Projects Miracle Makeover Part 3

[Gaters]

Dang!...It took me a lot longer to get Part 3 out than I thought it would. The roadster is moving along but not nearly at the rate as I thought it would go. Nevertheless, it’s at a point that I can share more of the story and atleast the roadster looks different than before I tore it apart.

For those of you who care to check out Parts 1 and 2 (possibly again for a refresh), here is a link to get you up to speed on where I started and where where I am to date. This will take you to both parts. The second link is at the end of the first part.
Miracle Makeover – A Road to Revival
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/s...d.php?t=232944

More Roadster History
A brief flash back. I started this project with the mindset to get this roadster back on the road as it was raced in the mid 40s at El Mirage and sitting since the early 50s. Most of that of that time in my dad’s garage since 1964. My major motivation is to ride in the roadster with my Pop. I was trying to do so as quickly as possible, or so I thought. I am coming up on a years time since I’d moved the roadster out of my dad’s garage in Lakewood, CA and into a spare corner of my cousins cabinet shop to work on it. How life manages to dictate your priorities without your consent has been very apparent to me this past year. I can’t tell you how much fun this roadster project has been and at the same time the most frustrating. Time is flying and certain events this past year, have been a challenge to say the least.

Let’s start off where I last left the story. I’d promised to include another story about the history of my roadster. This account is according to my dad’s recollection and is quite facsinating to say the least.

If you’ve read Part 1 of the story, you’ll know that my roadster belonged to the South Gate Gaters car club out of South Gate, CA. One of the members of the car club was Kenny Parks, brother of Wally Parks. As the story goes, Ray Pyle (the original owner of the roadster and cousin to my dad) was not able to make the trip out to one of the El Mirage Lake meets and Kenny Parks, for whatever reason took Ray’s roadster out to the lakes for the event with his brother Wally along side him. Unbenounced to Kenny, the radiator did not have enough coolant in it when they left and some where along the road from South Gate to El Mirage the motor overheated and cracked a 2-port Riley head Ray had been running on the roadster.

If you’ll remember from my previous posting, when my dad and I found the 2-port Riley head out at Ray’s house in Lancaster, CA. after he had passed away, it was under a pile of desert sand in the back yard. I found the head and it had the crack in it as my dad described. The cracked Riley head had to have happened after the July 16-17 1949 SCTA El Mirage meet. Why you ask, because the Riley head was running on a B-block with a Smith & Jones cam, Evans manifold and a Magneto, which earned an SCTA dash plaque and the head wasn’t cracked before that July date. The Riley head was never repaired so Ray installed the previously run A block that he had with the Windfield head. The roadster is currently being restored to run with the Winfield set up to date.

When I told my dad of Wally's passing, he was upset that he hadn’t contacted him over the years. My dad’s nickname was Boone during those days and I’ll always wonder if those that knew him then would have remembered him by his nickname or just called him Kenny. It would have been fun to know if Wally would have recalled the story my dad’s told me about the Riley all these years.

More about the motors later. I’ll move on to more pictures as I move the story along.

The roadster also did some drag racing on the streets of Downey, CA. My dad recalls them racing down Rosecrans and also on Stewart & Gray. He did say they took the roadster down to Santa Ana drag strip in Orange County at one point. He said the lil hopped up 4-banger held its own against the bigger V8s. It was big and fast off the line!!

Building the Roadster to Original Specs…Well Sorta
So, I torn down the roadster to a point I thought it was necessary to make the car safe to drive, while keeping it to its original state as much as I could. At the beginning it took me weeks of tearing things apart and just cleaning grease and years of dirt off of them just to get to a point of reassembly. I can tell you not one thing on the roadster had the same size nut or bolt, which made it time consuming when I went to put things back together.

I’d put the front end back together with new bushings and fittings. I moved on to putting together the hydraulic brake system for the roadster. I had a great start with a HAMB tech post on this subject with the combination of Cling’s aftermarket information.


I had the correct backing plates with all the rebuilt cylinders, springs and new shoes. I even had the spacers needed for the front spindles, or so I thought. I put it all together and notice that the driver front wheel would bind, even with the spacer, while the passenger front didn’t require a spacer at all, I didn’t know what the heck was going on! Come to find out with a bit more inspection, the front end was built with two different spindles on the front axle. WHA?



After searching swap meets and such for parts, I was able to find a nice set of 32 spindles for the front end. OK, now start over with new bushings and other parts and I was back to where I started. I had to ask for help to get the brakes lines installed. I tried to do as much as I could on my own but without metal fabrication skills and tools, it made it difficult to move forward. Plus, I was installing brakes and I didn’t want anything to be amiss here. I did mock up the master cylinder bracket and brake assembly as best I could. Heck, I was in a cabinet shop, so I did the next best thing I could do and made stuff out of wood to show those that helped me what I was looking to do. I’d used the stock 32 pedals that were in the roadster and made a level system that fit inside the pedal assembly. This way the master cylinder plunger went through a natural hole (that I made larger) on the 32 cross member.


All said and done I ended up with this.


This is the day the body went back on the frame


After the body was on, we did another mock up. This is me (Chris) and my dad (Ken) and two of his grandsons (my nephews, Bryan and Joe).


Here she is with the windshield posts on and the radiator and lights mocked up.


So from here I needed to get my motor running, electrical and other changes such as a new windshield. I wasn’t going to change the window out because it has my prized original Mobil horse decal but I was convinced otherwise that it would be much safer to have saftey glass as opposed to the original plate glass.

I also bought a new set of treads. This wouldn’t have been my first choice of tires but again, I am trying to stay as close to the running roadster as possible.

The fronts are Firestone 5.00 – 16 motorcycle tires and the rears I wanted to match brands and got into a Firestone 6.50 – 16. I should have went taller on the rear because the Model A Hi-Boy on an A frame looks like a grass hopper with very high stance in the rear. This won’t be so obvious when I get a set of fenders back on it someday.

A very good friend of my Dad (and myself), John Dickerson asked me to bring the roadster over to his restoration shop, said he had some extra space for me (and him) to work on it so to keep it moving along. I think he could tell I was stalling out on the things I couldn’t do on my own. He’s helped me tremendously and does extraordinary work and I am truly blessed to have him working on my roadster. He is a perfectionist and I kid him about working on my roadster because of the state it is in. It’s a bit ragged and not to a standard that I think a Hot Rod should be buiilt to but considering the history and originality of the roadster, John knows what to do and not to do.

One of the first things we did was bleed the brakes and adjust the shoes. John proceeded to show me how to align the front end with a contraption he made to do such as task. It would have taken John a quarter of the time it took me but he left me alone and let me figure it out on my own after he gave me a few pointers. John started a bit of the electrical with the rear tail lights and was able to remove them, clean them and remount them.

Next, I tore into the Auburn dash and gauges at John’s instruction. They hadn’t been out of the roadster in all these years and low and behold, this is what we found. A bit of the original painted woodgrain, typical of the original Auburn dash. These are fun discoveries to the roadsters past.


The speedo wasn’t working, so it’s being serviced. I purchased a quality Mills & Co. e-brake kit and it worked out very well. Kits are great but there always seems to be something that you’ve got to tackle that doesn’t show up in the instructions. This is the handle I have, which I have no idea what it is out of. All I know, everyone I’ve asked to identify it wanted to buy it. It’s about half the length of a stock Model A e-brake handle with the same lower mechanism. My dad has had it for years and he doesn’t even remember where he’d got it. Any clues out there?


I had the gas tank cleaned and we mounted it behind the driver seat where it once was years ago.


One modification I did to stylize the roadster a bit was to add a 32 grill and shell. Bill Huff, a very good friend of my Dad (and me too…I don’t know how many times I’ll need to say this but my Dad does have a great group of car buddies) gave him the shell and grille. I dig the way these look on a Model A, it’s period correct and though it is not original to the roadster, I figured I needed to add a few of my own touches. Plus, we’ve had this 32 grill and shell for years for this roadster and it’s about damn time I put it to use. Funny thing is, the paint on the shell matches the firewall paint… what a co-winkydink? We mounted the headlights too. Don’t worry, I still have the original shell.


As promised, back to the motors. We have no personal photography of the roadster other than what I’ve taken this past year. My dad has only described the 2-port Riley to me and what it had accomplished on the dry lakes. A few weeks back I happened to go back to the American Hot Rod Foundation (AHRF) web site and plugged in a few key words to search the site for anything related to my roadster. I’d searched there before but didn’t find anything in particular. The AHRF photos are copy righted so the only thing I can do is post the link to the specific page in hopes you’ll see what I am talking about.

I found Kenny Parks 27 T with a belly tank nose on it. It was an odd looking duck but it did what it was intended to do and that was to go fast.
http://www.ahrf.com/image_detail.php...CollectionID=9

And then this….I found a picture of my roadster and in particualr the 2-Port Riley. The really bitchin things about this picture is the insignia on the front cowl “PYLE SPECIAL”. Until now, I didn’t know this was on the roadster. I added that to my to do list for the roadster, ….#item 5,745 - add “Pyle Special” insignia back to cowl.
http://www.ahrf.com/image_detail.php...ollectionID=52

How sweet is that??!!!!!

Motor Works
A good friend of my dad (and mine… see I told you), Bill Robinson is working on the Winfield topped banger. Again, this is another blessing to have some one of his caliber working on my motor. He know’s these things inside out.

I take the motor to Bill’s garage in Apple Valley, CA and explain that I just want the motor road worthy to take my dad for a cruise. It has been some 25+ years that Egge Machine Shop had rebuilt the motor, poured new babbit, surfaced the head, etc. A few weeks go by and Bill gets the motor to fire, he then calls me to tell me that something is clanking around in the motor and it sounded to him like the pistons were under sized or the pistons were tapping the head. He even had friend Bill Huff come over to give a listen. Yep confirmed, something is knocking around that shouldn’t be or so they thought.

Bill says that he can pull the head to see if there are any marks on the head or the piston, I agree. He pulls the head the next day, calls me back and no marks anywhere. He was perplexed because he thought for sure he’d see some kind of markings to reveal the problem, NOPE! As he’s on the phone with me describing the situation, he says, “It just sounded like the pistons were under sized but I hadn’t checked that yet. Let me see if something…oh…wait….that’s it! Boy these pistons really have some wiggle room”. He goes on to describe the movement of the pistons in the cylinder as the cause of all the noise.

Apparently the theory back then was more clearance between the piston and the cylinder reduced friction. I guess you have to put into perspective that the early days were trial by fire and a lot of experimentation was going on trying to figure out how to go faster. The pistons in our banger were massive, old, long skirt J&E pistons. Bill’s account of the clearance was .0019 between the piston and cylinder wall.


Bill turned to a shorter, lighter stock Model A piston to fit the cylinder better. Again, as it was expalined to me the Model A piston has a shorter skirt on it and much lighter than the J&E piston running with the Winfield head. These big, tall, heavy J&E pistons were thought to have given more horse power.

I had to change these pistons out to provide more reliability and to run with a psiton that fit the big bore. According to Bill I could have run it this way but he said I wouldn’t have been able to carry a conversation with anyone next to the roadster with the motor running it was so loud.

The cylinder was machined bored to 4-1/4”.


Here is the crank that’s been drilled for pressure.


Large intake valves.


Babbited rear main.


Pressurized front main, with a bronze timing gear.


There were no markings on the cam to identify the manufacturer but Bill said it’s one wild cam. At first glance he thought it might have been a Winfield. Cook’s Machine shop worked on the motor back in the day according to my dad. Maybe it was cooked up there.


One last motor photo and that is of the flywheel. Here is a shot of the flywheel that has been turned down to lighten its load. Now I don’t have the personal knowledge to tell you how much this thing has been turned down but it was described to me as, “pretty scary”. That’s comforting!
Apperantly the nut threads you see on the upper left of the photo are not normally visible. The banger guys on the HAMB will probably give a better description of how much this flywheel has lost.


You’ll have to forgive me since I am not that knowledgeable on the working of the 4-banger so I did my best to reiterate what was told to me regarding the motors inner workings and set up for that time period. The motor has a ton more work to it that I need to capture and I will spend more time gathering this information not only for the history of the roadster but it will be important that I understand it going forward to maintenance the motor.


More Important Priorities
As I said earlier, life can throw some wicked curve balls your way that’ll put your priorities into perspective real quick. I’d started this quest with goals and aspirations of getting my dad back into the roadster. It was also a way to spend more time with my dad and for the two of to have fun while experiencing all these events together.

Shortly after I’d brought the roadster over to John’s shop, my dad fell in his garage and broke his hip and while in the hospital for his hip, suffered three heart attacks and had surgery for both issues. Before I go on, my dad is doing OK. Not the best but a lot better than what he went through these past months. I thought I might lose him there for a while and was expecting the worst while he was in the hospital. I had four paragraphs written of his struggles and wasn’t done explaining what all had happened to him before I just shut it down and deleted it. I don’t want this story to be about all that.

I do want to tell you about my Dad and this roadster of ours as a compelling story of their struggle to survive all these years and the history they’ve made together. The roadster is important to me because of the connection it has with my dad. It’s what I dig about roadster the most. It’s also what’s motivated me this past year, struggling to get these two old farts back on the road. November 7th my dad turns 77. On Dec 12th the roadster turns 80. I hope to strapped my dad in the drivers seat with me in the passenger and let them both loose, preferably in a huge open expanse where he won’t have to worry about running into anything. I have an idea where I want to take him but it might be illegal...shhh. You see, he’s blind in his left eye and doesn’t see too well out of the other, he’s had no license for quite a few years. Now, I am working against his fading eye sight in his one good eye. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. I am fighting against time and with limited resources in a variety of different ways, I can only do what I can do when I can.

Big Props
The roadster would not be any where near where it is at today without the help from my dad’s incredibliy generous friends, John Dickerson, Bill Robinson and Bill Huff. As I’d said before, I’m blessed that these guys would even consider working on this car. I would be totally amiss without thanking them beyond measure. There is still quite a bit of work to do, but I’ve got the best mentors I could have prayed for with this project. These guys are a Hot Rod blessing.

Here’s hoping that my next post will be of this momentous occasion of the two back on the road. I promise I will keep the last post short to relieve you all from reading through my babble. Tell you what, if it takes place, I’ll just post one select picture. No words, just a picture of the occassion.

HAMB out!

Chris

[McFly]

Keep up the good work Chris! I can't wait to see the photos of you and your dad tearing up the streets in your roadster.

[Jimmy B]

Great update Chris!

[Enbloc]

Fantastic write up.

Keep it up.

Bttt, more people need to see this.

[Gaters]

Originally Posted by McFly

Keep up the good work Chris! I can't wait to see the photos of you and your dad tearing up the streets in your roadster.

It's so close I can taste the exhaust and feel my eyes watering from wind hitting me in the face! I can't wait to see him in it.

[Royalshifter]

Very uplifting thread...great job.

[EvansSpeedEquipment]

If you have any questoions on your B motor Taylor Engine in Whittier CA is the man.

[Gaters]

Originally Posted by EvansSpeedEquipment

If you have any questoions on your B motor Taylor Engine in Whittier CA is the man.

These guys were very helpful when I first started with the motor. I 'd emailed them a few questions and they got back to me right a way.

I briefly spoke to John Ryan the previous and long time owner of Taylor Engine. He was around when my roadster was running the lakes. He actually has a copy of the picture of my roadster that is in one of Don Montgomery's books.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[SlamCouver]

What a great looking roadster

[Strange Agent]

Good post! Good luck with finishing that sucker off!