Technical What are you working on?

Took the J down to the local truck stop certified scales, guaranteed plus/minus to 20 lbs, little heavier than I wanted because it gained 190 lbs with all the changes.

 

Wow. I sure thought it would be lighter than that.

 

It was 2410 when I weighed it at the track in 2013, who knows if they were accurate though. I had weighed it there in 2012 when it was all steel and flat black and it weighed 2400, so it gained 10 pounds by going to a glass nose, doors and a paint job. Lol
Stock they weighed 2341 with the 4 cyl.

 

Getting the Nova ready to show to the public.

 

Will I be seeing it Saturday?

 

@atch Yes just don't look real close. It's like a prop car for t.v.. A lot of stuff is just on the car for looks. Hood not bolted down. carpet not finished . Hell the shifter isn't even hooked to transmission.
It does run and drive just start in gear and go.

 

Looks awesome.

 

Kewl gauges.

 

Just before we took off to Ohio for the weekend I decided to touch up my 49. The previous owner had repaired some spits and could never get the paint matched back to an acceptable shade. So he just re-primered it. My Kentucky paint guy just happens to be better than whoever he used in WV.
I had him put some in a spray can and it sprayed out fine. I think after a little wetsanding and some buffing it will be just good enough.

 

Man , gotta get some time off from work......You hoodlums are havin too much fun

 

Chassis is ready for the road. Messed up and set one shock wrong, so it’s sitting a bit cockeyed. Working on cleaning up the cab now for primer and lizard skin.

 

Working through some ‘almost’ overheating issues with the Model A (avatar). Driving to LARS last month it got to 230 degrees climbing hills near Mohave, CA in near-100 degree heat. I made it home ok because we travelled along the coast, but that aggression won’t stand.

Electric fan takes care of it at slow speeds, but it gets hot while cruising in hot weather, which usually equals airflow problem. I took advantage of our recent near-100 degree weather and drove a hilly route with the electric fan removed (better, but not the holy grail), then without the fan shroud (improved, but no). Got home and flushed 10,000 miles of bugs from the AC condenser and radiator and checked the timing for the heck of it. Flippin’ thing had 17 degrees initial! Got that corrected and took drive with the AC on ‘blizzard’ up to our local Cascade Range mountain at 96 degrees….. mostly stayed between 190-210, so that’s that. I had the distributor out this spring and the wife must have reinstalled it with the wrong timing.

Giddyup,

John

 

I've been on the lookout for a '46 -'48 Merc radio speaker cover for a couple of years now. A few days ago, this pops up on EvilBay with a starting bid of $50. Someone had made a 3D print of an original cover and it looked right in the pictures. There was even the stainless screen that goes behind it. It needs to be lightly sanded to remove the flash and then painted to match the speedometer and clock faces in the more door Merc. There were three days left on the bidding, so I waited until the last day and checked in again. Same $50 bid and 9 hours left on the auction. With 45 minutes left, I raised a dollar. Whoever I was bidding against had an automatic bid going on and now the bid was $52. I tried $53, he bid $54. This went on for a few minutes until I figured out his max was $70. I waited until there was a minute left and bid $73. He didn't come back, but I held my breath until the time ran out.

Now, I know right after I post this, there's going to be someone come back and tell me that if he had only known, he has one hanging on his wall and I could have had it for X amount of dollars. This one will work very well, I'm sure.

 

Planning a road trip with the little Barracuda, figured since it has 4.56s in the rear end I would throw a little more highway friendly gear in it, put together a one legger with 3.55s in it. Pulled the old center section out of the car and found this….
Ring gear bolts were finger tight, good thing I decided to change them, explains the gear noise I suppose.

 

Getting stuff ready for the Iola swap meet. Space BH80

 

Been fighting the brake system for weeks. After replacing half the system I was having issues bleeding.
Not wanting to throw money at a dual master pressure bleeder I decided to try lifting the driver's side only so that the front and back caliper bleed screws were the high points.
Worked like a charm! Used a stick to hold the pedal down after pumping and dove under to crack the bleeders. Took a while but finally got a firm pedal!

 

Drove the little Barracuda 400 miles to Wetaskiwin Alberta, “the ultimate car show” happens here tomorrow at the Reynolds museum. They expect over 600 cars.

 

OT but repainting one of my tractors

 

Not OT, It's a 4x4 powered mobile engine hoist.

 

Getting ready to pull the engine on my ‘63 Pontiac. Lots of oil leaks, and detonation at WOT. Tried everything else to get rid of detonation, so gonna pull engine and see what’s in there. Previous owner thought it was a 400 out of a ‘73 Pontiac, so it would have been a smog era low compression ratio. In reality I decoded it as a ‘69 400 with 10:1 CR. So maybe the dufus threw an inappropriate cam in there to build cylinder pressure like a lot of CompCams are ground. I’ll find out soon enough.

 

Tried something different on my meat slicer pedals, couple grooves with a drill bit in the drill press, I like it better.

 

Didn't take any pics , but fired up the 327 4 bolt I built for a 30 sedan today. 69 350 block with a steel Lg journal 327 crank , Aftermarket aluminum heads with a Hyd. roller. Fired up and ran great. Just a side note... I only use Isky Hydraulic roller lifters period anymore.

 

Put a new starter in Clarence today. Now it actually starts. Took sweetie to supper in it and it started/ran flawlessly. When we put the crate 350 in a few years ago we reused the old 283 starter and distributer, both of which gave up the ghost recently. Should have put a new starter on it then. Silly me, I thought that distributors lasted forever if you kept points and rotors in them. The distributor gave up 400 miles from home with no tools on board. The hot rod shop I had it towed to installed an HEI instead of a new points distributor. I had told them to just do whatever it took to get me home. That's what that shop uses nowadays so that's what they put in (they build street rods and muscle cars). I have several sbc distributors. I'll probably pick the best one of them this winter and go back to points. At least the HEI is black and because the air cleaner is pretty large you don't really see it unless you're looking for it.

 

Got the fairing adjusted on the Belly Tank project. Have never worked with fiber glass before.... i think i may learn a lot very soon. JW

 

Dropped the 327 in the A to test fit headers and steering . Mark, I just realized you can see a little suspension in there...delete if you wish.

 

Got my headlights and running / turn signal in place

 

Test fitting the GM column.. looks ok. Might wanna go with key on dashboard ..

 

Correcting my intake manifold angle to (vastly) improve the seal. This was a Weiand prototype or pre-production sand-casting that was very crude (none of the text and graphics seen on the production manifolds were on mine). The flange was out of flat by .060" although the flange angle itself wasn't far off.

 

Recently finished up putting this one back together for a good friend.

 

The painstakingly slow process of prepping my louvered trunk lid for paint.