I didn't get out to Robin's place to work on my own car, but I did get a brief window to work on these. I only had about an hour and a half free today, but we got the Devin to fire... we had to run it off my car with some heavy duty jumper cables. I have no idea how to remove the battery but it is dead flat and will have to be replaced. There is a fire extinguisher mounted above the fuel cell, which I think was something of an afterthought. More than likely the platform it lives on will have to come out to change the battery. I think after that the car will run and drive no problem. Sorry, no videos. I was in the car. But yall know what a SBC sounds like with no mufflers. I am not so optimistic about the T. Salt got into some nasty spots. The rear end seems to be locked up. We did get the engine to turn over and build oil pressure, but the carbs are pretty frosty, I see rust holes in fuel lines/filters, and the brakes seem to be rusted in place. That one will require a lot more attention. Hopefully we can get her moving but unlike the Devin it will require some actual elbow grease. Shelley found a ton of papers in a folder labeled "MY ROD". We were hoping this would contain some hard info on the build but it seems to mostly be print outs of 2007-era HAMB threads that inspired Harold as he was designing the car... which is also pretty cool. It seems he was fairly timid about posting here as there are some printouts of posts he typed but never submitted. This place had a reputation for picking people apart back then...
Last week I drove the Devin... I have learned a little more about the car. It is the last production Devin SS and it sports tons of Devin branded parts to prove it. The intake manifold has the Devin logo as a prominent part of the casting! The transmission is a Muncie rock crusher (and it is really stiff). And today I got the T running, but it's a ways yet from driving. I did a quick and dirty refresh on the 3 operational carbs, blew out the fuel lines, and got it to fire up. #2 and #4 carbs are corked and have block-off plates. I got the brakes freed up but they still don't seem to work. I will probably need to blow them apart before it can be driven on the street, and the quick change has a nasty oil leak I haven't had time to look at yet. Next week I will hook up the blower.
Wow - 2 crazy nice cars. Please keep us updated on final sale. Got to be big cash in each of them. Get the word out to collectors
That 27T is pretty cool . . . would be fun to get it all cleaned up, running well, etc.. Keep us posted as you make progress!
Been a while since we've been out to see the cars but today we got the T's hydraulics bled and took it out on the road for the first time in almost a decade. My friend recorded on his pocket potato, sorry for the bad quality but listen to that big 302 purr. With Shelley riding shotgun and us riding on square tires I didn't push it hard but the car obviously has tons to give.
As mentioned in his article the T would have only been legal in the USFRA 130mph club. It is for street driven cars. It WOULD NOT pass SCTA Tech for Speedweek or any of the other meets. Both cars are pretty cool!
The Jalopy Journal
