Not too much to report. I have been dealing with stuff for the garage. But also, between having tons of problems with cars at the shop, an issue with the roadster engine, and trouble with my '64 F100 project, cars weren't being very nice to me, so I had to step away and decided to not do car stuff in my free time for a little while. I'm getting back at it now though. Got issues solved at work, still having issues with the brakes on the F100, which I may have to end up posting about here if I can't get it worked out soon. On the the roadster, I was getting ready to measure for pushrods so I could get some ordered. Only one of all my lifters would fit in their bores. I tried some stock ones too with the same result. So I had to take the engine all back apart, so I can hone the lifter bores. A bummer, but not the end of the world. Hopefully can get that done this week and start getting it back together.
Saw you had to take the engine back apart. Seems these projects all seem to be one step forward and one or two back. Hope you get it sorted out! I also saw you are back fabbing at the shop again rather than final assembly. I hope you share lots of progress pics.
Yea, it's not what I wanted to do, but you gotta do it right. I'm gonna need a while before I can take another engine failure! yea, back to fabbing, at least for the time being. There is more assembly on the way, but I was getting burnt out. I needed something creative. And hopefully it's not too long before I get to be creative in my own space again. I don't know. I find it strange too. The block was apart when I got it, and pretty crusty, so I took it to chemical stripping. My machinist said they still had a rough go at getting it clean even after that. He said the tolerance there is tight so a number of things can happen, so who knows. It would make more sense to me if there was a problem with a couple of them, but 15? I'm going to take the block back to him and have him check it out.
Been a little while, but I was able to get the block to the machinist to correct the lifter bore situation. He said they had to chamfer the bottom of the bores, and most likely because of how crusty the block was that the lifters probably had to be tapped out, so maybe there were burrs on the bottom of the bores due to that. But the lifters fit now, so all good. I installed the lifters, and measured for pushrods. Got the pushrods, and am ready to move forward. But, I have a couple of rookie engine assembly questions. How do I degree the cam, and check valve to piston clearance with hydraulic lifters? This is the first engine I’ve assembled with hydraulic lifters. Do I need a solid lifter to check with? I’m not sure how easy it is to find one for the Cadillac. I’ve heard they are the same as an SBC lifter, but I haven’t confirmed that. Anyone got an answer for me?
You can either take the valve springs off and replace them with a much much lighter spring just to keep the valve against the rocker, or you could disassemble one of the old lifters and drop a spacer inside to make it a solid.
Re dialling in the cam, depending on how you are going to measure lifter rise and/or what dial indicator you have you can position the indicator tip on the top outer circumference of the lifter. I've even super-glued a washer or metal disc on top of the lifter to gain some surface area. Do the piston to valve checks after dialling in the cam and establishing the correct pushrod lengths. You can soak and pump-up one lifter in heavy engine oil to help overcome lifter compression. As suggested, substitute very light valve springs and use modelling clay or rolled up tin foil to measure with. The exhaust clearance is the most critical size to check and achieve because the piston is chasing the closing exhaust valve ...... the piston is effectively running away from the intake valve opening so minimal clearance is acceptable. Good luck with it all and don't forget that there's always YouTube tutorials.
Hey guys, I haven't been on here for a while. I haven't been messing with any automotive personal projects for a while, I have been focusing on other things. But, a friend of mine decided to put on a car show out here in Lake Hughes, and he asked me to help with it. I figured that if I'm helping with the show, I should try to get my car there too. I don't know if I'll be able to make it, there is alot to do still, and April 27th is quickly approaching, but I'm giving it a shot. I don't have too many photos at the moment, but I'll share what I have, and post updates as I get some more done. Last weekend I got my motor mounts welded in, and I installed a sway bar for the rear end. I then got everything blown apart, and the frame went to powdercoating on Monday. This is the only shot I got during that preocess. They said powdercoat would be a week, so I was hoping to get it back today, but I didn't hear anything. In the meantime, there are a few small things to wrap up on the engine that I can do while it's on the stand. And, I had some work I could do on the front end. Before the accident, I had already bought the O'brien Truckers brake kit so I could get rid of the ugly disc brakes on the front. So, I was finally able to put those on. However, after I received them, there were a couple small things I didn't like about them. So, I had to make a few modifications. I also did all this before the accident, but then the parts just went on the shelf. The first thing I didn't like was the way the fake drum ring was attached to the backing plate. It was held on with a stainless button head screw from the inside, and I didn't like the threads popping out through the drum. So, I bought aluminum bolts to replace them, and then I welded the bolt to the drum, and inside the backing plate. I didn't trust just that to hold it together though, so I also added some stitch welds on the inside. The second thing was that the caliper was pretty visible through the scoop, so the first step was to paint the calipers black, and then I put a brass mesh in the scoop, so they should be much harder to see now. Now, I was finally able to put them on, so I first took apart the front end and cleaned it all up, and put fresh grease in the kingpins. Then I got it all back together. There is still a little bit of work to finish up the brakes and the front end, but I'm much happier with the look now. That's about all there is to show for now, I also have some stuff at the shop that I'm working on on my lunch breaks, so There should be some more updates soon. Wish me luck! And here is the show flier in case anyone is interested. I think I'll do a seperate post about the show as well.
Good to have you back! Looks like you have four walls and a roof, glad you are back to work on your own car. Bob
Looks Great Kyle! If people only knew how hard it was to keep the faith when you build cars for a living, and try to juggle personal projects, along with all of other life's curveballs. The struggle is real.
Thanks Bob! I hope you are well! Yes, I have a structure, which is nice. I still don't have electrical in the shop (I don't want to get into that) but, hopefully I will soon. I miss the car, so I'm looking forward to having it running again. The struggle is very real! But, right now, it is feeling nice to make progress on my own car, so I'm trying to keep that going. Thank you! I think I need a tight deadline, otherwise I'll just keep doing more, haha. It's tight, but I think it's possible. One of the guys from the shop is going through a tough time and is about to come stay with me for a little while, so part of the agreement is he has to try to help me make it to the show. That'll be a huge help! My frame is supposed to be ready friday, so hopefully I'll get some good assembly done this weekend.
Looking good. I see you replaced the cross tubes in the frame. I'm in the dark, what is the advantage of the O'Brien Truckers brakes over the similar idea So-Cal Buick drum/disc style?
Hey guys, sorry I went kind of M.I.A. Unfortunately, I didn't make the show. I wasn't even close. I ran into some issues early on, and since the timeline was so tight, it was pretty obvious pretty quickly that those issues ate up too much time, and there was no way I could make it. So, I got a bit discouraged, and focused on other things instead. I'm getting back to working on it now though. The issues a ran into before, were that the flywheel didn't have a hole for the dowel pin in my crank, and I couldn't remove the pin with the crank already installed, so I had to fix the flywheel. Then I had a few issues with the pilot bushing. It was too tight on the transmission input shaft, but when I opened it up on the lathe, I screwed up my measurement and made it a little too loose. I bought a new bushing, but they sent a bearing. I decided to just use the bearing, but then I screwed up again. When I was trying to drive in the bearing and adapter, I slipped with the driver and screwed up the bearing. The adapter was too big to fit in the crank, and that's how I ended up slipping. I bought a bushing, machined the adapter to fit, and then machined the bushing to fit the trans. Finally, we can move forward again, or so I thought. I go to install the clutch, and the pressure plate hits the inside of the bell housing. I trimmed the edges of the pressure plate, and it fit, but was still too close for comfort. So, I had to cut a bunch out from inside the bell housing. Go to install the clutch again, and when I start turning the engine to get to all the bolts, the engine locks up. This is where I realized I was already out of time, and I was feeling pretty defeated at this time, so that's when I walked away from it. I still went to the show, and the show was a big success, the whole town loved it and we are doing it again next year. Hopefully the car make it to that one! The other weekend, I decided I needed to get back to it and figure out the problem. The issue turned out to be a small issue, and my fault, but unfortunately, I had taken the heads off before I figured out the issue. I made an adapter to use the later rubber seal for the crank in my early timing cover instead of the felt one. I used small button head screws to hold it in. They were just big enough to hit the rivets on the back of the balancer and lock things up. So, I switched them to countersunk screws, but now I had to clean up all the sealing surfaces order gaskets and reseal the heads, timing cover, oil pan, and water pump. I've got the heads back on, but still need to do the rest. I've got the pedals and master cylinders back in, and have started with brake lines and stuff. Before repowdercoating the frame, I added brackets for a rear sway bar, so I got that installed too. That's about where I'm at now. I'm going to continue getting the chassis assembled, and make some stuff I need for the engine, then I'll concentrate on some sheetmetal stuff. I went with the O'Brien kit mostly for financial reasons. it's a bit cheaper than the So Cal kit. I also know the So Cal one used to be a pain to bleed, but I don't know if that has changed or not by now. Here are a couple photos of where I'm at now. Hopefully I can make some good updates soon.
Great to have you back! Like the sway bar. Looks like there is a lot of overhead space for bodywork storage.
Great to see an update. I was wondering how you were making out on the car the last few weeks. I'll be storing that sway bar design idea in the memory bank.
The Jalopy Journal
