Projects Berkeley tune up In AK

Engine Runs!!!!!

Much better than it did too.

Especially after putting the smallest pill I own in it and shortening the link rod between the barrel valve and the throttle shaft by a turn and a half.

I like that Kinsler quick change pill holder too.

But for now I'm out of race fuel.

I figure I should run it on as close to what I'll be using on race day as I can.

I'll have to wait till Monday to be able to get more without taking the trip to the local drag strip (I can't afford to take the time at the moment).



Is it Monday yet?

 

Cleaned the nozzles, got the MSD mounted again, hopping on one foot and the other waiting for the race shops to open so I can get more fuel.

I had to move the MSD because the throttle shaft is longer out that side and it was close enough that I didn't want to have to work in that cramped of a space it I had to make an adjustment, or change the throttle cable.

I drained the cooling system and I'm going to try running the engine with some vinegar in the cooling system to clean it out. A few cycles of that and lots of water afterwards should make for a clean system (or at least cleaner than it is now).

I hesitate to use any of the commercially available 'radiator flush' kits as they are fairly caustic.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get the stacks cut to length.

 

So I was running the cooling system full of Vinegar (read about it on here, works good) and I cleaned the cooling system out so well the rear freeze plug in the cylinder head sprung a leak (right in the radius where the flange on the cup starts).

It's metric.

I found one (1), in br***, in Anchorage Alaska on the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday I made the town wide tour of that brand of parts house (Shucks / Oreilly) and got the other two (there are 3 of those plugs on the downhill side of the head) and have them in.

Here's a pic of the one that was leaking, now that it has it's replacement.



If anyone needs a 20MM br*** cup plug, it's a Dorman P/N 565-1011.



I flushed the cooling system with fresh water, ewww, you should have seen all the **** that came out of there.

It's running again, I re-indexed the throttle blades so I could adjust the idle to below 3K hot, I had to dial it back up to 1500 (it was really trying to run at under 800, not too successful with the Hilborn ).

I dummied up a fan for radiator air flow, nothing but the finest for this effort.




I have the ram stacks cut to length, I went with a tuned length of 6900RPM, now lets see if I can get the body on over them.

 

Dam that is looking good for a DIY project. How is the JB weld holding up during your testing? Love the cardboard gaskets haven't done that in a LOT of years.

 

Thank you, pops and I are giving it our best, trying to make up for deriliction of funds with effort and ingenuity, even if it's not our own ingenuity. I credit when it's not, so far that's been amazingly sp****, to me anyway.

Yeah, I'm having the original 'Cheerios gasket' laminated (that's a keepsake fer shrue ).

I actually bought gasket material from a local rubber supply house. It's a fiber material and 'non-compressible' per the manufacturers specs (same specs say it's good for 500 F too).



Have to wait and see on the JB, tube says when mixed right it's good to 600+ and I haven't had issues, yet.

I figure a 1/16th of an inch of gasket should help insulate it though.

I do have support straps on the injector ***embly top and bottom. It had them when we got it, I figured they were a good idea so I put them back on, with a few mods though (wouldn't fit directly after rolling everything but the mount plate over).





I had to leave the one strap off where the metering valve return is (fitting was in the way). There is a support that is sandwiched between the one throttle body and the metering valve, not very obvious in this pic, but it's there.



NEW PROGRESS

I have the throttle cables fabbed (primary and a spare) and a bracket for the pedal too (have to weld the toe bail to the pedal still, otherwise it's done). I'll have to see if I can get the cable installed today, if I can, then I can finalise the locations of the Brake master cylinder and mount the clutch cable bracket. We want the pedals to be more or less straight across when they aren't in use and the go pedal is the most 'variable' of the bunch, so once I get it adjusted to get full open AND full closed as well I can go from there (I hope ).

 

Okay, pictures as promised.
First the pedal end, in this picture the cable is pushed out of the fitting (I'm calling that a 'swivel clevis' at this point) you can see the ball shaped stop fitting on the cable, the swivel clevis, the clip nut (it actually has a captured square nut on there) and the motorcycle contoll end.




Next I have the throttle end as a loose mock up, you can see the cable sheath and the threaded end swaged on the cable. I have next to the end the boot I intend to run on the cable and the marine 'Morse' type QD end (that one's still in the bag).





Here is a picture of the cable installed at the pedal end, note the bail is yet to be installed on the go pedal.





That leaves the throttle end, please ignore the current return spring setup and the metal nozzle lines, those will both change when the flex lines get back. Yes the wires will be secure before we leave.

Here it is attached



And detached for a better look at the QD end and swage ***embly.

 

I anchored the cable so the throttle works (quite well too ).


I have finished (except for paint) the bake pedal and Master Cylinder mount.



I made the pedal so I could select between 3 ratios.



Tomorrow hopefully I can get the brakes plumbed, it's the last holdup for the wiring (I have that pre fabbed but I'm hung on the install till I can make sure I don't have to reroute it, again ).

 

I got the brake hoses ordered yesterday, from a local shop, they should be ready today.

I checked on the nozzle hoses as well (different place). The nozzle hoses were expected yesterday, but nothing showed up, so hopefully this week.


Not much I know, but we are very close mechanically, on the car at least, so there isn't much left, mechanically.

 

Got the brake hoses yesterday, the one from the MC to the firewall is roughly in place, the one from the axle to the side of the driver's tub is hooked up loosly and routed.

The clutch cable mount boss (at the pedal ***y) is anchored, so that leaves plumbing the brakes for all that to be done.

WOO HOO

Something I can cross off the list soon.

Been a while as most things are stuck on something small till they are 'complete' (notice I say complete, as I figure a race car is never really 'finished').

Hopefully today I can get the hard line bent up and flared, that only leaves one bracket (simple tab with a 5/8" hole in it to support he hose back by the axle).

It would be *****in to get both (tab and tube completed) but weird stuff keeps pulling me away so I'll have to see.

Pictures soon.

 

Pops has the 6 point belts in, neither of us liked how they looked, so I ordered a set of 7 point from Simpson yesterday.

Hopefully they'll be here middle of next week.

I got the master cylinder rebuild kit late yesterday, hopefully I'll get the master put together and in today.

Pops got the fire bottle pull cable bracket fabbed and installed yesterday.


Pics soon. (yeah, I know I said that last time, nothing is visibly different enough to show, yet).

 

Pops has been working on the tow rig.


I got the new ground cable in, and the cable from the battery to the kill switch in (just not hooked to the battery yet, it's charging).

I tried the starter after putting the new ground cable on, it cranks immediately now, used to hesitate and kind of amble up to speed.

Not any more.


I changed out some of the engine mount hardware and double checked the rest was tight.


I'm working on a shift light mount, almost done with that.

Not a super productive day, but I try to accomplish something on it every day.


Still planning to go out and tinker a bit more this evening.

 

IIIIIt's pictures.

Okay, that sounded way more lame than I had hoped.

Regardless, I have a few.

This is a top view of the driving space with the pedals fully forward. You can see the throttle cable, the M/C and hose, the fire pull handles, the tach/ shift light, starter ****on and ignition switch (the cover anyway) and the shut off cable.



We plan to put an Adel clamp on the cable to hold it to the upright you see here.



A Driver's eye view of the controlls (the two cables I'm holding out of the way are the fire extinguisher pull cable safety pin tethers, that's driver's compartment handle on the left, and engine compartment on the right, if you were wondering). On the lower left you can see the aluminum pull handle for the tank shutoff.



Here is a look at the fire bottles and the clutch cable boot (it's aircraft firesleeve, I needed it long as the cable jacket is anchored to the pedals so the whole cable ***embly moves with them)



Here's the positive battery cable I was blathering about earlier, hard to see but it's there.



In case any of you were wondering what I'm on about a tow vehicle with a box and a ramp door.

Here's two of the door and the doorway. This is taken at approximately the approach and break over angle we hope to achieve when loading / unloading the car (we're planning on some ramps under the front tires of the truck as well as ramps off the back of the door, they're quite long).




The mess in there will be tidier and the Anglia hood halves won't be coming with us, the air compressor is where we plan for it to live though.


The door winch will be wired into the truck also (so no loose batteries in the floor).

 

New seat belts showed up yesterday.

They're purty.

Pops has them mocked up and we will hopefully have them anchored today (we only have to anchor the 5th, 6th & 7th points as the lap and shoulder belts are going back where they were).

It has the sternum belt we ordered as well.

I have the most difficult part of the wiring finished, hope to have the rest completed today.

Still waiting for nozzle hoses, I figure the quickest way to make them show up at this point is to order replacements from Hilborn.

Hopefully they'll be here Monday, I'll likely order a set Monday morning regardless as at this point, I can't wait anymore.

If I wind up with 2 sets, then I'll just have spares.

 

I ordered replacement hoses for the injector ***embly earlier this week from Hilborn directly (I've given up on the supplier I went through 6 weeks ago ).

I'll go put those on, it'll make me feel better about that anyway.

That will eliminate several stumbling blocks I've had as I've had to work around the hard lines I hurriedly fabbed to get the engine running again.

The header is off for repaint, we had hoped to have it coated, but we likely aren't going to have time, so we're trying POR 20 for the first time (the can claims good to 1400 if installed correctly). I hope it's as good as the POR 15 we like.

Have to wait and see what the finish looks like when we are done, I'm hoping for 'rust resistant' more than anything else.

 

W***up, been a while since the last post, hope all is going well with the little beast.

 

Been mostly working on the hauler, different turbo (old one was shot) new exhaust, different exhaust brake, some wiring and a bit of 'driveablility testing / development'.

Hope to have most everything together this week so we can ask the local barge company if they would ship it all south for something less than the national debt.

As the truck is OT here I was hesitant to post anything on it unless asked and was hoping to get back to the Berk a bit quicker, but there's not a whole terrible lot left to do on it.

Don't get me wrong, there's boatloads of stuff I'd like to get done before we go (not the least of which is more compression and cam in the engine) but budget and mostly time won't allow.

 

Finally, I've got positive progress to report (sort of).

I've been working on the transport vehicle since the last post, it's doing much better for the attention (or at least I like to think so).

I have the last bit of the wiring tidied up, the injector ***embly is back on and leak free, and the body is back on for the first time in months.

Not quite as far along as it initially sounds, as we are going to have to clearance the body for the tach/shift light before the top half of the body will mesh properly with the bottom half (it's high in the right rear by almost 2" (5 cm roughly).

Hopefully finish the Berk (as finished as it will be for this speed week anyway) this weekend, I hope.

 

I wish my pops brought something like that home! Id be in heaven haha

 

Yeah, but it'll be nice when it's in the truck ready to go south, even better if we can ship it to Tacoma as that will save us several days of driving. That would also give me about a week to work on other stuff I've been putting off to work on this.

 

Prepped 'er for transport today, hope to load in the morning, pics of that, maybe (if it's rainin I'm leavin' the camera inside the house).

 

Oh yeah, we're shipping the menageri South, so we'll be in better shape when we get to B-Ville as we won't beat ourselves half to death on the roads from here to the 48 states.

 

Shipper has the whole schmear, should 'sail' Sunday evening.

 

We're Here, Checked in and all.

Plan to be in line to go out on the salt early, if all goes acording to plan.

 

Got the car approved for this year with a current speed cap of 150 (with the possibilty of raising that if we prove ourselves not to be squirrels).

Have to make some changes for next year.

 

Made a rookie p*** Saturday, straight but slow (114 & change). Made a liscence p*** today ran just under 126 between the 2 and the 3, engin laid over @ 6100 RPM somewhere in there. I punched the shutdown on the Hilborn and costed through the 3 (my 2 1/4 trap was slightly faster than my 2-3 average.

So I have an "E" and a "D" liscence now.

No I'm no Craig Breedlove, but I have to start somewhere and I'm just happy to be here.

I would have made another p*** today, as we richened the Hilborn by one pill size, but Pops has been treating a sunburn with a home rememdy (apple Cider Vineagar) and we ran out of Heinz so he bought another brand.

He had a reaction to it, we spent the better part of the afternoon treating that. There is a clinic here that we will re-***es his condition in the morning (when they are open) and see if he needs to go in or not.

The car is about 40 minutes away from beign ready to head for the race course, but Pop's health comes first.

 

Here's a Speed Week '09 pic from the SCTA-BNI website:



Hope pops is feeling better!

 

Yes, he seems to be doing much better, he may make a p*** in the car yet (I hope, kind of alot of work to do not to get to play).

Thanks for the pic.

We've bene going slower, so we have a new plan of action for today and will see what we can do.

150 would be nice, but I would settle for faster than the 131 I've run so far.

Anybody know where to get spark plug indexing washers in Wendover?

 

There is a Car Quest auto parts store in town. If you pull out of the Motel 6 parking lot and turn left it's on your right hand side.

GREAT meeting you and your pops. Good luck the rest of the week.

 

Have fun and be safe.

 

If they don't have any ask some fellow racers, they are a friendly group

Failing those two options maybe make a run to Salt Lake City.

Good luck on your runs, followed your progress here and at landracing.com, hope your Pops feels better... BUY SOME 45+ sunblock and put it EVERYWHERE!