2/21/13: Pedaling Along

Tonight we (perhaps) finished drilling all of the 3/8" bolt holes to mount the master cylinder bracket to the frame, and the master cylinder to the bracket.  The bracket I have (that I built from plans in the Bishop/Tardel book) is designed to mount using (presumably) factory '32 pedal assembly and K-member holes.  Well, I'm using a '33-'34 pedal assembly and a Tardel K-member for the Model A frame, so we had to drill all but one of our mounting holes (by step drilling from 1/8" or so) and opened up to 3/8" the holes for the master cylinder (for strength).  This was tedious (a 64th or so at a time) and resulted in several broken bits (from my ancient set of no-name bits).  Several times, to keep us going, W repointed dull or not-so-badly broken bits on the bench grinder.

After doing that, we took a look at the swing for the clutch pedal and determined it will hit the firewall before full travel.  So, we marked the trouble spot (ended up being not just a notched-out section, but a short strip down the firewall) and cut horizontally at the top with the hack saw (just an aside, the hack saw is becoming one of our favorite go-to tools - it's fast, and quiet, which is great at 10 o'clock at night).  We then used vice grips and a small block of metal to clamp at the vertical cut line and just bent back and forth until we broke the section free.

Pedal interference with the firewall

Marked for removal

Cut and bent out (first section)

Removed the whole section to avoid problems

Finally, to hook up the clutch pedal to the transmission release arm (one that we selected because it seemed to provide the best alignment and most travel against the transmission case; I don't know what year it's from), W and I both were thinking along the same lines in our separate, late night reveries: we both independently went out and bought some small turnbuckles and threaded rod and some OK clevises - although too small, it turns out.  The turnbuckles were a bust - they are too small or too big and have too much slop in them.  The threaded rod would work if we had clevises the right size: 5/16" or 3/8".

Clutch adjustment rod mock-up (with master cylinder rod)

In looking at my Ford parts catalogs, it turns out there was a 5/16" clevis used on Model As that seems just right.  I don't recall immediately what the application or part no. is, but I think it was for brakes.  [Note: found it; yes, mechanical brake clevis up to 1938 - 97012-S]  Later clutch adjustment clevises are 3/8", which seems too large.

Lastly, this week (and, as I write this post hoc, subsequently) W gave me some cool old (and random) hardware from his garage, some in ancient tin cans like Hollywood Shave Cream and Yan Chim Kee Cocoanut Flavored Candies.  Problem is, I don't have a good hardware storage system as it is, so additional stock, while appreciated, is just more stuff that I need to find a home for.

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Turnabout and Out

Well, last week I was able to dig in and clean up the garage so I could spin the car 180* on the Harbor Freight wheel dollies it's sitting on. Was able to do I myself but sure had a sore back for a few days thereafter. Got it positioned under the beam and relocated the chain fall to give us some room to work around the front end.

I used my reproduction K.R. Wilson engine pulling fixture (you can read more about K.R. Wilson tools in my previous post here) that I got from Specialty Ford Parts in Rosemead, CA (no website; not sure if they still carry it).  It can be positioned two ways, depending upon if you're pulling just the motor, or the motor and trans.  We just pulled the motor and left the trans bolted in the frame with a jack under it to keep it supported (note to self: replace jack with adjustable jack stand, to save the hydraulic jack seals!).  (As a disappointing aside, I asked my friend to identify the other K.R. Wilson engine stand parts I show in that other post, but he didn't recognize them and chalked it up to them being military.  I don't think that's so, but have yet to find other information on them.  I'll have to keep looking.)

We unbolted the pressure plate to find to my disgust that the clutch disk had lightly rusted to the flywheel and the pressure plate.  My old-timer friend found to his disgust that apparently I had not run a tap down into the pressure plate mounting holes in the flywheel and they had rust in them, so he ran the tap into them using the taper tap I had.  It should've been a bottoming tap (straight sided), but I didn't have one.

He also said that his old boss (at the Ford dealership) would've slapped me across the face for leaving gunk in the pan below the clutch.  I think I thoroughly cleaned the oil pan but didn't realize that the hardened gunk can heat up and end up on the clutch disk, causing slippage.

We concluded the night with him providing me directions to compare the 9-1/2" pressure plate with a 9" to see if I'm lucky enough to find they use the same mounting bolt pattern.  Since that night, I've already returned the pressure plate to the friend I got it from and have gotten some leads on new and used pressure plates, and some dimensions to check my flywheel this week.

I appreciate my old-timer friend's advice to begin in the center, deepest section of the car as it's the most difficult to get to if something goes wrong.  Based upon his advice, I think we'll continue in the middle and work our way out.  With that in mind, this week I hope to continue working on the clutch and brake pedal assembly, looking at parts I'll need to purchase to complete the clutch linkage and checking out the various options I have for mounting the master cylinder, as well as checking out the used master cylinders sitting on my parts shelf.

If we continue diligently on the chassis, I think I would benefit from (once the motor's back in the chassis) relocating the car in the garage so I can pull off the body and set it on some former camper shell stands I have.  That way we'll have full and unobstructed access to the chassis to begin plumbing it and finishing up welds and body mounts I'd kind of forgotten about over the years of inactivity.

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Back from Hiatus

So, last week I did more work on my hot rod in three hours than I have in the last three years.

I have an old-timer friend who lives down the street whom I knew before moving to this neighborhood.  He and began working on Fords in 1939 at the tender age of 13 for $0.25 an hour.  After the war, he eventually went on to graduate from the Ford dealership shop to the sales floor and went out as a sales manager.  After some time away, he returned to working on his and other folks’ early Fords (flathead V-8s and earlier) and other old cars.

I met him years ago through the local Early Ford V-8 Club when he helped me disassemble a banjo ring and pinion.  But, when I moved into the neighborhood, he wasn’t working on cars at all.  Fast forward to now, when he has returned to working on them and wants to help me with my car.

So, we recently began scheduling weekly car nights (he’s helping me to actually honor car nights that have been in my calendar for years, but sporadically observed) starting with my learning how to use the K.R. Wilson Timing Fixture he recently gave me.  While that session was a bust because the diving bell distributor I brought had a broken base, we decided to meet regularly and the most recent session was last night in my garage, taking a look at the clutch.

For whatever reason, most likely his insistence that a smoothly operating clutch is a must, my friend has for some time been concerned about whether or not my clutch was set up correctly.  For the record, I have a 9-1/2” clutch and pressure plate that apparently came standard in 1949-53 Ford and 1951-53 Mercury cars.  

Even before last week's discovery (I’m getting ahead of myself here), this set-up has been a problem: the thickness of the flywheel and/or ring gear caused me to have to trim down the thickness of the starter end plate to enable the Bendix drive to disengage upon starting (I have yet to reassemble the starter after that problem for several reasons).

So, last week we started out by trying to test how smoothly the clutch would release by installing a clutch release arm to the shaft and testing it with a piece of pipe or pipe wrench, since I don’t have my brake and clutch pedals connected yet.  First, we began by filing and fitting the three different clutch release arms I have in my stash to see which would line up best with the pedal arm and not be prevented from releasing by interference with the transmission bellhousing.  We settled on this one:

However, once we installed it with a drift punch through the pin hole and used a pipe wrench on the drift to release the clutch did we discover we couldn’t get the arm to move beyond pushing the throwout bearing forward to the pressure plate fingers.  It turns out they are jammed in place, and can’t move forward.  In fact, it appears that the clutch is already partly released by virtue of where the arms are jammed.

Sorry, no picture (yet)

It appears that the pressure plate fingers have too small of an open diameter between them because the 1949-later input shafts are much smaller than the 1948-earlier transmissions, so my larger input shaft is jamming forward the fingers of the pressure plate.

To further diagnose the problem, I’m going to have to spin the car 180* in the garage (which requires cleaning up the garage floor first) and pulling the motor to get to the transmission and pressure plate.  The likely solution: change out the 9-1/2” pressure plate and clutch for the even lighter 9” pressure plate and clutch (that came in 1935-40 Fords) my friend’s been recommending all along.  This, in turn, would require redrilling the flywheel or getting another flywheel.  Sigh.

If it was easy, everyone would build a hot rod.

I’m hoping to get the garage, car, and motor ready to pull out my next Thursday garage night.  We’ll see...

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