This is really great! I think it’s cool that you kept it all these years until you were in a position to build it up the way you wanted.
WOW . A cool car / project. You've held on to it all these years . You have some great fab skills . Wishing you all the best on your project . Will be waiting for future updates.
When I was first building this way back in the late 90's, I had wanted power steering, power brakes, power windows, power trunk lid and this steering column that can be slid over by an electric motor. Now .. 23 years later as I look at this, the first thing I imagine is being at a car show 50 miles from home and I flip the switch to move the steering column back into the driving position and nothing happens .... I have decided to forget about all the power stuff ( except for the power steering and brakes ) and make the movable steering column, the windows and the trunk lid all manual. Here is the electric motor for the steering column. And the electric fuses, relays and limit switches that were used to operate it. That drops my electrical system back to the basic fuse box with horn relay and flashers for the turn signals and 4-ways. Here is the carriage that holds the steering column to the square guide rod. There are two bearings mounted on the top and the front with a single bearing mounted on the bottom and the back. The single bearings on the bottom and the back are spring loaded so there isn't any slop between the carriage and the square rod it rides on. I have this latch assembly from a car door that I'm going to use to hold the steering column in the driving position. This will be operated manually and the steering column can be move sideways by hand.
Playing around on the computer and I ran across a boost pressure chart from BDS. It shows that running a 471 at a 1/1 drive ratio would give a maxim of 6 pounds boost at 6,000 RPM. I also found a conversion chart where you can put in the information of your engine and the HP you want to achieve and it will give you the amount of boost needed. This information is interesting but I already know that the volume of air flow on the old Ford carburetor setup on this engine will not allow the blower to build up to that horsepower. However, it will still produce a lot more then the stock engine and it will be more then enough for driving on the street.
This is the door latch mechanism and the latch pin that I'm going to use to hold the steering column in place. This has a rotating latch with two lock positions. This is a safety feature on car door latches so they won't accidentally fly open. Here the latch pin is pushed into the first lock position. And finely pushed into the second lock position. The latch is operated by a brass rod that pushes the lock pin up to release the lock mechanism. The latch bolts onto the crossbar behind the dash with the brass operating rod sticking down below it. There is an adjustable rubber stop on the side for the carriage to come up against when the steering column is locked into the driving position. The steering column is in the driving position with the latch pin locked into the latch mechanism. When the brass rod is pushed up, the latch pin is released. And the steering column can be moved over to the center.
The radiator for this car is a 3-core radiator from an early 50's Ford truck with the flathead V-8. I took the top tank off and made up a transmission cooler to fit inside it with the fittings sticking out thru the holes where the upper hose fittings were mounted. Then I put a hose fitting in the hole where the fill neck use to be. The truck radiator is then mounted up side down with the top tank now on the bottom. I removed what was the bottom radiator tank and soldered a top tank off a model-T radiator to it. I got the bright idea of going ahead and using the original neck to fill the radiator. Thinking about that now, I realized that wasn't a good idea because the radiator would not be pressurized and I really need to have a pressurized system to keep this engine cool. So I un-soldered the original ' T ' fill neck. Then I soldered a patch over that hole in the top of the tank and mounted a regular radiator fill neck to the back of the tank. And I re-soldered the original ' T ' fill neck back onto the top of the tank. This way I still have the model-T fill neck sticking up thru the radiator shell and the system is now pressurized.
A lot of work went into mounting this 471 blower to this 354 Hemi engine. After I had gotten the blower, I found these old drive and idler pulleys at a swap meet. Both pulleys had their shafts still attached but there wasn't any bearings or any housings. I found an aluminum rear axle housing off a garden tractor to use for the main part of the snout that is bolted to the original blower front cover. Then I turned down a piece of aluminum to fit bearings into an pressed it into the end of the axle housing snout. There is an aluminum ring fastened to the back side of the drive pulley and it is holding a grease seal in place. This bearing tube is welded on the inside to the axle housing snout. A piece of 2-1/4 OD x 1/4 inch thick wall aluminum tube was machined to accept the bearings for the idler pulley. There is a piece of that thick wall tube sitting on the bench beside the pulley to show how stout it is. The arm was made up of machined pieces of aluminum welded together. I had to machine a big chunk of aluminum to form the pulley that fits on the crankshaft. It is the same diameter as the drive pulley on the blower for a 1/1 drive ratio. Back in the late 90's, several companies made a manifold to mount a 671 blower on a 354 Hemi but no one made a manifold for a 471 blower. So ... using that same 1/4 inch thick wall aluminum tube, I fabricated the intake manifold to fit this blower to the motor. I also machined out the rear cover plate for the blower and the valley cover plate on the engine underneath the manifold. The front and rear bearings on the blower are set up to be lubricated with 80/90 gear lube.There is a small piece of pipe with a slot in the end showing on the lower left corner. The slot is only there so the pipe could be threaded into the blower housing. There is a copper tube running from this piece of pipe to the rear bearing plate so the gear lube can flow back to it from the front. There is a copper tube showing on the right side of the blower bearing plate. That is a vent and it is connected to a matching vent in the rear bearing plate. The gear lube is put into the front bearing plate thru a hole that has a brass plug in it ( right above the copper tube ). Using the rotary table on my mill, I machined a half round slot into a triangular piece of aluminum that bolts onto the front cover. This a has a piece of glass mounted in it for checking the level of the gear lube. There is a small brass plug with a square head threaded into the bottom of this cover for draining the gear lube out if the cover needs to be taken off. The front and rear bearing plates are vented out thru this small blue tube coming out of the bottom of the blower housing.
Sorry guys ... I have realized that some of the information that I had just posted earlier is incorrect ( 23 years is a long time to try to remember everything that I did to this car ). It's a small matter and Technically I wouldn't need to even mention it because it isn't likely that anyone would catch the mistake. However, If I were to post a photo of the back of the blower with the cover off and someone noticed something that shouldn't be there ... then I would have a hard time explaining it so it's better to just go thru it right now. While I had the front cover off the blower to check the condition of the bearings and gears, it dawned on me that there wasn't a hole to put the gear lube into the front housing. So I went ahead and drilled an tapped a hole for this brass plug before I took the photos earlier ( you can see the shiny new threads cut into the darker aluminum ). I got to thinking about that later and I know that I would not have forgotten to put in a fill hole way back then. As I thought about it more, I finally remembered what I had done. So I pulled the cover off the back of the blower and sure enough, there is the plug to fill the front bearing plate with gear lube. That pipe in the lower left corner on the front is not to allow the gear lube to run to the back .. it is where the gear lube runs into the front when it is pored down this copper fill neck at the back. In this photo you can also see two grease fitting for lucubrating the rear bearings. The inside of the rear cover is machined out for clearance for the fill tube. Having this fill tube in the back isn't really the best place for it. It's hard to reach with it tucked in the way it is and as your poring gear lube into it, it's hard to gauge how much is put in because the sight glass is in the front. I could just leave it there but if one of the solder joints worked loose then it would make a mess. So I decided to take it out. And I put a plug in that hole in the bottom left corner. Here is a better photo showing the two grease fittings for the rear bearings. With the fill plug being in the front now, it is easier to reach and you can look right down at the sight glass while you're putting the gear lube in.
This has a 700R4 automatic transmission that uses a cable for activating the shifting points. From the information that I have found on the internet and talking with a few mechanics, the movement of that cable is very critical. Several company's make the special brackets needed to mount this cable on most any engine with most any carburetor and the information emphatically states that you should never try to make your own brackets ! This is another one of those times that I have thought .... if I had just put a 350 Chevy with a 4-barrel carb and a 400 transmission in this, I would have been driving it all this time instead of it sitting in storage. Oh well ......... Obviously no one makes a bracket for fastening the 700 cable to a 57 Chrysler Hemi with a blower and 4 carburetors. So, like it or not, I am going to have to make my own brackets. Luckily I was able to find this information that shows the dimensions needed for the operating lever that the cable is hooked to. The distance between the center of the throttle shaft and the cable attachment pin is 1.109 +/- .016. This is the critical lever that I have to make and it will mount on the throttle shaft that operates all 4 carburetors. The lever will be machined out of this block of aluminum and will be made in the same style as the throttle lever shown above it. I set this up in my smaller mill with the dial on the cross slide set on zero. Then I drilled the first hole out to rough size and finished the hole with an end mill. A drill bit can run off center but the end mill will bore the hole straight and true. It will also bring it out to the correct size as good as a reamer does. The dial on the cross slide is marked off at .050 per revolution. So I turned the handle out 22 times and brought it up .009 on the dial which moved the cross slide 1.109 inches. Then I put in the second hole. This second hole will hold a pin that has a small spring loaded ball in it to keep the pin from falling out. The back of the lever is counter bored down to the depth of that ball on the pin. Slots are cut into the lever and a hole is drilled and tapped in the end for a bolt to clamp the lever on to the throttle shaft. Then the lever is milled down and the corners are rounded off to finish it. There is a brass strip fitted into the end that the transmission cable will be attached to later. This transmission lever is mounted onto the throttle shaft with the brass strip hanging down behind the blower. This is as far as the cable comes forward from the transmission and the bracket will be bolted to the back of the blower in this position. Once that is mounted, then I will figure out where the cable pin needs to go on the brass strip and get that attached to it. I know that I can get a longer transmission cable but I like keeping the bulk of the cable bracket mounted down low like this instead of having it mounted higher up on the blower rear cover. The throttle is operated by pushing up on the longer lever on the throttle shaft and this will then pull on the transmission cable. This is the linkage that I had made up back then to operate the throttle lever. It is designed to have a gas pedal cable attached to the one end of the triangle shaped lever. When the cable pulls on that end it pushes the other end up to operate the throttle lever. I haven't quite figured out yet how I had planned to mount the pivot bracket to the manifold or engine behind the blower yet.
I machined off part of one of the ribs on the rear cover plate. Then I made up a spacer out of aluminum flat stock to fit into the machined area. A hole is drilled thru the spacer and thru the cover plate. The spacer is removed and threads are tapped into the hole in the cover plate. The hole in the spacer was drilled out larger for clearance and it was bolted to the cover plate. Then a second hole was drilled and tapped. The mounting bracket for the transmission cable can now be bolted onto the back of the cover plate. Machining the pin to connect to the plastic piece on the end of the transmission cable. I decided that I wanted something less bulky and a little more professional looking then that brass strip connected to the transmission cable. So I cut the end off of it and machined a slot in it to accept a brass rod. The cable pin is soldered to one end of the rod and flat piece is soldered to the other end. Here is the linkage connected to the throttle linkage and the transmission cable. With the throttle fully open, the cable is pulled tight. According to some videos that I looked at on the internet, when the throttle is wide open, the cable should be tight and it should feel " twangy " when you pluck it with your finger like a guitar string. That is the condition that I have here so hopefully this transmission will work alright.
This thing is RAD! As posted before it looks like a 60s AMT kit come to life! The small details in this are mind blowing. Thanks for sharing.
Interesting that you should mention that ... I used the body from an AMT kit to see how my coupe body would look if I shortened it.
Your work continues to be amazing. Hope to see it on the road soon. Just such a badass 60s cartoon vibe.
GREETINGS FROM GOODYEAR AZ NICE CAR.....GREAT START... PLZ DON'T GET IN A RUSH....1 THING AT TIME SHE WILL COME TOGETHER. NICE CAR.
A little more machining on the rear cover plate for the blower. Drilling and tapping two holes in a 1x3/4 inch block of aluminum. That block of aluminum is bolted onto the rear cover and then the cover is bolted back onto the blower. The triangular lever is bolted onto the top of the block of aluminum and the linkage rod is fastened to it and the upper linkage arm. The cable from the gas pedal will hook to the top hole on the triangular lever. Pulling back on the top of that lever, pushes the linkage rod up to open the carbs. This keeps the throttle linkage out of the way of the distributor and the spark plug wires. On a side note ... I had earlier expressed concern about the possibility of the engine being frozen up after sitting for so long and the storage area getting wet. I had said that I used a big screwdriver prying against the flywheel teeth and that I had moved the flywheel about 3/4 inch. Thinking about that, If there was a piston stuck right at top dead center or bottom dead center, the flywheel could move that little bit without actually moving that piston. So I pulled the big pulley off the front of the crank and put a socket and pry bar on the crank bolt and turned the engine over three full turns. I also pulled the valve cover off so I could watch the valves and get number one piston coming up on the compression stroke. The head and rocker arms still look really clean yet.
Glad it looks like the motor survived long term storage ok! Really enjoying your solutions to each small hurdle.
Hooking up the lines from the engine to the remote oil filter and also the lines coming from the transmission and running up along the outside of the frame. The transmission lines fasten to fittings on the outside of the frame. There are steel tubes welded into the frame rail and these fittings are screwed into them on the inside of the frame. The lines from the transmission cooler in the radiator will connect to these two fittings. I have a chrome steel cover that fits over the oil filter. Whereas it makes the filter look nicer, it is actually to protect the filter from being punctured from a rock being thrown up by the front tire. This has a power rack & pinion steering unit fastened under the frame rail on the left side. The tie-rod arm on the front side pushes out and pulls back in to turn the front wheels left and right. The tie-rod arm on the back side has been removed from the steering unit. This steering system works really well but it is awfully close to the exhaust header coming off the engine. I have made up two heat shields to block the direct heat from the exhaust. The one shield is flat and it is fastened to the oil pan so the pressure line coming from the power steering pump can run behind it. The other shield is formed into a " C " shape and it wraps around the main body of the steering unit with about 1/2 inch air space between the two. There is a large cooler unit fastened to the underside of the frame. The return line coming out of the steering unit runs into the front port on the cooler. The line attached to the rear port runs under the back of the engine and is connected to the the return line on the back of the power steering pump. I made up a shield to cover the underside of the cooler and protect it from debris. It is also a scoop to direct air into the cooler. Right now it just has an aluminum mesh screen on the front of it but I'm going to replace that with a stronger steel mesh. The pressure fuel line is hooked up to the fuel manifold on the carburetors and it runs down to an aluminum block that is mounted on the front of the engine. There is a fitting on the carburetor fuel manifold ( to the left of the pressure line ) for attaching another line. The electric fuel pump is motor driven and designed to run constant so it requires a return line going back to the fuel tank. A rubber fuel line is attached to this aluminum block and it connects to a fitting that is screwed into the inside of the frame rail. As with the lines on the other frame rail, this is a steel tube going thru the frame and the fuel line from the electric fuel pump connects to it.
Damn Ray, you are a fabricating wizard. Retired machinist? Just a pure pleasure to watch you professionally execute what your inventive mind conjures up. Fascinating stuff. Love it!
Thank you guys ... I do appreciate all of the comments and thank you all for taking the time to respond to my postings. ............................................................................................................................... I do not remember what the grille section came from that I used on this air scoop but the aluminum mesh screen was already in it. Looking at the inside of the air scoop, the outer edges of the grille are rolled over to form a slot for the mesh to fit into and the edges are squeezed down to hold it in place. I spread the edges apart and took the aluminum screen out of the grille. Then I cut out pieces of galvanized steel wire screen and fit them into the grille. They fit into the slots along the edge of the grille. This makes a stronger screen for the grille but not as strong as I would like it to be. I found this piece of expanded metal that is just a little less then 1/8 inch thick. I made another screen out of it. This fastens into the air scoop, up tight behind the galvanized wire screen to give it more support. Here is how it looks from the outside. And how it looks mounted back under the car.
The Jalopy Journal
