Haha, there's some top secret stuff goin on over there... We'll be sure you get a good picture of the back of the car...
Well Bob , ill teel ya what its been busy here the last few weeks just thinking bout this here HAMBer car thing. The crew here at Bubbas have been workin overtime just gettin it done. Beings as the shop dont have heat we only work on warm days ( dry ones that is). We did get the rear axle done last week and uncle cletus is pissed as we stole the rear end out of his 58 Edsel. Our women bought us a set of them Coker tires for christmas and we found this 37 Morris frt axle laying in a neighbors yard. This ole GMC truck motor came all the way from tennesse and was in uncle otis's log truck. He said it ran really good hauling logs up the mountain. I have been busy working on the dragster tow vehicle. Ill send more pics as the time allows and we get the frame rails welded up. Scooter is gone now to borrow some welding rod, got any 6013 rod for my lincoln welder??? Oh yea we may need to fix that brazed up hole in the oil pan,uncle otis missed a shift going up the mountain with a load of logs and said the tach went over 8,000 before a rod left the area! He blamed it on the Howard roller camshaft. Said he would never run a roller cam in a log truck ever again.
The **** is getting deep. I am glad I am working up hill from Gasoline alley. Quit drinking the bath water!
] Looks like it will Christmas soon and the neighbor is going out of town. Then we can steal his kids swing set for tubing on our dragster. Pretty cool stuff ( already powder coated green) , lots of spare material and Tom thinks the slide will make one hell of a seat. Should be light enough to braze and run. Uncle Otis just called from Tennessee and boy is he pissed! He just found out that GMC engine is missing, I had to promise him a used flathead ford and a rambler bumper to get him calmed down!!
Well another one of them ther holidays is coming up and i can get some more work on the dragster. Lindross wire brushed the tubing from the neighbors swing set just like Tom C told him to and he did a good job. Cost me 6 moon pies, a pint of Knob Creek and breakfast at the Waffle House but it was worth every penny. I got to loking inside this old truck motor and it has some wierd parts. The lifters has some odd shaped little rollers on the bottom ( i guess they just wore that way ?) and the ignition coil ( called a rev-pol) has more wires than usuall to hook up. I jumped to a battery and turned it and lindross said it felt pretty good to him although it made his arm hurt a little bit!! I guess i am going to run em but those pistons musta swelled up a bit at the top as they stick out of the block just a tad and for somereason Uncle Otis must have put some Ford valves in the head. Must have be really rusty as they appear to have been ground out a lot until its pretty smooth in there. I borrowed some black rustoleum and painted the engine ( didnt want to work real hard on cleaning it up) adding some engine hardner from eastwood and let it spray! We made us up a oil pump drive rod out of another old distributor and put it in a drill. Oil shot to the far wall from two or three holes , i guess thats good pressure ? Lindross measured the farthest the oil squirted and it was damn near 25 feet. Best i can figure thats 50-60 psi , shes a keeper. Well got to go now and get those old afb carbs cleaned up a little. Using sno-bowl from the doller store, man does it clean up a carb. Uncle Otic is mifed aboth them too, they came off another old truck motor he had laying around ( said 409- 425 hp on the valve covers) he was going to use them on his racin chain saw before i found them. Well maybe we can fire this beast us next week and have lindross video the start up for you guys, as i dont know much bout them video things.
Sounds to me like that eng is no good. So you should just s**** it and mabe build a flathead ply eng.
Yes, build a flathead...that will make life a lot easier for for me. LOL. Where did you get the roller lifters? I want a set. Ron
Another update. Tom C and Pete came by the shop yeaterday and picked up the tubing and i had Mike drove the rear end ***embly off last night on his way home. Pete came back and picked up the little 37 Morris front axle and springs later in the day. WOW , the are on the throttle! I stopped by after lunch today and here is the progress already , Tom had me set in the chair to see how wide he needed to make the rail for my big ***. The semi elipitical front springs are pretty cool as well. The springs go back into the 3 inch tubing and we have the rear axle on top the lower tube. ( havent noticed anyone doing this so far ????) Walt and I test fired the motor today and holy **** does it sound good. A few carb bugs but still has one hell of a lope and hits the rpms right away. Walt demanded that we strap the engine to the big old steel roller cart. ( made for detroit diesels). Tom want the engine right away and i just need to change the bell housing to a blow proof and mount up another high torque starter motor. In the interest of time we just used a old gmc truck housing and starter today without a clutch. Got a few more tricks up our sleeves but share them later. No one has really spec-ed out their car on the builder forum but we will show it all before we are done. Hope all of it works like we think it will???
I wish I would have stayed to hear the motor fire. I was a little worried when you said you were gonna start it on the stand but I guess every thing worked out OK.
Funny thing about engines , they are blind and stupid. They dont really know if they are in a car or on the floor. Just add spark, fuel and some proper timing and they will run. Other than a couple ( fixable) carb problems the engine sounded very good. Bill and Walt each ran a carb and i ran the starter and ignition. Pretty picture huh. The osha folks would have loved it .
I agree there nothing more bonding in a friendship than a engine running on the floor sharing responsibilities with friends. One dude is the fuel guy, the other is the timing dude and one other is in charge of the starter and ignition switch ( thats a wire holding on the jumper cables) Another dude is raising and lowering the garage door to thin out the fumes!! We all went to the Indy swap meet today and found some neat dragster ****. A Model A emergency brake handle ( hand brakes) and a composite Tilson master cylinder ( Tom says i either got to off set some weight or quit eating them damn Waffle House Cheeze Eggs and Waffles, cant quit the eggs so lets lighten the car. I figure the plastic Tilson unit will let me down another couple dozen waffles ?? ) Also picked up one of them killer little gear reduction starters, can't imagine one of those little ****s cranking this big ole motor with some compression added but lets think waffles here!! Tom said i need to come by tomorrow and look at the cage ( they bent and welded it up yesterday) and if i would bring the engine by early this week it would be done by thursday. I guess at this time you all have figured none of us ole guys sleep much. I think the theory is if ya got to get up and pee every night might as well work on the car while yer up?? Will put some more pics up tomorrow afternoon , gotta go now I am working on Waffle Steak for a sponsorship!! What ya think, free waffles from Indy to Mokan wouldnt cost em a bunch ??? We dont use maps any more we use wafflequest.com . Just travel from Waffle House to Waffle House. Gonna name this car the Raisin Toast Special ????
Mondays update. Stopped by Toms to get some measurments. The frame and cage is looking good. He got the steering box fitted up it came out of uncle Otis's combine. He dont farm anymore and really didnt need it anyway. Has some of our fat friends stop by for a spring deflection test they tested out good at about 500 lbs with just two dudes. May add a dude when the upper rods are done ????
OOOOOO Bubba gots *****! might need to get with you'se guys so i kin have a cage built large nuff for my fat ***... lookin GOOD
Tuesdays update: Missed my Waffle House cheese eggs this morning because i had to come in early and get this Jimmy done for Tom. Pete ( the welder) is havein a fit because i dont have the motor over there. If they cant do a car a week Pete gets upset so i came in early and got er done!! Makes a Bubba grouchy without them cheeze - eggs . The ch***is cage is pretty much done and i do need one more fittin session with the new seat. ( came out of the same combine as the steering box.) Had DB ( DB Sprinters ) make us up a couple bars and a tie rod and we got them on the front end today. I think Toms got er figured out where everything is goin to fit etc. I still need to get the combine steering wheel cleaned up so we can fix up a wheel. Maybe tomorrow we can get it on the wheels . I think Toms come up with a great idea on motor mounts that would allow the motor to be jacked up and just roll the ch***is back for repairs etc. Seems that the way it was done. (once upon a time) By now we have all captured Ryans orginal goal of " The Spirit of The Bug" and are using only pre 1962 stuff ! (even pre-62 people) Tom even found some old welding rod to do the ch***is up with. You know that old 6013 rod will keep forever in a old fridge and a light bulb for heat. ( tech tip # 234 in your Bubba handbook!!)
The Jalopy Journal
