Projects The 48 hour coupe

Glad you’re still working on it as time allows.
A little done each time and you’ll be ready for spring cruising.

 

Man that things looking more like a car every day man, good job.

 

Slow and steady wins the race lol. Need to switch gears for a week or so though to get the house presentable for in-laws to visit including staying here lol. Needs to be surgercal suite clean lol.

 

Man don’t do that or they won’t ever leave!

 

They're homebodies. I've been genuinely surprised they've been coming for thanks giving since we moved to TX initially. It was always a big to do when ever we got together when we lived 15 minutes away. And that was always at their house. Not complaining though. Like I said they've been making the effort since we moved away from home. Just was surprising at first

 

Well it's been a while again. Things haven't really calmed down much around here but I have that itch again to cruise now that it's warmer so I've been messing with the coupe when I have a few spare minutes as much as I can.

So when i left off I had pretty much all but the last few wires to connect. I thought (thought is a key word here, we'll come back to that) it was just wiring in the splitter to allow me to use by brake/tail taillights as brake/turn/tail.

To scratch the itch my first step was hooking up a new battery and try pushing the*****on but when I did that nothing happened... at all. Like the battery wasn't even connected. Not a great start. Voltmeter confirmed I had 12v at the solenoid next thing back in line is the starter*****on, that was connected to the solenoid. Next up do I have power at the*****on. Nope turns out you need to actually connect that wire instead of it laying on the floor of the car... i'm an idiot lol. So I connected that via a jumper wire to confirm that was my problem. It was and now thag the car is back to cranking naturally the next thing to do was start trying to get the car to fire instead of properly making that connection. Adhd is a****** sometimes. But at least I now have a definitive item on the list of***** to do.

So now it cranks but I noticed immediately that the fuel bowl filled up with nasty root beer brown "fuel".




Guess I'll**** stripping and sealing the fuel tank and running new lines for that to my growing list of***** to do. Go thing too because the rubber fuel line out of the tank disintegrated when I touched it.


Knowing that I immediately disconnected the tank from the system and set to cleaning the nasty fuel out of the bowl and getting a nurse tank set up. Then i hit another self inflicted snag. Whn I set up the nurse tank now the fuel pump wouldn't pull fuel for some reason. I coukd get it to run briefly by dumping fuel sown the carbs. Even took the carb tops off and manually filled the bowls and it ran for a but longer but would still only run for 30 seconds or so. By this point I was frustrated so I called it a day.

Went back out a few days later and was just playing around with it trying different things to see if anything made a difference. No change. I did finally take the time to add choke plates back into the carbs as I've always heard even if you don't need them 94s tend to run better with the coke plates installed. Whonknow if it's true just what I've heard. I had spare carbs on the shelf so I already had all the parts I needed, why not give it a try. Of course that had no affect on the car running either which isnt surprising. It would need to run on its own for it to start running better right? Couple more days and small stints trying to figure out what indid wrong.

Then I figured it out. I didn't want to take everything apart again and i knew just dumping fuel down the carbs wasn't making a difference i thought maybe I needed to fill the bowl to to take out any air for. Some reason. So inused the big syringe I use for reverse bleeding brakes and pumped some gas straight into the line going to the pump that filled the bowl and pushed it through to the carbs bowls too but in doing so had a big leak at the fuel pump bowl. Gas was going tight around the bowl gasket and out onto the floor. Apparently at something taking the bowl off to clean or fill it etc. I didn't realize I dropped the gasket whe I reinstalled it and so I didn't have a gasket there at all emhence fuel going right by it. Again I'm an idiot but once I addressed that what do you know now it runs and pulls it's own fuel and we're back in business. When. Still not running great as you can hear in the video below but it stays running and that's where I was trying to get to.



So that distraction sorted out. A couple more items added to my to-do list and now its time to get back to wiring officially. And this time get it finished and completly checked off the list.

 

Progress is progress man! You’re getting there!

 

Alright I'm getting really good at taking breaks from this thing. Took a detour to fix my hot rodded golf carts top speed so it's actually usable after my engine swap. With that sorted. I finally bit the bullet and got back to the unfinished wiring job.

Last I left off I got the starter*****on to work and then immediately got distracted with fuel and making it run. Ive said it before but ADD is a****** sometimes lol. This time around I decided to try something new for me. Pick one thing and stick to it until it's fixed/done, what a concept right.

I started with the headlight switch cause it wasnt doing anything at all. Wasnt getting power. Found one of the male pins on one of my plugs behind the gauges missed the receiver on the female side. They're nice plugs but they are still Amazon items and each pin has a little flex to it. Just need to make sure I get them all lined up befire snapping the plug together.




With that connected. I pulled the switch out and the headlights flickered and then immediately blew the fuse. Ugh. Head in hands this car is fighting back. Dont have the right fuses in my stash. So I call it a night.

Before the next time out there i picked up fuses and a blade fuse style circut breaker so I could test the circut without wasting a bunch of fuses. Turns out it wasnt necessary and the car the was fighting back helped me back up. I put the circut breaker in and pulled on the headlights. It didn't trip. I did hear a little pop from up by the headlights but that was it. After that the headlight switched worked every time with out tripping the circut breaker or the new fuse when I put that back in. No idea what that was all about but I've tried it about a hundred times now and never a peep, smell, popped fuse or anything. It just works now.
The only think I can think of is that there was something with the bulb itself because the low beam on the drivers side didn't work. Poked around at a couple other things after that. Pulled the bad bulb so I could pick one up the next day. And called it a night after that.

2 nights in the garage 2 small items checked off the list of issues. Small victories are still wins.

Went back out a couple nights later installed a new bulb and moved onto the next issue.
Parking lights come on and stay on with headlights every old Ford I've ever had the parking lights turned back off when the headlights came on. And secondly the gauges lights turned off when the heads came on. You can probably see where this is going. Per the wiring instructions i had the switch wired correctly but that was a generic gm switch wiring. And I was using a ford style switch. Was a super simply fix. Cut a couple zip ties swap 2 wires and replace zip ties.
Super simple. Boom 3 issues solved l. Im killing it. I now have working headlights parking lights turned signals (those just worked first try lol) and also had turns and tails at the rear (those also worked first try)

And now I was down to the one i was really dreading. Ended up taking a couple days off again because I was dreading it that much.



I talked about it in an earlier post I think but because the turn signal switch i had found and decided to use was a 5 wire switch instead of a 7 wire. It turns out the reason for those other 2 wires is that there is no provision for brake lights at the switch meaning you would typically need separate turn signal lights at the rear and your main lights would strictly be tails and brakes. But I'm running a single '50 pontiac light for each side and really didn't want to add a separate light for turns. I had done some research previously and found that some guys were using a trailer brake light controller as a work around, however, the threads I'd seen didn’t really give a solid yes or no about whether this would actually work for my situation. When I left off in March I had acquired a controller and even mounted it under the dash next to the fuse panel but then I psyched myself out about actually wiring it in and stopped.

Here is the controller I got. It was another Amazon find and was only $20



Last night i went out there with the intent to stop being a wuss and just wire it up and if it doesn't work I'll cross that bridge if it comes.
Wiring was actually.very simple and straight forward.

Input Side: Ground, Brake signal, Tail, L Turn, R Turn
Output Side: Ground, Tail, L Turn, R Turn

Grounds were self explanatory, the universal harnesses usually have a brake signal as part of the turn signal switch bundle, the tails and turns I spliced in between the fuse panel and the rear lights.

And I can say officially. It worked and here's the video to prove it lol. I now have working brakes, turns, and tails that work correctly both with the headlights on and off.

https://youtube.com/shorts/THxlE7aJDOg?si=vzxGrEzxu9eN7HaE

Now I'm down to a couple wires under the dash i need to land and wiring should be complete. I know I've said it a few times now but next up is completing the brakes.

I'll wrap this up with a couple random shots from these last few nights in the garage.

 

Fuck yeah dude!

When you’re sitting there psyching yourself out you need to think “well, it already doesn’t work. Worse case senario it still doesn’t work”

That seems to be a good trigger for my “fuck it let’s go try”

proud of ya man! You’re getting there

 

So good to see

 

Dont remember if I showed yall this or not.

AC power outlet for charging the phone. Wired in and done.

Our soda fountain machines at work come with these little ss pieces that block some of the flow of the ice dispenser so it doesn't all drop out at once. We'll we use a different type of ice that doesnt need this piece and they get pulled off and usually tossed. Well they're pretty nice pieces to make things out of.

So I've been collecting a few and gave one a couple 90* bends drilled a couple holes and it bolts to the flange on the bottom of the dash so the only thing you see when nothing is plugged in is the bolt heads.












Another item checked off the wiring list.

Also ran and landed the power feed for the starter*****on I had just been using a jumper wire before. Thats done now too. 2 more things off the list.

 

I know i said no more distractions until i get wiring done but this came up while attempting to run wires to the roof area for dome light and a fan. Started pulling windshield trim off and remembered that I had never done anything about the windshield being held in by 2 self drilling roofing screws. So I pulled them and the windshield out and am adding nutters i to the header flange to bolt the windshield in better and with 6 bolts now instead of 2 roofing screws. There were already more holes im wondering if some came out somewhere along the way or if this was another just get the windshield back in before selling type sutuations. Either way im taking care of it. Then ill finish running the couple wires I need to and put it all back together




Edit windshield is back in. All I for 5/16 - 18 bolts were these weird tapered head ones I used to mount the dash so ill get some better ones after the holiday.



Alright back to wiring

 

I finished up the wiring, at least that is all that I can do before I tackle the roof repairs. It starts (so long as I haven't let it sit to long otherwise I need to prime the carbs first) ran out for a while a few weeks ago by far the longest is run since I got it. Let it get to temp, oil pressure was good. Could use some more tuning but that can wait.

And then... i finally did it. I got back to working on the brakes..... Kinda

I've apparently become the go to guy for golf cart repairs for my neighborhood. And a few weeks ago I had to move the coupe out a little ways to get a cart out of the garage. Naturally since this was around the time of me letting it run, I decided to reverse it back into the garage under is own power instead of pushing it. That brought back up that the pedals aren't great.

https://youtube.com/shorts/SOMj9fFir8k?si=ircTiZ5XK67-ywN9

When I switched from a hydraulic clutch back to mechanical. The linkage went back in place on top of the pedal and with how the existing pedals were bent the pedal arm would catch on the bolt for the clutch pushrod halfway through the return stroke and keep the clutch disengaged (hence the wheel chock in the video) so what you can't really see in that video is me operating the clutch with my hand to help it past the catching. I was also hand operating the throttle because the spring wasn't returning it very well. So to complete the picture I'm attempting to reverse the car with zero brakes uphill into my garage while bent over hand operating both the clutch and the throttle at the same time. I'd say the video was pretty smooth all things considered lol

Anyway I fixed the throttle issue by ditching the return spring i had in favor of a new set as well as making a quick bracket to attach the springs to. This was part of my problem. In order to reach where I had the sprung attached before I needed a softer spring that could stretch further. That softer spring wasn't strong enough to close the throttle consistently. New springs and new bracket and it works well every time now. Not the prettiest but it works.



That was a number of weeks ago and after that I took another hiatus for some unexplainable reason (undiagnosed ADHD makes me pretty good at that)

So FF to the last couple weeks. I helped my neighbor and his kid swap a cam and a few other things off the kids very off topic modern camaro zl1 clone. And that got my itch back to work on the coupe. Wiring done, engine functional, it's finally time for brakes and that immediately brought up the pedal situation mentioned above. I picked up a stock at of F1 pedals a while back in NC with some other parts. So I set about removing the old ones and installing the "new". I knew i was going to have to bend them to fit since the others were but I needed to know where and how much. Started with the clutch and was able to get what I needed with 3 bends. It looks a little drastic but it clears easily. After that i started to do the brake pedal arm but ran out of oxygen in the torch after 1 bend. Got that exchanged today and finished that up this evening.









It was Saturday night when I ran out of oxygen so when that happened I started looking at the brake lines I still needed to make. I also got a new master cylinder from the local classics only repair shop. No clue what it's for but it is unused other than being bench bled, is a dual pot and new to me so I could start fresh. Attempted to double flare brake lines with my fancy all in 1 tool that I used previously for the rear lines and it either wore itself out from non use or is just too sloppy Amazon chinese special but either way I attempted probably 20 times and it collapsed every single one. Not sure what i'm doing wrong but I****umed it was the tool and not operator error and bought one of the old school types. I was frustrated last night so I left the garage for the night. Thankfully though I'm in full motivation mode so no hiatus planned this time.

While I was ordering stuff I also got new bushings for the pedals, new pedal pads, a new clevis pin for the clutch rod cause mine is a bit too worn.



Some keen eyed observers may have also noticed immediately removed the tunnel and more of the floor panel. I think once I get this all functioning better I was to redo the floor somewhat. Partially because I'll need to change it up some for the mechanical clutch linkage, and partially because I dont love how everything fits and bolts together. Not messing with that right now though other than removing it to get it out of the way.

Other than onto the trailer with mostly gravity when we moved from TX and backing into the garage mentioned above i've not ever driven this car and I need that to change. I need to stick to one thing at a time or else things will continue to snowball and I'll end up on another hiatus or 12.

Brakes and only brakes until they're done.

 

Huge improvement man, I really like how the pedals worked out!

If you can drive it backwards up hill with basically your hands and no feet I’d say your in for a treat driving it with your feet lol

 

Got the new flaring tool today. And tested out while on a zoom call for work lol. First couple weren't great but then I got it figured out.

While im waiting for a couple parts I figured I'd start getting something worked out with the lines starting at the master cylinder. Even though it's probably not necessary I wanted to try and figure out coiling the line right at the MC. Ive tried to make tight full coils in the past and they always either looked terrible and un-round or they kinked. Turns out it just never actually looked into how to do it and once I did it went fine... I used an old 59a piston I had on the shelf and let me tell you... that is way too big a circle lol. they looked comically large and ridiculous. So I'm going to try again tomorrow with a smaller form and better planning. Just figured some of you might enjoy my failure. Sadly no pictures of them.

 

I think I used a socket.

 

Ya know I never really thought about how to coil them. But I have seen some bad ones lol

 

Aerosol can or a piece of PVC pipe are options.

 

I used a model A worm gear

 

That’s a good one!

 

Ok had to go to Savannah for work Thursday and Friday. Got home last night to some of the parts on the doorstep.

I started with where I left on on the brake line coils. I straightened out the could that were too big with one of those handheld deals with a bunch of wheels on 4 sides. Kept forgetting not to have my hand near the opening at the end And then learned that lesson real good this morning where I'm now the proud owner of a notch in the palm of my hand. Ouch.


Paper towels and masking tape to the rescue and I pushed on.

First tried coiling the lines around an old steering column I had but that was too tight apparently because the lines just kinked. After that i just went to an aerosol can and that worked fine.

Next up I mounted the Master cylinder in the car and started figure out what I needed to connect what was already on the car to my coiled lines.


Not the prettiest but it looks ok for my first try and they should work. I also added some 10# residual valves for the drum brakes. 1 for the fronts and 1 for the rears for a true dual circuit setup.

Next I bled the MC on the car. And after that connected the lines to the master and started filling the lines. Bleeding was going a little funny or so I thought until @Tim reminded me that I had installed speed bleeders way back when I was installing the stuff at the wheels. And that the initial weirdness while bleeding was just filling the empty lines.
By the time I realized that the air was basically all out and from there it was a quick round at each wheel and I started to get some pedal pressure.

Although I was starting to get some pressure the pedal was hitting the clutch shaft at the trans before it got to full pressure. So I adjusted the length of the brake pushrod and raised the pedal some and that was the final piece. I could now get full pedal pressure without the pedal hitting anything. Obviously I need to go around and check for and tighten down any leaks and then actually test drive but, in the garage on jack stands spinning the wheel the pedal makes the wheel stop which is obviously a good start.

https://youtube.com/shorts/QZnnb-mJF2E?si=f2q_DXrut755iJ5X

Put the seat base back in and tested them out. I still need to take the pedals out again when my new bushing for them come monday and while there out I think I want to head and twist the pedal pads down because theyre a little high and my big**** legs are trying to occupy the same space as the steering wheel where they are now. Im a big dude and model as are little especially early As but I think that will make it a little better at least.



Still waiting on a few parts to arrive but for now im going to straighten up the garage because I've been letting it get bad the last few weeks.

Other than fine tuning it one of the big items I knew I wanted to do when I first got the car is done. Got the car with only front brakes and the rear drums were just there to mount the wheels basically. I now have the rear brake innards, installed, plumbed, and working.

 

Brake switch wired up. So that is the last bit of wiring until i redo the roof and put an accessory interior fan and dome light in

 

It rolls, it stops, it runs…. So make sure your camera in in land scape and the video is longer than 30’seconds so when you post your victory lap around the block we all get to see it with out clicking threw.

damn dude your so close!

 

Got more parts but it's all mostly boring stuff.

Pulled the pedals back out.

Heated and bent the pedal pad mounts down so they sit closer to the floor and easier to reach from the drivers seat without contorting my legs around the steering wheel.



once they cooled I replaced the pedal shaft bushings. Pretty simple, I use a round punch with a bevel ground into the tip and stick that tip right where the bushing meets the bore. Collapses the bushing in, reducing the diameter and it falls right out of the bore. Not real critical here cause these arent too bad to get out but that trick was real handy when I had to remove the spring shackles from my old '47 ford. Those were super tight and hard to get at on the car. Punch trick worked great there. Sharing just incase it might help someone else sometime.

Once the bushings were pressed back in I reassembled, painted, and reinstalled the****embly.

The clutch rod connecting the pedal to the shaft didnt really line up well and the new bushings only made it worse. Now they would bind up the clutch and prevent it from returning freely. So I pulled the clutch shaft and heated and bent the arm that rod connects to over. Only needed about 1/4" or so. Bent it over and then bent it a second time to make the connection point straight again. Let it cool and painted it. Once I had it all back in the car the linkage works easily now.




Installed new pedal pads

Got a new set of plug wires from Noble Speed. Never really cared for the color of the yellow ones I got from him the first time. Bad decision on my part that never looked right. Went with red this time and will keep the yellow ones in the trunk as spares.



Picked up a 35-36 driveshaft that was already split for making headers. Those will go on the shelf until I'm ready to build them on the coupe. In the meantime the ID on the narrow end is different between the 2. Do guys just drill out the smaller one so they match or its this a remnant of the splined ends of the driveshaft that just needs to get removed?




Lastly I had asked Mike the previous owner (@myjalopy). about where he got the brake scoops on the front because 1 was missing and if like to try and find another and he told me he had recently found 2 more of them at on his garage and hed send them to me.along with some other stuff hed found that came from the car. Last week when that box showed up it had the scoops as promised but also had some door pieces I can use to fix some of the window surrounds eventually, 2 aluminum thermostat housings, some random Ford script trim pieces, and some binge hardware. So that was a fun surprise.

 

Nice work.
If you look inside the shaft can you see a step where the splined end might have pushed in? Will it hammer out from the inside?

 

Red wires are a great improvement!

 

Haven't looked super closely at it yet. It looks like there are 2 pieces there from the cut end, i need to put a light in the hole cause its too dark in there to see if theres an obvious second piece. Figured id ask here if anyone knew before I really dug into it.

I'm really trying to focus on 1 piece at a time which has always been hard for me and saw these come up so I bought them but probably will be a bit before I actually get to doing anything with them.

With the brakes and pedals basically done. I have 3 things left before I can take it on the road for the first time.
1. Going through the cooling system (flushing, cleaning, adding thermostats)
2. Cleaning the fuel tank and running a new line from the tank to the engine.
3. Putting the floors back together.

That should get me on the road finally. And from there I can start changing some stuff. Upper body pieces/roof, headers, seat.

 

Can you post a pic of the modified punch you used to move the bushings out?

 

These obviously arent very tough bushings but this took all of a minute maybe.

 

Thanks, picture is worth a thousand words, so the saying goes.