Projects My GN Cycle Car tribute build

After doing some cleaning up in the shop, started on getting the speedster ready to start-up. Youngest was supposed to be available all day, but then her older sister wanted to go shopping, so that was that. Will now have to wait until she returns.
Found this loose wire that went to the ballast resistor. Then another loose wire from the ballast resistor going nowhere. It had continuity with ground. I have no idea what I did last Oct. I kind of vaguely recall the voltage to the distributor coil was rather low, so I might have byp***ed the resistor. Will now have to do some digging. Damn!

 

Managed to get it outside myself. The girls are whole other story.
Spent some time going over the wiring, and drew up a new schematic reflecting what’s actually on the speedster.
Checked all the head bolts (60 ft-lb) and found a few that were “loose”. Less than a quarter turn, but glad I checked.
Will clean up the mess left by the wood pile to reduce any potential fire hazard, and still have a few things to go over.

 

Updated schematic. For now, I’m byp***ing the ballast resistor. Found this in one of my threads.



https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/flathead-first-start-up-fuel-in-oil.1341416/page-3

 

Wouldn’t start and it was taking forever for fuel to trickle down from the tank, through the fuel filter, and into the fuel bowl next to the pump. So, decided to fill the fuel bowls on both carbs. This got it running, but only for a few seconds. I dribbled some fuel into the primary carb as well before I tried to start.
Have to call it a day as it’s getting late, and this thing makes a complete racket. Will see if the fuel fills up the fuel pump bowl overnight.
Links to some vids of the fun…

https://youtube.com/shorts/ZmwDBWWHPVs?si=asgcjXNH1NTGuXrs

https://youtube.com/shorts/M5T7lkZHQDM?si=rBPkRrnJC5DXzH66

https://youtube.com/shorts/zTObDffcWZE?si=nTuFkF05lF649cEH

https://youtube.com/shorts/2RGQpn7YKbQ?si=fe6yMvYy6bwKYimh

 

Posting the latest on it running in this thread.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/flathead-dual-carb-questions.1343799/page-3

Overhead pic from my deck, of course, it started to spit rain for a minute.

 

Got it going again at around 2,200 rpm for about 4 mins before I had to shut it down as the coolant temp had hit around 212F. That should be good enough for now as that’s about 20 mins in total at that rpm to break in the cam. Had a slight fuel leak at the fitting for the secondary carb. Tightened up the nut, but it was still weeping a bit. Brings back that nightmare of perpetual fuel leaks from last year. Tightened it up again after I shut it down. Will start it up one more time today as I want to check to see what kind of airflow is sneaking past my secondary carb throttle plates. I can sometimes see fuel dribbling into the throat. I’ll use my uni-sync meter for that. Oil pressure is great at 60 psi at idle and vacuum at idle is between 14 - 18”. Sounds like it wants to rock & roll. Lol!

https://youtube.com/shorts/FjAQO_yyPcw?si=5bMyvt_A7RMLsNgx

 

My daughter told me that even after stiffening the frame in her model it still deflects 3” (opposite corners) with only a 95 lb force. Geeze! I haven’t looked at what she’s done so far though as she’s reluctant to show me. Haha! To that end, after we got the speedster back in the workshop last night, I wanted to see how much the frame flexes with the engine/trans installed. So, jacked up the right rear corner until the the right rear wheel lifted up off the ground. Then measured distance from floor to the corner/end of each frame rail. The front frame rails were at the same height (no deflection), and the deflection between the left and right rear frame ends was only 5/8”. All things considered that’s “acceptable”to me. This means that the engine/trans really help to stiffen up the frame. This doesn’t mean I still won’t do all I can to further stiffen the frame, but it puts my mind at ease knowing the defection is no longer 5” - 6” when the engine/trans was not installed.

 

I've done that exercise, or at least a much simplified version of it, on paper. Open-channel rails are torsionally flexible! Boxing rails can improve their torsional stiffness by two orders of magnitude or more. The way crossmembers attach to the rails is also important: they need to transmit torsional inputs from the other rail as effectively as possible, i.e. that detail should be as close to the opposite of a hinge as possible.

This emphasises the amount of work the rear transmission mount is doing. It would make sense to make it as wide as possible, and bolt it solidly to the gearbox placing the rubber as far out from the centre as possible. A lot of pre-c.1930 gearboxes had wings cast into their cases for this purpose.

 

Interesting about the trans ears. Often wonder why I saw many with wide feet cast into the housing. The T5 mounting points are only 4” - 5” apart. I will be filling the frame rails with aged 20 yr old plus solid oak, so I’m sure that will help as well. Still hard to believe that Richard Scaldwell’s GN JAP runs on just wooden frame rails.
One of my very first tasks when I began work for the Dept of Defence was to determine if this hunk of welded steel they called a Bridge Adapter Pallet (BAP) was adequately strong enough to support this huge aluminum jet powered boat called a Bridge Boat Erector (BBE). It had been over 10 yrs since I graduated, and I hadn’t done anything even close to that during my career to that point, but I didn’t want to say I couldn’t do it either. Dug out my text books, and for the next three weeks did a structural ****ysis on paper of the thing. Determined it was good. My boss was none too happy, as they wanted to replace it. Lol! It was the only thing I ever used my engineering stamp on in my 30 plus yr career. Haha!
The boat was used to position floating bridge sections so they could be joined together to cross a river. I actually attended one of their training exercises and witnessed the whole thing. Pretty impressive to see young kids (male and female) operate these huge pieces of equipment like it was nothing. Some pics of the stuff.

 

I think that’s is for now as far as testing if of the dual carb setup. I’m pleased with how it performs in a “static” situation. It still needs some tweaking, but I think the progressive setup will work on the street/strip. I had to remove the fuel “rail” to install the choke plate in the secondary carb, and of course when re-***embling the fittings, they now all leak. I just hate those damn ferrules. Will need new ferrules, and I’m going to have to make new lines, but that is for later.
Plan now is to look further into pedal location/layout, and rear axle location/layout. Then, will remove each frame rail independently, and prep it for addition of second C-channel which will sit on top of existing C-channel from about the bell hsg back to just in front of rear axle tubes. The idea is to have the frame completely done with the oak wood inserts by the fall. Got in touch with 3rd Gen and my order fell through the cracks as they were still awaiting the back order of the pedal bushings. Posted more vids of it running in my dual carb thread, but in case those following this thread haven’t checked it out, here is one of the latest vids from today.

https://youtube.com/shorts/XQLD3GsMNgM?si=jphw7JEM97xwYGSq

 

The electric motor on my Ingersoll Rand air compressor ****ped out the other day. Took on another “house” project to make a a repair to a teak lounge chair. After grafting on a new piece of teak, I decided I may as well sand the whole thing and then stain it. Used the 6” DA oribital sander which was using a ton of air. Switched yesterday morning to my mini-belt sander and noticed it was slowing down. Checked the gage in the garage and it was near zero. There was power to the motor, so took it out and dropped it off at the same shop I took it to last year for some work. That was around $500. Damn! Just spotted a used 5 hp motor on FB that came from an Ingersoll Rand compressor. Even had the pulley on it, so heading out to pick it up.
Back to the speedster. While running it last week, the DS of the engine was completely covered in debris from the belt. Not good. That offset between the generator and water pump pulleys will need to be addressed.





Couldn’t find the Uni-syn flow meter, but then spotted it in a cardboard box box of aluminum cans I was returning. Geeze!

 

Not sure how this happened. Just goes to show you how their algorithm can really help or hurt the number a views a vid can get. This was part 1 of a 22 part series so far. None of the other vids comes anywhere near this number of views.

 

Well, the motor for my air compressor was another fiasco. Got home with the advertised 5 hp motor, and checked the nameplate. Rated out put was 2.98 kW =3.996 HP. Just as I was regretting buying it, the shop called me saying that they could have my motor ready that afternoon. Was surprised as when I dropped it off, they said they probably wouldn’t be able to even look at it until Fri. Then they tell me it needs new bearings and caps. I say wait a minute, pull out the invoice from last Aug from the same shop saying they replaced the bearings and caps. Lol! Now guy is confused. Text him a pic of the invoice and says he’ll get back to me. Meanwhile, text seller of the 4 hp motor and tell him it’s only 4 hp and not 5 hp. No problem. He says bring it back anytime. An hour goes by and shop texts me saying that it’s weird, and they suspect that there is something wrong with my compressor that is ******ing up my motor. They suspect that it might be the unloader valve. Call them back, and hear the same story. Don’t really care at this point and just want to know if they can have it ready that afternoon. He says yes, so I get ready, pack the 4 hp motor back in the car and head back into town for rush hr traffic. Picked up my motor first, then dropped off the FB one. Seller was nice. We had a long talk. He explained Google AI said his motor was 5 hp based on the serial/model number. He also stated that the motor on his new Ingersoll Rand compressor was a 3 hp unit, but was rated at 230 V/15A, just like the 4 hp motor he sold me. Lol! There was no comparison between the no-name Ingersoll Rand plated 4 hp motor and my Baldor plated 5 hp motor. The Baldor motor had to be twice as heavy and had a larger shaft. I was foolish to even think of buying the 4 hp unit in the first place, but I figured my Baldor was toast.
Going to finish up a few house projects and then will move onto seeing if I can fab up a brkt to mount the pedal ***y today.
The Luskville dragway is only about an hour from my place, and they have a big event tomorrow, so figure I’ll go as I’ve never been there sadly so far.

 

This what the Baldor 5 hp motor looks like. It really dwarfs the other one.

 

Only took me 20 - 30 mins to slowly drill out the JB Weld by hand from the air p***age. Geeze!

 

Went through my threats and it was almost a year ago to the date that the compressed last ****ped out. Unloader valve is working fine. I did loosen the tension on the belt a bit though with the contraption I concocted last year. Of course, the bent tension had nothing to do with the caps ****ping out. They did tell me though that to tear apart the motor to insidctvig the bearings are destroyed, so that’s why I needed new bearings. I’m going to have to watch and see how it actually operates under load.

 

Felt like **** this morning so didn’t do to the drags, but did pick up some Holley 94s from FB. Turns out the seller is the owner of that beautiful 32 Ford roadster. Lol! Small world. Ask him who did the devils face on his ride. Tells me it was Ron Gibbs. Never heard of him, but then had to Google him. Well, that’s some talent! I feel like such an ignorant about world of hot rodding around me. Haha!



https://autostradamagazine.com/people/the-steady-hand-of-ron-gibbs/

 

Looking good @Ziggster...get that rear end on and drive it out......yeah I know, if it was only that easy...are you becoming a 94 hoarder?...just kidding those look in pretty good shape...

 

Got the crude mock-seat re-installed. Mocked-up the pedal ***y where it would go approximately. Judging by where I would have to keep my feet for the pedal positions, I would have to lift up my thighs off the seat. It’s super uncomfortable, with my knees bumping into the dash. Not good at all.
Will have to re-examine my layout to see if there is any possibility to move the seat rearwards, but from what I can recall, the bottom of the seat back was almost against the axle pumpkin.
Also, figuring out how to secure the pedal ***y brkt to the ch***is is going to be challenging.

 

A metal bomber style seat would gain you an inch or so, every little bit adds up.

Phil

 

You don't have a good side view; but it looks like there is a lot of room to move. A fabricated metal "bomber"seat as @Phil P mentioned would gain you considerable room. A contoured seat back would require very padding.

Maybe reexamine the coolant routing, both where it looks like it restricts rear movement of the seat and maybe by where it p***es thru by your legs and feet. The heat radiated may be uncomfortable; but a failure releasing hot coolant in the operators compartment would be bad.

 

Almost every time I get on the HAMB I learn something. It’s a big big world
Dan

 

Is that the Canadian equivalent of California foot wear?
Dan

 

I will eventually make/buy some sort of bomber seat, so that will give me another 3/4” - 1”. I will look at the one copper coolant pipe that is hitting the back of the seat as I should be able to move it out of the way a bit.
Speaking of hot coolant, when my nosey neighbour came of to complain about the noise while running the engine, my shin brushed up against the collector. Didn’t think much of it at the time, but it was pretty nasty. Next time he comes to speak to me, I’ll tell never to bother me while I’m working. My other neighbour came over to say this morning. Have t seen/spoken to him in weeks, and of course I was in the middle of staining another pc of that teak lounge chair. I just kept working and suddenly he said that he had to leave. Lol!

 

Ouch

 

That ****s, you’re making progress, I agree a bomber seat might be the ticket.
Dan

 

Off of the top of my head, I would say that I need another 3” to move the seat back, but I doubt that will happen. Kiddo won’t be home until later, and I need her help to move the rear axle back into position.

 

I read; but overlooked that the axle wasn't in place; sounds like that has a big effect on the seat position that isn't evident in the pictures.

 

Got the rear axle in roughly the correct position. Wheelbase is supposed to be around 106”. Not sure why I kept the copper coolant pipes so far forward. Something has gone wonky!

 

What are your plans for the rear suspension? Would moving the radiator back and extending the wheel base a few more inches change the overall look of the car too much. Driver fit is paramount.