When fitting a blower on the Harmonic damper is done away with but then you have no timing mark, I had marked the alternator pulley but while everything was stripped out I decided to make up a pulley to take a timing tape. The original balancer was 8" diameter but I didn't have any aluminium that size, nearest thing I could find was an old wheel spacer that was 6.5" diameter, this was deemed just large enough to suit a MSD 6.375" timing tape, first thing was to turn the diameter to 6.375" and then bore the centre out to 3.480 to sit over the blower hub nicely, holes were then drilled and tapped in the alternator pulley for it to bolt too, then the excess aluminium was turned off. Then the new pulley was bolted on with 5 x 1/4" UNC ARP stainless bolts Once the blower pulley is back on it sits about 5 thou off the small bolts which makes it impossible for them to come out. This is the sheet of Timing tapes, they are self adhesieve, once we reset TDC it will be stuck in place. .
Very fancy Steve. Will you be making it to Dragstalgia then? Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Found some time yesterday to fettle the garnish mouldings to a nice fit, A tip for customers fitting these is they were moulded off originals so if you look carefully the original screw hole locations are moulded into them. I just drilled out and used some stainless posidrive screws but I intend to replace with stainless slotted screws over the next few days as they look much better. We also hope to have front & rear garnish mouldings available very soon. .
Well after what seems like weeks of backward steps last night at 9.45pm the Willys burst into life and ran like a champ I just hope it didn't frighten the neighbours too much Fred came over yesterday at 3.00pm and we went back to basics and retimed the complete engine, as we suspected the problem was the markings on the crank timing gear, we set it all up again with the degree wheel and ignored the marks, it took a few hours checking and double checking and then triple checking but after checking for oil pressure etc etc it burst into life after one turn of the key just a bit of fine tuning on the carbs & dizzy to do now. Huge thanks to Fred who sussed the problem and went beyond the call of duty to get it done ( I think he was as keen as I was to hear it run really ) Unfortunately no video just yet as the radiator is at the repair shop but when it returns will get some vid done Heres a pic of it all stripped out Heres a pic of the timing tape installed on the homemade pulley thingy. .
Glad to see you back on the coupe and getting it sorted Steve! Hope you make the drags, and maybe post a run video!
I managed to get a short video done, not very long as the radiator isn't back till tomorrow and I didn't want to get too much heat in the motor but it gives you an idea.
Big day, Steve.......it sounds fantastic. Just the other night we were watching the movie Hot Rod and I was thinking about your Willys and wondering where you were on it. You've come a long ways in just over 3 years.........nice job. Don
Do you have any idea how long it takes to read this entire thread? Hours and hours and I enjoyed every moment of it! You are a great talent and I enjoyed your transparency as you tackled each problem and shared each small victory with us as you progressed through the project. I hope you make it to the race this year . Now back to my project with much inspiration supplied by your thread!
Update and a good one for a change after various annoying little problems the motor is now pretty much dialed in and running pretty sweetly now, unfortunately I missed Dragstalgia which I was really disappointed about I took it out for a quick drive up the road and everything seems fine but i'm not convinced about the front brakes, you have to stomp on them pretty hard to get it to stop, a quick call to Wilwood and I found out they now do a narrow forged Dynalite caliper which would more or less replace the Vectra calipers I am already using, result !!! It would mean new caliper brackets but that wasn't gonna be a big deal. Calipers turned up in 3 days but I hadn't thought of adding brake pads to my order so back onto them and they arrive tomorrow The pics below tell the story and I also changed the brake flexis to Black, still 100% stainless but with a black over lay, looks better I think. The Wilwood writing on the calipers is gonna have to go though. .
Well the brake pads turned up on time so we bled the brakes and got a nice pedal, the pads need bedding in as they are the hard green type. It was nice and quite outside today (for a while ) so a quick trip up the road was in order to test the brakes All was good and Sue did a short video without me knowing so here it is http://youtu.be/8mqdD-BiUTA
The Jalopy Journal
