Projects My 31 cdan before, disaster, and rebuild.....lol... S$$$ happens...

here's the beast of B powered Cdan when i got it...




guy I got it from sadi it was the OG A banger




I looked under her skirt.... guess what I found???? 36 ford tranny w/ elect. over drive gear spliter.... 40 juice brakes, I got more wood then the floor boards..


it drove down the road... syncro 2nd &3rd was nice...

 

so what did I buy???? no clue,.... lots of mystery parts.... so lets see who knows what here....

first thing I figured out was it was a B banger, C 3 hole head motor,... and my guess is it was a later than 34 industrial motor...but it has 36 wheels and trans...

the # B8731 is stamped.... but no stars or letters... and nothing on the bell housing




now the gold nugget find.... a loaded souped up B motor... ya hoo!!!$$$$$$$$

who has seen or knows what oiling system this is????

 

more gold$$$$
down draft aluminum intake w/ stromberg 97 carb...






yep.... thats a B alright...



no sand cast #'s anywhere...

 

guess I should say this...when I bought the car I thought it was a total builder... pics in the add showed no floors or interior....so I called the guy and told him where I was, and would like to see more pics.... he say's... I live right up the street, I'll just drive it over....he rolls in my drive way and Boom, I own it...

I look inside... new mo hair, head liner and all...




it came with the carpet for the front...





I hunted for ever for a 4 door for havasu...




lots of doo dads..

 

it came with pretty nice 600. 16's WW' that was first to go,... got 5.50's and 750's



the hood sides, light bar, grille, rock gaurd, bumpers, close hamper in the rear, rear bumpers, ahh oga horn , lic plate bracket, etched vent windows,.. all went in a pile....


never heard of these guys, but the gear spliter is great...

 

this YL 11A mallory was a head scratcher..... WHY???? ... motor seemed lazy , but started easy and never died.....???? more to come on that deal.... any way... it's also on the bench...

 

so before anyone else could see me driving around in this beast,,,,, ordered and installed a posie 2'' reverse eye spring for the front...rears where back ordered so I just bent the rear main leaf,...

 

That Laycock overdrive was used on some 70's AMC Gremlins. I had one with it.

 

here's with the new tires....did something I haven't done in 50 years....mounted the tires with the wheels still on the car by hand......EEK... seems like that used to be the easy way... took an hour each....


also, removed the hood side panels... mmade hold downs out of stainless house door hindges,.. used the door pins to mount to the hood,... door pins are the same soze as the hood rod, that way I could put them back to stock easy..



got my AZ plate..

 

Looking forward to seeing where you go with this one. Nice start!

 

took the clothes hamper, bumpers, and 2nd lic plate bracket off...




and the front bumper and other doo dads off...

 

I was going along great,... then the disaster happened.... more to come...

 

in case everyone is getting bored,... here's my 53,.. one of the rarest chevy's every built,and rare rare to see.... it was the last year chevy made a coupe. and one of the few... club coupe with a back seat and sliding rear windows... note the long trunk, and short coupe roof.... most all 53's were Cdans

 

OOP'S HERE she is...

 

Some where in nov. of 1931 , i'm guessing ,real hotrodders started doing this mod....and the trend hasn't stopped.....lol...sorry,... not trying to make purests cry or get angry,... so with all due respect( you can say anything you want if you say that first).....

bought the grille on ebay.... 200 bucks complete.... OH YEAH!!!! you get what you pay for....said it was a bolt on for a 1931...LMAO.... took me 8 hours to get this done...lining. everything up is a bitch.. 1/8th off and it's horrible...






one of the problems I ran into, my radiator is thicker and the top tank is wider that a model a...





next, they said it was a bolt in for a 31.... but,... where the hood bolts it's raised instead of dipped like a 31, so my hood is off about 3/16'' or so

 

so the top off the grille is right on....but the hood needs to come down a tad...




there's no other way to do this but ol school... rool it out step way back and look.. eyes don't lye, mouths do...



so once I get the center hood hindge down, if that don't fix it, radiator will have to come out and the bottom mounts cut off and raised...

 

here's another none fitting piece I bought.... dropped light bar for a 1931ford with a 32 grille swap....

hours and hours and it still don't fit.... working from home...I finally quit... I own a fab & muffler shop... lots of equipment, benders , welders.. plasma table and such.. so I finish the light bar when I take down to get the 2 into 1 heaaders built with the 48'' live 2'' side pipes... I think what I m gonna do is split the header 1&2....& 3&4 straight pipe 2" each side... my dad used to run with a guy, gene winfield in modesto... he had a 36 ford carson top,... and a 41...carson top... straight pipe exhaust.... he said they used to drill a hole in the pipe and stick steel wool in the pipe and use a 16 penny nail to hold the wool in till they got the ticket signed off....

 

sooooo.... here's my 32..... it's just a 32.... nothing on it is. or was from 1932... it's a 32 clone?????

calling it a kit car pisses people off,... so lets just go with clone....

pic is from havasu,... every thurs day the rods come out and park on the main drag....

 

so more on the mallory dealeo.... thinking cool, I got a performance dizzy.... but driving the car it was lazy...car has no timing marks.... and I was able to spin the dist a little....so I power timed it...got it to where it started ok,... they took the rod off the steering advance so I figured it was a centrifical... any way more to that story comming with the disaster novel....lol

 

You may have better results with pairing 1-4 and 2-3 for better scavenging. I run about a 10 inch glasspack and 4 foot of 2 inch pipe and its not that loud.

 

so anyway, got ahead of my self a little....

more on the gold nugget B Banger power...

so I'm a gotta know kind of guy,... and wanna say this,...no respectable hot rodder would be able to live with this motor not knowing whats inside..... out sides it has all the signs of a fresh performace build...

so... up on the lift,... and drop the pan...ts... need to do that now days, and even better if done before you get you name on paper work...

so I see new pistons, drilled counter weight balanced crank internal and external oil pump with oil filter.. motor is clean as yesterday done...




sleaved cyls tells me it wasn't a dingle berry hone and babit job .... that and insert bearing rod and main....



oil pump doesn't fall out when you drop the pan....but I still don't who's pump it is....????





also notice the lightened flywheel...

 

disaster story coming, got to do some honey do's

 

not sure on your thinking there... #1 fires, then 90degrees #2 fires.... #4fires 180 after #1 and #3 90 after #4(talking cam rotation)

 

now the disaster..so out ridding around vegas.. , with out doing the math,.. I'm guessing 10 mpg is the most I was getting...heading home I was low on gas...so I stopped and filled up,.. i know it's now a good idea to top the tank.. but I did fill it...when i got home and was putting the car in the garage... I noticed fuel seeping a little out of the fuel gage...I was gonna drain the tank down,... but got this bright idea.... up the street there is a 6% grade... figured I would go give that a run to see how fast it would go up the hill...I hit the hill in 3rd over and started down shifting immediately...still feeling like the distributor wasn't advancing...

figured when I got home I'll look into it ...started slowing down pretty good... bout 30 last time i looked.... temp stayed right at 150... so I got off the freeway at the next exit... went across the bridge and headed back down hill,,,running about 60 she start sputtering....some things wrong.... a car pulls along side me, bout 6 hi schoolers heads hanging out the window and throwin the little finger pointer finger sign and the thumbs up...


so there I was , arm hanging out the window doing my best James dean lean.... I noticed smoke coming out the front under the hood...and then the flames burning the hair off my arm,,... guess the kids in the car though I had some sort of flame thrower under the hood...

now I'm in panic mode gotta pulled off the road and away quick before the fuel tank goes...

flames where comming out the side of like a bb/q with steaks on fire... got over to the fuel shut of right as the rubber fuel line burnt through,,

standing there about in tears,,,, figured I gotta try to put the fire out... I had a sweatshirt on the seat, and a stack of clean grease rags I took from the shop.. so I took the sweatshirt and started smothering out the flames.... ,..OK flames out.... now there smoke coming out the cab...... the insulation they used on the fire wall was burning... ripped that out and all was good..ah $hit,,,

 

so all in all, I feel like the one eyed 3 legged dog they called lucky.... I really figured it was burnning to the ground...

so how did it catch on fire???????? you won't believe this... the screw that holds the fuel float in the carb (stromberg 97) worked loose and fell out, so a stream of gas squirting on the red hot manifold


damage was mostly smoke damage........ fuel line, plug wires, dist cap, carb ??? probley ok... nothing melted...

 

Yaaaaa
Yaaaaaaa
Wooooo-hoooooo
Yaaaaaa mannnnn
Gooo man gooo !!

uh,
No,
Nu-uh,
Stop
Stop!
STOP
JEBUS STOP !!!!


That’s , that’s pretty much what your story had me doing , dang that sucks , but at least you lived to tell the tale , and there seems to be more tail to be had .


So as my wife says ( in my dreams )

DONT STOP ! Keep going

 

So,... one thing that was on my list of to do's... was find out why the dist wan't advancing.... pulled out the mallory and there is no advance.... it locks in about 10 degrees and thats where it stays..... when you use the timing pin on a B motor it's not TDC,,,, it's 10 degrees.... easy to tell if it's a A or b timing gear cover is the B cover has the pin hole to the right on the boss...

as you can see in the pic.... the mallory you don't adjust the timing, it is what it is..it locks in and doesn't move.. probley because it was an oil/water pump motor,... or some kind of equipment motor designed to run at low rpm..

 

soooo... more gold nuggets were found....when the motor was running(past tense)... # 2 lifter was noisey

figured while the intake and exhaust was off,... pull the lifter cover.... Hell yeah... adjustable tappets

also... the pump pumps pressured oil to the mains and rods...