The Tardel-McKenzie crowd started work on the roadster for Speed Week '04 last Saturday, rolling the roadster out of the trailer and into the shop. In spite of a thorough chemical cleaning last year, which worked very well, it's going to come all apart for a 100-percent cleanup, inspection, repair, and protection. Ed "Bing" Binggeli knocked apart our best motor from last year today and verified that only the block was damaged. The French crank I carved for that motor last year is perfect and ready to go again in a new block! Thank god. there's a hundred hours saved this time around. I got started on the new coolant tank. Vern sussed that we had a big unused pocket of space in the*****pit, to the right of the driver. So, I made a bunch of careful measurements from which I made patterns to fashion a mockup in tape and posterboard. The mockup fits the space and it yields 17-plus gallons of coolant capacity, better than triple of what he had last year. There will be a shield and insulation on the driver's side of the tank, for safety and comfort.
Is a salty speed junkie ever NOT getting ready for the next Bonneville? Is the car all blown apart now?
It's just starting to come apart now, DrJ. The teardown is really methodical -- sort of -- with work on each of the elements****igned as they come off. Doing the coolant tank mockup as the first on-car task made sense in that the car was intact, with all the pieces in place so there would be no aw-shit surprises when it goes back together. I'll try to post weekly updates from now until Speed Week, here on the other board
RACEFAB -- Heat, perhaps the most common problem encountered when dealing with a high-performance flathead. old beet -- Thanks, I'm pretty proud of 'em. I got my good instructions from Ed Binggeli, the famous "Bing" who was doing this work decades ago, before most folks even thought about it.
How about a tech on smoothin a crank. I would like to do that to my merc crank before I put it back in the flatty.
Fastsporty -- I've been taking step-by-step pictures of a crank I'm carving for Digger Dave of the North of 49 team, with an eye to producing a HAMB how-to. Gotta warn you that there's a ton of work in one of these cranks, something on the order of 100 hours if you have some experience with this work. Count on spending $40-$60 on discs, stones, and sanding rolls. All that said, it's a very satisfying undertaking and certainly not belly-button work you're likely to "see" in every other flathead-powered hot rod you see.
The Jalopy Journal
