Projects A tale of two cities 1948 Ford build

The UPS guy has been good to me this week . . . got the pistons (Egge L991 +.040) and rings with chromoly top ring (Hastings 2C 533 .040) from Red's. Machine shop recommended I go with the 65cc heads rather than the 74cc version I had originally purchased. Speedway allowed me to exchange those. Also got a set of ARP head bolts from Red's. Off to the machine shop . . .

 

Today's update from J and M Machine . . . final honed!

 

Ordered replacement glass from Chris Blattie just yesterday. He sent me this picture today and said "cut & polished & headed to the temperer". Great service so far!

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...car-truck-will-cut-and-ship-worldwide.614524/

 

Do they have to specifically cut and temper all old car glass or just the more uncommon ones? I see a lot of Model A and other glass for sale new and your post got me wondering.

 

That would be a question for Chris. You could PM him at ChrisBlattie. He's on the HAMB.

 

Thank you Sir, I may do that to satisfy my curiosity.

 

So I brought my original 21A-6312 crank pulley to the machine shop to have him machine off the fan pulley as I'm planning to use an electric fan. He looked at the sleeve where the full circle front seal will ride and thought that it was too worn to seal. He suggested I find a replacement.

I called Van Pelt as they had pulleys listed on their site. I first asked if they had an 81C-6312A single sheave pulley, but Shelley said they did not. She did think they might have a pulley like my original, but needed to check and call me back. She called back and said she found a NOS single pulley!! SCORE! They also had the keyway I needed for the crank.

 

Yesterday's update from J and M Machine. "Mercury 4" crankshaft reground 20/20."

 

Since my tie rod was interfering with my pass. side wishbone when I turned the wheel to the left, I needed a fix for the pitman arm. The original thought was to re-taper it from the other side so that I could mount the tie rod from the bottom instead of from the top as is stock. I sent the pitman arm to Posies for resolution. They said there wasn't enough meat to re-taper it from the other end so they heated it and bent it. Hope it works!

 

Also had J and M Machine drill a hole in the intake base for a fitting to plumb a vacuum line for the power brake booster.

 

Good ambition,good attitude, building a great car.

 

Thank you for the kind words.

 

Think I came up with a fix for Speedway's omission of a way to attach the throw out bearing return spring on their T-5 adapter. From the tranny side, I drilled a 3/32" hole at an angle where I thought the spring should attach to the adapter. Then I drilled an 1/8" vertical hole to intersect my original hole. Thankfully, the spring slipped right in. Hope it works!

 

The only glass on the car that has to be laminated Safety Glass is the windshield, there is no choice there and you cannot legally use tempered there I believe. All of the rest of the glass has to be one or the other Tempered or Laminated. On cars that have Flat glass panels you can cut and use laminated glass, but you also can use tempered glass as well. The laminated is just less expensive ( no shipping to the furnace and back) and can be cut in almost any glass shop.

 

My 29 Model A and 51 Ford both have laminated glass throughout which would explain your "cheaper" comment to the bean counters. Thanks.

 

A couple more updates from J and M Machine yesterday . . .

Line boring mains w/ARP studs (shocked when I saw the price tag of this procedure!):


Final cleaning before assembly:

 

Today's update: installing oil plugs in crankshaft after cleaning . . .

 

I remember this from summer science camp when I was like 10 (what a dork right) haha but tempered glass can support a few hundred psi pressure from the flat side. Watched a large adult stand in a pane between 2 desks without it breaking. If you snip the edge is shattters like a prince ruperts drop. That's why the glass breakers are weighted with such a fine point and why spark plugs shatter side glass it pinpoints the impact.

In an accident hitting your head on tempered would be like hitting a brick wall. Laminate us more like a net in comparison. Cuts you up but it gives a little. New cars the passenger airbag typically fire up and then out to crack the windshield before you hit it.

Not really sure why u remember all that probably just because I'm a nerd. Like toad from American Graffiti. Lol

Carry on. Engine is looking great Ritzy!

 

Machine shop recommended Loctite 603 to secure the sleeve to the input shaft of the transmission. Tough to source, but McMaster-Carr to the rescue!

 

Didn't like how the useless ear on the T-5 stuck down below the wishbones, so I cut it off with a sawzall with a metal demo blade. A little filing to eliminate the saw marks, then a dual orbital sander to finish up smoothing out the cut end. Better.

Before:


After:

 

Page late but I love the guages.... looks original but way more user friendly.

 

Thanks. I think they came out just as I hoped they would.

 

More progress pictures from machine shop yesterday . . .

rotating assembly balanced . . .

 

Very nice build. You are going to have a great hot rod.

 

Short block complete and ready for pickup!

crank installed . . .


assembly underway . . .


complete!

 

Got the block painted this weekend and started bolting on some parts. Didn't realize how much of a job taping the block would be . . . probably took me 3 hours.



Sent from my SM-G930V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Looks good.

I ended up using my old heads, old intake, and the oil pan and new water pumps to mask those areas. Worked ok I think.

 

Yup, I started out with the same plan, but I had already painted the pan, front cover and pumps and the old heads and intake were filthy. Ended up putting tape on the outlines of all of the fresh stuff, then using them as a template to cut the tape. Time consuming!

 

Glass arrived this week. Felt sorry for the poor FedEx guy that had to carry the crate to the front door. Damn, that thing is heavy! Opened it up to make sure there was no damage and it was all good-to-go. Installation will be project for another day . . .

 

Made some good progress assembling the motor this weekend, although I did have a couple of setbacks that required research and more parts ordering, and prevented completion. I'm a little nervous that those OTB air filters may be too tall to fit under the hood. The cheap ones I used to mock up the motor worked, but . . .

Didn't realize my original oil pump pickup wouldn't work with the new (short) Melling M-19 pump. Ended up ordering one from Mac's as I didn't like the reviews of the one from Speedway, where I got the pump. You'd think they would have mentioned that requirement in the M-19 info!

Found that the 3 ARP head bolts I ordered special to mount the oil filter are still a bit shorter than I'd like, so I'll be ordering 3 more that are 1/4" longer. The spacers I got from McMaster-Carr worked out perfectly though.

Wire looms from Speedway required some tweaking to fit my intake, but I was able to get them to work after some work with a file and a drill press. I do like the way they look.

Wish this thing wasn't 3 hours away . . . makes progress slow.