Hot Rods It's mine now... 1946 Ford Sedan

After an hour or so at chiseling at all the grime, buildup, crap I was able to pull the transmission.
It came out two bolts early because the motor/trans mount rubber part had pretty much disappeared. Put that on the list of parts needed.

 

I really want to see what the trans looks like inside. The outside looks bad. A bunch more cleaning before I open it up.

Looking inside things were looking really good. Brass syncro rings looked great. Maybe my grinding into gear was a bad clutch adjustment.?? Now I'm thinking "clean it, front seal and it's good to go. The u-joint felt really nice too.

Then I saw pain. The gear cluster had a couple chunks taken out of it and the second/reverse gear was chewed up.

Put those on the list too. HAMB want ads here I come.

 

Glad to see your keeping the chevy in it, it fits the car!

good progress, keep it up.

jeff

 

Been getting some stuff done motor wise.
New timing chain, front seal, and gasket.
Rear main seal, again.
Sand blasted the replacement exhaust manifolds and high temp. coated them.
Cleaned the block like the dickens and painted it. Couldn't do the bright orange, so black it is.

I'm liking the valve covers one minute, the next minute I'm not so sure. Maybe take the rest of the paint off of them and see. ?? I do like the purely functional aspect of the galvanized covers.
Once my dirty mismatched 97s are on top, the room might come together.

Trans is waiting on the cluster gear then it can go back together too.

motor parts list:
oil pan gasket kit
exhaust gaskets
intake manifold gasket
RTV sealant
timing chain kit
couple cans of engine enamel
can of High temp. paint
rear main
water pump gasket kit

 

Awesome car!!!

 

very cool car and i,m glad your keeping the sbc it fits the car get back on the road and enjoy the shit out of of it

 

I'm really enjoying working on the motor. This is the first small block Chevy I have ever owned. Learning quite a bit about them, in short time. There not as offensive as some folks make them out to be. Easy to work on, parts are available, and not overpriced. Made in USA timing chain was 32.00 and in stock... and it looks like a hot rod motor.

I could get used to this

 

^^^^^

 

When I was chopping my '36 Three window, I scored a '49 Caddy for it, with an adaptor ring and stick flywheel. (everything I needed to fit my '39 box)
My buddies came over, looked at my new mill...then said they were putting something really different in their '39 Tudor. I tried and tried, but couldn't guess what.

They were going to spend some 'big bucks' on a '55 Chevy V8! (like their Dad had in his '55 stick shift wagon)
The year was 1955, and it was a few months later that Hot Rod Magazine published the first installation I saw: (Bob D'Olivio's 'white '41 Ford pickup?) It was on the cover, engine on a chain hoist, and a sign in the windshield: 'OUT OF SERVICE'.

I was not a Chevy fan. But I installed lots of them in early Fords over the years.
Truth is, they fit better than flatheads...much to my chagrin!
I have a few of them now, my '47 sedan might get one. (also with the '47 column shift box)

 

Wow...Nice work! Motor looks great, what about glass beading the valve covers and either clearing them or using a duplicolor cast coat greay with clear coat? I love that stuff! It sets of black really well! I even fogged it onto my intake. My valve covers are just glass beaded, with the fins blacked out.

 

Gary,
What did you clean your engine with? It looks really good.
Consider this about the mouse motor. When it came out in 55, you couldn't find one in the salvage yards, they were so sought after. As soon as the engine was put out to the public, the speed equipment manufacturers started making goodies for them.
If there ever was an engine that changed the direction of hot rodding it was the small block. They have been traditional since 55 for one reason. They do everything they do very well. To me, the small block in a ford body is as God intended it to be.

 

Hey Mike, I used a case of brake/parts cleaner and a wire brush that runs on elbow grease. Wish I'da taken a pic after the scrub and before the paint.

The cluster gear showed up Friday!! So I was able to get the trans back together. It's running the stock gearing which has a 29 tooth set on the first gear. Good for a heavy car with tall tires.

Trans parts list:
Gasket kit
lock washers for everything
main cluster
second/reverse gear
clutch throwout shaft
throwout shaft bushings
good/new U-joint
Mac VanPelts trans book (already had it)
RTV (maybe it'll help the shaft seep at the ends)
thread sealant (side cover bolts)
rear motor/trans mount

 

After putting the 16s on the front of the car the front got a little taller, too tall. It already has a reversed main leaf so earlier I pulled a couple leaves to see where it would end up. Dropped a little, but not enough.
At least it didn't make the front end feel too soft. Feels pretty good actually.

My buddy Harvey (117Harv) has been dropping axles lately, and doing a really nice job. So it seamed a natural to yank this one out and give her "the drop". If we get 2 inches out of the '46 axle awesome. We're thinking 1 + is more realistic. Not much material to work with between the perch and kingpin holes.

Out came the front end. It put up a fight. Especially the perch bolts. Those will need some work to be usable again. Ruined the threads but that was it.
I've been dragging around an unknown shackle kit for years. Turns out to be the front kit for a '46 so those will get installed too.

The height measurement is without the motor, radiator, and transmission.

Here's how she's sitting tonight. Tomorrow we drop.

 

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Gary, your transmission looks great.
I have to replace the front spring on my 47. Pretty obvious why!
Apparently this was common practice back in the day. It lowered the car some, but not much. And I'm worried that the spring will break going down the road one day.
I'm not too keen on taking that spring out, looks like it's going to be a bitch getting the new one in.

 

Atwater Mike, Cool story. Don't suppose you have the cover pic to post on here? That would be awesome.

Mike Britton, Seen springs like that before, never on the front though. I think I'd change it too. The spring removal isn't too bad. Easiest if you pull the whole front end.

Don't be surprised if when you put a new reversed eye main leaf in there that it actually gets higher then lower. Heard of a few where that's been the case. Old spring was saggin' a bit I guess.

When I pulled a couple leaves out I tried to keep everything but the spring attached and it was quite the shit show. Got it done but definitely wouldn't have been a "winner" on tech week.

We destroyed (chopped) the shock and sway bar links when we pulled the front end. I had a neat little pusher tool but we should have used a bit more heat on the eyes on the joints.

Our parts list for the front end work:
new 3" sway bar links
new 4" shock links
big rubber ball for the radius rod pivot
new or repaired perch bolts
perch nuts
spring shackles (since they were already on the shelf)

*note to self: take pic of tool to post on here, add part numbers if I got 'em too.

 

The axle drop went splendid. Camera's at the shop so I'll post pics tomorrow. Got about 1 3/8" or so drop.

Started putting stuff back together too. Got the transmission back in and the front motor mounts.

Should be able to get the motor back in tomorrow, that's waiting on flywheel bolts.

Fresh perch bolts are on the way
Maybe get the front end back in this weekend.

 

This is a great little car!

 

Flywheel and pressure plate are bolted up.
New ball pivot bushing on the frame for the clutch throwout lever.

Some hot rod parts that I think will look the part.

Every hot rod needs an accessory gauge bolted on somewhere, right?
This old MQQN fuel pressure gauge will fit the bill. It's nice because it'll also serve as a visual that the fuel pump is on.

The Mallory Double-Life w/ tach drive distributor was gone through by GMC Bubba and looks wonderful inside and out. The cap on it is a spare for fitup, etc.

 

Where are you going to mount the fuel pressure guage?

 

Pics of the gauge, fuel pressure regulator and this sweet NOS (old) choke cable mounted.
Regulator looks a little crooked in the pic, better fix that.
I have it set up right now with a copper line. I'll swap it to a SW braided line in the near future.

 

I got the motor back in last night but it was too dark to take a pic by the time I was finished bolting it back up.

Here's a shot of the axle with a rattle can of black.
In anticipation of some parts showing up I figured I should prep some parts, test fit etc. That's when I found out that the steering arms aren't going to clear the axle. Figured that would be the case but not that bad. The normal heating and bending of the arms isn't going to give it the clearance it needs.
So i did what a normal hot rod dude would do and chopped them off. Has thought about relocating the arms, but the idea of the bushing holes distorting from all the welding, etc. lead us to think that bolt on arms are the best option.
Tomorrow I'll be making a call to Chassis Engineering to get a set of there dropped arms. Looks like there's are the only ones that will clear.

 

Like!

 

Perch pins showed up today! So I was able to get most of the front end assembled. It took a little grinding in the perch and king pin holes to get thing to fit up. I used a carbide burr and did a little at a time. The end result was a nice, tap it with a plastic mallet fit.

Used some anti-seize on the pins so that 50 years later they might come out a little easier.

 

Yesterday and today I worked on the intake, carb assembly and actually got it installed.
Filled it up with oil and water and tried to start it.
All I was getting was an occasional back fire out of one carb.
Turns out that I had run the wires to the dist. counter-clock wise instead of clock wise. Once I swapped them to the way god intended, it fired right up!!

It ran/runs, but pooped out when I gave it gas. When I bi-passed the progressive linkage and ran all three it ran much better. Not sure what that means.

Not enough fuel from the main carb? Jets, power valve thing?

I've never done a 3x2 setup with progressive linkage. We'll see how that goes tomorrow.

I AM STOKED.

 

Is this the cover you were talking about Mike?

 

Gary, there may be a significant vacuum leak / intake / carb leak and with only the one working it is too lean, when you work the other two carbs into the equation the mixture is richening up and disguising the leak.

I am not mechanical carb genius but have ran 3 strombergs then 3 rochesters being progressive, then, 6 holleys with only the middle two hooked up and this would be my first guess.

 

On my stromberg setup I had it on a nice warmed over 350 and even with the low CFM, it pulled really good and smooth even when I hadn't let the other two engage.

 

Finally took the time to go through this thread... What a great car!
I really like what you're doing with it, too.
Get the front end back under it yet to see how it sits?


Malcolm

 

Thanks for the advise A Rodder. Do you know/remember what jets, and power valves you have in them?

I found my Uni-Sync thing yesterday and played with it.
I was able to get the float floating evenly on all three carbs. The instructions say to get the float into the "C" range but to get that much vacuum the RPMs would have been really high.
Sounds like low vacuum to me. I as well, am not a carb expert either.
Is this why people lap the butterflies and/or close off the idle jets on the secondaries to prevent/minimize the leak?

It's still set up direct (not progressive). The middle has 44 jets and the outer two have 43s in them. Uncle Max had suggested that as a decent starting point on my 276 flatty so I figured similar displacement would be similar setup.

 

Thanks for the compliment.
This weekend has been the longest. I ordered the steering arms from Chassis Engineering last week. I was hoping "Brown Santa" was going to drop them off Friday. I'd be driving this thing.

BTW, Those folks at Chassis Engineering are great. Super nice on the phone, and didn't make me feel like I was wasting there time.