The intersection of where the hood top/hood side/ cowl top/cowl side meet is probably my favorite part of an early A. I’m building mine to run a hood 90% of the time
I'm living vicariously through you right now!! Great video and great to see you enjoying the fruits of your hard labor. Thanks for including us!!
You'll get there Brian. What you've done so far is great, so the rest of your project I'm sure will come out great too.
So here’s a 100 mile update. I couldn’t get the front brakes to work properly. It would jerk one way or the other when I applied hard braking. The only thing I could think of that may be causing this was the self adjusting modification that I had done earlier in the thread. I took the self adjusting hardware out and replaced with stock 48-52 F1 brake springs and now the front brakes work real good. The second thing was all of the sudden my steering got a little stiff. Tore it apart and found an old piece of the rubber bushing that centers the steering shaft to the steering column. It fell out when I took the steering apart. I also found the brass bushing on the new steering column bushing was frozen to the steering shaft so I reamed the bushing out a little bit, now my steering is fine. Other than that the car runs great. I tested the speedometer today on the freeway at 60 miles an hour, it’s accurate. That’s the fastest I’ve had the car so far. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Feels like the Flathead is screaming @ 2300 RPMs, I know it can wind up way more than that, but like I said, that's the fastest I've had the car. With no top on the car, windshield open, and windows open it's got a lot of wind and noise going through the car. The car seemed to handle ok at that speed though.
I noticed the rear end was riding kind of rough. Upon inspection I found the rear spring shackle contacting the top of the rear shock mount not allowing the shackle to swing like it should. The top of the bolt on shock mount is the problem. I need to tear it apart and see what modifications I have to do to the shock mount, I have a couple of ideas so hopefully it will go smoothly.
Here’s a picture of the shackle hitting the shock mount. I was able to grind the shackle lower area at a 45 degree angle to gain a little clearance I also ground the top forward area of the shock mount to gain a little clearance The combination of clearancing the two gave me just enough room for the shackles to swing clear. I’ll test it out tomorrow. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Nicely done Aaron! I put both inlet and outlet on the top in the one I made for my A, the inlet has a tube that runs to about an inch or so off the bottom, the outlet is just even with the top. That allows the expansion of the coolant to push past the pressure relief in the cap and be captured in the overflow tank, then when it cools it pulls it back in to the radiator. In the event the coolant fills the overflow tank it flows out the top and I ran a hose out to below the engine level. Works great. Your's will do the same. Good job!
Hi Blues, thanks. I thought about doing it that way too. I did it this way so there was less visible hoses, but either way works.
I walked into the garage the other day and the sunlight was shining through the window highlighting the Flathead. Though it was pretty cool so I snapped a picture of it, Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
At the Rust-O-Rama in Salem. Parked next to an old 33 Ford original hot rod. The Coupe did great on the highway coming here. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Man that car turned out just right. It’s exactly the kind of car that if I came across it at a little show id be talking about it all week.
Sewed up a headliner and install it. The interior is done now and I'm happy with the way it came out.
The Jalopy Journal
