The piece of aluminum for the crank adapter came in so I started working on that. The one side is faced off and a counterbore is machined into it so it will fit over the end of the crankshaft. Then it is turned around and a boss is turned down for the Chevy flex plate to fit onto. A counterbore is cut into the center for the torque converter to fit into. Checking the fit on the torque converter. And on the flex plate. The adapter is put back on the lathe and a hole is bored thru the center. This bored hole in the adapter is the same size as the pilot hole in the Ford flywheel. The flywheel is set on top of the adapter and a pin is pushed down thru it and into the adapter to line the two parts up. Then the four mounting holes are marked in the adapter with a center punch. With the mounting holes marked on the adapter, I can now drill them out.
Awesome work you're doing here Ray; I'm really enjoying following along on your project. Thanks for all the pics and details.
This is the finished adapter plate to mount the Chevy flex plate to the flathead crank. There are a couple of problems with the transmission adapter plate. With it being a full round plate, it makes it hard to reach the bolts that hold the torque converter to the flex plate. I also decided not to use that Dodge starter. It is really big and the starter bendix hangs out the side past the side of the bellhousing. Also, the exhaust header would have to be removed to get the starter in or out. Since the Chevy automatic transmission only has mounting holes on the top half of the bell housing, the solution is to cut the bottom half off the transmission adapter. The four bolts that fasten the flex plat on are 1-1/4 inch long grade-8 bolts and they go all the way thru the adapter and thread into the crankshaft flange. I'm going to use one of the newer, mini high torque starters that GM is using now. I have brought the bendix gear out and it is held in that position by a piece of wood jammed into the hole in the bottom. The starter is set in place and shimmed up with blocks of wood. I made a cardboard template for the spacer between the block and the starter. Then I cut that spacer out of 1 inch thick aluminum. The two mounting holes for the starter are drilled into it and have helicoil threads installed. Two other holes are drilled and counter board for 5/16 allen head bolts. The starter is bolted to the spacer block and lined up on the engine. Then the spacer block is welded to the transmission adapter. Two holes are drilled up into the block thru the 5/16 holes and tapped. Two 5/16 allen bolts are screwed up into the engine block to help support the spacer. The starter is mounted using a shim to get the correct clearance for the flex plate.
You are really showing me that I need to get cracking on improving my welding skills, this stuff is really good.
Getting ready to pull the pistons out so I can get new rings and rod bearings and I have finely figured out that it is a Mercury block. The Ford engine has 3.1875 bore and 3.750 stroke for 100 HP stock. The Mercury has the same bore as the Ford but a longer 4.00 stroke for 110 HP stock. Checking my engine, I can see that it is going to have a bit more HP than a stock engine. The inside is nice and clean also.
This is the original aluminum trim molding from my first model-T that I had bought way back in 1964. This molding was nailed around the back of the car to hide the seam between the upper sheet metal around the rear window and the sheet metal that formed the trunk. I found this photo on the internet of a model-T coupe being restored. You can see that the whole frame for the body was built from wood with the metal sections nailed onto it. I had shortened the body on my first model-T also but it didn't have any rear side windows like this car has. From driver door edge around the back to the passenger door edge measures 78 inches on this car. The original molding had already been cut to fit the other car and it is only a little over 73 inches long. It isn't going to fit all the way around the back from door edge to door edge. So I'm going to cut it in two and just put a short piece of the trim molding on each side. First I painted the area on the side so that there is paint covering the primer under the moldings. Then I marked where the front of the molding needs to be to line up with the molding shape that is stamped into the doors. A block of wood is clamped in place for the molding to sit on. The molding is clamped there so I can bend it around and form it to fit the curve of the body. Mounting holes are drilled thru the molding and counter sunk to fit #6-32 flathead screws. I have also heated the molding up enough to be able to bend it up a little at the rear similar to the way the roadster bodies ride up at the back corners. The molding is fastened on the drivers side. I'm using stainless screws so there will not be any problem of the screws rusting or oxidizing against the aluminum. Here you can see how nicely the molding fits around the curve of the body. Both sides are now mounted. The ends of the moldings are rounded off in the back. Here is the passenger side. The screw holes have been filled in with JB-weld.
Just found this thread today. Amazing job, Mr. Ray. One of the best threads I've read in a long time.
Working with old metal ( in this case, almost 100 years old ) I like to use Rust-Oleum red oxide primer for the base cote. This is an oil base paint and I have learned that body fill doesn't like to stick to it. Glazing putty is a lacquer base and trying to use that directly on the red oxide primer will imediantly soften the primer. I let the red oxide primer dry good ( usually overnight ) then I spray regular lacquer gray primer over it and the gray primer sticks really well to the red oxide primer. I let the gray primer dry for a couple of hours and I've found that I can then put body fill over it and use glazing putty with no problems.
Like Henry said " You can have any color you want as long as it's black. " To me, a model-T just doesn't look right painted any other color.
My son came over today to check the engine so we could figure out just what size this Mercury flathead is. First he measured the bore and stroke and how far the dome piston sits above the deck. Then he cleaned off area on the head for one cylinder. He spread a thin layer of grease around the cavity and set a piece of plexiglass down onto it. The grease seals the plexiglass to the surface of the head. He then pored some colored fluid into a measuring beaker. The fluid is pored into the cavity thru a 1/4 inch hole in the plexiglass. Moving the head around to get all of the air out of the cavity. He keeps doing this and poring more fluid in until the cavity is full up to the underside of the plexiglass. Looking at the beaker lets him see how much fluid has been pored out of it and this gives him the volume of the cavity in cubic centimeters. With all of this information figured up, this engine measures out at 276 cubic inch with 9.7 to 1 compression. I believe the stock valve lift is .338. The valve lift on this engine is .390.
Back in the late 1980's, when I first started building this car, I built my own radiator for the Hemi engine using an early, 4-core, Ford truck radiator for a flathead engine. I got this photo off the internet so you could see what the original radiator was shaped like. I removed the two hose fittings from the top tank and put in a transmission cooler with the fittings coming out where the old hose fittings were. This was now going to be the bottom tank on the radiator with the one outlet fitting on the bottom and one inlet fitting on the top. The radiator cap fitting was removed and a piece of round sheet brass was soldered in to cover that hole. Then another hole was cut into the tank to install a single outlet fitting. Now that I'm going to have a flathead engine in the car, I need to convert the radiator back. The two fittings on the left will be mounted back into the top tank for the two upper hoses from the flathead engine. However, I still want to keep the transmission cooler that is now in the bottom tank so I'm going to leave that with the single outlet fitting. The copper fittings on the right will be made into a " Y " shaped manifold to connect the two inlet hose fittings on the engine to the single hose fitting on the radiator. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ I'm going to pause here for a moment before you guys start hassling me about restricting the two fittings on the engine down to just one fitting. A lot of you already know and understand the fallowing technical information so you can go ahead and skip ahead to the next photo. Since 1954, automotive radiators have only had one outlet fitting and one inlet fitting and this has been more then sufficient for engines all the way up to well over 500 horsepower. The only reason that the flathead V-8 has two outlet fittings and two inlet fittings on their radiators is because the engine has two separate water jackets and two water pumps instead of one water jacket and one pump for the whole engine. With the two water jackets, it was easier and cheaper for Ford to just to connect each side to the radiator with hoses rather than build water manifolds to connect the two water jackets together and then connect them to the radiator. This flathead engine will have thermostats in the water outlets on the heads so until the water temperature gets up around 180 degrees, there will be no fluid moving thru the radiator. Once a thermostat opens all the way, it still only allows about the same volume of fluid to flow thru it as can flow thru a hole about the size of a pop bottle. The fluid has to move slowly thru a radiator to give it adequate time for it to cool off enough before it is drawn back into the engine. So .. the taller and wider the radiator, the longer the fluid will stay inside the radiator simply because of the amount of fluid that is held inside the radiator at any given time. And a 3 or 4-core radiator will hold more fluid then a 2-core radiator of the same width and height. That being said .. even with both thermostats fully open, the volume of fluid flowing thru them is still less that what the single outlet fitting can handle. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... Now back to the regularly scheduled program. ................ The original bottom tank was removed from the radiator core and a top tank was formed out of sheet brass in the shape of a model-T tank, but deeper so it hangs out over the back side of the core. I chose this early Ford truck radiator to work with because it is the same width as a model-T radiator. However, It is about 5 inches longer than the model-T radiator and with it being a 4-core, it is twice as thick to supply plenty of cooling for a larger engine. This top tank has a single inlet fitting in the underside of it. That single fitting has been removed and the hole sealed up. Here you can see one of the marks on the back of the tank where the new inlet fitting will fit. The two inlet fittings are soldered in place on the top tank. Then it is painted. This shows the opening in the tank.
Man alive....your progress has me feeling like a real lazy pos. Absolutely love it man. One of my favorite builds on the hamb!
Great Build Story and Photos. So Sorry for the Loss of Your Lady Friend. May She Rest In Peace. Your Skills and Determination are a Example for Us All to Follow. Thank You Sir. God Bless Us All.
It got up to 68 today so I painted the body. This is flat black acrylic enamel so it looks like the old hotrod black primer but has the weather protection of the acrylic paint.
I'm putting a new high volume oil pump in this engine. The new pump is 1-1/4 inch taller then the stock oil pump so the oil pan has to be modified. The corner where the pump is located has been cut out. That corner piece is raised up and tacked back on. The pan is set back on the block and I'm measuring to be sure that there is enough clearance from the top of the stock pump up to the inside of the pan. The flathead V8 oil pump has a long housing that fits into a snug fit hole in the block. This housing holds the pump drive gear firmly against the cam gear. The problem with this is that after a period of time, the pump housing often becomes frozen into the block and is difficult to remove. This engine has been sitting since the early 1960's and the pump will not even wiggle. I sprayed penetrating oil around the housing and down into the oil gallery hole and let it sit over night. Nothing. I tried gripping it with a big channel lock pliers to try and rotate it and tried using a crowbar to try to wedge it up and it didn't move at all. Finally, I welded a 1/2 inch nut to the top plate and fastened a piece of threaded rod into it. Then I used some scrap steel to make a stand so I could tighten a nut down onto it and manage to pull the pump loose. The hole for the pump cleaned up nicely. Here are the old stock pump and the new high volume pump. The new pump slips down easily into the block. When I do the final assembly, I'm going to spread some high temp machinist die grease on the pump housing before I put it in the block. Checking the oil pan to make sure that there is enough clearance for the new pump before I finish welding it up. The oil pan modification is finished. And the pan is primed.
Initially I had intended to just replace the piston rings and rod bearings and give the bores a light honing just to clean them up. It's been over 50 years since I've worked on a flathead V8 and it dawned on me that these blocks use the old rope oil seals for the front and rear main seals and the crankshaft needs to be removed to replace them correctly. When I was younger, I would have just grabbed hold of the crank and lifted it out. Today though, I use the cable hoist to do the heavy lifting. I'm already putting new rod bearings in so if I have to remove the the crank, I may as well put in new main bearings also. Looking at the bearings that were in the block and they showed me when this engine was last re-built. The main bearings have a date stamp on them of 9-63. At this point, it doesn't make any sense to put the engine back together with the old cam bearings still in it so I pulled the cam out and I'm going to replace those bearings too. The block is now completely empty. Here are the valves and lifters.
..... NOTE .. I feel like I need to explain something here before you all get upset with me, thinking that I'm trying to lecture you on something that a lot of you already know about and several of you know much more than I do. ..... This is the only automotive forum that I post on. However, I have been posting my projects on three separate antique tractor forums for a long - long time now. It is much easier to write it all up on one forum and then just copy that and past it onto the other forums. The thing is with the other three forums, they are familiar and knowledgeable with old tractors and farm related subjects but not with " hot rod " stuff. So I try to explain what I'm doing so they can better understand and you guys here end up getting that same explanation. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... The Ford flathead V-8 engine was first available in 1932 but they didn't come with an oil filter system from the factory until 1936. This is the back of a 1949 to 1953 flathead showing the boss on the back of the block where the oil sender unit and the oil filter supply ling go. This is an instruction for mounting an after market oil filter on a flathead. This after market filter is designed and mounted exactly the same as the original Ford filter system. The oil supply line comes off the back of the block and runs to the upper side of the filter. The return line comes out of the bottom of the filter and runs down to a fitting in the side of the block, just above the oil pan. Note the third item from the bottom of the list, #6272 restrictor. This is a fitting on the side of the oil filter that the supply line attaches to. This fitting has about a 1/16 inch diameter hole in it to reduce the amount of oil flowing into the filter. The return line empties directly into the oil pan. This ( and the original Ford filter ) only filter a small amount of oil at any given time. The flathead engine can be easily modified so a full flow filter can be used on it ( well, almost full flow ). There are two oil galleries coming off the oil pump. One goes directly to the rear main bearing on the crankshaft. The other goes up to the oil sender ( and oil filter line ) and to the camshaft bearings and the other two main bearings on the crankshaft. This is a diagram showing the modifications to the block to put a full flow oil filter. As shown in the photo .. another hole is drilled into the back of the block above the hole for the sending unit. This is tapped for a 1/4 NPT thread. This new hole goes into the oil gallery that runs to the steel tube in the center of the block that feeds the cam and the other main bearings. The shiny round spot you see at the back of the engine is a plug that is fit into the hole where the fuel pump push rod went. I'm using an electric fuel pump so there won't be a push rod used. There is a small oil hole in the inside of that push rod hole. Without the push rod in the hole, there isn't any restriction to the oil flow and that is just an oil leak in the system. Granted, it is only about a 1/16 inch diameter hole but it will affect the accuracy of the oil pressure reading. Looking into the hole on the side, you can see the plug threaded into it to separate these two holes in the boss off from the original oil gallery. That plug is in between the hole in the boss and the new hole in the block. The oil supply line will come off the hole on the right side of the boss and run into the filter. The hose coming out of the filter will go back to the new hole in the block that goes into the oil gallery going to the camshaft. This way, all of the oil coming from the pump ( except for the small amount going directly to the rear main ) will now go thru the filter before it goes to the cam and the other main bearings.
Ray, this an excellent documentation of an excellent build. I, for one, don't for a minute think you're talking down to anyone, and enjoy the skills and knowledge shared. Looking forward to the next installment.
Sandblasted the window moldings today. These are the clips that hold the two halves of the windshield glass into the frames. The two on the left fit the upper frame but I only have one of the clips that fit the lower frame. They make reproduction windshield clips for the open car windshields but not for the closed cars. The open car windshield frames are round and the closed car frames are square cornered. If anyone has one of these lower windshield clips they want to sell, I would appreciate it if you would PM me. Everything is primed. And painted. The two pieces painted black are the mounting channels for the door glass.
I had been looking for a lower windshield clip for the model-T for a long time and haven't found one. I'm going to need it here soon so it's time to make one. It will be made out of this piece of brass stock that is just the right width and thickness. After the pattern is scribd on the brass, it is set up on the mill and the outside curve is milled into one side. Turn it around and mill the other curve. Using a Dremel tool to smooth the sides and check my measurements. Back on the mill and start cutting the center out. The center is milled down to the correct thickness and the flat end is finished. Then I start milling out the rest of the center area. Finished. And painted.
Starting to work on getting the glass mounted. The two pieces on the top left are the door glass pieces with the lower channels on them. The upper and lower windshield frames have their glass pieces in them. I'm using Butyl adhesive caulk to mount all of the glass instead of the fiber gasket material that was originally used. The windshield is mounted in the car. I still have to put the rubber trim on the sides of the upper windshield and across the top of lower windshield to seal the gap between them. What a difference it makes getting the glass in. Al of a sudden, it looks like I've made tremendous progress. The rear glass and the two narrow side glass pieces are also in place. I'm waiting on the delivery of the new glass channels for the doors before I can finish them. The handle is mounted on the trunk. And the gas spring is mounted inside to control the trunk lid. This is the old 1930's heater that is mounted under the dash. It doesn't have any provision for the windshield defroster. So I have mounted a small fan with rubber blades up to blow air down onto the windshield for the defroster.
As I mentioned earlier, I believe this engine may have had a chain driven blower on it at one time. Here I'm removing the sprocket from the pulley sleeve that fits onto the front of the crankshaft. I have a harmonic balancer with a nice clear timing mark that I'm going to mount on this sleeve. The seal sleeve is removed and the balancer is bored out to fit onto the flathead pulley sleeve. Before I mount the balancer, I need to put a pulley on the sleeve to line up with the water pumps and the alternator. This pulley is tack welded onto the sleeve and put back on the lathe to make sure that the pulley is running true before I finish welding it. In preparation for mounting the balancer, I first have to Line up the timing mark on the balancer with the pointer on the engine. The pointer is located a long ways from the surface of the balancer. This is going to affect the accuracy of setting the timing if the timing light isn't held directly in line with the center line of the crank. So I have decided to not use that timing pointer. The balancer is pressed tightly onto the pulley sleeve and Lock tight is also applied to the surface of the sleeve as the two are pressed together. This is put up on the lathe again and the end flange is turned down to accept another pulley. This second pulley is welded to the end of the sleeve. This second pulley lines up with the fan shaft. I took a Chevy timing marker and modified it to fit onto the front of the engine to replace the original pointer.
The header panel over the windshield is fastened back in place. It has the sun visors and the rear view mirror mounted to it. The windshield defroster fan is wired up and working. I don't see this being used very much but it's nice to have when it is needed.
Started working on putting the wood interior panels into it today. Fitting the first flat panel on the drivers side. The opening for the side window is cut out and the panel is fastened in place. The next problem is to get the wood to wrap around the back corner with the bottom part of that area being shaped like an egg. I am using pieces of this 3/4 inch wide trim wood to do the corner. The ridges milled into it makes it a little more flexible then the same size trim that is all flat. Here is the finished curved panel. Looking down along the side, you can see how it curves around and also curves in at the bottom. The edge of the pieces coming up against the side of the seat base had to be cut at a sharp angle for them to fit in place. I'm thinking of staining this part of the interior with the mahogany color and then put clear urethane over that. The inside window trim will be painted the same charcoal gray as the windshield frame.
The stock fan for the flathead is 18-3/8 inch wide. The diameter of the opening in the fan shroud is 17 inch. And it is 5 inch from the center of the pulley out to the front edge of the fan. The back edge of the fan is about 3-1/2 inch from the front of the water pumps. The fan pulley housing is separated from the bearing mount. The pulley is put up on the lathe and the tube with the flange on it is cut off. The outside of the tube that is left on the pulley is cleaned up so it is running true with the pulley. Then the flange part is put on the lathe and the tube is cut back to 1/2 inch long. The inside of the tube is machined out so the pulley hub will just start to fit inside it. The flange is pressed back onto the pulley hub and they are welded together on the inside. I cut the center area out of the fan and welded a pin into the center of it. This is bolted back onto the front of the flange. The front plate and the flange are drilled out so that two 5/16 inch dowel pins can be pressed into the flange for accurately locating the front plate. The pulley is put back up on the lathe and that center pin is turned down to true it up with the pulley. This is the center locator pin for mounting a Chevy clutch fan housing. Holes are being drilled and tapped into the front plate for 5/16 studs for fastening the clutch fan to it. Here is the finished clutch fan mounted on the engine. this fan is only 15 inch wide so it will fit nicely inside the fan shroud on the radiator. It is 4 inch from the center of the pulley out to the front of the clutch housing. This is 1 inch less that the original fan. The back of the fan blades are now about 1-1/2 inch from the front of the water pumps so the engine will be able to sit closer to the radiator. The radiator shroud is 3 inch deep to the radiator core so there should be about 1/2 inch clearance between the front of the clutch housing and the radiator core.
The Jalopy Journal
