Projects Flashback50 front end redesign and implementation

We are talking about your 49, right? I;ll try to get to the shop in the next day or two and take a picture to send to you of the spare rod. I am sure it is off the 49 that we took the trunk from. Can you provide an email address? That would be easier to get a good resolution picture through. Bob

 

ok will pm you

 

Just a quick update on the pre-luber project. I think that I found the last of the parts needed yesterday, at a local hardware/lumber big box store. With the parts that I got from ZORO, and the parts from Harbor Freight, I am now ready to start assembly. The wood guys are trimming a piece of 2x10 that I marked up to make a stable base for this rig. Here is a picture of the components laid out ready for assembly. In case any of you are faced with doing something similar to this, I checked into available rigs and found that most of them are at least $150. So far I have about $40 into this and with the 20 or 25 foot oil resistant feed hose I will probably close up close to$55.
Best regards, Bob

PS... I am placing a chemical resistance chart below which I edited to show most common solvents / lubricants used in a garage and the polyethelyene (PET) tank I picked has a good resistance rating for motor oils.
NOTE: the guy that built this chart had a good sense of humor or was very through,,,, notice the last entry for wine and spirits! Brings up all kinds of ideas for continued use of the rig after the engine is running.

 

I certainly hope you are all going to enjoy a great Christmas and peaceful new year. I got just a bit more done before it was time to shut down for the holiday activities. Turned out that the top opening of the tank was sized perfectly for a 2 inch washer with a 3/4 inch bore to take the fittings needed for the 1/4 inch air piping.


Used the same washers on the bottom with some Permatex sealant as well as the gaskets that I cut out of the closed cell foam sheet. It got a bit messy trying to troll the squeezed out sealant around the inside washer but I kept at it till there were no fine strands sticking out.



After the sealant dried I assembled the rest of the fittings on each end using petroleum jelly as a lube, in case any of it was left behind to be in contact with the oil.


Then I prepared the bottom rail with tabs to hold down (anticipating the pull of the air hose could be enough to tip unit out of base) to base, and completed the assembly.

The base is just a piece of scrap 2x10 that I had in the shop with a slot cut into it for the outlet piping. The original hose fitting was plugged with a brass 'button' that Larry whipped out for me. In the week between Christmas and New Years I hope to get back to the quarter window seal fitting and will have some time to do a pressure test on this rig to make sure that it can be used up to 40PSI without any issues.
Best regards to all and hope you have a great Christmas. Bob

 

Hey, Bob... are you going to install this in your car to prelube your engine every time you start it?

 

Hi Paul. No, I do not have a fancy engine so I am mainly concerned with getting all the bearings and journals lubed good before I try to crank the engine. It has been sitting for over 3 years so I don't want to rip up the bearing surfaces by cranking dry. I will spray some Marvel Mystery Oil into the plug holes to lube the upper cylinder/ring areas and then pump a couple of gallons of oil through the system while I bar the engine 15° or so every couple of minutes so that the bearings and lifters all get some fresh oil to work with. Bob
PS... plan on using 5W20 for the first month or so since that will most likely not be on the street as we have some Accel ignition issues to work through before it is street worthy.

 

Probably too late but why not a chopped up distributor shaft and drill motor??? That's what I did...

 

Paul. There is a 69 Impala restoration next to my stall in the shop (Daughter and Son-in-law's project) and a drill motor drive for the pump sitting on the engine. Problem is that when they shoehorned the sbc350 into our car the distributor ended up under the recess in the firewall and there is no simple way to get the drill motor suitably aligned to drive the pump tang. You can sort of see the problem mid page 4 where I took some images while testing the under hood lighting. Bob

 

Is that an LS ? Anyway, your engine is different from mine, but I only have about 1/2 inch between firewall and distributor cap. Surprisingly enough, if I take the cap and rotor off, I still have room to get the distributor out....

https://49fordcoupe.smugmug.com/Prepping-for-Engine/i-npdqLHG/A

Dang you must be some kind of electrical engineer or something..great wiring diagrams. I do mine in pencil and eraser - freehand.....ahahah....then take a picture of it. Some posted in the "wiring the car" gallery..
https://49fordcoupe.smugmug.com/Wiring-the-Car/i-qbRVXSN/A
https://49fordcoupe.smugmug.com/Wiring-the-Car/i-f9p4bzZ/A
https://49fordcoupe.smugmug.com/Wiring-the-Car/i-qbsZpLH/A

Guess I'm not as patient as you..hahaha

Oh by the way how did you get your SS trim strips on your windshield??
Paul

 

Did get to the shop to pressure test the pre-lubing rig. Only one problem found, the pressure relief valve started blowing out somewhere between 35 and 40 psi. Since I want to run at 40psi, i took the valve off and put a spacer under the hold off spring. I got to thinking about the increased spring pressure on the plastic shoulder washer and decided to put some plastic glue over the end of the stem and shoulder washer mating area. That should take care of the issue so I will retest to confirm, but don't expect anything new to pop up. I have ordered an inline screen type filter to put in the delivery hose line connected to the oil output and will probably have to adapt the end fitting (expect metric threads) to make a clean 1/4 npt interconnect. Best regards. bob

 

Finally got the rear quarter windows installed. I just had to give up on using the Steelerubber weatherstripping that I thought was so good for the application. A great product but I was not seeing the solution after several weeks of coming back to how to fit the stripping to the opening. The problem is that the custom windows are 'full cut' and therefore the gasketing needed to ride up on the windows in certain areas (corners) and the relief space between the glass and the body metal varied a lot. Finally found an MD product (1033) that whipped the solution into view.

This stripping worked great as it could be formed around the corners (following the outline of the opening that I had traced onto the windows with a grease pencil) with a couple of relief cuts to the outer rim and it was thick enough to make a sandwich that fit perfectly in the trough formed by the body metal assembly.

The windows went in after a small amount of trimming in the areas where the fastener pads for the vent and main channel mounting screws used to fit into the upper rim.

I do need to figure out what to use to fill the gaps where the channel post used to fit into the window assembly as the stainless trim mounting rail was bowed out to accommodate the extra thickness and not originally noticeable due to the rubber seal flaps that lapped over all.

I'm looking for epdm rubber stripping that can be trimmed to fill the gap, or a tube of sealant that finishes to a dull rubber look. Perhaps someone can recommend where to look or what to look at. Thanks for your interest, regards to all. Bob

 

Well,,, this was a week to 'live and learn' or perhaps pay attention and learn. I am trying to check out and power up all the electrical circuits and made a really dumb mistake. I thought it would be a good idea to put an illuminated switch in for the manual fan power (radiator fan). I had combined the old manual fan relay power with a diode bridge to the AC clutch power lead from the temperature controller. I got a bit ahead of myself when I ordered the illuminated switch to replace the old steel bat handle switch that was under the dash. I bought a switch that had the LED for illumination wired from the wiper to the NO pole and required putting a ground to the NO pole. On proper illumination switches the ground pole is to the second section (dpdt type base). The manual control worked fine and the switch lighted just as expected. However when I tried to check out the AC circuits and cycled the controller to the on (clutch power) position, the diode bridge from the manual switch circuit to the AC clutch circuit provided a short circuit path back to ground and I ended up with some very warm wires.

I have now ordered a new, proper type switch to take care of that problem and still have an illuminated switch when in manual mode. While waiting I have removed the AC controller box (blue box upper right) and am going through the circuit to make sure all is ok.
Discovered that the power wires to the heater fan were never protected (supposed to be low current fuses in line) and since the manufacturer makes quite a point of protecting figure that the motor can stall in very cold temperatures so I used some inline crimp fuses and fixed that problem.

I went into this project thinking that I could gather up all the harnessed fuses and get them all on a panel somewhere but that is turning out not to be possible so I will make a pictorial guide to the fuses that got left in the harnessing.
Wile on the subject of unprotected fusing,,,, the radiator fan controller relay power also was not protected and that is a really big concern since it is basically the battery plus supply wiring to the starter, extended to the fan relay. I ordered a 25A self resetting breaker to put in the line and got that taken care of this week also by mounting next to the maxi fuse in the engine compartment..

I have been working on the speaker mountings also and got the rear speakers mounted, but have run into a puffing up (bubbling) of the upholstery on the package deck and need to figure a work around for that. I do have access below so could 'stuff' some support under that area or inject some foam to 'fill' the area better or ????.

I got the interior lights powered up and went to install the pillar lights and realized that I was going to do something about the slots at the bottom of the housing where the assist straps used to come out. Talked it over with Larry and we decided to put some 'filler pieces' in to get rid of the eyesore edges.

So, this has been a week of one step ahead and one step back but I do believe that I am getting a good 'education' on the particulars of this car and that should make things easier in the future. Bob

 

So,,,some may remember that I changed the pillar lights out from type 87 bulb (that keeps melting the plastic lens piece) to LED to keep them cool and brighter.

Last week, while checking out the fuse circuits, I got the box of prepared pillar light parts out and then I remembered that I was going to do something about the assist straps. I had decided that I did not want them on the rebuild, but had not done anything about the gap that removing them left in the chrome cover for the pillar light (bottom was slotted out to allow the straps to anchor on the mounting bolt (1/4-20) at the base. I talked to Larry about it and asked if he could make a Delron (black plastic that is polishable) filler.
Larry called a couple days later and noted that he had measured the slot up and 3/8 sheet stock would be perfect for the filler piece but he did not have in Delron. He did have acrylic (clear stuff) and said that he could pop them out of that if I wanted to paint them. I agreed but when he brought them over I took a look and realized that painting them would be wasting an opportunity. It took me a day or so to work out using up more of the left over LED strips that I had and decide how to finish the acrylic but here is what I ended up with.

With the bench lights off, I get a nice spread of light from the bottom piece and believe that it will work very well in the car to help illuminate lower area for anyone needing access to the back seat/floor. Bob

 

Bob, those acrylic pieces are BITCHIN' man! You should do a limited run and offer them for sale. I'd buy a pair for sure!

 

I just found this thread and have only made it through the first few pages, wow! I am going to have to spend some time on this. I'm working on a 50 Styleline and can already tell this is going to be a major source of information and inspiration. Thanks for taking the time to document everything in such detail.

 

Thanks Eric. I was thinking about how that could be done but it would seem to be more painful than gainful. I had three sets of bases and four sets of housings to work with and we could not find any two exactly the same, so Larry had to mark the housing/base combinations we chose and then trace the upper and lower mating lines onto a roughed out oversize piece so that he could machine and hand trim each piece so that would line up with the edges of the base and housing properly. I polished the inside surface before gluing the LED strip to it and sealing with silicon sealant. and even that operation was not the same on both pieces due to the different offset where the housing edges were folded up to make an opening for the assist strap. I would be happy to send some 'assembly detail' pictures to anyone that wanted to make up a set or could even hlep someone if they live in the area (Rockford is near the Wisconsin border about half way across the flat top (arrowhead) of Illinois).

 

Man, I'd love some assembly pics if you have the opportunity. You're welcome to send them to my email at [email protected], but I think everyone else would like to see them too. I love these simple, thoughtful, well executed ideas!

 

OK Eric. Hope that I don't upset anyone with the details. Here is the build up. Quite a while back I posted a tech look at converting the pillar lights over to LED and this was the result of that work.

Taking off from there,,,,, when Larry gave me back the lights with the acrylic pieces added, I decided to look at the inventory of LED strips (most of those you can cut in three LED segments and attach wires to each segment.

I tried a few different types and decided on the one sandwiched in between the pot metal weight and the acrylic piece in the picture above.

After testing with power attached I was happy and then got to figuring out how to attach.

I used super glue on the top of each LED to bond optically close to the acrylic. When that dried, I used silicon sealant (glass clear) to strengthen the bond of the LED strip to the acrylic piece. Looked over possibilities for connecting the power leads and decided that direct to LED array that replaced lamp was better than 'T' connecting outside of assembly to the power feed to pillar. Took just a quick tap with a hot iron (mini tip) to add new wire connection to the existing (tip of power wire) connection and the socket ears were tinned brass so they took the ground wire easily.

Dressed the wires so that they would not get crushed by the lens cover and retested (posted that picture first) after putting all together.

That's it in a nutchell. Have a great weekend. Bob

 

Seriously cool, Bob! Thanks for sharing!

 

Could you post a link to the tech post?

 

Sorry cool57, but the tech post was removed by moderator. Some felt that the pillar light should not be changed to LED since it is visible when showing the car. If you want to send me an email address, I will provide the information necessary to replicate the project. bob

 

Pillar lights are now installed and tested.

Quite happy with the light spread from the bottom acrylic pieces.



They show up from front/rear end better than I thought they would

Next I am going to try and finish up fitting of door window frames and installation of speakers so I can close up the door work. Regards to all. Bob

 

I totally "get" the traditional thing, but removing that thread was stupid.

 

Have just come out of the heavy part of semester for CLR and getting some time in on the car for a few weeks till things load up again. Found an interesting problem when I tried to put the doors together. Either the 50 window frames are deeper than the 49's or the 49 doors were not not as deep as the 50's because when I put the frames on and tried to fasten down the window was being pinched due to a narrow gap. This also could have been because the 49's used fabric fuzzy strips while the 50's used stainless backed fuzzys. No matter what the reason, I had to find a work around. After going at the problem from several directions I decided to space the frames away from the mating surface on the doors by about 1/8 inch. Then I used dense rubber matting (1/2 inch thick) strips of about 1/4 inch width (cut with our electric kitchen knife per advice from my 'woody' friends next door) and stuffed the strips in the gap before pulling everything down.

That worked out well and, in fact, the window frame pushed up against the wind lacing better than before. Today, I finished getting both doors assembled, speakers installed, radio fully tested, and also got the pucker out of the package deck with a riser panel under the center area.

spring clips on the vent windows due to still trying the get the rubber to set properly before I put the handles on the vent windows. I have new black knob (to match the dash knobs) cranks for the doors but did not get to them yet.

Started working on the adapter for the MOMO steering whell. Larry is machining up a new lock lever for the telescoping steering wheel and I will polish that when he is done so that it matches the rest of the hub.
Carpet was pretrimmed today and will be bound for final installation in a week or so.
By the way,,, I changed to black oxide hex drive screws at front and rear of door frames (had to add the rear holes and rivet nuts) so that they would not stick out so much. Original Ford frame colors were much lighter gray and the stainless hardware was not so noticeable.

The picture above was taken while I was still struggling with the window cramping issue so the vent seals were not set properly hence the strange rollover in view.
Almost forgot the 'pucker gone' shot of the package deck. Here is that 'solution'.



Thanks again for all your comments and suggestions. It seems that we may get this car on the road by summer.
Best regards, Bob

 

OK,,, I remember now,,, way back in high school auto shop when we were learning to weld,,,, the teacher kept saying how important is was to keep the heat absorption as equal as possible. Well, some things just don't make a good impression till they bite you on the rear end. While I was adjusting the trunk latch for proper closure clearances it 'broke loose'. After cleaning the parts a bit and laying out on the bench it was clear that the weld heat (and subsequent fusion) was not balanced between the mounting plate and the trunk ledge sheet metal.

On one side the weld bead was infused with the latch plate base and barely spatter showed up on the trunk ledge it was welded to.

On the other side,,, the weld bead was rooted in the trunk ledge and barely even sticking to the latch plate base.
Clearly the issue was dissimilar heat absorption (energy absorption) in the two different masses in contact with the arc. To the rescue---- Larry machined up a new base plate and ball milled the end contact areas so that they would be more matched to the mass of the trunk ledge sheet metal.

Andy came up to do the honors with the welding as I tend to make a mess of things like that and I painted up the area to get it ready for remounting of the latch assembly and alignment of the trunk closure.


Steve Pekrul of Seatbelt Planet spent some time with me and worked out the proper seatbelt mountings/lengths and configurations to make them do what we wanted and that item is now checked off my list.

In the midst of all that, I started to clean up the headers (overspray and other junk) thinking to myself that next time we do something like this I am going to take the time to carefully cover all the ceramic coated stuff with masking so that clean up is a matter of removing something simple like tape and paper. I ended up ordering some white Scotch-Brite pads (1200 grit equivalent soft surface) and have made a first pass on the passenger side after removing all the brackets and other knuckle ripping things that I could.

Per the volumes that I read on how to do this most effectively I am using strips of the scotchpads and Mequires clear coat safe polishing compound and remembering how I used to hate polish my shoes. Plugs are loose so I remove the one in the area where I am working and then put it back when I am done to avoid getting junk into the upper cylinder areas.
Larry made a new lock lever for the telescoping steering wheel (needed that because I changed to a MOMO wheel and billet aluminum hub assembly and the old latch lever no longer fit) and we checked it out last week to make sure that all is going to work properly. The old Cadillac latch was pointing up because of the horn plate coverage and that being the only area where it was easy to get to. The new wheel has a centered horn plate so I think that I am going to shift the hub and bring the latch lever out the side so that when parked viewers will not be looking into a big 'gap' in the top of the hub.



If my fingers hold up and my wrists don't swell, I hope to get the headers and other accessories cleaned up and start working on pre-lubing the engine in the next week or two. I am getting anxious to hear it run,,,,, it's been over three years now. Best regards to all and hope your projects are coming along pleasantly. Bob

 

OK, OK, so I am remembering more of the 'old days' auto shop / mechanics classes and the instructor that kept saying "Pay attention" and "Use your head". Thursday about noon our time I hit another brick wall. I was under the impression that the day was going reasonably well,,, should not have allowed those thoughts. Went to put the instrument cluster in the dash and found out I did not have a big enough shoe horn. Turned the cluster every way but loose and could not wiggle, wedge, or wish it into position. Took some dimensions as a reality check and sure enough I was about an inch short of an easy slip into position.

Above is the ruler positioned between the dash stiffener rail and the body ledge that the dash is attached to and even with the ruler slanted there is less than 5.5 inches to work wth.

Clearly the instrument cluster is close to 6 inches measured vertically and diagonal length form lower rear bottom to upper front top (bottom is away from us in this picture) was close to 7 inches. So I knew that the cluster was going to have to be tilted into the upper clearance space and the bottom swung into position in the cavity. Could not get it to go! Gave up and went home for the day. Friday morning after about 6 cups of coffee and a lot of thoughts about having to drop the dash just to put the instrument cluster into place,,,, I realized that if I unplugged the high beam lamp socket and the upper cluster lighting socket there might be a chance that I could tuck the upper cluster housing/frame and Fuel/Oil gauge circuit boards into the cavity between the body ledge that the dash mounts to and the inner top space of the dash cavity. Pulled the sockets put some masking back on the stainless dress rim, and in it went. UNBELIEVABLE! I didn't even have to push or pull on anything.

Spent the next hour or so thinking about all that I have forgotten over the years and cleaning up the mess of several days of frustrations. Good news for the day is that Sheldon is planning on finishing up the upholstery modifications this week coming and that means that I can finish up putting the interior together.
Hope you all had a great week and a lot less frustrations than I did. Regards, bob

 

A bit of time on the car this week and some measurable progress. I got some time to fit the AC louvers in and cut a new piece of thin wall tube to cover the steering column switch cluster from view.

Andy will paint the column cover when the car goes back for final touch up.
Sheldon finished up the upholstery and we did a trial fit of the back seat.

Pulled it out after fit check as the guys from Rockford Auto-Glass will be here Tuesday morning to install the front and rear windows. RAG has a guy that specializes in classic car glass work and he will be doing the installation.
They "paddy caked" (their expression not mine! for steaming) the fabric areas and carpet areas that had 'puckers'.

And then I got everything ready for the window exercises.


Hope you all have a great weekend. Regards, Bob

 

OK,,, glass is in. If you noticed the back seat fit in the picture of previous post, it would not go down on both sides and lock into the latch ramps. If we put one side down the other side popped up off it's ramp. While waiting for the glass guys, I looked the problem over a little better and confirmed that the crown of the tunnel was interfering with the seat positioning and the seat was tettering over it like a pivot point. Looked around the shop and found a piece of 7.5 inch pipe split down the middle, put a piece of padding and carpet over the pipe and it fit into the arc of the tunnel relief perfectly. Got Tracy to let up on his woodies (got a really sharp 48 going together now) for a bit and help me coax the seat frame to a bit more of a curvature by putting some force (we sat on the ends and bounced a bit) to the frame and it bent just right. Had to trial fit a couple of times so that we did not over do it but here it is.

A few issues popped up after the windows were in but nothing show stopping. The guys from Rockford Auto Glass worked their tails off for 2.5 hours to get the windows in and seated to their satisfaction. I thought they looked great well before that, but these guys are really tuned into the classics.


I have some fitting left to do with the center post rear view mirror/map light setup but Andy will come back when I am ready to put the post into place (his request, to make sure I don't screw up something) and that will finish up the glass work all around. Larry and I looked over the translator panel/wire bundle from the fuel control system eyesore and figured out how to get a cover fit on the area to mask off the ugly but still allow air flow. I will work on that next week while getting the engine prelube going.

Hope you all have a great weekend, I am off to the grandson's last soccer game for this season. bob

 

Did you ever wonder if some guys are just so strong that they don't realize they are cross threading fasteners. In my case 4X! Somewhere along the way of the car to me, someone apparently did not remember that US car manufacturers were slow to convert to metric and managed to put 4 M8 bolts into the fan mount extender. Took me a bit of time to figure out what the original threads were (used thread gauge, inspection mirror and lamp to work on back end of holes in the water pump flange) and then some more time to carefully retap the holes to original spec. so that I could put proper bolts in the flange.

That done, spent some time getting the plug wires properly distributed and decided to sheath the run from distributor to first loom bracket. Am almost ready to put fuel in the tank, test the pump, purge the air from the line, check the fuel pressure, and see if the engine will fire up. When all is OK, I will put on the new air filter and extension (cover) of the plenum over the distributor.


While working on the plug wire looming I noticed one of the fuel lines up against one of the 'A' frame bolts so also took some time to redress and cushion the lines against abrasion. A week of progress just would not be the same without a mystery. While reworking the mounting for the translator panel under the dash (longer bolts so that we can put a dress cover over all), one of my wrenches went missing. I mean missing! The shop is probably more organized and straightened than it has been for some time as I just could not find that wrench. Tracy took a break from his '48 woodie project and stopped over to see what was going on. As I expressed my frustration about the missing wrench,,,, he asked what were you doing when it went missing and I went through the whole timeline,,,, yep,,,,, that's when i realized the last time I had seent he wrench. Did some digging and sure enough an expanded understanding as to why I have found, over the years, wrenches and other tools in and under things of other's cars. Here was the solution to my mystery.

Hope you all have a great week. Bob

 

Hi All. Just couldn't resist putting up something inspiring. I stopped over to the Kings' woodworking shop this morning to thank Tracy for jogging my mind on the lost wrench that was driving me crazy and got a look at their cars in progress. Just thought I would share. It is amazing to see and hear how much work goes into finding the original spec wood, tracing the pattern from an original piece to the replacement part, and fitting it all together according to the factory identified procedures.
I'm guessing that going down the custom path is less frustrating than the documented restoration path but after the week that I just went through,,, I am not entirely sure of that. Hope you all have a great weekend. bob