Hot Rods The (mis) Adventures of a Compulsive Tinkerer

Budget36: Yeah, I’ve got two mini-splits, one at each end of the shop. In spite of the tall roof, in 15 minutes I have to turn one off or it gets too warm. It was 44 degrees out when I finally got out to the shop.
Jack; the Donovan valve covers give it a no nonsense, hard core look. I’ve got chrome FirePower valve covers too. I’ve got an as cast Mooneyham 6-71 for it but I told myself no more blowers on my street driven cars. I have a nice polished Weiand 2x4 intake that I’ll probably use but it’s nowhere near as impressive looking.
I dunno, in for a penny, in for a pound. Right?

 

Well, Bob, I believe that in some cases restraint is the threshold of cl***. I'm growing out of the shock of extreme phase and easing into the beauty of subtlety.

 

Yeah, I thought I was too, then I set that thing in there. Funny thing though, it’s got a mild cam and it was pretty docile until you jumped on it. It was a great ski boat motor. I made an adapter and put a Powerglide behind it in the boat so I had two speeds but more importantly, I had a soft Neutral without crashing the V-drive gears in and out. In the transmission neutral there was enough parasitic drag that the boat would still creep forward at a No Wake speed. Then I could set the idle a little higher to get the off idle response a little smoother.

 

Santa arrived a little early this year.
I got my brand new 9” housing and axles delivered yesterday. I need to install the axles and measure to be sure that they sent me the right width. I think I’ve got brakes for it but I’ve got to find a 31 spline third member or rebuild the one I have.

I also got my BBC to 392 water pump adapters. They are from Stanke, nice pieces. I just had to put them on and see if I could possibly use my old Nicson front cover. Nope. Even cutting off the water pump boss and some of the fins it’s too thick. I could machine both sides and maybe get there but, nah. I ordered one from Hot Heads. Also a new damper.

I’m still up in the air about the steering box. I dug out an old F1 box that I had but I need to remove the boxing plate to get it into the right position to see how it fits.
It’s been a busy few days and it looks like my shop time will be limited this weekend too. Appointments Thursday and Friday and a family affair on Sunday. Sheesh….

 

I like how the F1 box fits and leaves the motor mount area vacant. I also like the traditional look better than the more modern Vega. However, I honestly don’t remember what it’s like to drive with the F1 steering. My ‘55 F100 had stock steering when I first got it but the box was pretty thrashed and I went with Toyota power steering. Thinking back, my hot rods have all had Vega or Mustang steering boxes, even back to the ‘32 I built in the 70s. My T coupe had an F100 box but I never drove it.
So I’m looking for impressions, how does driving with the F1 box compare with the Vega or Mustang boxes? Anyone?

 

I would install the Radiator to see if you have room for a Fan!!

 

It should be fine according to my measurements but just to be sure, I have a timing chain cover and a damper coming from Hot Heads to mock everything up together.
On the ‘33-‘34, the radiator sits completely in front of the crossmember on brackets yet to be made. Since the cab is channeled 2 1/2” the radiator and grille shell will also be lower, so I didn’t leave the stock radiator mounts in place.

 

Go Man,Go!!!

 

So, back to the Pontiac for a bit. (Waiting on a couple Hemi parts) A while back I ran up to Sacramento to pick up an Edelbrock EP4B and the guy had an oil filter adapter too so I bought it. He said that it came from a ‘64-65 GTO. I cleaned it up and installed it. The other day I got a filter for it so I decided to put some oil in the engine and prime the oil system. I poured some oil in the filter and tried to screw it on. Nope?? The body of the filter hit the gusset cast into my ‘62 block.
I marked the interference and thought about grinding away the marked area, but nah….

I did a little experiment with some washers to see how big of a spacer I would need to make the filter clear. Then I made a spacer from 3/8” aluminum plate. I no longer have a mill so I used my Sawzall, drill press and a few files. I also made thicker gaskets.


It came out pretty good. It’s close to the adapter but it clears….. The reality is, it won’t fit in the Stude pickup like this, it needs a remote oil filter so this is just so I can run it on the stand.

So now I just need to find my oil pump primer shaft and see how the oil flows. Then get the flex plate and starter to play together so I can crank it over to be sure the lifters spin like they should.

 

The next hurdle….

The beautiful grade 8 bolts that came in the kit with the adapter are about 1/4” too long. They go through flexplate, crank adapter and the crank flange and hit the block. I’m glad they are obviously too long (the washers never clamped up). If they had clamped the washers and hit the block it might not have been noticeable until I tried to crank it over. I’ll cut em down and torque em up.
I’m also going to fit-check the torque converter. I’ve had to thin the bolt heads before due to interference. Nothing is easy….

 

Not everything has been a pain in the a$$. I found this beautiful Offenhauser 5162 dual quad manifold on eBay, I couldn’t resist. No wallowed out bolt holes, no amateur porting, no corrosion, perfect.

It was missing the two carburetor adapter plates but I have several Offy manifolds with the plates (and they are still available) so I used the missing plates as a a bargaining point and got a significant discount. I have an Offy 2x4 that I set up for the earlier ‘55-‘60 heads already with two fresh AFBs and linkage. I can use those carbs.
I will still probably break it in with an Edelbrock EP4B and a stock carburetor just to avoid any tuning problems during the cam break-in period. I sure like having choices though - 1x4, 3x2 and now 2x4.
I’ve blown my allowance lately, I gotta dig up some stuff to sell….

 

Another terrible idea... love it! That manifold is pure art and looks *****IN'!

 

Thanks. I’m used to buying stuff on the cheap and doing some repair, this one is pristine but missing a couple pieces. I still have to build up a couple secondary carburetors for my 3x2 setup so it will be complete. It’s nice to have them cleaned, serviced and bagged up, ready for action when the urge strikes.

 

I hear ya... when I scored my N.O.S. 2x3 manifold for the Olds, I had Thumper foot 'til I could get it up & runnin'... nuthin like new cast aluminum to wipe yer blues away!

 

Homina Homina Hemina Hemina..great thread..

 

Thanks, working on the cars is fun but taking pictures and posting adds another dimension, not to mention some much needed motivation. Lol
Yeah, I’ve always been a big fan of aluminum castings. That Olds manifold looks perfect, so it’s NOS? Hasn’t Offy made a run of new ones in the last few years?

 

I shortened the flywheel bolts for the Pontiac by 3/16” and they work fine now. I’ll get the starter swapped out and I’m another step closer to firing it up.

I made the executive decision to go with the old style Hurst frame mounts instead of the crossmember mounts. My new biscuits came today from Roadster Supply. So I did some measuring and trimmed the frame mounts to fit. They make the whole installation simpler and there’s no issue with either steering box.

That’s the new Hot Heads timing chain cover. I’m still waiting for the new damper to arrive so I can finalize the engine position.

 

Not sure if Offy ran a new batch of old castings or what... The add said N.O.S., so it must be true, right? Ha-ha, but it's just what the doctor ordered and made the engine in my eyes. B.T.W., those mounts are great!

 

Thanks Jack. I don’t remember where I got them but they were bigger and of thicker material than most I had seen. I cut 2” off of the frame side, they were pretty big.
That intake looks great with the Oldsmobile green and the clean, natural carburetors.

 

Great thread, thanks for keeping us in the loop!

 

I’ll look at rotating the rear fenders like you suggested. Since everything else has been modified it might look better with the back of the fenders cleaned up. One rear fender is really nice and the other is a little rough, I’d like to get another pair and keep two stock. Even fibergl*** is ok with me.

 

I got my new Hot Heads damper today, nice piece. So I made sure the crank shout was clean and de-burred and oiled everything lightly. I had to push it on with my damper tool. I didn’t buy their bottom pulley - it’s billet aluminum and I’m cheap so I went upstairs to see what I had in my pulleys and accessory drive box. I got down several candidates (all Chevrolet) and tried them against the damper. Most had too many holes and in all the wrong places but one looked encouraging. Before messing it up I decided to look it up on the internet to make sure I wasn’t ruining a super rare pulley from some limited edition high performance Corvette or something. It’s just a garden variety big block Chevy bottom pulley, average price $35-65 on eBay. Ok. But I do have a 375 hp 396 under the bench, should I save it for that? Nah….
I ground the index register off of the backside so it could sit flat on the Mopar damper. I enlarged the center hole about 0.030 to fit the male register on the damper and elongated three holes for the bolts. The Chrysler damper has six bolts and I’ll drill the remaining three when I pull the damper to finalize the timing chain cover installation. Everything is in place and everything clears nicely.


They don’t align perfectly but I can make adjustments when it goes together for real. There’s just enough room to fit a 2” blower pulley in there too.

So with things fitting together well I can commit to actually welding some stuff in. I’m going to note some final measurements and take some pictures. I don’t want to get ahead of myself and weld stuff only to find that I shoulda done this or that first. Progress!!

 

Ha, ha, ha….yeah I looked at their pulley when I was looking at the dampers. Thought, nah, I’ve gotta have something in the box upstairs that will work. I would rather have had a single pulley but this one worked out fine. I love it when I can use up some of this junk I’ve been tripping over all these years.

 

Plus, it is way cooler than a billet pulley. I recently bought a car back that I built several years ago. It came with some extra parts including some billet pulleys to convert it to a serpentine belt. Those were sold at a swap meet earlier this year... lol

 

I’ve gotta admit that I’ve scuffed up some polished aluminum pulleys and painted them satin black in the past just so I didn’t have to buy steel ones but I prefer good old steel v-belts pulleys. There’s a surprisingly strong market for the stuff that we don’t care to use, most non-HAMB stuff I ended up with went on Craigslist or to the swap meet and sold right away.

 

I found that Centerville (the Nailhead guys) sell reproductions of the old Hurst motor mounts for Buicks. The were fairly priced so I ordered some. While I was ordering stuff I ordered the adapter plates from Offenhauser that were missing from the new manifold that I bought for the Pontiac engine. Both those items came the day before Christmas.
I was going to cheap out and use the plates from another Offy manifold that I have but I’m glad I bought new ones. The new ones are thicker, are machined aluminum instead of zinc and they have bosses that can be drilled and tapped for a vacuum fitting if needed.

The motor mounts from Centerville are nice. Powder coated gloss black and they fit the block perfectly.
But, (always a but…) it looks like they will need the horseshoe shaped spacers that Hurst offered back in the old days to sit on the same pads as the Hemi and have the crank centerline at the same height as the Hemi. Not a tragedy but disappointing. We’ll see how it works out when I stick the Buick back in.

 

I couldn’t find my oil pump primer tool so I went ahead and made one for the Pontiac.

It came out pretty good so I chucked it up and tried it. All went well at first with the oil pressure gauge jumping up to 40 or so pounds right away, but then the drill motor seemed to unload and I could hear a squishing sound. I removed the intake and valley cover (they were just sitting on there) and tried again. The squishing sounds like it’s coming from the front. I added the last quart of oil but I got called away so I didn’t get to try it again. I’m wondering if I missed installing a plug in the timing chain area and oil is going unrestricted into the timing cover and down into the front of the oil pan. So far no oil to the rocker arms but I haven’t run the pump much and the oil has to push through copious amounts of Isky Rev-Lube. I’ll try again tomorrow.

 

Moving on, I mocked up the steering shaft with the u-joints and D-D shaft that I had on hand. No problems there, I just need to order another u-joint and ***emble it. I won’t order anything until the steering box is finalized but it looks good. Nice having the starter on the other side.

I took the axle and wishbones off so I could maneuver the cherry picker when removing the Chrysler. I tack welded the motor mounts to the frame with the Hemi in position. Then I pulled out the Hemi and re-installed the Buick with the new Hurst mounts.
Oh yeah, a little fit check of the hairpins that go with the chrome front end, just to mark where they end up. Not sure which front axle ***embly I want to use.


In with the Buick…. It sat right on the frame brackets just like I hoped.


The steering column/starter situation is a little ugly. Got some figuring to do there.


And I might have to take a BFH to the firewall for some distributor clearance. I don’t want to do that if I don’t absolutely have to. I might be able to cheat the engine forward a little bit, we’ll see. No problem if I run my flat top Mallory distributor.

Trying to catch up after goofin’ off for the last week or so…..

 

I doubt I’m the only one who thinks of this…but we lather up the journals, then pump up the oil as we rotate the engine.
We have oil coming out, good pressure…

What happened to the lube we put on the journals?
Just asking