Projects Austin Somerset Gasser Build (DragNasty)

I am guessing you have room for the caliper to slide on the pins?
I would have looked for one with the fitting in a different location.

 

Yes plenty of room for the caliper to function normally. Fairly long story about how we got here. When we did the axel flip (springs under it instead of on top) it changed all kinds of things including where and how we could mount the calipers. I could have spent all day thumbing through the Wagner picture book and not found any that fit and looked better than the mid 80s Monte Carlo that I guessed first.

We did do a bit of careful manual bending after that final photo. It all fits very nice with plenty of room. I didn't realize what photo I put up there...I will go back and fix it.

 

So if you are paying attention, you might have noticed a change in my Avatar area. You see when I joined the HAMB in 2007, I was really into 1962 Novas (That was my first car). I had just bought one and was planning a straight axel gasser build. So I was trying to be clever and find a user name that had Deuce in it. Of course nearly every combination on the planet had been taken up by the "Real Deuce Coupe" crowd. But some time in the wee hours of the morning I typed in Dueced Up! and about fell over when it showed available. To be honest with you, it was probably 3 years or longer before I finally noticed that I had spelled Deuce wrong. Thanks Ryan...I feel better.

 

Nice creative thinking to get the hoses to fit.

 

Love the sandblasted look to blower & ace's.

 

You know I really struggled with that choice. I wanted that vintage look so I thought raw was the only way to go. But after getting it on, while I love the look, there is a part of me that keeps second guessing on polished. Thanks for the confirmation it was the right choice. I would love to find a way to safely age the case a bit (give it a real old school look)! Oh well, I guess it will get there on its own soon enough...

 

Here a few shots of the non-pollished look. Took these at one of the Twilight Cruises at NHRA Museum. Enjoy, Dick M.

 

Thanks. I needed that!...LOL

 

Alright, we are happy again. LOL Especially since I just talked to the machine shop and we will have the new rotating assembly back Friday!

 

I can hear Tim Allen grunting.

 

man this car is going to be fun

 

Well kind of one of those days in the shop. We had a few set backs but we learned a few things along the way. Right off the bat when I picked up the rotating assembly at the machine shop this morning I had some bad news. The "other" machine shop supplied an internally balanced forged crank. That was fine for the McCloed flywheel as it could go either way, but the high dollar externally balanced ATI Super Dampner will have to go back to ATI for some adjustments. Not sure how much that that will cost. The Eagle crank was 60 grams out, overall (which at the upper end of the expected RPMs would have put nearly 130 pounds of undo pressure on the bearings. But all is good now.

So we headed home with all the goodies ready to assemble the motor. But first comes the thing I hate the most, filing the rings to fit. But as always, we had an idea how to jury rig our way through it.


That is my cut off wheel clamped into the vice with a 90 degree bent piece of scrap metal on top. We cut a slit in the metal for the blade to stick up through, squared it all in the vice and put the clamp to it.


Now I know what you are thinking, that is cut off wheel, it is not a grinding wheel. Well that is what we were after, I didn't want anything that was going to cut too fast. This little set up's cut rate was absolutely perfect.


Just like normal, we put the ring in the cylinder and then used the piston to not only push it down past the halfway point in the cylinder but to also square it up. These are Speed Pro Hell Fire Rings and the instructions said for a supercharged application we needed .02568 gap ( that is .006 * bore 4.28). We pulled the ring out and took it to the cutting wheel and did our thing:


Being very careful to keep the grinding straight, I simply took a bit off both sides and just repeated the process putting it back in the cylinder and checked the gap. On average it took about 3 shots with the wheel to get the right gap.


This is what we were looking for in the end. Then it was on to the next ring. After the first set was done, we got into a really nice groove. Dad installed the rings and I ground the next set.


FYI, I made him pose for that photo. I said just act like you are installing a ring. He did but afterwards he complained guys on the HAMB are going to think he didn't know what he was doing as the oil ring was not on that one yet. I told him not to worry about it but to be honest, he is stilling whining about it...lol.


Then I found something I hate even worse than filing piston rings! Installing those stupid little ring spring clips in floater pistons. HOLY MACKEREL is that a pain in the back side?!! After much stomping around and muttering bad things to myself about the engineer who came up with this plan I set about taking on the task. Believe it or not, I really got into a groove (no pun intended) after the first piston. I developed my own little technique and before long I was whipping them out.


We had installed the crank and torqued the Howard Billet Main caps earlier so I told Dad to go ahead and start putting the pistons in while I took care of installing the rest of the rods. He grabbed the ring compressor and was over there giving my nephew a lesson in engine building when between the two them they managed to break the lip off the middle ring tapping the piston in place. Dad couldn't believe he did that and claimed it had never happened to him before. Something he couldn't say on piston two when he did the same damn thing....LOL!

In his defense the stupid ring compressor was having serious issues. A quick trip to the auto parts store for a better unit and the next piston slid right in place. Now here is where it gets ugly...these i-beam rods have a very specific install pattern which I did not know about. There is no directional stamps on them and no instructions in the box. So I guess it is the sort of thing you either know or you don't. And like me, if you don't now you do. After figuring out the pattern, I had to very carefully remove the pain in the ass ring spring clips, slide out the shaft, flip the rod around and reinstall everything on 5 of the 8 already completed rod and pistons sets (including 3 that were already installed in the engine)! Note: There was more stomping around and muttering bad things to myself about the company that manufactured the rods and wondering if it was same guys that developed the ring clips...


So here we are tonight thinking 3 out 4 rod journals isn't bad...right? Now all I have to do is see if I can buy a couple of individual Hell Fire rings and we are back in the engine building business. But that won't happen this weekend.

 

Another day at the office

 

Yep. Here is one of the rings. The Hell Fires have a really thin step in them and it slipped right out of the bottom of the crappy old compressor.


I probably shouldn't tell on myself like this but it was kind of funny. I was really excited to get my hands on these rings so as soon as we got back from the machine shop I popped the box open.


As you can see there are three compartments in the box. The big area contained the oil rings etc. and the two smaller ones held the upper rings. There was a single sheet of (very generic) instructions inside. It basically said if the rings have a mark, dot or text on them that should always go up towards the top of the piston (duh). HOWEVER it did not say which one was the top and middle etc. We studied it for quite a while and pontificated several theories. Then I finally just got on the internet but found nothing but confusion there as well. Everyone was asking the same question and no one had a sure answer. All that confusion sort of confirmed for me that I shouldn't use my gut instincts as maybe the Hellfire rings were different. I called JEGS but their tech guys could not help either. Finally after just about deciding we would have to wait until Monday and call Federal Mogul, I accidentally discovered this:


I should have known right then how the rest of day was going to go. But we trudged on anyway. LOL

 

Sounds like when it rains it pours.

You may want to set back drink a beer or two and have a good laugh and go at it again.

 

I did that twice yesterday! LOL ...Still laughing this morning so things must be good. Sometimes that is all you can do.

 

When it stops being fun its time to quit.
I am changing the cam in my 409 that when flat and I am still lovin it.

 

I laughed at your rod and rings adventures A lot. But don't ask me why is it so funny to me... i did the same things some time ago Now we both have the knowledge
Good luck!

 

I am pretty happy with the replacement parts the original machine shop came through with. I looked up the rods last night and they appear to be really good pieces. Eagle XD (extreme duty) connecting rods, forged using a proprietary nickel/chromium steel that exceeds ASME E-4340 steel standards for both tensile and yield strength. That ought to work...lol!

 

I spoke with ATI Super Dampners this morning and they are going to convert the brand new but worthless (to this build) externally balanced dampner to a neutral balance for $140.00. Not something I am terribly excited about having to do but looking at the alternatives, that is a pretty good deal. The Fed-X man just left with it.

 

Before you discovered the answer I was going to tell you to check the packaging!

Lol

I can't tell you how many times I've had to dig through the dumpster for that vital piece of information

 

The sad part is, we did check the packaging. Dad and I both took a look at the back and side panels of the box looking for any kind of instructions etc. That made us really feel stupid when after all the searching and phone calls it was on the side flap of the box that was folded under the whole time. Oh well, we got a good laugh out of it anyway.

 

I just got off the phone with Federal Mogul and they confirmed what both JEGS and Summit Racing told me this morning, you can not purchase individual rings from the HellFire sets. So we have to order another complete set. Hmmm...

 

Have you tried some of the local machine shops to see if anyone have any "extras" laying around? I'd check with Shipley and Pickens before I bought another set.

 

Find a parts store that has some and send a hot chick to buy one set.

 

Attached are some shots I took at the NHRA Muesum Twilight Cruise June, 2015. Enjoy, Dick M

 

Cool old cars. That is a Devon. The A40 model just before mine. As you can see there would be no easy way to pull off what I did with the Somerset (as far as a two door conversion). Of course no real need to since along with the Devon, Austin built the Dorset (two door model).

By the way, the Rings made it in this week and we just finished the install of the remaining two pistons. So hopefully we are ready to wrap this build up.

 

When your at the HAMB Drags look me up I will be the one under the black 62 hood.

 

So back to the engine assembly. I pulled the crank gear off the original crank but the crazy woodruff keys would not budge. So I called O'Reilly but they were not in stock. I called Auto Zone and they tried to sell me a nice copper one...(PASS) LOL! Anyway I did manage to get a set and installed the gear.


Then I torqued the rod mains 63 ft/pounds per Eagle Rods website.


I popped the roller cam back in...Greasing it up with assembly lube journal by journal as it goes in...


Found top dead center and rotated the crank around to line up the dots before installing and greasing the timing chain.


Then I dropped the roller lifters back in and installed the push rods. The cam, lifters, push rods, rocker arms and stud girdle are all Comp Cams.


Finally I dropped the rocker arms in place, installed the girdle which is a kick on a big block because of the valve angles and then preloaded the all the lifters. I also popped on the Melling oil pump, pick up and the new Moroso Oil pan.

 

Well then things got interesting. All we needed to do was bolt the blower intake in place and we were ready to install the motor back in the chassis. Easy right? Twelve small bolts, six per side... You may remember back when we initially placed the blower on I joked about having to grind on the brand new intake to get it to drop in place. Well when it came to fitting it for real things got worse.


At first with the gaskets installed, it simply would not drop in place. So I continued grinding where I had left off 4 months ago. Then after it finally fit left to right, it would not drop deep enough in the valley to line up the bolt holes. We had several thoughts at this point. One, maybe the block was decked before I got hold of it. Not likely though since the serial number is still in place. Maybe the heads had been worked over etc. etc. etc. It really didn't matter how we got here, this is simply what we have to work with. Before it was over these are the places WE worked over with the grinder in attempt to fit it.


After all the grinding it fit very nicely and the port alignments were perfect. However, the bolt holes were still off enough to prevent the bolts from starting. It is almost like the holes in the intake were drilled at the wrong angle. So.....I carefully elongated the holes at the mounting point.


By the end of the day it is on and it fits like a glove.


At least something fit like a glove. My killer vintage MT valve covers certainly do not (thanks to my new valve train additions. But there is no way I am giving them up. I ordered a set 1 1/8" thick black valve cover spacers this afternoon. That should just about do it.