After a 23 year lapse I took this rig on it's maiden voyage and made it back home too. The convertor seems loose, spinning more rpms than it should mathematically at 45-50mph but the temperature was good in the 180-190 range. It sure sets you back in the seat when you nail it at 50mph !
I took the truck to my pacemaker reading this morning, it looks small when compared to modern trucks, got the "click" at the solenoid 45 minutes later when it was time to leave. This is the second time now, cables all look good, battery fully charged and only puts out 14 volts on the gauge after the jump. I'm going to take the NAPA starter from the Henry J and put it on and wait and see what happens, I currently have a mini starter on this thing. I've also hit a couple cruise nights with it with temps creeping to the 210 mark while stuck in traffic, seems to drive fine other than the loose convertor, power brakes work too. The exhaust hits hard and people look when it comes rolling by, they seem to like that engine as much as I do when the front is tilted forward....lol
I picked up my son from school yesterday, then a short drive to Sonic, he's a little short holding the phone for the video. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10206887732860576
I took out the weeping plastic flat bottom fuel cell and replaced it with an aluminum cell with a sump and bigger AN fittings. As always these projects turn into more work than expected like cutting the bed floor, cutting and dropping rear frame crossmember, cutting rear bed cross seal for AN fitting clearanc, making new hold down straps and making new lines up.
I also had another annoying problem with the lower V groove pulley the lower blower pulley was bolted to. It was hand drilled and drilled a little off center at that, you could see a little Getty up in the V belt and only assume blower belt had one too. The Blower Shop hooked me up with the correct pulley which was also a little smaller which should speed up my water pump, bonus. All back together and comptimplating changing that torque convertor now.
Procrastination is over, time to tackle the loose as a goose green convertor ! I figure a little a day shouldn't beat me up to bad, over a 3 day period I got it out and felt pretty good, 2 days later I'm at the chiropractor, si joint and floating rib out of place...lol It turns out the convertor was spragless, no anti-ballooning plate, torch brazed with one fin practically burnt in half and the fins almost straight. No wonder it didn't work to good on the street with shifts like mush ! I had a new one built by Competition Transmission a local racer owned shop, he reviewed the dyno sheets and delivered the product yesterday. Now to reverse the procedure and see if it can better transfer the 750+ ft lbs of torque on this beast.
Smoothing the fenders of the headlight bucket indentations, coming up with a compound curve backer was a bit of a challenge.
Cut open the surfer scoop and reformed that too to hold two 6x3 filters and sit just right out of the hood.
Painted the fenders and gave it a bath, I would like to go hidden headlights on this thing, really like the look.
The Jalopy Journal
