Projects Im getting Married! Project 46 ford begins!

Got the toe board nearly done today. Waiting on some oaint to dry and then I'll start putting it back together and into the car.

 

Keep strokin, Tim. See ya in a few days.

 

Your number still the same @Rocky ? I gave you a hollar the other day. Need to make sure your gonna be home when we come by

 

Alright chipping away at the endless list. I've done honesty probably 40 things in the last month or two.

The current project is making it so it's not so much like riding in an empty soup can by this Saturday for the midwest hamb bbq.

I gutted the interior and got to work! Lots of vacuuming. I couldn't believe how filthy the car was :S I guess dirt roads and hardly any weather stripping will do that.

Any how, took everything out including the quarter glass and mechanisms and toe board and sanded it all down and painted it with rustolium heavy rust primer/ sealer. I used a roller and a small paint brush and got everything I could reach with about a quart and a quarter. Making several passes over heavy traffic areas.

I then applied 11 rolls of peel and seal over everything my fat hands could reach. I need another roll to finish it off but I can already hear the difference even with te car just sitting in the garage being worked on.

I'm off to by new weather stripping now and tomorrow I'll go buy a few sticks of window channel and get that out in as well so I can re install the windows and then the seats etx.

Oh and I sill need to run some seam sealer tape over the peel and seal.

Gotta keep on truckin! Did a load more than this but it's all pretty small stuff so I won't bother with talking about it for now. Stuff like adding return springs and new plug wires Blah blah blah.

Oh! And I got my back windows working, after I took it out of the car I cleaned the gears and though I thought the crud in the teeth wasy issue it turned out to be some destroyed window channel blocking my path!

Ok here's some photos I gotta run!

 

Oh! And with all the weight out of the car the back end came up quite a bit and the rake looks great so I measured it and after I load it up and it drops I'll raise it back up with bigger rubber in the back

 

Looks great Tim!

 

Thanks Nate I'll post a real progress thread when I'm not so full of snot but most of you have been following on Instagram anyways so I won't feel that bad

 

Alright so as it draws nearer to winter or as we like to call it "garage season" here in the Kansas City area I thought I'd get this thread up to date more or less so I can again use posts as a motivator to get the never ending winter list done.

Saying it will be done by spring is about as traditional as taking the fenders off a 32, though I think the fenders coming off happens more than the other

Anyhow when we left off I had just insulated the car with peel and seal.

I found since that using seems tape takes away the teeny tiny, only my wife with a super sniffer can smell, hint of stink.

I did t do the fire wall or front toe board area because I had run out but the difference in noise below 50 mph was remarkable! The faster I drove the less difference I noticed but it's an old car.

A couple months later lowes had restocked and I piled a few layers on to both sides of the toe board, and then the inside of the firewall and cowl sides. I noticed again a marked noise improvement, and when it fi sky got
Cold I was really surprised but how much heat it kept out of the car.

It wasn't that noticeable when it was warm out but when it's 23 deg and your used to engine heat flooding threw the firewall believe me it's more noticeable!

Anyhow after that I had the car running pretty well and sorted so I drive it for a little bit.

We had 5 car shows at the shop this year so I sort of used them as goal date/ deadlines for current work

 

So what's a guy to do with a perfectly running car?

Well you tear it apart of course

I have always hated the first gen mustang master mounted under the floor. It put the pedal in a funny spot at a funny angle, hard to service and on and on. I also hated my "problem solver" cable operated gas pedal.

I had them to wear I could drive it and not think to much about it but no way id let my wife drive it and so they really needed to go. They always felt like a compromise anyways.

And so began what I like to call the "world's most expensive game of dominoes" portion of the summer

 

This was to become a familiar position.


The plan.
Stock gas pedal with a modified Z bar and a solid rod with quick disconnect ball joints.

I had everything but the stock pedal because it went out with the old toe board. I had a friend lop off the top left of the Z on the firewall and move it to the other side to acomadate the new carb having linkage on the drivers side.

After a long search I found a quick disconnect ball joint that was commonly available and very close to the stock ball size on the Z bar. I used a flap barrel/ disc on a dremel tool to make the ford ball the right size and then threaded a piece of rod for the linkage to the carb with another ball joint attached to the carb end.

I had to do a little dance figuring out the right return springs but eventually I got one I like.

 

The only thing I've run into with the new throttle set up is that the hole in the floor board is slightly off alignment and the carpet and insulation interferes just a bit. I just use my foot a little different and it's fine but down the road when I make s new floor I'll move the hole a bit.

Well, with the throttle moved, and the floor patched from previous brake set up I moved onto the brakes.

This is where that photo of the wires spewed everywhere comes in.

See the plan was a firewall mounted masted this time. And on the inside that's were the fuse box was and on the outside its were my voltage regulator lived.

I had also left a lot of extra wire in the car because it was my first wire job and for some reason thought that a good idea. Suffice to say I had to re wire the car from the firewall forward and I cut well over 50 feet of extra wire out!

 

I went with a dual diaphragm boosted late 60's early 70's corvette master with a hanging pedal and brace from speedway. I'm going to be honest it's one of the nicest things I've got from them. Well thought out with gussets and grease zerks for the bushing painted/ coated nicely and it plane did what it was supposed to do.

I made some new lines, to attach it to the new system and then re did one of my rear axle lines while I was at it that I wasn't ever that happy with.

Got some weather stripping in the car- Mac's deck lid gasket and hardware store for the rest, and got it tuned enough to head to the ol' Maria's river run car show an hour away.



Car performed more or less fine and we had a really great time with perfect weather. Only way it would have been better is to bring some friends with a have a little better idea what we were in for

 

And then this started.

The front brakes started grabbing about 5 miles into driving to work. Bad. Like stop the car for me bad.

Got it off the highway and cooled off. Beaner came and theorized with me and followed me back home.

I pulled the caliper slide bolts and they had chatter marks all over and no grease. I wet sanded them smooth, greased the shit out of them and threw it back together. Seemed to fix it....

 

That seemingly sorted I drove it some and the. After our monthly show left it with my friend Brandon at safelight next to our shop who does a lot of old car glass and hit made a new windshield, vent Windows and drivers glass for me and installed it all. I used a Mac's windshield gasket.

Overall I couldnt believe the improvement! The first time I drove it was home from the shop at night and the reduction in sound was awesome and the lack of light refracting off al the little nicks and scratches blew my mind! It was like playing a video game of driving my car. Crystal clear I grinned the whole way home

 

That weekend we headed to bb's lawn side BBQ for the misfits cc yearly car show. I'd missed and regretted missing this show every single year I've lived here having seen photos of what a trad and rad turn out they have

 

Looks like that video didn't load...

Anyhow my trouble continued and I'm sorry to anyone that had to deal with me that day. I was so pissed I hardly enjoyed the show at all.

Car threw out an anchor about a mile from the show in a mega shady neighborhood.

I threw some trans fluid in it as I was lost to why it was what it was doing what it was down and limped to the show.

Only to have it act hot and shut down though the gauge read fine. Parked it and noticed my slowly ( yet again) passenger side axle seal leak was now dumping fluid out.

Let it cool off and when we drove home it ran fine. Go figure.

After investigating further, and having all the extra trans fluid puke out, I found a vacuum hose that fed both the booster and the timing advance was kinked shut under the air cleaner.

So funny brakes and the engine getting hot. Spark knock, blah blah blah. Got it fixed..... So I thought

 

Our last show of the year was a trunk of treat and we had a huge turn out

I'll fast forward this and say I continue to have brake issues that keep getting better as I work threw all the trouble shooting.

Best I can figure is the old brakes were bad enough that while one by one systems degraded I couldn't notice. So when I put a good pedal/ master set up on it showed them to me all at once and it really made me scratch my head.

I ended up putting new calipers on, tightening some very lose caliper bracket bolts, replacing a hose that was supposed to be a vacuum hose but a fuel hose was used and it sucked itself shut aaaaand I shimmed the non adjustable booster to master push rod a 1/16th.

Oh and I readjusted the rear drums lol I think I need to replace the front rubber hoses as I can see a wear mark on one of them and we should be finished.

What a head ache

 

I'm sure we did some more stuff but all I can think of right now is adjusting the carb and timing about a million times and finally putting a vacuum gauge on it and getting it right. 21 lbs at idle

And if we did more then Pork and Beaner and I will pretend we didn't because that'd be dang depressing lol.

I think that gets us caught up for the most part. I mess with the car a lot because I like to drive it as much as I can and in Kansas City 75+ mph traffic so what would be just fine for a weekend cruise night car drives me up the wall and I have to get it fixed and just "so"

So while we do tune and trouble shoot a lot it hasn't ever left me stranded it's just left me frustrated lol.

I've got a ton in store for this winter so now that I'm as caught up as I care to be I should be able to post regularly on my progress the next cold months

 

Great summary of your recent exploits. Keep it up!

 

Thanks I've got a long list for the winter but I'm not sure I'm ready to dig in quite yet haha

 

So what are the plans for the winter?

I just picked up a 47 2 Dr sedan and am working through some of those annoying driveability things. I too like to drive my old cars a lot when it's warm and something small can get real annoying quick haha.

What are you running for suspension? I like the height in front of your car. I've been thinking about redoing the front setup on mine, it came with long shackles but basically stock everything else.

Looks like you're having a load of fun with it.

Here's mine

 

I'll make a post later on about winter plans but right now my suspension is as follows.

Front: one inch longer than stock shackles, 3 inch drop reverse eye spring from posies and a dropped axle from Sid. It's a dropped stock axle if your not familiar with him.

The back is tci's paralel leaf set up via speedway with a 9 inch sitting on top of the leafs. No blocks.

All of this on 27 inch tall tires. Oh and tube shocks front and back.

Everything has had a while to settle, the rear leafs settled a noticeable amount the first 6 or so months and then basically stayed put while the front took a few years to drop any noticeable amount.

Rides great, could stand to mess with tire pressure and different rear shocks but if I wasn't dodging pot holes do often I doubt I'd mess with it at all.

It tucks a couple inches of tire up into the fender, if you wanted it lower you could run a shorter tire but I like the look of the taller tire.

It occasionally rubs the driver side inner fender on full left lock but I think that the inner fender needs adjusted inward so you probably wouldn't have the issue.

Car looks like fun enjoy it

 

Do you have a front sway bar? Those longer shackles will give you some lateral movement. If it were me, I'd stay with stock shackles in front. That posies spring will drop it a bunch. As well as Sid's axle, if you don't already have some drop in the axle.
What is the current spring/axle situation?

On my 40, I went with a narrowed axle to give more tire room when dropped. The 46-48s might not have that problem since they are wider, but you said it rubs a little as is so?

Looking good. I'm fixing some rust right now on mine, then the wiring begins.

 

For reference, this is a 4" drop and narrowed CE axle (2" over stock) with a Posies spring, stock shackles. It might be apples and oranges comparison since I'm not so familiar with 46-48

 

All good points so I'll adress them real quick before my phone dies lol

1: it is apples to oranges 40's get lower faster that these sky scrapers even though underneath looks pretty similar.

2: when I had my axle dropped it was brought in a little. My rub, if you'll look back, is on the inner fender not the actual fender so if it were even narrower id really have issues. That inner fender isnt bolted to the frame along the bottom like it's supposed to be so its out into tire space more than it should be. It's on the list.

3: good call on the sway bar and etx. I do run the stock away bar with the short dog bones. ~ when I was running the stock shocks I even switch short dog bones into them to account for the drop as the stock shock dog bones are quite a bit longer.

These cars also run a front pan hard bar to account for the spring not being under tension like the older Fords. I dropped the car, sat it on some ramps so it was loaded and still high enough for me to get under and then moved the hole on the frame bracket a little bit and bent the pan hard bar a little to both keep it free of tension while sitting normal and as parallel with everything as possible.

Handles better than a friends simular car with a mii, it's lower than the mii with stock spindles and I've had friends in motorcycles have a hard time keeping with me threw the tight curves.

I need to adjust my steering box a touch, and eventually I'll put some weedetr front and rear sway bars on that are bigger than stock. But the way it sits it's very nice.

The thing I see left out most often is that pan hard bar. You do need one, if you car doesn't have one they re pop it all and worse case you get a speedway dirt track catalog and get one that will fit

 

Well I'm still messing with it.

It's not anything real exciting just tuning, trouble shooting and little stuff getting checked off the list so havnt bothered to post about it.

I'm sure I've done other stuff but the high lights include wiring in a mechanical brake light switch. That let me know I needed a much better brake pedal return spring, I moved the solid mount in the existing one for now to test my theory and it seems that I'm right in thinking that my brake pedal was giggling just enough to tap the brakes and eventually warm them up and cause an issue.

I'm still fine tuning the spring length and will go ahead and pump some more grease into the bearing the peddle swings on. Thankfully it's got a zerk on it.

I also mounted a Stewart Warner black faced mechanical oil pressure gauge under the dash. My dash one has never worked so instead of just ordering a new sending unit I guess I decided a whole new gauge was a better way to go? Lol any how I used some adapters and used a long braided stainless brake line to plumb it, I've got oil pressure now lol.

Hmmm, added some additional insulation in the front floor. I've had the roll of sythetic jute insulation in the garage for a long while just waiting for the next time I had the seats out. I havnt driven it with it all together enough to notice any difference in sound however.

While I had all the seats out I also put three lap belts in the back seat for my trio of nieces and any eventual kids.

Hmm what else.... Got a new to me horn ring put on which not only doesn't cut me but looks great, added a passenger side mirror that I can't see out of at all aaaaand bolted on some Amber fog lights after ditching the bumper gaurds and leveling my front bumper out some.

I was surprised to find how much play there was in the mounts that I got it within an 1/8th of level from being nearly 3 inchs off previously! Took an afternoon of messing with it but it's much better now.

Now I'm on to doing the interior and getting ready to do a cam swap. I'm sure this ones got to be about as flat as a rolling pin

The photos right?

Here ya go. Lol looks like they loaded first, oh well

*oh yeah I cut down some trim to fit my deck lid after looking to long for the short ones. Much improved over my dented up stuff

 

Looking good Timm!

 

Thanks Nate. "I built it one piece at a time, and it cost every last one of my
Dimes"

 

Awesome stuff man. I know what you mean about the mirrors mine came with the mirrors that mount between the door and the hood where the stock trim would be. Drivers side is usable. Passenger side is completely worthless. It's too low and sits right behind the a pillar. I can't see it no matter how far over I lean to look. I think I'm going to swap to door mounted peep mirrors or something eventually.

I like the Mexican blanket seats even if it's just layed over it looks good with the all black rest of the car.

Oh and I've got a little over a week to finish my shackles install up front and put 3 seatbelts in the back for my kids too. Before the first cruise in town.

What's fun about hot rodding an old car around if you can't take the family with you. Actually is the reason were selling my wife's metropolitan. Carry on. Your car is an inspiration for mine. Very classic look.