Next step on my RPU is organizing what parts we do have, so we order only what we need to get it running. Set up a small table and started pulling bits and pieces out of the shed storage and laying things out; The plan is to get the car running and driving with a single four barrel, then later install the dual quads. I put the word out to my buddies that a small four barrel was needed, Scott had a 500 cfm 1404 Edelbrock his nephew had removed from a flathead, my other friend Vince gave me an old AVS from a 68 383. Interestingly, they had the exact same throttle bore sizes. The Edelbrock looks really good, the nephew is not a mechanic and when he had tuning problems instead of cleaning or checking the carb just replaced it, so I'm thinking a good cleaning is all it might need; While I'm cleaning it I'll check the metering rods n jets etc, to see if it is anywhere close to what we want here at 3.500 feet.
This project is being built on the cheap, very very cheap. But every now and then you gotta step up just a little. Just bought a pair of 35-36 rear trailing arms from a Hamb'er, this after a ton of thought and study on how the rear suspension should be set up. With these trailing arms and rear mounted spring (still to be purchased), the frame will be lengthened 7.5" (if I've studied correctly). At least now I have a plan for that. Have been working towards the assembly of the engine and trans and eventual 1st start up. That means lots of cleaning, both cosmetic as well as mechanical. Here is the free 1404 Edelbrock carb (500 cfm) I was gifted from my buddy Scott, it was on his nephews Model A RPU on a warmed up flathead. The nephew is not a mechanic and was having trouble with getting it to run, so he just bought a new carb. Lucky for me, it was just super dirty inside; A long bath in the ultrasonic is next. A rebuild kit as well as a tuning kit are on order. Trans and intake manifold getting some attention as well; And the beat goes on...
Yesterday I was planning to install the road tube internal baffle (in the intake valley) in prep for installing the intake manifold. The baffle had been hot tanked (or so I thought) with the engine parts at the machine shop, but despite looking clean from the outside, still was caked with sludge internally. I scraped out everything I could reach and then let it soak overnight in a pot of diesel. I also started cleaning carb parts in the ultrasonic. Decided to pull the trans pan on the TH350 and service it before continuing the external cleaning; The good, the bad and the ugly; it's good there was no metal of any kind in the pan and the oil does not smell burnt, the bad is it was super dirty, the ugly was a piece of plastic, the size of a very small rock, laying in the pan. I will do my best to try and see where the plastic may have come from, hopefully nothing too serious. This trans came to me thru some horse trading a few years ago and was claimed to have been working "fine" when pulled. Will clean it up inside and out, new filter and gasket and re-seal, throw it in and try it. If it needs rebuilt, it's easy enough to pull it back out and send to the trans shop.
Parts cleaning continued, also a little more trans investigation. Pulled the governor to check the driven gear (it's plastic or nylon), it looked fine; Pulled the tail shaft housing to look at the speedo drive and driven gears (nylon or plastic), they also looked good;
I've got a new set of assorted th350 speedometer drive gears if you need a specific one to match rear end. I got lucky with mine that I ended up with mint gears from three transmissions and managed to nail the right combo the first try. So my pack of new gears are yours if you need them
Np. They weren't expensive. Plus like I said I nailed it on my car so there's not much probability of me needing them at this point
Using the TCI Speedo Gear Calculator; https://www.tciauto.com/speedometer-gear-calculator And inputting the drive gear teeth @ 8 (it's black so that's a good guess, I'll verify), the rear gears (the seller said its 3.73, needs verified) and tire diameter of 27.7 (theoretical number for 215/75R15), the calculator comes up with approximately a 22 tooth driven gear (or gray). The gear I have appears to be red (which is supposed to be 21 tooth), so i'm not far off to start with, if all the other info proves out. I'll do more homework and then PM you. Thanks!
Progress has been slowed a little, due to a health problem with my right leg. Apparently fifty years of motorcycle racing and broken knees will catch up with you when you are in your 70's, who knew? Despite the gimpy leg, I'm still averaging one or two hours a day in the shop. Not much when you are used to doing so much more, but forward progress nonetheless. Got the carb finished up, overall pleased but did manage to misplace the accelerator pump linkage. I know it's here somewhere, have been cleaning and organizing to try and find it. LOL How could I lose anything in this mess; Have the transmission just about ready to go back together, the pan was really beat up and dirty and rusty, will eventually replace it with something chrome or aluminum but for now just wanted it to be presentable. Gave it and the governor cover a really good cleaning and wire brushing, then painted them with silver caliper paint; Yesterday installed the flywheel and test fit the mini starter, flywheel went on great, mini starter is a no-go, tried the old stagger mount starter and that's what is needed; ARP fastener lube on the flywheel face and Loctite blue on the threads, 60 ft lbs; With flywheel on, started on the oil filter kit. Everything looks good for this set-up, but the included bolts were the wrong size. Once I have the correct bolts, it should go on without any issues; Have a bunch of parts on order including what I believe is the correct starter. The 35-36 rear trailing arms arrived yesterday afternoon. If all goes well and progress continues at this pace, we will at least have this thing started and running before we head South.
A little more progress; This old AVS is giving up its accelerator pump linkage; Now it's ready; Now that it's ready to go the missing linkage is sure to show itself. Replacing TH350 front seal; Almost ready to go; Spin on oil filter kit installed; Starter on; Oil pressure gauge for initial fire up; Valve adjustment; There's a lot of discussion out there on the correct clearances for the OG "097" Duntov cam, I decided to go with .016" on the exhausts and .010" on the intakes; 35-36 rear trailing arms; I'm planning on going with these trailing arms, a torque arm and transverse spring.
One of the local hot rodders kept telling me he had a "rat rod", I should come over and see it and he also had some parts for me. I went yesterday with my buddy Vince, turns out his rat rod (at least in my eyes) is really pretty nice; He gave me a pair of Pete and Jake's #3005 motor mounts, a tubular trans mount, a few other pieces and wouldn't let me pay him. Also insisted I take a small pile of hot rod catalogs and magazines. It was a fun visit.
I'm glad you appreciate his efforts. That guy started with some frame rails and that old body. Guess I'm a little slow on the draw and probably naive, but am slowly realizing maybe my whole build is probably OT? I saw a conversation on HAMB where there was some negative feedback regarding someone using an IDIT steering column. I'm using a garage sale $50 IDIT column. My RPU will have a mix of original Henry parts, Speedway, swap meet, garage sale and even some donated pieces. Growing up in the 60's and 70's I kind of thought a hot rod was building the best cool old car your budget and skill level will allow. I'm enjoying the process and wanting to share that joy here. Some will like it, some won't. No worries.
Donated parts from Joe; Not sure what I'll use from this pile, I'm going to try and use those motor mounts. Just ordered a frame boxing plate kit...
The next step was to finish dressing the front of the motor, starting with cleaning and painting parts; The water pump pulley was the wrong offset (doh!), so a little digging found this one, looks like a winner; Next up; priming the oil system.
First attempt at priming with my battery powered drill was a no go. Just not enough power or speed to fully prime the motor and get oil up to the rockers, but it did show 65 lbs of oil pressure; Switched to a corded 3/8 drill, and that had plenty of power and speed, but still no oil to the rockers; Next step was to turn the engine over with the starter, while also powering the oil pump, to see if that would bring oil to the rockers. Still no oil at rockers, but this was a good time to start observing the lifters to ensure they were rotating properly. Marked the pushrods and lifters with a sharpie; Three lifters did not rotate, I did verify the lifters all were very free and could be rotated with one finger easily. Tried changing the valve adjustments from looser to tighter, no change. Putting aside the rotating lifter concern, I wanted to get the oil up to the rockers, so threw on the intake manifold so a distributor could be installed. From what I've read, the oil pump priming tool may not promote the top end oil flow like a proper distributor; That was the answer on the oil flow concern to the rockers. There are several things I can do to address the rotating lifter concern, but will address that later.
OT (kind of); About a week or so ago, my wife asked if we could go look at a house to buy. I knew she didn't like the house we are in because there's a very busy road right in front, but didn't think anything was going to happen, not for a while anyway. Boy was I wrong. We looked at the house, it was on a semi private road and had a view. It also had a couple of shop buildings that would be serviceable with a little work. Odds were we could not afford it, so still wasn't worried. Somehow within a day, we'd been offered the house at a big discount and a buyer was lined up for our place. Nooooo!!! Unless something goes haywire, we are moving in a month. That means making the Model A movable, and moving a ton of tools, parts, motorcycles and even some furniture. Arghhh. So naturally I am fully focused on the Model A. Lifted the A and slid the motor on it's stand roughly into place; The firewall was pushing hard on the RH head and the distributor was definitely not going to fit; The lower firewall flange was riding hard on the rear of the block; After many test fits and lots of measuring with and without the radiator and grille shell, I decided the fan blade should sit even with the rear of the cross member; I decided to cut out for the RH head and make that cut include removing the damaged heater hole section; I used the hoist legs to lift the motor and removed the stand, then slid the TH350 in from behind; With time not on my side; I decided to just weld in the motor mounts that were given to me. They are not my first choice and I'll likely do something different in the future; I trimmed the original A cross-member that interferes with the transmission tail shaft, but only trimmed it just enough to get the motor and trans temporarily installed. The firewall cutout probably seems large, but it's my intention to channel the body, so the cut won't seem so big; When I let the engine down fully onto its mounts, the stock unboxed rails flexed considerably, and the engine drooped downward at least 2 inches. I'm gaining a much better understanding of why people box these rails, they are pretty flimsy. This is where I stopped for the night.
This morning I tackled mounting the radiator. I figure that every part and piece that can be bolted on, is something less to pack and carry, and might reduce a little damage too. It's also following along the lines of wanting to mock up or test fit everything in advance, before blowing the car apart and finish welding and painting everything before final assembly. I'm learning a lot thru each mock up or test fit. Narrowing the mounting pads 3/4" on each side, to better fit the cross member mounting points; Traced the cross-member mounting points onto the pads with a sharpie; Drilled the mounting pads and support rod holes and bolted it together; About 1.5" from the front of the fan to the radiator core. When the frame is boxed and new motor mounts built, the fan will also sit another 2" higher in relation to the radiator. The grille shell is only held on by zip ties, but that's ok for now;
I see no possible reason why a distributor would affect oil different from priming tool. Same oil pump just 2 ways of spinning it. I do normally turn engine over by hand while run priming tool.
From outward appearances the priming tool has a similar groove to the distributor housing that is intended to complete the lower oil circuit to the lifters, but may not be the correct diameter to seal and might have leaked pressure internally. When I have time, I'll measure the diameter of the priming tool vs the distributor housing to see if the priming tool was possibly undersized in that area.
The Jalopy Journal
