Projects The 48 hour coupe

Also I apparently didnt look very hard at all at the end of these header tubes pretty obvious that its just a chunk in there that needs beat out. Socket and a hammer and it moved a bit. A few more minutes and they were both out.

 

Y'all know i still try for that thousand word milestone. Lol

 

Good, didn't think they would be fixed in there

 

With me seemingly getting close to the first actual drive. I figured I'd better check and change fluids.

Went out after work today and started with the rear end. Found out right away that the square hole in the drain plug is neither a 1/2" or a 3/8" so a rachet wasnt going to work. While googling to see what size it is and start looking for a tool i came across a post saying that you could use a pipe plug with the raised square. Dont know what size it is but I had a few in my stash of plumbing **** and I can confirm at least on this axle it worked. I'll try to figure out what size and if I do I'll post it here incase it could be of use to someone in the future. Pipe plug shoved into the hole. Pipe wrench on the threads side and they both came out easy.






After that I did the transmission. That had regular fill and drain plugs. But also was over filled so when I pulled the fill plug a bunch of oil came out. I decided i wanted to look inside the trans to see if there were any big red flags. And also would make it easier to refill the oil instead of trying to squeeze it in through the fill. Trans looked ok.

Ugly welded the s**** pedal that came with the car onto the pedal ***embly I installed. Its ugly but it works.

Then I decided to tackle the parking brake and making that work. I started with issue #1 the brake handle and shifter touch in 3rd gear. I redrilled the holes in the brake mount to lower it a little. Still touched so i bent the shifter a little more than i had before. And moved onto the linkage that was attached to the brake handle. It had a loop on one end that had been broken and bent. So I heated and bent that back into shape and welded it together.

fail #1 - I soon realized that that loop end I fixed wasnt even going to work with the cable equalizer.







Thankfully The equalizer piece i got from third Gen a while ago actually came with the end thatbworks with the equalized and takes a 5/16 fine threaded rod. So I found a bolt in my bin that was the same size. Put the equalizer on the cable and lined up the rod on the handle and found out I would basically be left with just the clevis part of the shaft that came with the handle. So cut that part off and drilled a hole in it for the bolt I found that was the right thread and welded the bolt into the clevis to make a very short adjustable link.



fail #2 - I cut too much off and now it was too short. So the brakes were still engaged while the brake was "released"

Attempt #3 I has what I think is part of the throttle from the Model A frame i picked up last year. It had the 5/16 fine thread on one end as well as a clevis that would fit the brake handle and a jamb nut. So I cut the threaded part off to make a short piece of all thread. To go between the clevis and the equalizer fitting and the jamb nu to prevent the rod from spinning itself out of one side from vibration while driving.









And the brake works well now.

Had a pretty productive night so a left it at that.

 

Pulled the radiator and finished draining the coolant and flushing the radiator last night... (there isnt a pet**** to drain it that way)

Changed the engine oil and reinstalled and refilled the radiator.








This morning I had a little debate with myself over whether I should try for a test drive now with the nurse tank strapped to the visor. Or of i should tackle flushing and cleaning the fuel tank. Running new lines and hoses from tank to engine. I decided to go with the nurse tank.

Started it up and let it run and get hot. I didn’t have thermostats in it so it would struggle to get the temp high enough to turn on the fan so I hadnt ever been able to verify that that circut of my wiring actually worked. (Never run an electric fan that wasn't just on its own switch before so I wanted to check it)

With the thermostats I installed last week new coolant and fluids etc. I started it up. It build temp fan kicked on at 175 right on queue. That also verified my temp gauge is functioning and accurate too. Ran it for 10 15 minutes or so while I cleaned off the roof and trunk to prepare for a drive.



Shut it off and started getting it off the jack stands. Grabbed my daughter to come be my movie director for the first drive.

https://youtube.com/shorts/6bnoX1E0tSg?si=SeHiWQs889D12vra

And Failure. Clutch won't disengage.

Tried adjusting out my pedal pushrod but ran out of threads. So I went to extending that figuring if I screw it up new ones are less that $10 and I can replace it if necessary and persuade other solutions. I 2 of them this length so Im just going to use the 2 to make 1 longer one. Got them cut and beveled for welding tacked together... and my welder ran out of gas. So that will have to wait until tomorrow at least. For those curious I also plan to sleeve the rod to help with strength around the weld.

Kinda bummed, mostly anxious to drive it since Im so close. And instead of working in the fuel tank... probably going to find something else non-car related to do today. Im really hoping I can get the first drive in by the end of Thanksgiving weekend.

 

No video yet cause I had to take the kids to volleyball practice.... but the coupe is facing the other direction now.



Apparently it is possible to make the clutch linkage too long. And me thinking it wasn't getting disengaged I made it even longer. Texting with @Tim he was certain it would be something stupid... and it was. I shortened my recently lengthened pushrod, re***embled a couple times to get the actual adjustment dialed in, And now it works.

https://youtube.com/shorts/KkzybfiOrAM?si=4Pq6nxAv_hkDVv4c



I'll get a video later this week.

 

Congrats man! This is huge!

gonna get the best old jeep award at the neighborhood show for sure!

 

Neat!

 

Went to a neighbors house for Thanksgiving this year since my in-laws weren't able to make their normal trip down for the holiday.

They're car people too just off topic stuff. Anyway brought the coupe down the street to their house for a little bit of a drive. Shoukd have let it warm up more cause it was pretty cold out and the car wasn't running too well.

Wallowed in my sadness yesterday as Nebraska got steamrolled by Iowa their football game. So I didn’t get back to the car until today.

Started by pulling the tank in the trunk. I hadn't looked too closely at it but I always ***umed it was an aluminum tank... once I git it out I realized it was actually stainless and surprisingly clean inside and probably wasn't bad enough to warrant my nurse tank but if you recall when I first started looking at it the rubber hoses connecting the line to the tank basically disintegrated so redoing all that was warranted at least.

The old gas in the tank smelled real nasty so I drained whatever was left as best I could and then a few cycles of water and a mix of water and simple green and rinsing till it was as good as it was going to get. I had previously purchased a tank sealer kit ***uming there was going to be some corrosion in the tank but after cleaning it I don't really think that is necessary and with all the horror stories of the sealer not sticking and ending up in the lines, I'll avoid that risk.







The tank had a "sight gl***" made out of some of that notorious clear tubing. I sad had cause it broke almost immediately once I started cleaning things. I decided to plug the holes instead of trying to remake that and I'll keep a stick in the car to check the level when I need to.



There was also a piece of clear tubing connecting the fill port to the tank. Wasn't anything that I could see wrong with it but I went and got a new rubber hose to replace it anyway.









The fill port i thought was interesting. I like the way he did that piece. Studs welded into the exterior side. That goes through the body and through a plumbing flange with a close ****** that the hose clamps onto. Then there's a matching close ****** on the tank for the other side. Simple and clean.

Also I bought a new gas cap when I first got the car. And then today found this other one under the tank when I pulled it out. Which ine do yall think I should use?

Sorry still no video of my driving it lol

 

Kinda like the new one. Stick the old one under the tank were it was and when you drive off with out the new cap you’ll have a back up

 

What a pain in the **** that turned out to be. But I got the tank back in.



The springs holding it down ****on up against the back of the horizontal bar of roll bar hoop. And I didnt like the electrical tape cushion between the tank and the stands. So I cut and sliced a bit of rubber hose and fit that over the edge of the stand as a cushion but that made the spot between the spring and roll bar even tighter so I fought a lot with getting the stand bolted down. There is no way to mount the stands first and then install the tank. Well I could mount 1 stand first the non fill side and then put the tank in place and then had to slide the stand in under and try to stand it up in place to line up correctly with the bolt holes... it was a chore. But I got it finally after a few choice words of motivation lol.

 

One step closer!

 

And another one.

Bye bye nurse tank.

Started at the back. I removed the old shut off valve that was in line. There's plenty of room to add one back in if yall think it's a good idea.
(I just figured with it being in the trunk if there were any issue by the time you got out and went around to shut the valve how much good would it really be doing especially once I eventually find or make a trunk lid for it)

I went with 5/16 hard line. Cut the double flare off and crimped a bubble flare. Go figure the new flaring tool I bought wouldn't hold this pipe but the fancy one that kept messing up the brake lines made perfect bubble flares in this lol. Used 2 sticks to get front to back. There's is a compression union to connect the 2 under the car and I brought the line all the way up the firewall and over to just under the fuel pump. Before there was a good foot of rubber hose off the tank and probably 2 - 2.5' feet on the engine side. Now there is only about 6" on either end thats rubber and the rest is hard tube.










After I got it all hooked back up. I was letting it run off the tank in the back and work out any air bubbles from the line and fiddling with the carbs some after it was running so poorly on Thanksgiving seems to be better now but ill have to drive it to be sure. Pretty stoked that I can say I need to drive it more to start working out bugs now.

As long as I dont find anything catastrophic between now and next weekend I should be able to make it to the neighborhood cruise in that I've been saying I was working to get to since we moved here. And if im feeling extra randy maybe ill try taking it to the proper cars and coffee a couple miles down the road next sunday.

After that, I think ill start working on the driveshaft headers. I bought some misc bends but accidentally got 1 1/2" and really need 1 5/8" so I ordered the bigger ones which shoukd be here later this week.

Cheers.

 

You don’t have a trunk lid? I don’t think I ever realized that.

congrats on getting the slightly larger gas tank plumbed I’m stoked for you to get some miles in on it!

 

I have a trunk lid but its a pretty beat up fibergl*** one that I took off a while ago and just havent put back on. It used rumble hinges and at the very least I want to flip it to a regular trunk opening.

 

Took it to the mail boxes after work today. Let it warm up before I drove it to see if that was part of my troubles on thanksgiving... it wasn't. Carb tuning helped but also wasnt the the problem. There's a pretty nasty stubble off idle unless you throttle up real slow. Idles just fine and returns to idle just fine.

Didn't have a ton of time to look into it cause its back to volleyball practice tonight. But I think I'm going to check for vacuum leaks and check that vacuum advance actually works like it should. I rebuilt the carbs a while back but never did much with jetting or the power valves other than just putting in new ones. But I would think those would affect the whole range instead of just off idle hence me starting with vacuum and ignition.

 

Better than nothing! I’d check the fuel filters but
Sounds like you’ve got a good line of questioning figured out!

 

After a very stressful week at work. I had 2 stores set to open a week apart which meant 2 weeks ago we did the final walk through for the first one then last week we walked the 2nd. Then this week we opened the first, and set to open the 2nd next wednesday. But that all included health inspections, final building sign offs and trying to get certificate of Occupancy for bothe stores. My boss deciding he didn't like where our sign was and making us redesign, repermit, relocate, and brick in at the new location all during a holiday weekend and short timeline before store opening with everything else going on. Lol. Sorry to ramble its but its been a lot. As my dad says though "if it was easy everyone would do it" right.

Anyway on top of that the winter weather thats been crossing the country has hit us here and its been raining for the last few days and is going to rain out our cruise in tomorrow morning. So when I got home from work tonight instead of digging further into my tuning problem. I decided to start building my driveshaft headers.

I had a basic layout of what I wanted to end with and with that I unbolted the current "headers" and moved them out of the way. Bolted on the flange and started figuring out the bends needed for the front port on the p***enger side. (Figured I've never attempted to build headers before so I should start with the "easy" side to get my feet wet and then when it came time for the complicated side I've better equipped to handle that)






Rubber hose as a spacer to set it off the frame

Anyway the front pipe took 2 bends to get up and over the frame with plenty of clearance.





I started by tig welding the 2 bends together. Struggled at first to get the tig to work right (definitely operator error)

So I switched to mig. But that went even worse. The other day when I was welding the clutch rod I was getting a ton of porosity and realized the gas was out. Refilled that but the porosity didnt go away. I was basically done at that point and forgot about it thinking maybe it was something with the metal I was welding together. Well when I tried sticking the pipes together tonight it was still super porous.


After trying multiple things to get it to stop I eventually gave up with mig and tried the tig again and I actually started figuring it out and got a little better as I went. Im not a professional by any means but I eventually got it done.

Then i went back to the car and stuck the piece into the flange on one side and driveshaft on the other messed with it until i had it where I liked it. Marked the position with a sharpie and took them both to the vise to be my 3rd hand and hold everything.








I do have to trim a little on the block side oh the flange but other that it'll work







Plenty of clearance between pipe and frame.

Going to call it a night and get back at it over the weekend.

 

Looking good man! Good way to end a stressful week and replace a rained out event/deadline.

It’s looking more and more like Adams hot rod. Those headers will be great!

 

Pics looked the same but this time there are no shims or jackstands holding it all up.

P***enger side header is done except for 2 spots where the middle and rear holes in the driveshaft I cut a little wonky and I think ill have to figure out how to fill or figure out whats going on with the mig and use that to close them up. They're both on the underside so looks wise it wouldn't be a big deal.





Other than that my tig skills seemed to improve as I went. Still not much to write home about but better.

I'm kind of a wing it guy which is how I did the front tube and that was able to hold up the front of the big tube while I positioned the rear end where I wanted it.





From there I worked on the rear tube. That needed to come out and unsightly then another partial bend got the tube horizontal and clearing the frame. Once past the frame another bend down roughly to the main pipe.

Drilled my hole. Used a 1.5" holesaw because none of the hardware stores near me had a 1 5/8" like the pipe is. Then i used a combo of files and a flap disc to open the hole up to fit the primary tube. This was where I went a little wonky with the hole. Though I think it was partially my holesaw work too. Either way I got it so i could slide the main tube onto the front primary and then slide the rear primary in and it would hold itself up.











After that I started working in the middle primary. Same sort of flow as the rear except I didnt have to bump it up as much to clear the frame. The hard part was figuring out where the hole in the driveshaft needed to be. Looked at it a bunch, made some half *** marks roughly where it looked like it needed to be. Snuck up on the length of the primary and ground one side of the hole further up the tube until I could get it in. Once it was is I could scribe the primary to profile it to fit the tube. I didnt gonsuper crazy coping as I didnt want to make it too close and then struggle to weld it without blowing holes trying to welt the thinner primary to the thicker drifeshaft. So the primaries stick into the driveshaft a little but nothing thats going to be a problem. Its just a flathead after all nothing too crazy.

Once I had it where I liked it I welded that primary to the flange. At this point I had all 3 primaries welded to the flange and nothing welded to the driveshaft. The front end if the driveshaft was a little bigger than the front primary tube and the gap was bigger than I was comfortable with trying to fill. So I marked the end in a cross pattern an about an inch down the tube and used a cutoff wheel on the grinder to cut 4 slits. Once they were cut I was able to use clamps and the vice to close up the gaps between primary and main tubes. Refit the driveshaft in place on the primary tubes and welded it on for good. After that I was able to weld up my relief cuts and weld the rear 2 primaries to the main tube. Nit sure why I'm explaining all this... you all know how this works lol.











Overall im pretty happy with the results of my effort but this was just the p***enger side
The drivers side is going to be a bit more complicated because ill have to get around the steering box. Ill so my best to match the look side for side. Front and middle primaries should be straight forward but that rear one is definitely going to be different. Not starting on that tonight though cause its midnight and I need to get some sleep before another crazy week at work with another store opening on wednesday.

 

Man for a guy just winging it that turned out great! With that many jogs on the p***enger side I don’t think in the drivers side should give you too many curve balls.

very cool