1930s Era Champ Car - new project

Continuing on with wiring -
In order to hook up some of the essential circuits to drive the car I needed a place to put the master shut-off switch which gets mounted on the dash panel, eventually. To that end I made a "sky hook" temporary panel to hold the switch. Now I can energize the fuse block. I connected the horn, the volt meter, the starter motor and the fuel pump. Except for the fuel pump those items worked correctly. The fuel pump was siezed up from sitting, a not-so-uncommon problem when one of these used pumps spends a long time in storage.
Dis***emble.
Free up the pump rotor blades and byp*** valve.
Clean and lubricate.
Re***emble.
Bench test.
Reinstall.
All good.


Sample color swatches for the wheel powdercoat arrived today. So did a pressure activated brake switch and T fitting needed to splice into the brake lines.
I guess I need a way to deactivate the brake lights when I'm on the track.
Or maybe not.

 

Hey FF, got a question for you. What did the pedal ratio work out to be? I might be plaigerizing again! I’m going through your thread again looking at your design…when you kidded about the hand lever a few posts ago, I had just bought a new Wilwood pedal. Now, looking at your design again, well, RodStRace will be pulling out his hair when he reads this… inside joke

 

Well Dave, as I recollect, the pedal ratio was barely 5:1, and that has me a little concerned that that will be too low. I hope the needed brake pedal effort will not be too great. The saving grace may be that those big drum brakes are designed for a much heavier vehicle (truck) and little pressure may be needed to stop adequately. If you have the room, make the pedal ratio up around 6 or 7:1. I think I can also put on a master cylinder with a smaller bore if needed. Its all a **** shoot, reinforced with educated guesses. I'll be filling the brake system with fluid soon and may try the system out even before the car drives under power. Stay tuned...

 

Just rereading this and realizing that we had our image of that CJ5 and a pile of engines in different places. No, not 4 at once, but sequentially. You know it’s amazing how an engine that lasted 60, 80 thousand miles in the family car, when subjected to a teenager driving it in a vehicle like a Jeep, with 5.38 gearing, only lasts a day, a week, or one month, being constantly spun at 3,000-4,000 rpm going down the road… Who would have thought that was a bad idea? And a lowly 283 could survive 13 months in the same environment, only being replaced by the new owner who wanted, to quote Tim Taylor, “MORE POWER! R, R, R” I traded that one’s crank to a friend a couple of years ago.

 

And just finished rererereading this thread. I’m not so upset with the length of time it’s taking me for the Whatever project now. So many great ideas, so little time to copy them

 

Thanks Dave - copy away, I'm flattered.

 

The points I bought for my vintage Mallory distributor arrived and they are the incorrect part, so I am still on the hunt for points and a rotor. The good news is they will fit the Mallory distributors on my Logghe altered and my truckster RPU, so I will hang on to them for spares.
The search continues...

 

I hooked up a mechanical brake light switch, after considering an inline hydraulic pressure switch. The mechanical switch may be quicker to react to pedal movement. I also heard the hydraulic switches don't like to sit for months at a time; they will stop working. I made the switch linkage adjustable with a series of holes spaced 0.10" apart, so I can adjust the amount of pedal movement that will close the switch. Right now I'm starting with 1/2" of free pedal travel. Could go less.

 

I've been working on the period correct looking distributor. I located an old Mallory dual point (series 25, model YL) six cylinder distributor, and gradually obtained the working consumable parts to make it work. I still needed a distributor cap. A cap for this distributor was going to set me back roughly a hundred dollar bill. And I still wasn't sure the cap would fit. The cap I currently have is for an Autolite application, and intrestingly enough, it fits the Mallory housing perfectly. BUT... The rotor I acquired does not fit under the cap. The coil post interferes with the rotor, the rotor tip is too long and hits the plug terminals, and there is no spring loaded center post in the cap to make positive contact with the rotor.
Significant hack work is needed to make it all work together with my Autolite cap. I shortened the rotor hub by .200" to make it fit under the cap's coil post. I pried out the rivet that holds the rotor contactor terminal and shortened the contactor so it did not crash into the cap terminals. Then I added a spring contactor before riveting it back together.
The only remaining question mark is rotor registry. I rotated the rotor until the trailing points opened up and noted the location of the rotor where the spark would discharge. It seems to be correctly aligned with the cap terminal. If this works my cheap Autolite cap will now work and my distributor is now funtional. Fingers crossed.

I also added a starter switch-triggered solenoid that will byp*** the ballast resistor and put the full 12V to the coil to start.

 

UPDATE: I found a cutaway Autolite cap identical to the one I plan to use in my stash of junk. It was just what I need to check rotor clearances. My desired clearance of .020" rotor-to-plug-terminal, and desired preload of rotor-to-coil-terminal was spot on.

Moving on, I blinged up my intake manifold by polishing it in preparation for mounting the twin sidedraft carbs. The Mallory distributor will just barely fit under the intake.

 

Correct me if I’m wrong but are you going to be using side draft carbs on this thing?

 

Bling, as used here, = easier future cleaning??? & a touch of Shine??? .
Marcus...

 

Yes Hitachi SU clones from a Dats*n.

 

^^^
Those should work *really* nicely. . Not junk at all.
Marcus...

 

I probably should fab up a couple of velocity stacks to fit inside the air cleaner. Those carbs are on the smallish side for a 300 cubic inch engine (but much better than the stock 1V that came with the engine). I'll save that project for a later date. Maybe I can find something like candlestick bases or table legs to repurpose into velocity stacks.

 

Look into the various weber/dells. Might find something in the right dia. Or a piece of tubing & flare the end.
Smallish carbs should give better throttle response, even if they are SU-types.
Marcus...

 

All good ideas. I have the capabilities to flare short pieces of tubing.