rear axle pretty well squared away and the truck off the ground and the pinion angle at a livable angle for now there where a couple areas that needed attention. The first one being that the cross member needed to come out to final weld the plate that holds the mount. With the truck off the ground and the driveshaft already out it took about 10 minutes to drop one side of the exhaust and remove the cross member. Not bad ! this truck is all about function and being easy to service.
Now with that taken care of the next item is the driveshaft, well really the front yoke. Again this truck is built from parts on hand or things friends have donated. The yoke that I had on hand at the beginning of this build has always been a concern. It is a light duty looking piece and the splines do not start until a couple inches into the end. ( this yoke would have been used on a output shaft using a o-ring ) That only gives about one and a half inches of spline engagement. The 400 output shaft has 3 inches of spline so you are only 50% engaged.
So I make a trip to a friends shop and find a nice long 400 yoke that is splined all the way to the end, plus it is a nice heavy duty piece with a quarter inch wall. ( I think this yoke was used on the NP 208 transfer case ) I get back home and get the yoke all cleaned up and guess what it won't fit ! it hits the bushing ( 1/4 inch wall remember ) the tail shaft extension is fresh with a new seal and bushing that I don't want to change . So I clean up another housing with the plan to install a new bushing . Back to my friends for the required pieces. He finds a housing with a bushing that fits, hands me a new seal and gasket and it is back to the house.
Now back under the truck, housing in place slid the yoke in and shit ! it is to long and hits the speed o gear. So the next task is to shorten the yoke. The blue tape shows the amount of spline engagement. But things are looking up.

 

Spent some time mocking up the rad and the grille pieces... Need to make some adapter brackets for the rad and will be raising the rad a couple of inches from where it currently sits.