Hey Larry, so did your ever finish this 26 T, You just amaze me on the work that you do, now we are seeing it in your Willys. WOW
Some of you will have heard that Steve Lang sadly died, this rod is his 'unfinished symphony'. I'm not much into the rodding world so I'd never heard of him before I saw the advert for this project for sale. As soon as I saw the photos of the chassis and the brake plates I knew it was for me. I went to Watford and did the deal with Sue. I collected all the parts and returned them to my tiny garage in North Wales, which I've been clearing out and re-arranging to make space ever since! I'll continue his general design, with a few ideas of my own. I'll attempt to follow his incredible workmanship but it's going to be a steep learning curve and I'll be looking for help, advice and opinions along the way. I've read through the build threads on this and the Rocket and I feel like I'm getting to know the man and the way he thinks about his projects. So much of his personality has gone into this build, it'll always feel like he's watching me! I have a lot of other commitments so this won't be a quick build. I'll post updates on here as so many of you have been following this car with such enthusiasm, I just hope I can do a job Langy would be pleased with.
Welcome to the HAMB. Langy was a great friend of mine,said goodbye to him a year ago today on my birthday. Can,t wait to see this coming together.
Thanks guys. That much have been a big loss junky, he seems like a really nice guy as well as an extraordinary talent. The first thing I want to tackle is the motor. From what I can tell from the build thread the short motor is built to a very high spec, though I don't know what cam he ended up with or whether he home-ported the heads or if they're MTS. Some parts have gone AWOL- I'm missing the valves, springs, pushrods and rocker assemblies, I've no idea what spec those should be.
Was only just yesterday wondering what happened to this car, will be great to see it move forward again.
Hi, pleased to see this going to someone who will finish it. I saw it and the Rocket when I took my axle over to be drilled by Steve a while back. Not too many hot rodders in North Wales. I live in Chester and have offices in Wrexham and Bangor so I am up and down the A55 most of the week. Give me a shout if you need any help. Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Steve was also a good friend of mine - glad this project is back in the works. Looking forward to the progress .....
Thanks for the offer Blackjack, I'm sure I'll need help! A few of us are heading over Chester way for brekky on Sunday if you want to meet up?
We're meeting here around 9am. https://www.venetianmarina.co.uk/ There'll be a handful of nice cars there
I lifted off the heads this morning. I guess Langy never expected it to be laid up for so long... The bores are greased up and still perfect, but the heads are not so good! I'm sure a media blasting and re-facing will save them but what a shame! The head gasket faces are a little pitted, I hope I can get away with carefully blocking them with wet & dry.
I've cleaned up the block and smothered it with grease, I'm happy with that now. This afternoon I dropped the heads off at Red Dragon vapour blast cleaners in Wrexham, I've used him before for motorcycle ally covers so I know he does a good job. Next is to ring Cadillac High Performance who seem to have taken over from MTS where Langy bought his cam & valvetrain. I'm hoping they can tell me if/ where there's any i.d. on the cam.
Red Dragon do a good job.... he’s done all sorts of vapour blasting for me on the T and my O/T cars Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
So I've just spoken to Paul at Cadillac High Performance. He's gone back over MTS's customer files and found all Langy's invoices relating to this build. Over the next day or so will email them all to me. How bloody marvellous!
You know when you think you found the answer but all it did was raise a load more questions? So it seems Langy was building (and buying parts for) at least 2 Caddy motors and he changed his mind on this one 3 or 4 times. He only ported one head and that's just a smoothing & blending job. So it seems we have a race cam and KB 10:1 pistons mismatched to mild street heads and a mild street inlet. And bugger all else.
I've had chance to fully investigate the engine now and it's all disappointment... Stock crank, stock rods, cast pistons, stock timing gear ( who the hell fits stock timing gear?) I'm staggered that someone of Langy's talents would spend so much time and effort on the outside of this motor and not bother with the internals. In fact he gives the specs for this motor in this very thread that it has highly upgraded internals, so would he really remove it all to replace it with stock? The only thing I've not yet been able to I.d. is the cam. Any ideas?
Those are not stock parts ... I have been building these engine's for 30 years ..... pistons are Keith black ... rods are forged stock are cast so I would guess they are pep ..timing chain is coyes with are bolts ... I can figure out the cam from the photo ... 112 lobe center ground by comp cams ... I just read this thread and the loss of such a builder is so very sad
Cam is comp cams ... intake lobe 5441 is 256 advertised 212 at .050 .298 lobe lift.... exhaust lobe looks like 5204 advertised is 292 at .050 is 244 lobe lift is .3235 ....but it could be lobe 5209 that is 296 / 246 .340 lobe lift ...ground on a 112 lobe center
He was very ill when building this - anything could have happened Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
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