Projects '23 Ford Roadster build aka The Incredible Hulk

yes, I'm coming to that conclusion,
but not there yet.

 

Clever hold Down solution! I dig it

 

Great minds think alike. What's our excuse?

 

afr gauge ground on the battery?

 

more on the erratic behavior of the air-fuel gauge.
I pulled a bag of used resistor plugs from my stash,
picked out a pile of plugs with decent color ceramics and overall good appearance.
checked them with an ohm meter and set aside eight with similar readings, all around 6.42 +/- 0.02 (meter set at 20)
and installed those in place of the non resistor plugs.
now the AF gauge is working as it should again.
it also seems to be running a little smoother with no noticeable loss in seat of the pants performance.
when I spun the magneto on the distributor machine with both resistor and non resistor plugs the non resistor plugs had a noticeably brighter spark,
which is why I put them in, thinking hotter spark would be better..
now all things considered I'm not so sure.

 

more little ****..

I had the plug wires zip tied together to get preliminary fit length and routing.
zip ties must go.
I pulled a few stock wire brackets out,
chose a couple that would work with some modification,
a bit of slice and dice and
bam! the zip ties are nothing but a distant memory

now if there was an easy way to clean up the wires on the cowl.. 'tempted to cut a big ole notch there..


View attachment 6124421

 

Very nicely done Paul!

 

Don't cut the cowl! There's got to be a better way! I'm counting on you to find it, so I can plaigerize it!

 

I’ve seen a little scoop in similar situations not dissimilar to a steel toe off a boot. Not sure a notch with a scoop over it is any less distracting than a notch alone.

I’m sure you’ll come up with something clever.

 

Would it be possible to turn it 90°; run 4 wires straight out and on to the plugs on the left and turn the other 4 180° and loop around under and out to the plugs on the right?

 

the tach drive will only work for me in this position.

 

.....and I was thinking of the cable coming out the side when I was typing; but it didn't register when it came to turning the mag! duh!

Maybe a 90?

 

'decided a notch was the solution to the plug wire mess.
thought about fabbing something up with round corners.
dang that sounds like a lot of work..
instead of fabbing something totally from scratch I started looking around for something with curves and or round corners already in it.
pulled an oil pan from the pile, a crusty dented 303 Olds pan, and thought that might fit the bill.
cut a chunk out of it, cleaned it up and worked out most of the dents.
did a quick layout to cut the cowl,
and started hacking.
no going back now.
from there it's fit, trim, weld and grind.
traced the new profile to the aluminum firewall cover and cut, file, fit and touch up the polish.
squirt some rattle can paint and re***emble wet, only leaving a couple finger prints in the tacky paint.
dropped the magneto in and fired it up.
done.

 

Looks like it belongs there!

 

Clean work

 

Beautiful!
I was going to mention clocking it to the right, but then the choke cable picture popped up.
I trust the owner but cringed when you said CUT. Should have never doubted you.

I will be the goof that tells you everything looks great, but you want 5 and 7 wires separated. Just move five from 3rd position to first position. Induced spark. It looks better this way and there is enough of a gap, but IF you have issues, that could be it.

 

I was thinking move the cowl vent lid down towards the firewall and do something more convoluted but I dig how it came out. @BigJoeArt has a similar cowl notch in his T and I believe the dual fan special from your neck of the woods does as well.

 

Nice solution. Great execution as always. Plaigerize only if I have to...

 

thanks guys!

 

These are the kind of details that make a car stand out from the crowd.

 

Anything new to report on this one?

 

hi Tim,
nothing new to report, it gets driven fairly often weather permitting, mostly short uneventful trips, odometer shows just over 5k miles on the car so far.

 

Okay so how about a video or two for those of us still stuck in the garage for motivation? And play it loud!

 

this was at Riverdale Raceway in Toutle a couple months ago
sorry not much audio..

 

Awesome reminds me of the videos @Jive-Bomber posts from time to time

 

nice!

 

Gapped him lol

 

Looked good beating him…

 

I'm going to try to correct the geometry of the front four bar suspension.
when I first built it I saw many examples of non parallel four bar setups with the '37 Ford tibe axle.
I knew it was not ideal but it had been done and on some very well known cars, and it would make things fit easier but...
now after 5,000 plus miles of a fairly harsh ride I'm revisiting the situation.
yesterday and today I made a pair of bolt on brackets to replace the welded on brackets at the rear of those four bars.
this was the easier part of the job.

but here are some pictures of the brackets coming together.
pieces cut and prepped
spacers clamped for welding
all welded up
dressed and reamed
what they will replace
and clamped for test fit

this will give me four (slightly shorter) equal length bars
and keep the same 6° caster, and eliminate the bind it has now,
or that's the desired results anyway

 

Driven it yet? I am ***uming not, but I don't know if I could be that disciplined to not take it around the block to see if it rode any better.