Two Shows in Two Weeks

Made it to two shows over the past two weekends: Billetproof and the Hot Rod Revolution. Best one: the Revolution, hands down.

That's evidenced by the photos I shot. I probably shot nearly as many shots of the first car I came upon at the Revolution as I did all of Sunday at Billetproof. Now, admittedly, Sunday was a slow day for this event's first two-day weekend, and frankly, the Revolution is my kind of car show: 1948 and earlier hot rods and customs. Nearly all in attendance were great and worthy of photos. Naturally, I just shot ones that were either 1) really cool (to me), or 2) had ideas for my hot rod projects. This was true for Billetproof, too.

Below are some highlights of the two shows (I've saved you from viewing detailed shots of shock mounts, etc.):

Billetproof 2009

Frankly, the one vehicle that, to me, merited noting was this GMC pickup into which the owner stuffed an air-start Detroit Diesel 4-53 two-stroke diesel motor. Very cool, and I think reflected what was the original intent of Billetproof: feature the best of homebuilt rods and customs and recognize homebrew craftsmanship, such as this truck demonstrates. Enjoy.




And, while I wasn't lucky enough to capture that great, "startling" sound of an air starter (guaranteed to scare the daylights out of shoppers in the grocery store parking lot, the owner acknowledged), here it is running in all its two-stroke glory:



Hot Rod Revolution 2009

Another laid-back and fun show from the team of Tardel and Cochran, in spite of the scorching temps! Great cars, great people. Imagine my surprise to be recognized by Keith upon my entrance (in my pickup, not a hot rod, alas), and after two years, no less. Class Act. That's the attitude that is reflected in this car show, which is the one I want to take Twice Lucky to next September.

Here's the first car I saw at the show: Ken Fuhrman's roadster. Yeah, the one with the chromed '32 frame and plexi hood - you've seen those photos. In fact, he's got them there in front of the car. Nice man, cool stories.


A sampling of the other great cars there:

















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Bowling for Progress: Parts, Frame, Music

A quickie to catch up (at least it's within the same month). Since my last post, my friend completed more work, including the super secret coil project I referred to earlier, I got some more work done on the frame, and I checked out a car show with music.

Parts

My friend doing the odd jobs on the hot rod completed the coil project I gave him: adapting an old 6 volt finned coil to accommodate a 12 volt internally resisted coil. To do so, he carefully undid the top ring, removed the Bakelite coil top (seen to the left in the photo below), used mineral spirits to break down the (probably PCP-laced) tar inside and remove the coil internals. He then removed a ceramic spacer at the bottom and discovered the 12 volt coil fit perfectly! A shot of wannabe Bakelite brown Rustoleum and presto chango: a cool and modern roadside serviceable 12 volt yet vintage looking finned coil!


Here's a quick shot of one of my exhaust header tubes he made by cutting in half my '35 (or is it '36?) driveshaft to form two tapered cones. These'll be set up to exhaust just before the door on the cowl, and may end up with 1) no restrictors, 2) VW stinger baffles, or 3) square pipe plug caps, and redirected to a set of steel pack mufflers under the car.


Frame

I finally finished bolting in my Tardel K-member. I got smart toward the end: since I was drilling a smaller pilot hole first, I set one drill (a high speed Dewalt) with the pilot, and left the 21/64" bit in my 1/2" low RPM but high torque Milwaukee. Doing this made for fast work. I did 6 bolts in a couple hours; same as I'd done before, but in a couple sessions. Here's a pic of the finished work, and another of the reason I knocked off before drilling for the motor mounts.



Here's a couple detail shots, illustrating how I tried to mimic how the traditional '32 frames retained 2 rivets in the front of the K-member mount (I guess the rest of the original holes were for running board mounts).



I almost forgot that I mocked up part of the rear end: the axle tube, wishbone (on the bottom), Model A spring hanger (on the top), and the lower shock mount (an add-on piece from the era; I found I'll be able to use the extra long backing plate bolts that came with these to mount all this hardware up while still using original or era parts).



Music

Got up to the Poorboys' Midnight Mass the other night. Saw a bunch of nice cars, although few hot rods - mostly customs. While there were a few jalopies (coupes and roadsters, most traditional) and only 3 Model Ts (2 in 'glas, 1 metal, see below), I surmise the reasons most cars were 50s and 60s was manifold: easier to find, fix up, and work on; more comfortable for every day driving, unlike the limited use from a roadster (even in California); but, primarily this: most of these guys have probably been in the hobby seriously the last 10 years, and now it's marriage and kids time, making a closed 50s or 60s car much more user-friendly for the family - and that's cool. I like those cars and now the family's at the show: wife diggin' the cars and fashions, and the kids' being brought up right - around American Iron.

This car's wearing Twice Lucky's tail lights

You may have seen this T in Hop Up magazine

Performing at the Mass was one of my favorites, whom I've been looking forward to seeing since I saw earlier this year that he'd be playing there: Wayne "The Train" Hancock. Here's his pic setting up, and then playing for my girlfriend and me, and about 100 of our closest hot rod friends. For kicks, since my iPhone can't shoot video (yet!), I linked a video of him in action, for your enjoyment.



This was the most representative Wayne Hancock video I could find, as it has pedal steel, like he had at Midnight Mass
wayne hancock-viper


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It's Always Something

Well, I've gotten a lot done since last posting.

Besides attending underground rock shows

visiting old steam locomotives

and B-17 bombers

I also picked up a set of circa 1942-45 Plomb combination wrenches

which helped sate a lust for these tools I mentioned in this post.

Meanwhile, on the hot rod front, I had the inside bore of my front pulley machined to fit (it was too snug before).

Once that was done, I was able to install the pulley and set the intake manifold and fan assembly on the motor to see if the pulleys all line up. Thankfully, they do.

Then, today my friend from Okieville stopped by unexpectedly, but gave me a hand on the motor. First, we checked the connecting rod bearings (well, one at least) to see if we could tell if the crankshaft is standard or has been turned (under standard measurement).

Since the insert bearing (as I apparently have an entire 8BA rotating assembly (crankshaft, connecting rods, and pistons) did not have a measurement number on it, we just recorded the part numbers on it for lookup later.

Let me tell you that flipping that motor over (upside down) on that flathead stand gave me the willies. All I could imagine was the mounting bolts stripping out of the block and dropping the motor onto the stand, floor, and me. My friend assured me it would be fine. It was.

He also showed me the timing marks on the crankshaft and timing gears.

I can't recall if I've written that this motor already has an aluminum timing gear. The more we dug into this motor today, the more my friend's convinced it'll be a real ugly duckling that will (hopefully) turn into a beautiful(ly tuned) swan. We'll see.

After checking the bearing, we installed the two "dog turd" front crankshaft seals into the timing cover and oil pan. (This is a new one).

I'd been soaking it in oil, on the advice of my flathead friends. What was to have been a few days amounted to a few months, but I can't believe that would affect anything. Then, we heroically struggled to install the timing cover and crank pulley. The pulley wouldn't slide into place because of the still-swollen front seal. Finally, we drove the pulley home with a BFH and driver.

Once the front was buttoned up, we removed the old and installed the new rear main seal (cork) (this is the old one)

and installed the oil pan. I'm so glad we flipped the motor over. Installing that heavy pan and the gaskets would have been very difficult with the motor right side up. Here are the results:

Front seal
Rear main seal
Scary upside down motor with oil pan installed
Finally, there's always something when combining disparate Ford parts into a hot rod, and here's today's. Following my friend's recommendation, I installed the starter so I wouldn't have to fool with it once the motor's in the frame. After some discussion as to whether the Bendix should be in or out, I installed it in the "out" (not against the flywheel) position. After tightening it up, I went to turn the motor over with a breaker bar on the front pulley, just for kicks. In doing so, however, the starter Bendix clashed with the flywheel with a "clang." Figuring I'd put the Bendix in the wrong position, and at my friend's urging, I continued to rotate the motor, but it continued to clang. Knowing something was wrong, we looked to see that, even in its fully "out" position, the Bendix was still meshing with the ring gear.

We futzed with it a little, but have come to the conclusion that, since I'm using a '49-'50 Merc flywheel, and have a '49-'53 rotating assembly, perhaps I now need to use a '49-'53 starter and/or Bendix to clear the ring gear. Oh, well, I'm going to borrow my uncle's '50 Ford starter to see what differences, if any, there are between his and mine.

Results in the next post.

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A Day to Myself

I got a lot done in the garage today, because I gave myself the gift of a day without obligations, except to work on the hot rod. Before I rattle off the day's progress, I have to share these pics from this week's military vehicles show. This is apparently the big deal version of the one I attended last September. For just $70(!) you could buzz unsuspecting fishermen in the Delta in this Huey helicopter (model unknown); I suppose you probably could've added the "Ride of the Valkyries" for additional cost, judging by crowd at the show. While it would've been a memorable experience, $70 was a little dear.



Let's see, starting at about 9am and ending about 10pm (with my feet kicked up, as seen above), I got the following done today:

1. Installed the flywheel, clutch disc and pressure plate.


It's a 9-1/2" clutch, from '49-'53 Mercury (maybe Ford, too; not sure). This was easy, and I got to use my torque wrench for maybe the first time (yeah, really; I guess I haven't had to assemble anything to spec so far). Also got to use my safety wire and pliers to wire up the flywheel bolts. I used this tech post at the Jalopy Journal to help me do it right. Compare the before photo with my work. I feel pretty good about mine.



2. Based upon two friends' recommendations, I pried out the (apparently) steel "freeze plugs" or "expansion plugs" (take your pick) from the oil pan rail, and started to drive pennies (pre-'83 only, though, because they're still 95% copper, 5% zinc. After that, they're mostly copper clad zinc.) into the openings, but they were filled with a hard, clay gunky stuff. You can imagine my disappointment when my friend confirmed that, yes, I should remove that junk - it's 68 years' worth of sediment clogging up the bottom of the water jacket, and would likely cause a hot spot if not removed.

So, with picks, and awls, and reamers, I went at the four openings, tipping the motor this way and that, to get probably two cups' worth of crap out of that motor. The weird thing was that, since the flathead has two separate water jackets, one side was dusty, powdery dry rust, and other side was silty, moist mush-like mud. Ugh. To add to my troubles, there was still water in one side of the motor, which poured out when I tipped it forward.



The good news is I can feel guilt free about Permatexing up the pennies and driving them home once I could no longer get stuff out of the water jackets by tool or air pressure (which got a bunch out, too).


3. To round out the day, I finally brazed up the oil pan, and it was easier than I'd been fearing. In fact, it was almost as easy as falling off a log. I just cleaned up the hole (getting that nice flammable oil away), set the torch, and heated and melted in the brass. Alas, safety first, so I didn't try to take any "action" shots with the torch, but you can see the results. Then, for good measure, I got to exercise another tool for the first time: my DA (no, not the haircut, the tool) dual-action or orbital sander, with 80 grit (wasn't sure what to use, but that worked fine for grinding down my (admittedly) lumpy brass and shaping it to the pan. Then I leak-tested it with some solvent and, satisfied that it didn't leak, cleaned up the spot and set the pan aside until I'm ready to install it.



After all that work, I decided it was time to have some pizza and beer, to put my feet up, and read a little bit out in the garage in the very pleasant evening weather we had today.

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