Alright so I re did the math and mocked a bunch of cardboard stuff up to confirm and found that to get the 5 deg with out changing the front mounts I would end up raising the distributor 1.5” That translates to keeping the motor mounts where they are and raising the spot I had lifted the trans up 2.5” Not wanting to keep jacking the rear up, and feeling like I couldn’t drop the front because of steering column clearance I came to the idea of “teeter tottering” the drivetrain with the clearance point at the steering column as the fulcrum point. I marked the spot with my laser level, took the cutting wheel to a two more spots on the lower firewall and said what the hell let’s give it a shot. my initial thought was drop the front mounts a 1/4” and jack the rear of the trans up to get my laser spot back and see what happens. Well in the dance the front ended up coming down the thickness of a 2x4 ( what do those even measure anymore?) and a 1/4” shim or two. And I just kept grabbing the over drive with my left hand and cramming more random pieces of wood, box tube and shims under it until the face of the fan mount was 90 deg. The same as the cowl and radiator. I got it there and thought, I’m not sure it’s in the same place but let’s put the grill and radiator back on. well holy cow! Look at that! That cardboard circle is now representing a 12” fan so it’s clear I’ve now got way more room than the 14” I had before. Taking a look around it really made me chuckle at what all had moved and to were. This is a funny shapped chunk of steel trying to fit between a funny shapped firewall and a radiator. I couldn’t have mathed this out in a million years. because of the new tilt the lasered manifold bolt actually moved up/ back along the column a good 1/2 and inch or more. But the distributor is now tilting in a way that might not actually breech the stock lower firewall divot, though it would rub it even with no cap on. The bolts on the back of the passenger head have more room even. Over all I’m pretty pleased. I just need to see what my options are for fans that have the vast majority of it’s surface to the back and return to my ridiculous carb base angle issue now that the motor now sits exactly level/ parallel to the frame rails. My water neck to radiator outlet alignment is kinda funny as well but over all things I’d much rather figure out than how to get a fan to fit. So, a positive update! As of now I think it’s around a 1/2” clearance to the radiator with the 13” fan I had found earlier. I could probably eek out a little more by fudging the grill and radiator forward in those big mounting holes. I’d just end up showing a little more lacing on the flange. But with a black grill shell I doubt you’d really notice at all. So there’s the update. On to fan hunting and then getting the cowl top back on so we can test fit the fan for real.
Looks like a little fire wall surgery is in order…..https://allstarperformance.com/steel-fan-19in-4-blade-gm-style-all30099/ poke around here they have some different dia. fans listed. Man I’m glad I have all that mock up and “proto” typing behind me.
Good work! It can't all be fun and easy, where's the class in that? Thank God for cardboard, 2x4s, and laser levels.
Havnt found a vendor that consistently lists the amount of blade/fan that is forward and aft of the mounting flange yet. And they sure don’t have it in a searchable format. I’ve been trying different search phrases. Something will turn up but right now the throwing star flex fan seems like the best bet. gonna go find some old speedway catalogs and see if they have a chart in there. Might be a good starting point
This is looking like my best bet. Shows it in 15,17 and 18” diameters but only the 18” is showing in stock. Havnt looked at different vendors but I’m sure plenty of people carry them. Gonna go look with a tape measure later and see what could fit looks like 18” in theory fits but I need to check when I have more time to make sure it clears all pulleys and hoses etc. seems like the biggest fan that will fit is what’s often recommended.
Derale's website is reasonably good when shopping for fans. When I was looking for a fan for the Belly Button, I spent a few hours on their site before arriving at a couple possibilities.
Still looking like the star is my best bet. I’m fine with that. Maybe I’ll paint the blades black. It’ll Nearly vanish after that
Fled-o-lite makes solid fans. They move a ton of air but don’t flatten out. They are more of an industrial thing. I have found them online and the dimensions are listed very well. I used a couple to make test equipment for heli tail rotor gearboxes.
Are you meaning flex a light? The only fans I see they carry that are biased towards the back enough are the flex fans or the nylon flex fans.
Flex-a-lite used to make fixed-blade star-style fans but I don't see them on their website anymore. They were really loud if I remember correctly.
Oh well. Next puzzle is a temp brace for the cowl bracing so I can take the clamps off and put the cowl top back on. They aren’t really doing anything at the moment but in my head it’s making the cowl a little more ridged now that I’ve cut most of the center out. maybe I’ll just tack the tube to the lower firewall and cut if off down the road. Seems the easiest solution to me with out over thinking it. Second puzzle is mocking up engine and trans mounts. I think the stock engine mounts are sitting so far back on the wood blocks that I can probably make some foam core mockups how it sits. The trans I’m not so sure. It’s got more going on. The old tube cross member has a stack of stuff on top of it holding the trans at height. I’m thinking if I’m going to use the rear trans mount I may make a little stand to stick under the front trans mount. Then I can remove the stack and the old tube and let the trans mostly float un obstructed. probably order a fan in the next week or two
Even though I’ve decided that I don’t need to pull some trickery with the 32 grill I did want to mess with a photo and see how the 32 shell reads closer to a 28/8 height with a little splash pan. obviously just a quick mock up but it really does pull the proportions back closer to stock. I like it.
Some Studes had front & rear engine mounts and the transmission just hangs out there. Some of the T 86 three speeds have a boss on the bottom that is drilled & tapped for mount and some are not.
Yeah I have seen that. I’ve also seen trucks have the front/side engine mounts, the trans mounted with the roughly bell housing mount and the tail/ over drive sitting in a crossmember with a rubber pad but no bolts! so I’ve landed on front/side mounts and the rear most trans mounted which does have holes but I havnt actually checked for threads. I just dont feel good about the entire trans and over drive hanging in the breeze with these KC roads. And I nixed the idea of a mid mount because from my reading being mounted in three spots tends to break stuff from basically not having enough wiggle room. Something wants to bind. I figured the side mounts aren’t to for off from most side mounts and the rear trans mounted which does is still probably closer to the fly wheel than a Th350’s mount so I’m gonna let it ride and see what it does with it this way
So I went and snapped some new photos and took some cropped sections of old photos of a few things. Mostly the stock throttle linkage. first a few of it on the engine. I’m having a hard time finding any photos of the linkage attaching to the carb with anything other than the long spring? It’s mostly obscured in photos of them on a car and a few held up to the engine in the car and by itself seems like it physically fits but puts the pedal like a foot in the wrong direction. It’s basically a z bar, maybe I can flip part of it over and have it work, I’ll dick with it later but it’s a thought. and for @Six Ball the bottom of the trans. You can see the second set of mount holes
The diagram doesn’t show a solid rod, does show that a switch is possibly located on the linkage for the over drive though. changed my search words and found these two photos of solid linkage. Most of them look like a beefy piece with the hex shape at the end. I’ll have to look into the over drive switch and see what’s going on there. Looks like something that needs incorporated into the linkage however I make it function.
The back ones are what I will use with two front mounts on the 153. Those ate what we used in Jake's Conestoga too. Have you thought about how you will manage the OD yet? Originally there was a relay on the firewall connected to the throttle linkage. Pushing the accelerator to the floor caused the relay to momentarily cut power to the coil and the secondary winding in the OD solenoid to disengage the OD (kick down into 3rd gear) Passing gear is simply 3rd gear. I till stay in 3rd until you let ua and it will go back into OD. You can run i t all with a switch if you ate careful.
It is confusing until you actually get into it. It works really well and since they were all BW mostly R10 they work the same from brand to brand. Even though a Ford relay may look different it does the same thing,
Yeah been browsing this https://forums.aaca.org/topic/301010-overdrive-parts-needed/ this diagram made me cross eyed for a second before I followed the line and it’s pretty simple looking to me Just a switch with a relay and onto the solenoid on the trans. Switch operates off the throttle similar to a mechanical brake light switch.
Hey, Tim; Been following, went back a handful of pages, but not going to re-read the whole thing again. If you don't mind a potentially stupid Q, that's probably been answered, but I didn't find it. Since I noticed you were setting the Stude mill(you're gonna like mill this when it's done) rather high in the chassis, due to clearance issues twixt the exhaust manifold & steering column tube, are you stuck on that steering box/column? Do I see correctly that the column tube comes in on top of the box? Reason I ask is, back a few eons ago, I had the same dilemma, & went to find a late 40's->mid 50's ford pu box. Tried 2 different boxes. One of them had the input shaft on the top of the box(no way would this thing fit), the other one had it at the bottom of the box, which gave me the extra room I needed( a 303/324 Olds set-back in a Deuce 5w, w/lakes-type headers that required a 2"-3" body cutout at the firewall feet). It got me ~4" column drop at the box or better, iirc. I did have to drill 3 new mounting-bolt holes, but the sector shaft went thru the oem frame-hole. Column tilt-angle was fairly close to oem. Just curious... TIA. Marcus...
I put a flathead with an R10 OD behind it in a model A. Hardest thing about it was making a bracket to run the wide open throttle switch which I moved to the carb end of the linkage instead of the gas pedal due to space constraints.
I used a 55 chevy overdrive trans in an old project and controlled the overdrive with a simple on/off switch. Worked just fine for me and it even gave me overdrive in 1st gear. I never used O.D. in 1st because I figured GM must have thought of too much torque multiplication in 1st gear, ruining the sprag unit.
@nrgwizard no this box has the column goes into the body. I am attached to this box for several reasons but after comparing other model A’s with olds and caddys with a stock wheel base the motor lands pretty close to this even with f1 steering. Changing to side steer to gain an inch or so just seems a waist of effort to me. The engine actually has a large amount of the head over hanging the column other wise my original plan was mount it lower and build some headers to kinda split around the column. When I thought it might just be the exhaust manifold causing Interference. most guys either stretch the frame to get room, or use a bunch of u joints in the steering to route around everything. Both I’m not willing to do here. I think if I was starting from scratch I could possibly mount a side steer steering box basically at the firewall or maybe behind the firewall and I could drop the whole engine down. @justabeater37 moving it to the carb end is a clever idea! Also because it’s running through a relay I would assume any plunger type switch would work? @Rocky I bet you’re right! Good hearing from You Hope you’re staying warm in this seemingly endless winter.
The Jalopy Journal
