So after the show was over, we got changed and went to dinner in town a few of us. Always good fellowship with my circle of buddies. Here are a few pics of me and my other two club members cars after the show. Trey in his T roadster had won the year prior. Jay in his A coupe had done a hell of a thrash build to get that car to this show and made it. Glad to call these guys brothers even though I am the only one of us who drove in this 30 degree fun.
Today was travel home, back to work and the grind tomorrow. Coming down off a huge high weekend for sure. 20 miles from Wimberly my carb issues were back and worse. Cruise was chopping out bad, but on a hill she would pull like a freight train and clear out. I had brought my cheap knock off carb for this very reason. I needed to do a full build on these carbs anyways but they ran great when I got them so I just ran em. I guess 250 miles was too much for them to bear. I had brought a block off plate just in case, so I went to a single carb to get her home. She fired right up and was ready to rock again. granted the hill pulls required a bit more-skinny pedal now, but she wasn't coughing or dying at a light. I was able to sit back and enjoy the ride home. Make a list of the things she needs before another road trip. Adjust valves as they are making some noise now. Front tires need trued and maybe spun on wheel, 70 mph she shakes the hell out of you and was balanced by discount and 1 wheel had 8 ounces on it total I think. Here a few pics from the trip home. All in all about 17-18 MPG average after getting carb replaced, 500 miles round trip total. Motor is more peppy for sure now, guess those rings are seating up good now. Oil pressure was a bit low at idle but at speed she is holding 50 psi, Idle hot was 10-15. Ill run it.
Congratulations on the award and making the round trip. very deserving I thought I saw a glimpse of your ride in Travis’s video I would love to do that show, 20 hrs driving time one way
Got home, decided to run the valves as they were making a smidge of noise after the trip. Found a Few a few 1000s out but nothing major, put it back together and its better. So should be good for a while now. Got the carbs back on, decided to go a different route on the Air supply. I also decided to paint the fuel pump riser and breather. And added the signature dice to the sediment bowl. Thinking about painting the inside of the scoops engine color.
Well done, a pretty successful trip. It always makes me anxious to have driveability issues on the road, but that's the only way to really work the bugs out, gotta do it. I always appreciate when people update threads like this, especially working the bugs out, it's very helpful info to document and share on the internet.
Thanks Squablow, yeah its how you get em dialed in and figure out the issues and find anything that you overlooked.
Here we are middle of april. Went into main Houston proper for our clubs show, she did great all the way there, on the way back, the battery decided to drop a cell. So I got a cool shot of the car broke down in the richy part of town. So I put a new battery in. All good, starter zinging faster than ever. I had picked up a 3.54 gear 18 tooth speedo turtle drive gear, since it seems I cannot find a 17 anywhere at all for the 3.25 gears. So I greased the orig cable and got that working. 55 is 65 mph in actual speed. So its cool to see the odometer actually move from the spot its been sitting forever. Finally got a good test of my Bob Drake headlight reflectors updated. So, I did the H4 bulb, followed the directions but the beam was all out the top of the light not the bottom and the stock lens, So I flipped the reflector in the housing, and damn that fixed it and its EPIC!!!! I have tried the LED bulbs in stock reflectors, and they were crap, I tried the logo lites and they were some better but still lame as it's a huge light with basically a projector inside it, looked weird and didn't function well at all. This was my last-ditch effort before putting my BLC headlights on the car, I love the look of the big lights but was frustrated with the minimal output. I have a flood of light out the headlights from the fenders down the road. Better lights than a few year-old Honda that was driving next to me on a dark road. I'm over the top with this upgrade! So, I was at my buddy's house yesterday, we were headed to the local street meet, fired up the first time great, second time, it clicked. Thankfully the thing push started perfectly, so we ran to the meet anyways. Got there with no issues and it started fine, so I am thinking the starter has a burnt-out spot somewhere on the armature. Ill pull it down and post findings. Here is a quick clip of me leaving the meet. Love how snappy this motor is. https://youtube.com/shorts/Ggzkx67uh9s?si=5l-ekKnXfH5Dpsa1
Lighting looks good. But, Bob Drake never has the refined halogen reflectors in stock. Or are you using re-pops of original reflectors?
Love the Drake reflectors. Have them in my 32. Your install description confuses me. The dip filament on H4 bulbs (the one in the wee cup) faces up, sends the light to the top half of the reflector. The large ang on the bulb flange is to the top. This is true for all H4 set ups. If your reflectors are upside down, correcting will make then even better
So I disassembled the powermaster vintage torque starter. Sorry I didn't get any pictures, but the motor inside that starter is comical small. I went through everything on the starter. Surprisingly, the only thing I found was the brushes and armature contact was dirty and a bit in need of some resurfacing. Did a good ole Emory cloth armature polish and worked like a charm. The inside contact for the starter wire to hook to had a little issue in its contact as well. Thinking that maybe the dirty armature was part of the issue but really thinking the new starter solenoid is got a burnt spot on it or bad contact. So may try to swap that out for another soon. In the interim, I put one of the powermaster gear reduction starters on there. DANG that thing spins the flatty like butter. While I had the wiring apart a bit for the starter changes and I decided to reroute a few things, I didn't like all the firewall penetrations I had, so I am down to two, one for lighting and the other for power, gauges and ignition etc. Pics to come soon! Some days it's hard to believe where she started. It's by no means an over-the-top build but a very preservation orientated build, and I have found some things are harder to do that way but it's rewarding. I am on the fence about ripping out the interior and doing it up, but the orig fabric is fading fast. I wanted to do leather with some hand tooled inserts in the door, but the fight of preservation vs nice is always a hard fight. I could just replace with stock and spruce it up a bit. We shall see. Stay tuned for more updates on this ole gal. And hopefully a new build thread coming soon for another fun one.
That old mohair is going to turn to dust under your bum in no time. With the current lack of any reproduction interior kits I'd be tempted to go with the leather except your in Texas with a black car, and no A/C. Thinking that cloth may actually be the best comfort wise. I got lucky and picked up an not installed old reproduction interior kit for my 40. I'm sure you'll come with a plan that will turn out great.
Well, its getting to HOT season here, where I don't drive em as much, 95 with 95% humidity is not fun. But I have been chasing an issue once I get some heat in the motor, it starts loading up at idle. I have been through those carbs a few times. I got to thinking, I never checked the fuel pressure. So I made up a little replacement fitting and hooked it up and she topped 3.5 to 3.7 upon starting, So I am guessing when it got warmer, the pressure went up. So I pulled an old pump I had here, pulled the spring out of it and it was noticeable the difference in pressure required to push. So I swapped springs out, put it back together and 2.5 on the dot now. I haven't had it out to verify but this is the one thing that has led to issues on multiple road trips, going to HRS I had fuel pushing up through and accelerator pump, changed the S valve and it was better but still lingering issues. So fingers crossed the fuel pressure is the culprit. So before my latest project came home, I did take a few pics with my new camera. Still enjoy this ole gal. I do have a new build about to start a thread so stay tuned.
Well, the problem persisted a while on this. After doing just about everything now. I may have found a culprit. https://youtube.com/shorts/ZD8FQAnHf0k?si=kLQL7fHXzXfazJ92 Come to find out, the fuel pump has a plug between the inlet and outlet under the sediment bowl. That plug was leaking and not sealed up, Thats issue 1, but I believe the check valves in the pump were not sealing off as needed. Recycling the same air that was trapped in the system and vapor locking causing new air issues. How I found this, I finally had figured out how to duplicate the issue, idle in the driveway, 10 min later it would bobble and try to die. Sometimes it would die completely. The bobble was short burst of bobble. Made no sense. Checked the spark during these events. BLUE and strong. I replaced the factory 42 points in the distributor that had ford stamped copper leads. But they were slightly burnt. Thought maybe one of the lines at the tank was sucking air. SO dropped the tank and checked everything. Nope. Did modify the roll over vent in the pickup to open up the orifice for a bit more flow. All this and still the problem remained. I had removed the 2 carbs and went to 1 while I was troubleshooting this crap. 1 is easier to figure out than 2. I made the car do the issue, in a hail marry I pulled the fuel line from the carb, and NO fuel poured out. So, I turned to vapor lock and then found the sediment bowl looking like an aeration chamber. I built a new pump out of some parts I had, so we will see if I got it figured out or not. But confidence is high. Did a few shots a few nights ago, just the cool little things you notice owning these ole gals. Hope everyone had a good 4th of July and still have all their digits.
That was some old fashion rudimentary troubleshooting you had going on there and Nice shots, but I like mine in a glass
The Jalopy Journal
