With a set of M/T drag radials you’re going to destroy that 8 inch diff. Carb around 750 cfm? Nice build.
Wow….that’s a killer piece…and yes with that power and a 4 speed you may be giving that 8” a run for its money..will be cool to see how it holds up..so many conflicting opinions on the old inter web.. As for headers…I have Doug’s on mine…1 pipe hits the drivers side shock tower and 1 hits the passenger side frame rail..if you know your fit and have been messaged for that car, I say run em..if ya wanna get fancy, massage your “kustumization” and have em coated…I think Doug’s are almost a grand now…I got mine , they are ceramic coated, on marketplace for $275 in the original box… Looking back in it I wish I would’ve shelved my 289 and driving down to Flat Rock and pulled a 302 out of an explorer and gone 331 roller..that the sweet spot SBF I feel..
As for the 8 inch, you never truly know the edge until you have gone over it. It will be fine, until it's not. -Abone.
well I have always though the diff was the weak point and then the axles. I mean I am keeping an eye out for a 58” 9” housing but nothing has popped up in the past few years locally. I may just have to buy a housing…. Same goes for the T10 and looking for the right toploader.
Did manage to find a photo of the original 289 after dad and I “rebuilt” it circa 1988. Holbrook Racing in Schoolcraft originally did bottom end rebuild (name stamped in crank) but there was a piece missing from one of the mains - literally. So new bearings and crank it was. In my benevolence I hand ported the heads and gave her a valve job in HS auto shop - had an uncle who was a machinist who did screw in studs. The intake came from the massive swap meet that to be held adjacent to MIS in the Irish Hills. Carbs came from a swap meet in Toledo - one was always junk! Camshaft & springs were the solid lifter flat tappet that used to be offered decades ago in the Ford SVO catalog. Still have the headers - albeit a bit more beat up and rusty. Pretty sure I am going to eventually just buy a set of Doug’s. Stupid thing would boil the water out of the radiator as soon as you shut the the ignition off. Best I can figure is one of the heads were warped. I think I sent them down the road with the scrap man a few years back. A set of 66 California smog heads replaced them and the problem went away. Those were also hand ported and had 1.94 / 1.50 Chevy valves installed - ah to be young and stupid again.
Did you go to Jefferson??? Cousins all went through the Auto Shop program there bitd…I live 5 blocks from Holbrook…still in the same spot.. that 289 must’ve screamed… as for the 8”…the test will be the 4 speed…I think they live a bit better with the automatic.. and when it dies just order a 9” from Quick Performance and bolt it on..I’ve been on the hunt for that same 59 rear end for several years…closest I got was a Versaille rear end at Monroe swap a couple years ago..for what he wanted and the issue with the weird brakes, I passed and built up my 8”
I matriculated from Ida. Class of ‘92. I live like 8 miles from Monroe Co fairground and have never been to the swap meet there. Honestly couldn’t tell you the last swap meet I have been to.
At some point during my engine assembly I stumbled across a rotisserie and jumped on it. 25 years ago I had chemically stripped this car (when strippers really worked!), blasted the front clip and most of the interior and underside - well most of the underside. From the rear seat to the end of the trunk didn't get the treatment. I figured it was time to finish the job. I had gotten a first hand view of a 64 on a Rotisserie locally and boy it sure makes working on a chassis convenient. The car sat this way until Spring '21 and then a cheap HF pressure pot blaster gave my compressor a work out and allowed me to really see how much body work I was going to have to do. I decided to not replace the rocker and wheel well trim so I welded up the rocker holes and a few other holes I had drilled over the years for various things - like floor shifters. Then the blasting commenced... 800# of media scattered across the driveway later... I really miss the BIG pressure pot I used to have fed by a 238 Detroit running twin rotary compressors. But I revealed the extent of the corrosion damage. Fortunately the floors are pretty solid. Just a few pin holes in front of the toe boards for the rear seat that are easily closed up. The quarters obviously were wasted. Drivers side much more so than passenger.
The slicks in combo with the 4-speed may kill the 8", although I'd expect axle breakage mostly with the 28 spline axles. The 8" doesn't like torque loads, keep the cubic inches down and they'll do fine. Ford generally wouldn't install these behind anything bigger than the 302 in most cases, they did use them behind some 351s but that was after smogging them down to where they didn't make any more power than the older 302s. If the 8" does break, I'd go with an 8.8" over a 9" as they're lighter, more efficient, and usually much cheaper. Low ratios are easy to find, most have 31 spline axles and discs.
Additionally during the blasting process I decided to install sub frame connectors. I ordered a set from Tinman. They were pretty straight forward and fit very well. Cutting in the front sub frame was the most difficult part and the connectors fit in there so they would rest against the rear sub frame took some finesse. I did prime and paint the area that the connectors would cover on the floor. I also gave the connectors the same treatment so that when it came time to paint the bottom nothing would be missed.
Last year I finally found a sigh of relief when a gentlemen on the FB decided to pound out and offer rear quarter repair panels. I promptly jumped on a full set as it was a better option than just using fiberglass and while i may be somewhat talented I am no tin knocker by any stretch of the imagination... I recently dove in head first with replacing quarters. Passenger side first as that side is the least eroded side. This is my first foray into ever replacing sheetmetal on a vehicle. Been "different" to say the least. These panels require a little massaging but they are 100% useable. Too bad he only made a limited run and stopped. I ended up welding up the erosion on the inner fender and then giving it a couple of layers of glass weave and West Systems Epoxy on the face for some strength and sealing. The flange is intact. Not sure if I am going to weld the fender lip or if I am going to trim the lips mostly away and bond it with 3M 8115. Opinions? Took some fitting and bending and tweaking to get the passenger panels to fit but overall it was pretty easy. rolling the rear correctly to get it to mate properly at the end of the wheel well has the most challenging - it is close right now - needs some trimming and final rolling. I flanged the top of the original skin (still need to trim the replacement to sit in that flange). I got a little carried away when I began this endeavor and cut to size fore and aft so I tacked a strip to the back side of the car skin to let the new panel rest against so I could butt weld.
Worked on the drivers side last week. Repaired the inner fender rot, new flange and pieced the skin together. I also took the opportunity to dig out whatever this sealer type stuff is that FoMoCo poured into the area between the outer skin and the inner structure and rocker. That void adjacent to the rear seat panels. The stuff definitely didn't "seal" the area and promoted corrosion.
Do not glue those panels in…I work for 3M and have trained hundreds of people in the proper use of 8115 and what you wanna do isn’t it. Adhesives expand and contract at different rates than the sheet metal and you will eventually have a bond line show up..and you can’t get rid of it. There used to be a guy on here that built a nice 54 Ford Kustom, he glued the headlight rings on, after I told him it would show..he glued, sanded, put filler over it, and painted it a nice copper/gold color..and about 2 months later the bond line showed up on this repair..saw him at a show and he said “ ya told me what was gonna happen” I’m attaching some stuff right from the instructions for ya..I’d hate to see ya out the work in and have that happen and those quarters aren’t easy to come by..
I believe he wants to bond the panel at the wheelhouse only, that panel bond should work well for that, but it may be problematic getting it in between the panels with the quarter tacked in place.
As mentioned before by @loveoftiki (with the excellent attachment), using it to bond overlapped panels will show a line, but there are places and situations where it works well, and is actually the best choice. I'm blessed to have a spot welder here, but it's really only useful for making pinchweld flanges look "correct".
Perfect...it’s the best thing ya can use on the hem flange.. So I gotta ask is this car done and your giving us bits and pieces of your build? I can’t wait to see the finished results. What’s the color choice and what are ya doing for rims?
far from finished. I have been working on this thing for 4 years. I just painted the undercarriage and front end yesterday.
almost caught up now... This is last month. Welding the drivers side repairs in and making that corner piece. Stitching all of this together, grinding it down to see spots missed and doing it again will drive you insane. I might need to cut that transition piece out between outer skin and bumper pocket / corner. Too thin after the first grinding and like welding paper now. A tinknocker I am not. I should stick to wrenching. Not a lot of photos as I was cursing every time I burn through the Swiss cheese. Frustrating.
Finishing up the drivers side and adding some re-enforcement. Need to cleco the left skin and get it a bit re-shaped tomorrow. Also started de-priming the back half as I plan to shoot the trunk and interior as well as the insides of fenders, etc tomorrow before welding in the fenders. I also took the opportunity, while waiting for epoxy to cure, to fit and drill new holes for the export brace. If anyone is wondering what all the streaky white stuff is - I sprayed the chassis down with a phosphate solution after blasting the chassis. Probably a bit too heavy but it kept it from rusting.
At this point (like 2 weeks ago now) I started a series of long days while the weather was forecast to be and kind of got myself out of order at the start. I guess I just felt like sanding and painting rather than welding. Maybe I was just dreading the welding… I stripped the outside with the DA and 60 grit and shot it with JP375 until I ran out of primer. I always seem to under estimate the amount of material I will need and at the price of stuff I hate opening cans and bottles with shelf lives and not using them up…
Fitting the replacement skins - they took some work and will require more in the future… Cut the top of the skin to fit the flange, adjusted the fit in the middle and got it sitting with a straight transition from the parent panel to the new one.
It always takes more time than you plan for when it comes to fitting things up, but it's always time well spent. And yes, the (sometimes seemingly endless) amount of welding and patching to be done can be daunting at times, so it's no sin diverting your attention to something else to give yourself a break. Looks like you are making good progress from here.
I have confidence you’ll do a great job on the welding. Looks like you have enough skills and the proper tools to do it. There’s a lot of good people here who can guide every step of the way. I never got the hang of welding sheet metal. I never owned something that tested my ability or gave me a chance to practice. Your Comet is a great choice to build it as you like. My family has owned a few Comets and other Ford products on the same platform. I wish my mom would have kept her ‘63 S22 she bought new long enough to have had it passed down to me. Have at it and I will love watching this build.
The Jalopy Journal
