Projects A Speedster Comes Out of the Weeds—Build Thread

Merry Christmas to you and your's @ClarkH. Sorry about the misfortune but the Speedster is intact and you and your bro are uninjured...both big bonuses. That said I understand the frustration...may 24 be a much better year with it...

 

Great story @ClarkH
Always appreciate your photo's and content contributions.
Thanks from Dennis.

 

Thanks for the update & Merry Xmas!

 

Thanks for the update & Merry Christmas

 

What a Great old car adventure, more of us Need to do this with our rides. Hopefully, you got some goodies for Christmas to put the you back on the road. Merry Christmas!!





11

 

Its not x-mass without a Clementine update. Here's to a roaring 2024

 

Im digging it!!!

Bruce STL MO
Mercury Speedster body #204 (the Bob Shirley speedster body)

 

Well here it is, Christmas 2024. This marks the anniversary of my build thread, meaning time again for my holiday Speedster update.

I’ll admit, it’s kind of a bummer that I post so infrequently to this thread. But this was a weird year. Most of my energy went into my ’29 pickup project, and what time I had left over for the speedster was mostly consumed in a multi-month search for a new engine.

Here’s a look at the truck, not really ready for its close-up, but you get the idea.


Back to the speedster: As a refresher, my original speedster engine succumbed to a scored cylinder and failed babbit in one of the connecting rods. My temporary replacement engine subsequently gave up at mile 200 of a 600-mile endurance run (eh, whadda ya expect for $100?). I had a nice B block core candidate all ready for building, but it turned out the extent of parts and machine work it required rendered it impractical for my application.

So for winter and spring of 2024 the hunt was on for a good B engine. Having mentally jumped to the idea of a B engine, there was no going back to an A. I found many B engines out there, all of them thousands of miles away (what I get for living in what we jokingly refer to as “South Alaska”). Such long distance would have added shipping cost and logistics that I didn’t want to deal with. More importantly, it would mean I couldn’t inspect the engine. Many of the B engines for sale were early (meaning no counter-balanced crank). And people selling an engine generally don’t open it up for inspection, so they can’t answer questions like “How’s the babbit?” and “How many shims are left?” They will tell you in all honesty it runs well, but what’s that worth? I mean, both of my A engines ran really well… until they suddenly didn’t.

So I wanted something local, something I could inspect. Here in “South Alaska” that means Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia.

As an aside, my brother has been inspired by this whole speedster thing and was also searching for something “local.” In early February the two of us made a two-day run to Boise, Idaho to pick up this:


It’s a Chevy, 1928 Chassis and engine (overhead valves), custom body and interior with super-cool Whippet radiator and shell. Here’s another shot from when we stopped at the Teapot Dome gas station on the way home.


OK, enough of the asides, which were really just an excuse to get some fun photos into the post. Back to my B engine search.

Eventually I found what seemed to be a great candidate in central Oregon; an old rebuild that had never been run, loaded with high-dollar speed equipment. It had come out of a show car, and was now on an engine stand, ready for inspection. I put down a deposit and @Hitchhiker and I killed a day to go get it. But on inspection, it turned out to be a race-prepped motor—no shims on the con rod babbit. And it was an early crank (no counter balance). Not what I wanted for this old tourer.

But in a twist of fate, the trip inadvertently led me to an engine. It seems several weeks later, Hitchhiker was telling a mutual friend about my hunt for an engine, and related the story of our 700-mile wasted day. Well, it turned out this friend had a B engine he’d taken in trade 15 years ago, and had been saving it for a “maybe someday” project.

The engine was local and mine if I wanted it, but it had some obvious issues (notably a cracked head), so we both agreed it needed a full inspection. What we found was a mixed bag. On the bottom end, the engine was clearly a fresh build, with excellent babbit that was still in tolerance and had all of its shims. The oil pan and dipper tray had signs of ancient rust-through that had been fixed with JB weld. When we removed the cracked head we found a long-blown head gasket and a goopy mix of what we took to be gelled up stop-leak of some kind. We also found that it had been pinned in the usual crack zones, which our friend didn’t like but I took to be a good thing, since it looked like a professional repair. Some of the valves had been replaced, others not, and a couple of the “nots” could be wiggled more than we liked.

In the end, I decided to go for it. I suggested lowering the price $500 in recognition of all the issues we’d found. Our friend said no, he was going to do one better and drop it by $1000. You’ve got to love dealing with genuine car guys.

I got the engine home and got to work. First cleaned all the crud out of the water passages with a drill and section of cable. Then drilled, tapped and plugged the steam holes so I could run my Winfield head.


Replaced and lapped all the valves.


And painted it Ford blue. I deemed this the best choice to go with car’s color scheme and the Winfield Yellow-head. Any other color risked getting into Easter-egg territory. (Ignore the head and timing cover, they are just old parts for masking.)


In the end, a new problem emerged. The deck has been taken down .012. I’m guessing either this was part of the pinning process, or an old-school means of upping compression. Not great, because those B decks are thin enough as it is. But now I discovered this meant there wasn’t enough clearance for my super-cool Winfield head. Nor, it turned out, was there enough clearance for my almost-as-cool Speed Head. However, thankfully, there was enough clearance from my cool-enough Police Head. I guess my obsessive hoarding of period speed parts finally paid off. I painted the head and water pump dark red, which still works with the blue block and more-or-less matches the wheels.

After eight months of abject clutter in my garage, I finally got the engine installed and everything hooked up.


Then a couple weeks ago, my brother came over for the big day. We installed the distributor, unstuck a float that dumped gas all over the place when the electric pump primed the carb, and finally fired it up.

It runs great, as shown this video, which I call Six Seconds of Fury.


So that was my year, as far as the speedster is concerned. As always, my thanks and appreciation to all of you following my exploits in this thread. The Hamb has been a huge inspiration. Merry Christmas to you all!

Lastly, if anybody wants a longer start-up video for their holiday viewing pleasure, here’s another. My darling wife calls this Clementine's New Heart. I call it Two Dufuses Who Can’t Believe the Engine Started so Easily.

 

Thanks for the update & Merry Christmas!

 

No truck update?

 

Merry Christmas! Thanks for the update. Best Wishes for 2025!

Bob