Much appreciated gentleman! I have been working on the final small items on the car. Started in on the carbs and learned a few things along the way, one screw up that cost me a few bucks, but it's learning. Pulled all 3 off, but left the bases. Removed and installed all of the 45 mains for some new 43 mains. Did the same thing with the power valves, swapped from the stock 65 to the smaller size of 67. Set them back on the engine with the tops off. Checked float levels again and adjusted the center just a touch. Put the tops on and then started on the idle mixture screws. Now here is where I screwed up. I should have messed with them with the carbs off. Now that they are on it makes it hard to know exactly where they stop when screwing them in. One has very little dexterity when barely being able to feel them due to thier location. In short, I screwed them in to far buggering up the ends of the needle. I backed them all out roughly 3/4 of a turn and fired it up. Pulled the linkage and set synced all 3, then set idle, and another sync, back and forth till I got it good. I can't hear anything with a piece or tubing down the carbs for the idle mixture, exhaust is too loud, so this is close till it gets a final tune. Pulled the plugs and cleaned them up since they were black still from before. Took it for a drive, and noticed a big difference is how rich it was running. I think I need to drop mains to 42 now, but will get some time on the plugs to find out how they look. With the high compression on this engine, I do not want to run a hot plug. So there will be a balancing act to get this all dialed in, but I'm learning alot. Not thrilled with how Summit packaged this stuff. Yard saled many small parts, missing one power valve gasket, and I hope nothing was damaged. Modified a screwdriver for the power valves. Also picked up a jet wrench from Vintage Speed off Ebay. Much nicer than the cheap knockoffs, and made in the USA. You can see it in this photo. Made short work of them. After this I was working on brakes, decided to check the wheel bearings and pack them since I'd just had it driving. Also to inspect things since they are new. I'm glad I did, because I missed one major issue. I can't believe I didn't catch this. Notice the gap on the bottom is different than the top just behind the nut. This nut was tapped crooked! It was putting pressure on one small spot on the bearing, also probably pushing the bearing up and out on the opposite side. This would have spelled for a bad ending on this hub eventually. I pulled both sides, re-packed the bearings with more grease and put them back together. Mind you, I packed these with #3 Sodium based grease. The Sta-lube I used before is now discontinued, and after a call to them the new version is lithium based and does not mix. I found a US made #3 gresse from ABRO that should be good. I picked up 2 new nuts from the hardware shop to replace both sides. Now that's wrapped up for a while. If you look up in the last photo at the wheel studs, the shank is sticking past the wheel mounting surface just a tad. I also overlooked this. The drums were not setting on this surface flat. So I took my reamer and sized the holes to fit over the studs. Fixed that issue of a slight wobble in the drum. Other side was the same way, but was also fixed. Next on the list was actual brakes. So I bled these out using the standard 3 pumps from the drivers seat, while I cracked the bleeders. Then did a reverse pressure bleed back into the master from each wheel cylinder. No change, pedal stayed the same and didn't pressurize more when pumping. So I knew I had an issue somewhere. I decided to start simple and look all the parts up from the years of rigs that had been applied. All that checked out good, master cylinder bore size for a 1939 was 1-1/16", same as the 53-56 F100, check. Slave cylinders for a 39 were stepped from 1-3/8" to 1", while the F100 has 1", so volume wise I was fine there. Pedal ratios all 6:1 so that was checked off the list. Pedal feel was spot on, just super low for engagement. So next thing to try was drums and shoes. I took the drums to a local shop to have them turned/trued. They definitely needed it. Then I needed to match the shoes to the drums. This is where I decided to try another way. The shop could have re-arced the shoes for me, they had the stuff to do it. However, I wanted to try the sand paper method. Grabbed my sandpaper box from my bodywork area, and pulled out 80 grit, and 150 grit. Here's how it goes. Clean the drums, cut some 80 grit to fit around the drum inside, mark the shoes down the center with a sharpie for reference and stick the drum on the car. Bolt the wheel up tight and start spinning, spinning, adjusting, spinning, adjusting both directions....etc....etc. took me about an hour per side. I'd do it for a handful of adjustments forward and back, then pull the wheel and drum to vacuum the dust out and inspect the line. Repeated the process for all 4 corners. It also helps to have someone in the car pushing the pedal once in a while. It will help center the pads again to get a true alignment. After the sharpie line was almost gone, I swapped to the 150 grit for a final few passes. I'll tell ya what. I gained 50% of the pedal without any adjustments other than matching the shoes to the drums. Took a while, but so worth it. The 80 grit makes short work for the most part. Some shoes were terrible, and others needed just a kiss, back ones were the worst. You can see my sharpie line on the top of this shoe. I didn't bother with getting all the sharpie line off. Basically wanted to get 85% or so of the shoe to be in contact. The rest can bed in later as they wear. Next....well I'm not sure. I know I gotta keep fiddling with the carbs. Oh, forgot that I took the wheels and tires back in for another balancing. One also needed to have a tiny leak on the bead fixed. For now I'll keep testing, have to also break in the clutch as per the instructions Modern Driveline gave me. Then some fluid changes in the diff and engine once I hit 300 miles. I will keep ya posted.
Quick little project on the car this last weekend. Small repairs to the seat and covering them. Took the back first and worked the springs and tied them back in the proper spots as best I could. Installed some foam where the old was gone. On both the back and front. Not permanent, but way better than it was. Got a Mexican blanket for 25 bucks that I think fits this car well. Again, temporary until winger time when I'll take this car apart. I like the look, and it's much more comfortable now! Took the car for another drive to show my dad and step mom. They didn't know about the car, so it was quite the surprise. Then made a trip to town for fuel where I noticed at 3/4 tank the guage leaks, so that needs attention. Then headed to a friend's house to show them, then back to town for dinner. I'm trying to put heat cycles on the differential to break it in, as well as the clutch and brakes.
Looking great! Question about your carbs: are they new, or did you clean the housings with something? I need to go through mine and I’d like to get them cleaned up
Been a bit since I've posted the things I've been working on. Quick update, so far it's been running good and I've put on about 400 miles to date. Here's some of the updates before today. First thing on the list that I had been messing with was the rear gears in the QC. I ended up chatting with Bruce (GearheadsQCE). After a back and forth conversation via messaging we ended up settling on a 3B set. So I went about pulling the cover and draining the honey (oil) out of this thing which takes forever. After cleaning it all up and prepping for the new gears, I installed the new winters 3B set. Some of yall that are well versed in these things will notice what I did wrong here. For a lower ratio, which is what I was going for, you need to install the higher number tooth gear on the top. I did it backwards, but lesson learned because I had to repeat the process all over again. I now have a good way to put the fluid back in since it takes so long. I heat the fluid up in the oven (don't tell my wife), then pour it in. It helps so much, as well as seting up the funnel. I also jack the car up to push the fluid into the main housing, it fills faster this way. Next on the list was a small item that was driving me crazy. The rear vent cap on the intake has always been really loose. It was built with a super cheap spring steel clip to hold it. It's never held well and I've been afraid of loosing it. Every time I parked, I've noticed it is half off and crooked. So I ended up building a couple tabs and clamping it with a spring. I also cut down the neck of the breather tube to shorten it. It was to close to the wires and rubbing on them. Third item was steering. It's a bit to low of a ratio with the new Borgeson box. I found another steel pitman arm that was 1/8" shorter. This will raise the ratio a little which is what I'm looking for. It did the trick, but I need a little more. Good thing for me the arm needs bent down so the drag link can match the tie rod. I'll tackle that later though. Steering was still a bit twitchy with small bumps, so with regret I've added a damper. I didn't want one, but it sure did help tame the small stuff. It's not a bandaid by any means, I wanted to dampen the low small hits, which this did the trick. 4th item was a fuel issue. This is a new one and I've been fighting it for a little bit. Basically what happens, is when the car is shut off, the pressure from gravity in the cowl tank will push fuel into the carbs down into the intake. I found this from a leak on the intake via fuel coming out of the idle mixture screws and throttle shafts. I pulled the top of the rear carb off to inspect things. Float level was way low so I looked down the intake and there was a pool of fuel. The HUGE bonus of all this is I didn't start or drive the car this way. It had been parked for weeks. I found the fuel on the intake and started looking into things. To shorten the story, fuel was pushing past the Gross Jet into the carbs slowly weeping fuel into the engine. Next post will be the fix for the fuel issue.
After thinking about how I was going to deal with this fuel issue I remembered one thing I worked on in my old diesel pickup. The fuel solenoid. So I got to doing some research and found a 12v normally closed solenoid that has a 24hr duty cycle and is IP rated. So I drained the tank of all fuel and removed the existing pump and fuel hoses. Built an identical bracket to the fuel pump minus the pump/valve mounting holes, but looks the same bolted to the car. Got that installed and then hooked up the fuel lines. Since I had to remove the fuel filter from the pump body, I ended up using a small plastic filter from Napa in-line before the pump. Next was wiring, this was more of a mess than I'd like, but serves a major purpose. I've always been a fan of serviceable parts. I've wired this for 2 things. Removal of the harness from the car and removal of the parts for ease of replacement. Road.side repairs will be easier this way as a plug and play. I'll be picking up a pump and valve, then wire it with the same pig tails for spares. Forgot to mention how I wired the valve. I used the ground for the fuel pump. It's hooked into the inertia switch. So if the car gets hit, the fuel pump shuts off as does the valve. Double the shut down for fuel to the engine. The valve only draws around 1.5amps so I've hooked power to the pump power. My test was next for this setup. First test was to hook up the pump and run it with the valve closed to see if fuel pushes past it. That was a successful test so I moved to the static test of letting it sit with the key off/valve closed. 3 days later zero fuel had been pushed by the carbs, success!! Next was to put new oil in. I've strictly used Driven Racing oil along the way. This is oil change #4 in 400 miles. 2 break in sets and 2 regular changes. They like my car cause this stuff isn't cheap. Off for a test on a rare sunny dry day in November. A test for the fuel system and for the rear gears set. Wow, what a major difference in the driveablilty of the car. It's much more enjoyable to drive. Steering needs to be messed with a little on the ratio. Rear springs need to be removed, to many leaf springs making it stiff. I'll remove 2 of the short uppers first. But for now I've gotta get to re-wiring my mom's 31 Model A.
Thanks! I do have patience, but probably more stubbornness to never give up lol. I felt like giving up many times, but thats not in my DNA. Cant wait to do another build some day. I'll hit the road for one more season in its current form to shake the bugs out. Then the plan will be paint.
Been a while here, but I tackled a small project I've been meaning to do for a bit. The Tachometer location, bracket, wiring and install. First step was to find a good location for it. I pondered an exterior cowl mount, center dash, column, and a-pillar mount. Ended up ruling out all but center interior on top of the dash. Then I went about figuring how it was going to mount. Couple things. I wanted the tilt out window option to stay usable, and the dash to be removed without taking the Tach out. After a few attempts at a template I got one I liked. It oriented the Tach to face the driver and checked the mounting location box. Always amazed at how many tools it takes to do a simple job. It got worse after this picture, probably a couple dozen things littered my work space. Next I grabbed some scrap, cut it out, then bent the angles in the press break. Set it in the space to make sure it looked good. Notice the one screw holding it on, that's the screw to hold it while the dash is out. On the back side I welded a couple nuts on to hold it in place with the through bolts. After wiring it all up in installed the Tach and mounted it in its final location. Or so I thiugh it was done. Fired the car up and no signal. I was scratching my head thinking what did I do wrong, is the Tach bad? Well I had forgot I had the ignition box with a Tach signal wire. I went to the negative post of the coil. Super quick swap and it worked. Set the Tach to zero and then fired it back up. Idles at 900 rpms as it should be doing. Happy with the install and how it looks! One important thank for me was the look from the front of the car. I wanted the Tach to be centered on the cowl above the gas cap. Took a little messing with side to side, but I got it dialed in. Looks good from both sides now. Can't wait for the dry weather this next week so I can take the car out. I still need to bend the pitman arm, toe in the front a little more and remove/tune the rear springs.
Couple more things I've been messing with on the car. One thing that been bothering me is every time I open or close the window my hand hits the signal lever. Makes it very uncomfortable to use the window crank. So, I decided to modify the signal arm and also at the same time adress the cheap plastic headlight button that comes with the GM switch. Started by pulling the arm to figure out what I could do to fix this issue. I decided on a length and cut the end of the signal switch off. Grabbed some JB weld and cut a #8 machine screw down to fit inside the cavity of the arm. I didn't want to just cut it and leave it, so I decided some kind of knob needed to be purchased or made. Being I'm not a fan of buying things, I decided to order some aluminum round stock to make some knobs. Tossed it in the lathe, threaded it, turned the knob, then bead blasted it. I put a spiral on the end for looks. If I don't like it later I can easily sand it off. Next I made the headlight knob. I couldn't stand the plastic one on this car. Didn't match the era. I took the old one off the shaft, to my surprise there was a serrated part that the old one crimped too. I used this to my advantage and pressed the new knob onto the shaft. No set screw needed. I didn't press on the shaft like this. I used a piece of hardwood to protect the tip since it's got a point. You can see the serrated part and above that was my black reference mark for depth. I like the knobs way better. Might paint them black. Who knows, but for now I like the look. Both function well, and I can now roll the window up and down without contorting my hand to do it. Next project is the pedals, I've been meaning to address this since the summer. When my shoes are wet the rubber pads do not keep my feet from slipping around. That is not safe, and I need to make them better.
Brake and clutch pedals. I'm hoping these funtion well for me with the idea I've got. I was at a vintage tractor show over the summer and found a set of mystery pedals cobbled together. I believe half the arms were A and the other half late 30's early 40's. Not sure, don't care, I just wanted the pads, because 5 bucks was a deal! I cut the pads off, found a couple bolts and got after it. I turned the bolt heads to make them round, then tossed everything in the bead blaster to clean everything before welding. Sanded the old pad arm down to provide a larger surface to weld to. I heated the pads up to glowing red, then tig welded the bolts on using Silicon Bronze rod. Then torch after to cool slowly. Should be super solid now, I've got a lot of filler rod on these, half a rod per bolt. After letting them cool down slowly, I installed them on the pedal arms. Before welding I did clock them with the bolt installed. It got me close on final tight/level setting, but to fine tune I used a thin copper crush washer. One needed a light sanding for thickness, the other was spot on. Some red locktite and we've got ourselves some pedals. They feel so much better on the foot too! Next issue will be the rear spring and pitman arm. Still working on my mom's Model A, just have to finish carb work and it can go back, hopefully today after thr UPS man shows up! Enjoy the weekend everyone!
The Jalopy Journal
