Technical What did you do with your car today? * NEW*

Been farting around with my '64 F100. Going to replace the tired 289 with a 302. Progress so far....

 

Tearing the engine doen for a cam and intake change,the builder stuck in the wrong cam and after 15 years finally getting around to doing it. Might change the heads too depending on what they are and lesson learned do not buy a engine on the internet and use a local. Notice the rusty distributor internals,this car was parked with in 10 feet of a jug of muratic acid for years and only noticed it when everything on the shelves started rusting and it still ran.

 

The 53 Hudson Hornet pickup has factory turn signals. Petrified old car from out in the forest, all the wiring eaten away. Huge complicated signal switch- a few hours scraping and cleaning and headscratching......it all works! They knew how to make shit.

 

Not the car but I did get the heads and intake put on the Flathead. Nothing fancy, an EAB .030 over, polished Mercury crank, block decked, heads cut .010, Eddie Meyer intake, 94's, Isky cam. Hope to "Light It" next week!

 

Since I totaled my daily driver Saturday I have had to use the old beater as my daily driver. HRP

 

Okay, what's the story, and what will you replace it with? And are you or anyone else involved okay?

 

Got the seats back for wifes nova.

 

Saturday, I was on my way home in my Ram pickup when a Ford truck drifted over in my lane trying to turn in front of me and we hit almost head on, I was doing about 35 MPH and he had slowed down but we hit hard, neither one of us touched our brakes and fortunately he nor I was hurt bad enough to take a ambulance ride, I have a bruised shoulder from the seat belt and a few scratches, the other driver had a small cut on his thumb.

I had been at the auto parts house getting some parts for my project '65 Ford pickup. thankfully I was in my daily drive/work truck and not my 32 or the 54 Ranch Wagon.

The trooper fined the other driver and he admitted the accident was his fault, now I have to deal with his insurance copany, hopefully they will replace my truck with a agreed price, I bought the truck 8 moths ago, HRP

 

Your insurance company should take care of it and they will collect from his insurance company! Don't sign off on damages until they come to terms that are agreeable to you! Tell them you are going to wait until you know that you don't have an injury that will show up later, that gets them to be more agreeable on paying a reasonable amount, because they want to get it settled as quickly as they can!

 

Good that you are relatively okay and that neither the 32 nor the 54 were involved.

 

Got the 351 apart and after I clean the gasket surfaces will start to assemble,it does have the E7 heads so no change will be needed.

 

Because I decided to change the water pump on the '77 351W to a slightly shorter passenger side discharge from a '69, I no longer could use the water pump pulley or the alternator bracket and adjustment arm from the '77. What to do? I shopped around looking for a water pump pulley that would align with the middle crankshaft pulley groove and the alternator pulley (which line up just fine), but that apparently is a "party foul" by Ford standards. Neither they, nor March and CVF, make such an animal - at least that's what I was able to determine. Well, time to skin the cat differently (no felines were harmed in this solution). I saw online several different alternator pulley brackets in someone else's price range. Not my affordable option. Instead, I went to my metal dealer, bought some 3/16 hot-rolled, 8-inch-wide flat plate and wailed away on the cutoff wheel, angle grinder, drill press, hacksaw, Dremel, bastard file and 20-ton press, with some 73-year-old attitude and time on my hands. It just so happens that an FE water pump pulley aligns correctly using this water pump with the crankshaft groove closest to the block and the alternator pulley now aligned by this hacked out alternator bracket. The stars - and all the pulleys - align. I took that as a celestial automotive sign.
I have the option of the regular or smaller diameter "high flow" water pump pulley and considering that I don't intend to wind this engine into the stratosphere but am more likely to roll it slowly in parades, the high-flow pulley seems more appropriate. Your thoughts?

 

If the crank pulley you are now driving off of is smaller in diameter than the pulley that used to drive the water pump I would think the smaller water pump pulley would make sense.
By the way, nice looking bracket.

 

So I wanted to go to a local event with my coupe but my wife won’t ride in anything that doesn’t have seat belts. I know, I know, that’s the perfect opportunity but….
So I’m off on a tangent again. I pulled out the seats and mounted the seat belts. I also painted the bulkhead that the PO had a local shop make. I’ll put in some insulation and clean up the wiring a little. Then improve the seat mounts so they are a little easier to remove when I get around to finishing the upholstery.
It’s always something….

 

Parking brake, trying to take the intake off (one stuck bolt is making a 20 minute gasket replacement a 6 hour ordeal) and trying to get my vacuum wipers to come back to life.

 

I have no thoughts on the pulley, I am sure either will be fine. I like your hand fabricated bracket ! it looks great.

 

Went with the wife to the relix riot. Brought her back to the car because she wasn't feeling well. I decided to do another lap around the swap meet and found some tail light buckets for $20 just as he was packing up

 

So me and the wife have been driving the Studebaker all summer, it is great, pretty quick. nice and loud ! and it drives really well and under power is straight as a arrow. One of my design flaws is the fuel tank/fill neck. But hey this is my first home brewed build and it for the most part has been decades since I have done this stuff.
I used a 64 Chevy II tank (which is not vented ) it is installed backwards with the sump in the rear . I used a 75 GM screw on gas cap and fill tube which I had and drilled four 1/8 in. holes in it for venting.
Now there are two problems , one is if it is full and you park with the tail down hill it runs out the holes in the cap. The second is when you make a left turn it runs out the holes in the cap. So for a temporary fix ( I can either work on it or drive it , I chose drive it ) I took a piece of pipe and tigged a bung in it and put a rollover valve it to vent it and replaced the cap with one minus the holes. That took care of the gas running out on a turn . A couple friends have already offered aluminum fuel cells if I can use one so that is a option for this winter. But a cell just doesn't fit the rest of the truck.
Also in the interest of going faster I have been getting the Holley 700DP dialed in and it is pretty close as I write. My experience has always been with single plane intakes set up for WOT use. Well this motor is some old school round track technology and the heads and the intake are cut to match so that is what I have to work with.
The intake is a stock Performer ( which is a dual plane ) I had a 4 hole
Phenolic 1 in. spacer on it and it has always ran great and lights right off. But I had it in my mind a 2 in. open spacer would help ! but it did not. The motor lost it's ability to light right off plus all around worse running. I tuned on it for a day or so. Switched back to the short 4 hole and things were back to were they were. I found that interesting .
I have the carb about four jet sizes smaller than stock both front and rear an d the motor makes around 10-11 in. of vacuum so I put a 4.5 PV in and the plugs in the photo have about 100 miles on them at 200-210 degrees on race gas.

 

Still working on fixing the rear pan on my roadster, but got both out today and ran some fuel through them. Thinking about still making greaserrama though.

 

Nice cars!

 

worked on getting my hood to fit

 

Some steering and brake work. King pins and brake lines.....

 

Repaired the emergency brake cable retainer, bashed back into shape the torque box damaged by a trolley jack (don's ask), adjusted the brakes which were pulling to the right and then took the car on a 60 mile test run to see whether the repair to the unnamed 5sp box holds (it did). The brakes improved after a few hard stomps on the pedal so that I think all that's needed is bleeding them and then they're ready for our inspection here in Austria. No pics of any of the work (I was too busy and under stress to get the car off the lift) but here's a proof it moves on its own power after 2.5 years...

 

Polishing stainless trim parts and put them in place.very satisfying job.just got this out of paint shop.

 

You got some rare stuff there, the Mercury is obvious but I've not seen a live Fiat 130 on the streets for at least 30 years...

 

New (and unbent) front wheels on the T.

 

Moved my F100 from one shed to another. Can’t seem to get any pressure on the brake pedal, think I need to adjust the shoes up more before I bleed them.

and got a hoist in and working too

 

Took a 50 mile shakedown run for an upcoming trip. A few small annoyances, nothing major. Stopped at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch down the road from me. Can't see anything from the gate, he's done a great job of hiding the bustling movie studio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywalker_Ranch

 

Finished a month long project on the F-1. Removed the aftermarket EFI and went back to a carburetor. EFI ran great until it didn't, no warning. Decided I'd clean it up a bit also. Sorry for the big picture.

 

It was not today, but Saturday one of my sons-in-law went to his first rod run with me to Littleton, NC.
Great run with 200~ cars. I think he enjoyed the show and was amazed that so many folks remembered the Fat Rat that first came out in 1980. It's last appearance at the Littleton run was in 1997... man, time flies!!

We had it really rollin' a few times on the way down there! It was hot!!