As Willie sang, I just can't wait to get on the road again. I don't think I posted about it here, but after doing road trips and car shows almost every weekend last year, I swallowed a valve in my '57s 4.6 dohc coming home from a car show in Medicine Park, OK. in late October. I found a low mileage replacement in California and spent the next 6 weeks getting out the old and re-installing the replacement. The engine sounds great, strong, and surprisingly absolutely no start-up smoking after sitting for who knows how long at Engine World's warehouse. I was really anxious to get it test driven, went in on the last day of finishing things up, showered, changed clothes, hopped in the car, started right up, put it in gear, and nothing!!! The car wouldn't move. Well, to shorten the story, I did everything I could to check out the ******. Everything is indicating I F#$@@ed up the fluid pump. With no lift, there's no way I can get the ****** out to replace the pump. I could remove the engine to get to it, but no way that's happening. After 6 weeks of waiting, I finally got an appointment date from my ****** shop for the 12th. Yeah, btw, it took me 6 weeks to swap engines. I'm 77 with COPD. My son did help for a week or so, so I've got somebody I can blame it on, lol..
Was excited for you for a sec there. Sorry for the set back. I have one car waiting to pull the engine/trans just change back the fork style to mech clutch. you'll get there. I posted some 57s on the 57 board to get you by for a bit!
I know how you feel. Last year I seemed to have all sorts of problems getting my Bird up and running. Nothing heavy like you, but it was just one thing after the other, mostly ignition related. .Finally got it straightened out at the end of the season. Finally got some decent weather here, took it out yesterday for short cruise. Felt good.
Hopefully it will be something simple, but if it is the pump, they should be able to fix it pretty quickly since they will have a lift and proper equipment. I can understand the aggravation, I blew the toploader in my 62 Fairlane on labor day weekend and only just got it ****oned up today. So it took me about 5 months to change a transmission. I was sick for over 2 months and we had really cold weather for awhile, so I just didn't feel like laying on cold concrete while stabbing a four speed. (Something I would have done overnight when I was 18) .
When I blew up my 4-speed in 2018, I summoned the troops and I was back driving in 10 days. Now I pretty much work alone and at a snail's pace. I haven't had the Ford out since it got colder out, I'm sure I'll have to charge the battery and maybe get a new one for it.
Last time I changed out the engine, everything went smooth, just slow as I was working alone. This time, we were hurrying too much trying to get all the underside stuff finished before my son had to go back home. It seemed like everything came back to bite me, fought me all the way. Stuff like forgetting to install the oil dipstick before we put the engine in. The dipstick fits between the block and exhaust manifold....no way it was gonna get installed that way without pulling the engine up far enough to remove the manifold, as the manifold is less than 1/4" from the upper control arm. I tried different things, but I ended up making a flexible dipstick tube ***embly from braided stainless AN hose. That allowed me to go around the exhaust. Worked out ok, but took forever to find / figure it all out. Another thing .....my old (OBD1) engine had 3 water temperature sensors. The replacement (newer OBD2) only had 2 locations. I figured I could just ****e into one of the two to add the wire for the temp gauge. I checked with Ron Francis wiring and they told me no, they all had to be kept seperate. I looked for another port on the heads, but the plugged holes were all oil gallery, no water jacket. I ended up reworking the front crossover pipe, where the two already were, to add the third. Another time consuming deal.
Ah, its all the little things that makes our hobby fun, but I have to admit some of it gets less fun the older I get.
I just wanted to add that the guys at Ron Francis were really helpful, even though it had been 10 years or so since I bought the ch***is and engine harnesses from them. The guy who told me I couldn't just splice into an existing as-is water sensor wire, was going to figure out how to rewire whatever to make it work. He said it would take 3 or 4 days, as he needed a lul in telephone service calls to find the time. I called him the next day and told him I thought about adding a 3rd port to the crossover pipe so he didn't need to bother figuring the wiring rework., he agreed that would work. Great company. They really know their stuff.
My car got to the transmission shop yesterday. Hopefully, in a few days, I'll have it back, but I've now got another issue to work out. I had an oil leak, and thought I had fixed it. What I didn't realize was it was leaking mostly when the engine was running. While loading it on the trailer, I had the engine running so I'd have power steering. When we unloaded, there was a puddle left on the trailer, and later found a bigger one in my garage. I was thinking main rear seal, so I went back to the transmission shop and asked him to have a look when they got it raised up. He said, let's do it now. It appears I have a hole/leak in my oil pan where I had done some modifications to increase clearance back in the early stages of the build. It was good for 74k miles, so we must have damaged that area (broke a weld?) putting the replacement engine in. As Fairlane 62 said, solving all these issues ain't so much fun when you get older.
Just got a call from the trans. shop. They got the car back together, but it's a no go. 1st and 2nd only, and slipping in reverse. Apparently running the engine with the fluid not pumping caused the damage. I'll get it back mid-week with a rebuilt transmission. Lesson learned the hard way.
Yeah, but I'm so broke now, lol............and it is for sale. My avatar picture, btw, if I hadn't told you before, was taken not too far from your place. Lake Texoma south of the Kingston/Madill area. That was where the car was when I bought it as a project car from my mother-in-law back in '97-'98(?), and this pic was almost 20 years later.
I apparently won't be getting it back for a while. I stopped by there today, and the boss wasn't there. The car is in their rear lock-up area. They are a very busy shop, and it's pretty obvious mine isn't a "must get back quickly" daily.
Not good but maybe give a little time to build cash for the rebuild. Yes Madill is about 80 miles southeast of me which is fairly close for Oklahoma since we have a lot of rural areas.
One of my first '57 road trips. My birthday was coming up, and my wife asked what I wanted. I laughed and said "a road trip". She gave me her credit card and said "Have fun". As I mentioned, when I got the car it was at my inlaws near Madill. My FIL was a fishing guide on Lake Texoma in his retirement. Anyway, I grabbed his coffee cup that was in the car when I got it, and brought the car "back home" for a few minutes. My wife always wished her Dad could have seen what I did with the car. The symbolic coffee cup was as close as I could get. I did get to take my mother-in-law out for a drive in it before she p***ed. That avatar pic was taken on my birthday in '16, on that roadtrip.
I got the car back last week, and took it out for just a short drive, 15-20 miles. It's running/driving great. I don't want to drive it too much until I get that oil pan leak fixed. Guess I'm getting too soft in my old age, but after going thru the proceedure in my head, I decided I'd just let a shop do it. It's going in Friday. He'll call me as soon as they get the oil pan out, so I'll have the weekend to get it rewelded, cleaned up, and ready to go back in. Hopefully Monday it'll be ready for a LONG drive.
Hadn't posted on this thread in a while, and a follow-up on the above post. I got the pan sealed up as best I could. The metal was so thin, I couldn't get it hot enough for a good weld where it was leaking. Welded in a larger patch to cover the area, but still had pinholes. Ended up putting 3 coats of por-15 over the whole area. No leaking, and it got reinstalled Monday morning. I did find another oil pan on eBay, so going to have a good look at whether or not it can be installed without the mods as I did before. So, with a not-leaking oil pan, I took it out Tuesday morning but didn't get far, as the car started running really ****py after 7 or 8 miles, so brought her home. I also found the car wouldn't go into reverse without immediately stalling out. I started thinking about what I hadn't replaced in the past few months, and, to make a long story short, I think what I found wasn't there prior to the shop removing my oil pan for me. My main positive battery cable was rubbing against the power steering pulley, shorted out, and fried the computer! I think the shop undid my zip ties that were holding the cable out of the way. After replacing the computer with a spare one I had, and repairing the cable, everthing is back as it should be. The car runs great (put 50 miles on it), and goes into reverse with no problem. I also found that the shop has the dipstick wedged between the block and the oil pan, so the dipstick isn't coming out!! It's going back there for them to take care of that problem as soon as I get the car aligned. 600.00 bucks and all it did was add to my issues!!
The Jalopy Journal
