Hey, J; I assume you still have the chunk that was "liberated"? If you don't have a heli-arc available(I don't remember what you've mentioned is in your garage...), I suppose JB might work, but before that, I'd use the Aluminum "soldering sticks". 1st trick is clean material(read: lots of soap/water, brake-clean[unclorinated], & then alcohol, to get the oil out of the pores, then brush w/the new stainless steel toothbrush[even after heating is helpful] for a really clean material(removing oxidation). Well, it's what I'd do. 2nd trick is be careful w/the heat. A propane torch will work, it's slow, & that's what you want for even heat, to allow the material to melt the sticks. Ox/Ac can very easily melt the metal where you don't want it. I did a small repair on an alum manifold for a friend a few yrs ago, he was happy. Stuff machines well, holds threads well, too. If someone asks about the repair-lines, just make up a decent back-story about it coming from an old fueler that had a little trouble w/nitro... . Could even leave the repair visible & as-done to see how many comment... . Marcus...
carefully applied JB weld...wipe access and you will be the only one that knows,,, now on to new smoke and noise.....
Well I've decided to go hybrid guys... Baby power. . . . Just kidding, she didn't make enough torque. I spent all day wednesday being sick as a dog. but I still pushed (and paid for it later) on wednesday night, and we put everything together, and ready to run. "why did it take you all night to button it up?" thanks for asking. The machine shop I got this from didn't put ANY plugs in it. well, we didn't think about, or notice, and when we stuck the oil pump primer into the intake and spun it up, the oil pressure squirted the oil right out the (not present) plug on the back of the driver side of the block. So we had to pull the whole intake, head, and everything that was already connected, so that we could get the plug into block. once we got it all buttoned up, baby girl was already asleep, so we couldn't fire it up. so after my buddy left, I took the opportunity to install my tach and vacuum gauges that I had redone. so about 5:30 Thursday, we met up and double checked everything, filled the water, and then fired it up! this is a screenshot from a video I took, after a few test rips up and down the street. after dealing with a very flat battery, and a couple not-tight-enough hose clamps, it was running ok. we still have a little part throttle miss that we have a couple ideas for, and shes a little rich. she also breaks up at around 5k, so its not dialed yet. but I drove it the 2 miles to work today. and that makes today, a good day. .
Forgot to ask: What does your seat-of-the-pants dyno say? Can you feel those extra cubes? (it had a 283 before I recall?)
ask @Austin kays about my break in procedures... It had a 350 before, but it was never super happy. this is "technically" a 355, seeing that its bored 30 over. It pulls really good. Once we get it happier I will be ready to have some fun.
time for an update. We tweaked on the roadster a bit friday night, found a coil that may have been part of our problem, but still have a cut out under hard acceleration and load. After packing everything up in the trunk, I went to bed early. My wife asked "is your car gonna make it tomorrow?" I said "it either will, or it won't, guess we'll find out." Before too long had passed, my alarm went off. 3:10 am. a quick pack of lunch in the cooler and a couple pots of coffee for the road, and I headed downstairs. rolled the car to the end of the driveway, and lit it off. It was 57 degrees, but I was wrapped up in a sweatshirt and coat. I made it to the north side of Kansas City at 5am, and drove through with almost no traffic. I rolled into the parking lot at 5:45 to a few people directing traffic, and one of them directed me to park in between two cars, right under this sign. So that was neat. I went and walked around, found something to snack on, and talked to a couple friends. I took more pictures, but haven't decided if they were good enough to do a thread with them or not. There was a TON of people there, and I spent the whole day walking around and talking to people. Midway through the day my buddy Tyler stopped me and asked when I was heading back, and asked if I wanted to stop by his neighborhood so he could make a little video of the car. Of course I obliged and I even beat him to his place. After hanging out for a bit, we went up the street to Wyandotte High School, built in 1937, providing a great backdrop. And with some twisting of my arm... Hot rods, doing hot rod things. If you watch the video you can tell I've never (purposefully) done doughnuts in this car before, boy it snaps around quick. before I broke anything, We split ways and I headed north. I made it home by 7pm, and relaxed outside. overall it ran ok, but there is some stuff I need to tweak, and I'm still chasing the cutout problem. But it runs. drives. and does burnouts. WIN. .
Re the baby with little torque, we have one a little older with lots of Talk!!! You might have to wait a little longer for her to run-in! Maybe I should try my lil-un in my T, might get it moving hahaha
@BigJoeArt , I don't see a video? I have seen quite a few Ts do donuts, and yeah the lack of weight outside the wheelbase is like an ice skater spinning with arms in - Conservation of angular momentum.
hoodlum! Wait, someone recently said they had never been called a gentleman. You damn gentleman! EDIT: my mistake, they had never been called classy. You classy hoodlum!
Big joe, Thanks for the update on your trip to Pete and Jake's. I was anxious to see a post of your road trip. Was starting to think you had to abort when it wasn't up right away. Glad it went well. I'm getting anxious for roadster trips but the weather keeps hosing us lately. Reading your post gave me a little fix this morning!
Wanted to go to the Speedway Motors/ Wheel hub magazine event on Saturday, I rebuilt the carb on Thursday afternoon, and hopefully that fixes the flooding problem that cursed me last year. I pulled the plugs out Friday night to see what was going on with some rough idle, and found I still had no fire on cylinder #5. But I figured if I could drive all year last year on 7 cylinders, it wouldn't hurt to drive to Lincoln. so I set out about 6am and pointed north. I also plugged the hose going dumping my vacuum into the fill tube, and was greeted with a working vacuum gauge. got a pretty decent parking spot... had to get some Advertisement in for my open house... I had a great time talking to people I don't get to see enough. After I made the rounds, and saw a bunch of neat stuff, it was time to head home. I made it to my buddies house, about 15 miles from home, and we talked about to dead cylinder, and he tweaked a bit on my carb, and was bringing it up in the rpm's when I noticed it getting a little hot. not thinking much about it we cut the tuning short, and decided to revisit later. well I made it 3 miles out of town, before the head gasket on the passenger side decided the #2 cylinder needed to run on water. luckily it didn't hydrolock and hurt anything. so for the first time EVER in 11000+ miles, the T saw a trailer. . . so after I got done throwing up at the thought of a hot rod on a trailer, we tore into the motor again. We decided to tear the heads off both side and check them for flatness, and see if we could find any problems with them. so back to Chris's house, we did a bunch of detective work, and found that the heads had weak sauce springs, and poor seats, but nothing that would cause a dead cylinder with 0 compression. We landed on a possible collapsed lifter as the only logical problem. and once back home, it was found to be true. so when adjusted, it pushed it down, and then when the motor started, it pumped up, keeping the valve open. but I did get a little flack for not running better springs, so I was on the hunt for springs, and a place for a valve job... ORRRRRRRR..... Facebook marketplace, where I found a guy that was selling a nice set of heads, with upgraded springs. Of course, I couldn't leave them be, so after grinding, smoothing, and priming, I set up a little rig to paint them.. So hopefully we can get it put together Friday night, and I can be back crusing before the weekend is over. Then I have vacation to tend to. I'll keep ya updated. .
So happy the vacuum leak was tracked down! Sucks with the lifter. If that's trash around it, make sure to flush things down as much as possible (teardown would be called for, but you just keep going!) Did diagnosis find #5 issues, or is that going to be decided to be weak springs?
I've heard a few stories of lifters failing lately. W're they new? More importantly I'm intrigued as to how you got that T onto a trailer!
yeah, no trash, but it does have some water in it from the failed head gasket, so it will need cleaned out, and new oil/ oil filter the lifter was the problem with #5, when we put this motor together and adjusted the valves, it collapsed the lifter, and when the motor started, it pumped up the lifter and opened the valve, and made it have no compression. therefore, no firing. but the weak springs didn't offer any resistance either... they were not new, they were the same used gm lifters I ran the car 10,000+ miles last year, but I guess moving around from the old motor, that one just quit wanting to live. we replaced it with a new aftermarket one. we'll keep an eye on it. So funny story, my trailer is full of metal and stuff. and I already knew I couldn't get the T on it, but my buddy had his trailer just a couple miles from where I broke down, and his has a dove tail on the end. That, and parking in a dip to both load, and unload allowed me to do it. I don't know if it would even load on his trailer on flat ground. cleaned stuff tonight in prep for putting it together tomorrow. .
ok, its time for a GOOD update. I got up saturday morning and put the rest of the parts together, but before my buddy got there to help with fireup, I had to try on the manifolds I picked up from @CoolForSchool58 while in lincoln. I like them, I've gotta work on my idea for the side pipes, the plan currently is to run 2" stainless pipes down the outside of the rail to even with the rearend, and have belled tips. polished of course. but that's future stuff. I threw the headers on, we double checked stuff, and she lit right off. HOLEEY SHEET this thing is a rocket. 80 in third, 5500+ every gear happily, and lights the tires on command. Needless to say, I'm plenty happy. I drove it to church sunday morning, and set it outside while I cleaned shop, so I could stare at it and take it for errands all day. couldn't wipe the smile off my face with a baseball bat. Oh, and I took all the extra old motor parts (and some future parts) and installed them on my engine stand. Come see it, and the rest of my (slowly getting cleaner) shop, on June 29th at my open house! oh, and after a couple days of weird flash storms, we finally got a good day today for a roadster drive to work. Back to daily driver status. just like hot rods should be. .
Glad for you, Joe! Amazing how springs and vacuum leaks can keep an engine from providing it's full potential. Don't rest on that, keep messing with the timing and carb so it's tuned within a gnat's eye of perfect. It will help you gain the ear for tuning that will be needed again if you go with more carbs. I'll bet that even with the 2 bbl it has more than enough power as you said. Plus although the accel pump on those isn't the most efficient, I'd bet that once it's dialed, the MPG for all the road trips will be pretty good. They cruise (mid RPM, low load) real well.
Dude it's wild how much better it is. thanks for the tuning tips you sent, I've been referring to them through this. Its a little fat, but I like rich over lean with as hard as I push this thing. ALSO. I'm shocked this little 2 barrel does as good as it does. we've gotten most of the stumble out of it, and it hauls the mail now. and man, 20+ mpg is gonna be hard to give up, but the 4 carbs will look so much cooler.
You got it, Joe! Problem is, either I gotta get much faster on my build or stop helping you, 'cause I'm jealous of how much fun you're having! Don't worry, I'll choose the first. You will have to detune it for the designated driver at the open house. You need to give rides to all the kids, young and old without risking life and limb. You'll be busy all over so it's gotta be able to do laps in someone else's hands.
Thanks man. It feels so good to have it back on the road. but for some reason my pregnant wife still doesn't want to take it to take it to Minnesota for our vacation... people are weird sometimes...
A single 2 barrel has instant acceleration at the crack of the throttle since the suction passed the 2 venturii’s is the greatest for atomization. Today with all the options for the top of any engine the lonely single 2 barrel stands alone……. Dare to be different!
Hahaha I know right Congratulations btw it's a great journey You'll be building a tub next to handle family hauling chores!
The Jalopy Journal
