1930s Era Champ Car - new project

Who made the gears and where can I get them?

 

Thank you Ryan. Being the worlds biggest attention whore I get inspired to read your comments and it helps keep me motivated. I unfortunately split my time between lots of things, not all automotive oriented, so progress drags on slowly at times. (Don't give up on my Attic Anglia project either - I'll get back to it.)
I am going to try to discipline myself to do something every day, however menial, to make progress. That is the best way to see a project through to completion.
As I'm inching up on getting this engine fired up my enthusiasm is building. I'll post a video so you all can hear it run.

 

Fabber, I acquired them several years ago. I'm trying to contact the maker but all I have is a phone number and he doesn't answer. I remember his screen name was mikenson. Can anybody help?

 

Thank you, if we don't get some help within a few days maybe I'll start a new thread asking for information. Might be someone who knows but isn't watching this thread. The amount of knowledge available on this forum is unbelievable.

 

A 240 Load-a-matic distributor fits under the twin SU intake manifold. The wires will be routed around the rear of engine, up under the headers. I have two of these - one with an iron gear for flat tappet cams and one with a bronze gear for roller cams.





On the other side I found some vintage right angle phenolic plug terminals that will allow me to route the wires under the headers. Note the high placement of the exhaust ports off the deck surface.



I have this thing for casting flash. It bothers me and I grind it off where I can, like this t-stat housing. Also, I like to resurface the sealing surfaces and note the STO temp on the housing.

 

What's the long piece of metal attached to the distributor? Looks like a hole in the end maybe for a mechanical advance and retard?

On my cobrajet I made one from and old lawnmower throttle control. Spaced the distributor hold down clamp out so the distributor would rotate freely but stay in the block. Had the throttle cable on my shifter and when hitting high gear moved the throttle lever pulling the distributor into less advance.

 

Yes Loudbang, it is to play with the spark advance from the control console position while the engine is running. The load-a-matic distributor had no centrifugal advance - just vacuum advance. I locked out the vacuum advance and will manually advance the spark if necessary by a piece of welding wire thru the hole on the end..

 

More progress today. Header on.Exhaust pipe will clear console.



I'm waiting for Brown Santa to bring me spark plug wire. But until then I fitted up the intake to check for fit. It looks like it will all work. Need to run fuel lines, make gaskets, and a rudimentary throttle linkage.





BOY, THAT IS ONE HEINOUSLY UGLY VALVE COVER. ITS GOT TO GO.

 

Love it!

 

Today I made spark plug wires. I used just a little less than a quarter mile of wire. Maybe I'll advance the timing a few more degrees because the spark has such a long way to travel.





Oil pressure light switch is installed. Dip stick needs calibrating.

One bad thing about this arrangement - I'll have to remove the intake manifold if I need to change distributors. That sounds like as big a pain as having to remove the EFI intake to remove the valve cover.

Getting close to fire-up.

 

It runs!

 

Linky no worky!

 

HAMB said that video was too large. I'll try editing.

It started and ran. The side draft carbs need rebuilding. The exhaust sounds real mellow - LOUD, but mellow.
I only ran it at 10 DEG base timing. We will add advance next time.
Post running leakdown checks showed all cylinders leaked between 11% and 13% - except #4 where a leaking intake valve (???) showed considerably more. I think 11 - 13% is not bad considering this is a first fire up and using a standard (non file-fit) ring pack. Before I remove the head I'll make a collapsed tappet gap checker to see if the valve is hanging open, and maybe change that lifter too, just because.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/152086878@N03/30691060008/in/photostream/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/152086878@N03/42771937540/in/dateposted/

My videographer / bride captured the sound coming off that tail pipe plus the whine of the straight-cut timing gears. Love it

 

I'd like to see your video, but flicker wants me to join up and I'm not about to. Perhaps more guys would see it on youtube.

 

Really nice car. If you're not familiar with those carbs, the throttle shafts and bores need to be very good for the carbs to work well. I rebuilt 2 of them for my TR4 and the rebuild kits came with bronze bushings for the shaft bores. Had a machinist install them for me. I think the kits may have included new shafts, too. I synced the carbs by listening through a piece of hose stuck into the intake, works as well as using a vacuum gauge according to the old-timers. And they do run somewhat richer after the air cleaners are installed. I had a really good manual (Haynes I think it was) that explained what to look for when rebuilding and tuning these carbs but that was 30 years ago. I've done two, I'm sure there's guys here that have done 100 in their sleep.

 

I'd still like to get a set of those timing gears. Is it alright with you if I use your pictures and start a new thread asking about them? Thanks.

 

I'll see if I can transfer the vids to youtube and upload them from there.

Fabber, Yes please do. And let me know if you make contact with the maker. I need to contact him.

 

Here it is on youtube:



Linky worky?

 

Link works fine. Wow, those are noisy gears, haha. Way cool.
Are you in the blue shirt?
I just started a thread asking about the gears.

 

OK cool. Yep I'm in the blue wife beater. The other three guys in my crew are part of our Tuesday nights "Loose Screws" car "club". I use quotation marks because we have no dues, no officers, no matching tees, no agenda. We just get together and work on each other's projects once a week. The guy in the white shirt drives my roadster pickup drag car. (He's the one shown beating me in the finals on another youtube video.)

The slides on the SU carbs had no dampening oil in them. Consequently when the engine first starts the slides just snap partially open and stick there. You see me monkeying with them to get them to close back down so the engine will run correctly. So I need to go through the carbs. I am not really sure the carbs are genuine SUs or just a knock off. The air horn threads are metric, so that makes me suspicious. I don't see any numbers on the number pads, nor any brand name. There is a little logo / hallmark on the top of the bowls. That's it. I'll take a pic so maybe somebody can ID it and tell me what I've got and I can order parts.

59Tele, The throttle shafts seem snug, not worn. The slides have channels cut into the piston part that slides in the bores. Are they supposed to have some kind of a sealing ring on them? These don't.

One of the intake valves is hanging open a little. I checked collapsed tappet gaps and that valve had none, so I may shim the rocker stands for more hydraulic tappet clearance. But it sounds like it is going to be a strong runner. We'll see.

 

Linky Worky! Awesome!

 

Thanks caatusl, I checked out your Chev truck build - very impressive.

 

Timing gears with infinite timing were used on 911 Porsches; they were secured by a large nut over threaded cam nose, hard 'wave washer' covering the adjustment holes. The pins were tapped 3mm., so a 'T' shaped tool could be inserted to pull the pin, and push it back 'home'...
This adjustment had to be done any time the chain(s) stretched, and/or tensioners were replaced. (obviously)
To see them incorporated in my FAVORITE 6 cyl. project was frosting on the cake!
...and any anxiety to make 'contact with the Maker'...Please, lets put that off...
Great thread!

 

Hey thanks! Very kind of you to say. I have a single seat project( "The Levee Leveler") that is currently stalled due to other projects so seeing yours helps keep my fire lit!

 

No, no sealing ring as I recall. Really, these carbs are all about the main jet: the tapered brass pin at the bottom of the piston and its accompanying brass seat. The pin itself has 3 grooves at the top and a tiny circlip to position it. The bottom groove would be for a richer mixture, the top for a leaner. Best to start off in the middle position and work from there. The pin should be in perfect condition, straight and no wear. Hard to tell from your pics but it looks like there's no connecting linkage between the carbs yet. On my TR4 there was a rod with 2 clamps that connected the throttle shafts together. The process of syncing the carbs went thus: loosen one of the clamps,doesn't matter which one, you just want the throttle shafts to operate independently of each other. Get a piece of hose and stick it near the bottom of the piston and give it a listen. Now listen to the other carb. It will sound different. A "woosh" sound means the idle is turned up. A "sssssss" sound means the idle is turned down. What you want to do is match the sound of the carbs to each other. I always worked to get an even "sssss" sound. As you listen while you adjust the idle screw you'll hear the pitch change. When you get them evenly matched, retighten the clamp. Now you can adjust the overall idle for the 2 carbs, use the idle screw on one of the carbs and on the other one adjust it until it just kisses the stop. I think the damper oil used was straight 20 wt. I'm sure there's a YouTube video on how to do this and you'll see what the linkage looks like, very simple stuff to fab yourself. A couple of inch long collars with 2 setscrews each would work for the clamps. I hope this helps, awesome project. When figuring your carbs out and discover I may have given any wrong info, it was 30 years ago and I'm like, old.

 

Thanks 59Tele. I also read up on the SU carbs and now have a pretty good idea how to rebuild / calibrate / tune them. Somebody said 15W-50 oil worked good to dampen the slides - mine were dry and hence when it started there was no resistance to the slides snapping open and hanging there. The videos basically said what you said so I feel confident to get into them. On the test stand I made up a couple of bell cranks and linkages to connect the two carbs in unison just visible in the video opening scene, mounted to the oak carb adapter.


I also made a collapsed tappet checker and found out the #4 intake valve was hanging open. So today I made up a set of rocker shaft pedestal stand shims to raise up the rocker shaft slightly.

 

ATF works good on the slides of SUs. The oil is necessary to proper functioning.

 

Excellent that you found some info. In case you're wondering, "SU" stands for Skinner's Union. Don't ask me why. Have fun.

 

One more thing. If your carbs are in fact SUs, and depending on the age, like maybe pre-early 60s, the threads will be neither SAE or metric but Whitworth, which are 26 threads per inch, so you definitely don't want to lose any screws. Not impossible to find but none at Ace Hardware. And you thought they only drive on the wrong side of the road.

 

Thanks. When I take them apart I'll check the thread sizes, but the metric mounting bolts worked perfectly.
Skinner was the guy's name who developed these carbs. I find them intriguing. Some guys on the vids I watched said they are not the best choice for racing, presumably because there is a bit of lag time for the slides to go full open when you mash down on the loud pedal. No big concern to me - I'd rather they run smoothly with no bog than function like a more conventional big carb with butterflys.