not so good start to the month ,, last week driving to nottingham uk from Oxford ,, the a went onto three but ran ok at faster speed hmmm a valve spring i thought i was right so drove 100 mile there and back on three and a half got home ordered the bits and a new head gasket popped the head off changed the valve spring put it all together and went for a drive all went well got back and went to retorque the head down gave the bolts holding the water outlet on the head a tweak and snapped one of it's ears off oh well i have a spare ,,, but this was thicker than the other and a different angle a friend has a spare engine dropped by and asked to borrow the water thing finaly removed it to find it was cracked and very thin doh so now have to get one before the weekend as i need the car to drive to wales for the vscc welsh trial
just drove. did most of the drawing for the new body...or lack there of. maybe i post it, if i find a scanner.
Bump! My '25 Chev roadster quarter panels arrived from the US and I have mocked it all up. I am also sandblasting small bits, tomorrow I shall buy some Molasses so I can drip & strip some very very rusty Chevy parts. ps Is anybody else playing with Chev bangers? Or am I all alone?
have not done much with my banger A in over a month! am getting ready to start back on it. i will get some pics of what i have done so far. i too broke a water neck on mine. and really didn't like it so i made a new one out of stainless. but much bigger to handle the torque. i know there are tricks to do. but that sucks! its to easy to fix the right way.
Got the chassis stripped down to the front spring and engine. Plan on taking the frame and other bits to the sandblaster this week. Met Brent-in-10-uh-C a few weeks back and had a great time visiting and talking bangers. He gave me some great ideas for the engine that I should be putting in place over the next few months.
September saw the last drag meet of the year over here, the Hot Rod Drags near Stratford. Some great racing and decent cars. Managed a new personal best in my coupe with an 18.8 @ 70 mph, but that was nothing in comparison to Clark (4ever4) in his roadster. I'll let him tell you all about it, but here's the video anyway.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydaT4rSkynw Other than that, it's fast approaching the cold months so the A won't be out and about as much. I've decided on a few changes before next year, including a four-speed synchro transmission, so I located an AA truck bellhousing last week to help with that.
I've been getting my car dialed in pretty well. put all new plug wires on (packard 440 with raja clips) that helped the ignition. then when trying to deal with the 48 carbs i found that the arm on the rear carb had the clamping screw stripped. it was not letting the front carb shut all the way and it wasnt opening the rear carb enough.... so running rich in the front at idle and lean in the rear at high rpm's...i think this is what was causing the popping and sputtering with the pedal down...the front 2 cylinders pulling the rear 2. i got this worked out and got the car to run pretty good now at all speeds except idle. if i remove the hood it will idle but with the hood on it needs to get to about 140 degrees before idle...but its not a big deal as it runs really well otherwise. i am still planning to switch to a single carb to test things out but havent gotten to it yet. i put some 7.00x16 rear tires on to help with the "look" and give it a little more leg in my quest for 100mph so far i had the speedometer at 70 in overdrive...which is a 22% reduction so im figuring about 90mph but i was beyond being comfortable on the back roads at this speed it has a pretty bad shake above 80 with the old front tires so i'll need to replace them before i head for the highway for 100... Zach
As Darren said above it was the end to the season with the Hot Rod Drags. I had a new car, new quickchange and freshened engine with the winfield head from the Lion, new exhaust and the rolling road session behind me. First run netted a same old high 18 second run and from then on it only got better and better. A 17.8@73mph, 17.5@75mph, 17.1@77mph and the final run of the weekend which Darren caught on video above of me running a 16.9@78mph! I was as shocked as everyone else as this now puts me well up with 8's. Remember this was all done with only bolt-on items and a very mild cam. For those that put their noses up at my power outputs, I'm sorry, but the times don't lie.
was overall a good month for me. Got my car to Billetproof, met up with the other banger owners, had a good time. Did some tuning, got the car running SWEET, won a new radiator on eBay, but yesterday discovered my block is cracked It's weeping coolant. I guess it could be worse, it could have cracked a cylinder wall! However it has scrapped my plans for the high comp head, I am going to focus on reliability measures first- flywheel and transmission so that I can drive it much smoother and not stress any more components than I have to Oh well, we'll see what ahppenes next
I don't know as it came on another engine. I would put money on it being a 6:1. Been doing some parts collecting this month. First off is a governor that came from Artiki. These are a straight replacement for the timing gear side plate and were used to eerrmm... govern an engines speed when it was used in an industrial application. My long term plan for this is to convert it a side drive for a second mag/dizzy, oil pump, water pump or whatever. This is how much I dare take it apart as going beyond this point would involve knocking out pins and drilling out rivets. I would rather have it complete rather than in a million pieces while I am storing it. Managed to pick up this pair of Winfield SR's at the big Beaulieu autojumble. Quite a find here in the UK. One is missing a couple of parts and they are only the baby 'A' size but they have their chokes, linkage and came on these neat elbow intakes. With the upright mountings I'm thinking they were for a Fronty head. Finally not new but here is the pictures of the 14.9hp Model 'A' head. From the outside it looks totally stock, well it should do as it is a stock Ford piece. This is a back to back comparison of the combustion chambers with a 'C' head. I should of used an 'A' but I didn't have one to hand. You can really see the difference here in the size difference of the piston relief and combustion chamber. The size difference are: 14.9hp - 24hp Piston relief. 3 1/8" - 4" Combustion Chamber Depth. 3/4" - 1 1/4" If you wanted to fit this to a 24hp engine you would have to have the piston relief machined out to 4". Of course there is no denying that it would be a factory high compression. I like to think of it as a great "cheater" head.
Ha! I knew there was going to be a big spring in that governer. It would've disappeared if I'd taken it apart, I'm telling ya....
Hopefully I'll be joining the banger fray soon. Got it mocked up the other day. B motor w/ original Thomas head & intake when done.
i had a friend of mine run with me on his harley to compare the speedometer in my car tonight....apparently its off more then i thought the 90mph that i figured the other day now computes to about 100-105 if we were running the speeds correctly i know it felt WAY faster then i should be going but it also felt like it had more left in it...hmmmm next week one day i want to go out on a highway and run at certain speeds and make notes of the actual speeds and get a true measurement of the difference and i still need to get some darn tires before i see what she'll really do top end... I'm hunting a 1/4 mile stretch to compare to you guys across the pond but i dont have any low end so i think i'll be slow...we'll see? Zach
"actual speeds and get a true measurement of the difference..." There's a chart in the back of the '28-48 parts books that will help sort out the correct speedo drive for your gear ratio and tire size--sounds to me like you probably have the wrong gear in the little drive box on the torquetube.
bruce, i think no matter what im going to have a problem unless i run the speedometer cable from behind the overdrive...i'll have to see if theres a hook-up there maybe the drive gear is for a 3.78 and this has the 3.54...i'll have to investigate... it now all makes sence as to why it seems to be hauling ass around the reading of 50mph... thanks Zach
See if you can find the little 2-speed shifter box for a Columbia--that will put you reasonably close in both direct and OD. All these things are pretty close to 70%. Probably there are gadgets like this on heavy trucks with 2-speeds as well... You can dope out final drive ratio a couple of ways--with closed drive and probably difficult access to crank nut, just put a mark on pulley, a mark on tire, and push the thing forward with someone watching the crank pulley. When tire has gone around exactly once, see how close crank is to its fourth revolution, whether arounf half way or around 3/4 way...
I'm so jazzed i've made some progress, finally! Got the A block back from the machinest- cyls bored out to 125 over, new valve seats installed, new one piece valve guides installed. The block is now at another shop getting ready to have babbitt poured. I'm taking the day off to go watch and try & take some pics. Crank is getting counterweights installed and will be reground if necessary. Rods will be re bushed at small end and new babbitt poured at big end. Have already got a B flywheel with about 20 lbs removed and new ring gear installed. Have a B grind cam and new adjustable lifters waiting to go in alond with the pistons. Also have a V8 clutch & pressure plate on the shelf. Everything will get balanced. New oil pump with oil pressure to center main bearing. Maybe in another 2 3 weeks, that baby will be home, ready to go in my 29 coupe. Still have lots of 'winter' work to go. Mike
yes, please do take pics! I've only ever seen one or two actual photos of the process. It's all been drawings, descriptions, or pics after the crank is installed! keep us posted, sounds cool
I assisted with installing a Kiwi quickchange my sport coupe, currently have 3.20:1 gears installed and what a different animal it is. Cruises at higher speed a lot easier though at slower speeds (30mph) 2nd gear seems to be the best option as the cam doesn't like the lower revs. Other than that it's been driving it anytime the chance appears. Whilst I'm here, I've posted in the wanted ads with little response, so I'll post here as well, don't suppose anyone will mind: I'm after a Winfield SR, size B, downdraft floatbowl. I have a Model S, size C updraft that could possibly be used as a trading point. A complete carb would also be of interest. If not the above then a D or DD downdraft would be good and I'll run a big single instead of smaller duals. If you have a big un' I have a SR/B downdraft and intake to trade. Basically if you have anything you think I may be interested in give me a shout, If you don't want trades I will buy outright. Neil.
The Jalopy Journal
