On the first hemi, I had the blades sticking out past the shroud about 1/2-inch and that seemed to work well.
I’m curious if you intentionally landed the new hemi at the same height or if was just luck? Both seem believable so I’m curious shroud looks good !
That was intentional and it took a bit of work. While setting the height of the engine, I made measurements of where the center of the opening in the original shroud would be off the floor of the garage and then I set the engine so the center of the water pump was at that same height. I did the same measuring to get the engine set at the correct offset from center in the frame.
This is the original radiator setup with the first hemi engine. The outlet tube is a little to the right off center on the bottom of the radiator and the inlet tube is on the left on the underside of the top tank on the radiator. When I switched to the flathead, I kept the single outlet tube on the bottom and I made up this water manifold out of 2-inch copper tube fittings to fit the water inlet tubes on the two water pumps. The radiator doesn't have a drain valve in it so that valve is in the bottom fitting on the water manifold. I have un-soldered the fittings of the water manifold. Then I took one of the 30-degree fittings and put the drain valve in it. This 30-degree fitting is hooked to the bottom tube on the radiator and the inlet hose from the water pump is fastened to the other side of it. The transmission cooler lines are also hooked up. I was able to find a radiator hose that was pre-shaped to fit this location. The return hose from the heater is also hooked up to the water pump. There is really no easy to reach area under the car for mounting the remote oil filter. This is the driver side and it has a long gas tank under the running board apron. Behind the round crossover tube that goes under the flywheel, you can see a square part of the gas tank that comes in under the frame and behind it you can see the power brake booster alongside the transmission. The p***enger side also has a long gas tank under the running board apron. You can't really see much of it but part of this tank also comes in under the frame along side the transmission. The battery is under the of the p***enger seat and sits in between the frame and the transmission. It is easy to change the oil in the engine by only having to raise the front of the car up about a foot. I could mount the remote oil filter behind the transmission but then I would have to jack up both ends of the car to do an oil change. So I decided to mount the oil filter right up on the firewall where it is easy to get to.
You can sure tell this is not your first build. The details are well done. Thanks for the good pics and explanations. I love to learn.
The radiator still has the two inlet hose tube fittings for the flathead in the top tank. I'm going to have the engine set up with a single chrome thermostat housing. It is temporarily bolted onto the front of the p***enger side cylinder head. I'll have to make a spacer/adapter to be able to fit it onto the cylinder head. I have removed the two inlet radiator tubes. I don't want the upper tank to look like I removed the two tubes and just put a patch over each hole. So I have cut the shape of the two patches out to blend with the shape of the tank. Here I am using the resistance solderer, that I use to build my model trains, to spread out a layer of solder all around the outer edge of each patch. The edges of the holes in the tank are trimmed and the outer area of where the patches will go has been sanded. The two patches are soldered in place. I have the hand pump fastened onto the fill neck so I can pressurize the radiator to check for leaks. I hold the edge of the panel down with the two points of the tie rod remover tool and use the small torch to melt the solder between those points. I do that all the way around each patch. Looking through my radiator parts drawer, I found a nice hose tube fitting that matches the outside diameter of the thermostat housing. The hole for this tube fitting is cut into the center of the tank and the metal is sanded around it. I have a dolly sitting on the tube fitting for weight while I heat the metal around the base to melt the solder. Here is the finished radiator. It held pleasure up to 20 pounds. I originally built this radiator for the first hemi engine. The radiator itself is a 4-core unit for a 1949 through 1954 Ford 1-1/2 ton truck. What is now the bottom tank was originally the top tank. I removed the whole tank and then took the fill neck and the two hose tube fittings off it. I used a 90-degree copper tube fitting for the outlet fitting and it is soldered over the original hole for the fill neck. I took a transmission cooler unit and put it in the tank with the fittings coming out where the two hose fittings had been. Then I soldered the tank back onto the radiator core. Then I removed what was the bottom tank and set it aside. I used the front and back panel off the top tank from a Ford model-T to make a new top tank. The side of the tank, all the way around is made from pieces of sheet br*** so the tank could be deeper than the original model-T tank. I rolled a half round bead into the top panel to stiffen up the edge and make it look a little more like a factory made tank. The original model-T fill neck is just a dummy.
Starting on the adapter for mounting the thermostat housing, I need to bore a hole in a piece of aluminum for the heat sensor of the thermostat to fit into and have a shallow counterbore for the flange on the thermostat to fit into. The easiest way for me to do that is to use a piece of 4-inch diameter aluminum and chuck it up on the lathe. Then I drill and tap two mounting holes for mounting the thermostat housing and put helicoils in them. The thermostat housing is bolted on and I have drawn around it for where to cut the piece later. With the housing removed, I use the gasket for the hole in the cylinder head and line it up with the two mounting holes and the center counterbore. Then I drill a small hole all the way through both holes where the bolt holes are in the gasket. Turning the part over and using the two small holes to line up the gasket again, I drill the two mounting holes through and machine out the center hole. Turning the part back over and counterbore the two inside mounting holes for stainless socket head screws. Note: there is just enough surface left on the outside of the two counterbored holes for the thermostat housing to seal. The outside of the part is cut down to the shape of the thermostat housing. A hole is drilled and tapped into the side for a 3/4-inch stainless hose fitting. The adapter is bolted onto the front of the cylinder head and a hose is run from this hose fitting over to the stainless hose fitting on the front of the other cylinder head. The thermostat is set in place and the housing is bolted on. The back corner of the thermostat is rounded off to make it look better. View of it straight on.
@Retired if you don’t mind and forgive me if you have mentioned it before, What did you do for a living before you retired?
I worked in quality control in the manufacturing and machining industry. First in Traverse City, Michigan in the late 1960's and early 1970's and then in Elkhart, Indiana from the mid 1970's on through 1999. In the late 1980's and into the mid 1990's, I had a part time business in Millersburg, Indiana working on other peoples street rods and doing pro-street conversions.
Working on the little details that seem to take forever to get done. .... The wires are run up to the alternator and the chrome vacuum line going back to the power brakes and the transmission is mounted in place ( comes out of the intake manifold and runs back alongside the wires going to the alternator ). I still have to make up the fuel line going from this fuel block with the fuel pressure gauge, over to the fuel block on the other side of the carb. I also need to make a mounting bracket to hook up the transmission detent cable ( it is just laying up on the carb now ). I can't make the bracket for mounting the throttle cable until after the floor is put back in the car. The coil is mounted on the firewall behind the last carb and the wires are run behind it. The oil pressure sending unit is under the coil and it and the water temperature sending unit are wired. I think ballast resistors are ugly so this one is hidden under the floor. The belts are on the power steering pump and the alternator and the fan is mounted in place. Showing the line up of the belts and the extension on the fan.
I was going through a box of old papers last night and I ran across this paper that was all folded up. I haven't seen this paper since the early 1980's and it sure brought back a lot of memories. This is my worksheet for figuring out how to make the adapter to mount a Chevy flex plate onto a 354 Hemi crank. This was for the first transmission adapter that I had ever built. I have built several adapters to fit different transmissions onto different engines since then. I set the engine block on it's nose so the back of it is facing up and level. Then I set the transmission upside down on top of the block and the crank adapter centers the transmission to the engine. I used the same cast aluminum transmission adapter that Chrysler had on their early Hemis to make the bellhousing adapter for the Chevy automatic transmission. The transmission can move a little sitting up on the engine like this so I push it all the way in all four directions and make a mark on the transmission in each direction. Then I place the transmission in the center of those marks and use a transfer punch to mark where the Chevy mounting holes need to be in the factory transmission plate. This is what the factory Chrysler transmission plate looks like ( this is a photo that I got off the internet ). I did have to weld some small blocks of aluminum onto the factory plate to have enough material in those places for drilling and taping mounting holes for the Chevy bellhousing. All of the Chevy mounting holes had helicoil threads put into them.
The radiator is mounted back on. I ended up only using one of the fan spacers because using both of them put the fan too close to the radiator. I got the gas line hooked up but I'm going to back up a little and show you the fuel system before I get to that gas line. There are two fuel tanks, one under each running board apron. This is a fuel door off a 1965 Dodge Aspen that I have mounted in the side of the trunk, just behind the cab. Opening the door gives me access to the fill tube. That fill tube connects to the top of the finned aluminum canister that is mounted in front of the rear axle. The gas flows into both tanks from the bottom of this canister. Originally I had an industrial fuel filter inside the canister but it restricted the flow of a large volume of fuel so I had to pump the gas in slowly. The electric fuel pump draws off the bottom of the canister and there is a regular fuel filter inside the red canister above the fuel pump. Here you can see the crossover tube between the two tanks so they each fill and empty at the same time. When I had the flathead engine in it, the fuel line from the pump came up to this fuel block that was mounted on the firewall. The two red hoses went to the two carburetors. The chrome line coming out the other end is the return line and it went back down alongside the inlet line. That return line connects to an adjustable fuel regulator which then feeds the gas back into the left tank. The electric fuel pump runs all the time that the key is on so I still need that return line in the system. Because there were already holes in the firewall, I decided to use this old sediment bowl and mount it in the same place. These sediment bowls were commonly used on hotrods back in the 1940's and 1950's The return line is still the line coming out the left side. The line with the 90 degree fitting on the front goes over behind the distributor and has a rubber fuel hose connected to it there. The rubber hose goes up and is connected to the end of the fuel block that is mounted on the side of the carburetor. ... I'm still waiting on a hydraulic hose for the power steering and a set of Walker spark plug wires. ...
Sometimes, what you would think would be a simple thing to correct, can turn out to be a bigger problem. As you can see here, the choke cable is about 5-inches short. Shouldn't be a problem .. just get another choke cable ..... right ? The problem is that the dash controls are off a 1953 Ford. Surprisingly, I found four of this exact choke cables listed on ebay but they want from $75 to $200 each ! I have never tried to put a new cable wire and housing on and existing control but I'm going to try it now. Here is the choke cable ***embly. I picked these dash controls because when the lights are turned on, the words in the bezels light up. The control base easily came off the cable housing by just twisting it off. And the new cable housing was screwed back into the control base. I cut the inside cable wire off at the end of the control shaft. Then I chucked it up in the lathe and tried to drill the old cable wire out. That didn't work because the cable wire is too hard so I cut about 1/4-inch off the end of the shaft. Then I was able to drill a hole into the end of it. The cable wire is slid into the hole and the end of the shaft is squeezed down tight on the wire. The new choke cable is instilled and it works great.
The mounting bracket for the transmission cable is made up and fastened to one of the intake mounting bolts. The cable fastens to the bottom of the carb throttle lever arm. The cable for the gas pedal is about 7-inches short so I'm going to have to modify that. I have put super glue on about the last 1/2-inch of the the throttle cable and rubbed it in good so it has penetrated down in between the strands of the cable. After the glue has dried completely, I cut the fitting off and the super glue keeps the end of the cable from unraveling. Going back to an older photo of the side linkage, you can see that the linkage rod between the front and rear carbs is mounted on the outside of the throttle levers. The top ot the center throttle lever has been cut off. You can see part of the cut off edge showing below the bottom edge of that linkage rod. Because I need to make this end of this cable adjustable, it is going to be easier to just make an extension for the end of the cable instead of replacing the whole cable using the pieces shown here. On the right end of the piece of strap steel, I have made a new throttle lever for the center carb. The linkage rod between the front and rear carbs has been moved behind the throttle levers and the new throttle lever has been fastened to the center carb. This is the bracket that I made up for holding the end of the throttle cable housing. It fastens to the two rear mounting bolts on the last carb. The extension rod for the throttle cable is made up and fastened in place. A closer view. This allows the end of the throttle cable rod to be adjusted. You can see a small black mark on the cable, just past the end of the extension. When the gas pedal is pressed all the way down, the cable is pulled all the way back to where that small black mark is at the front end of the cable housing. The linkage for the front and rear carbs is picked up at about 70 percent of the throttle rotation and all three carbs are full open when the gas pedal is pressed all the way down.
I use the super glue because it is so much easier and quicker than soldering and I don't have to worry about working close to a plastic fitting or cable lining.
Imagination only trumped by talent and skill. Fascinating to read about resurrection of your T Coupe. Lynn
Even though I bought this car in 1978 when I was 31 years old, it has a direct connection to the very first car that I bought back when I was 17 and it has a modification that I copied from a radical show car from back in the mid 1960's. I bought my first car from one of my dad's friends in 1964 and it was a really nice, un-restored, original 1925 Ford model-T coupe. This is the original ***le for that car. The ***le is in my father's name because I wasn't old enough to have it my name. I started building it into a street rod with the same design as the one I have now. That car got stolen in 1968 so the only things I had left from it were the ***le and this cast aluminum emblem from the " Antique Motors ***ociation, Automobile Club of Florida. " This emblem was attached to the front of the radiator on that car. 10 years later, in 1978, I bought another Ford model-T coupe and that is the car I have now. This is what it looked like when I first bought it in 78. This car did not have a ***le so when I got it built up enough to drive it, I registered it using the original ***le from my first model-T. Back in the mid 1960's, when I was building that first streetrod, I had picked up one of the car magazines that had a radical custom model-T on it's cover. In the article on that car, it showed that the guy had put a rack & pinion steering unit in it. He had mounted it alongside the frame, under the front of the body and had the steering rod coming out the front end and connected to the left front wheel. That car was the " Uncertain T " and that is the modification that I copied and put on my first model-T back in the mid 1960's. When I started building this model-T in the late 70's and early 80's, I got hold of a power rack & pinion steering unit and mounted it inside the frame before I put the first Hemi engine in it. This is a photo of it after I pulled the Hemi engine out a few years back. Here is the chrome steering rod going out to the left front wheel. That first Hemi engine was never fired up before the car went into storage in the late 1980's and stayed there for 30 years. As most of you already know, when I finally pulled the car out of storage and started working on it, I sold that first Hemi with the blower to raise the cash needed to finish building the car. I didn't need, or want, power steering when I put the flathead in the car so I just used it as a manual steering unit. I quickly found out that I needed to have fluid in it and that the fluid need to be able to circulate inside it when the steering wheel was being rotated around. So I made up this little sealed chrome reservoir out of sink plumbing fixture parts. That brings us up to now with me putting another Hemi engine back in the model-T. I have the power steering hooked back up and while turning the engine over to set the timing, I noticed that fluid is leaking out of both ends of the steering unit ( not surprising after sitting for over 30 years ). Here is the old steering unit pulled out of the car. The steering rod is removed from the right side and the rubber boot is left on to cover the steering rack when it extends out past the boddy on that end. I went looking on the internet to see if I could find a seal kit for this steering unit and I came across a remanufactured unit for only $106, including tax and shipping so I have it ordered. Here is the ebay photo of it. While I'm waiting on that, let's go back to that Florida club emblem. I didn't want to fastening it to the front of the radiator like it was on the original car so,with the flathead in the model-T, I had the emblem mounted up in the center of the firewall where it was clearly visible. Now that I'm putting the Hemi in, that area on the firewall is directly behind the distributor and won't be as easy to see with all the sparkplug wires in place. Along with one screw in the center of the cast emblem, I had put black adhesive on the back of it to keep it from coming loose and rotating around. When I removed the cast emblem and got the black adhesive cleaned off, it left that area with small scratches and a dull finish so I put this Chrysler parts decal on to cover it. I'm not sure where to put the cast emblem but I'm thinking of maybe mounting it above the fuel block on the right side of the firewall ?
The Jalopy Journal
