Folks Of Interest Clutch Popper Wednesdays

The one in front of the shop is a customers. I don't think it's yours as this one is a ford not a merc. But it is for sale if your interested.

Yeah I've had friends like that. Keyword ""had".
As for the Tbird, I'm building it for my Dad. Once the roadster is a little further along I plan and getting started on the T-Bird again.

As for O'l Smashy, I'm not sure if they have a website. Johnny would have to answer that for you.

I think they are, but I'm no expert. You'll have to find an ambulance and steal a set to find out.

 

So while most of Canada was watching some hockey game, and the west coast of Canada was destroying their city because they lost said hockey "game", us Clutch Poppers were hanging out in the shop working on my roadster.

As most of you know my offenhauser heads kicked the bucket in Calgary on the weekend, so tonight we decided to fix the problem.
Over a year ago I acquired some NOS still in the box Edmunds heads, and it took me over a year and a half to finally decide if I should use them or not.
In fact I even did a poll...
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=598788
It was a damn hard decision, but I finally decided what to do with them.
To start out the night we went over to Tokyo Express for some more of their great food. I sure love Japanese food.
Back at the shop Johnny, and Charlie started taking the old heads off, while I went digging for that old box.




Instructions and warranty paperwork!


There they are! NOS!




While they were taking the old heads off, I went to the back and gave them a buff with some polish to bring back that shine they had 60 years ago.

And Dave grabbed the Edmunds intake I had hanging on the wall, and fixed up the broken generator mount.










Checking the new heads for clearance.


Just then, CDNflatlander aka Greg showed up!. Turns out he is town for a few days so he came to hang out. Greg took the headlight stands off to clean them up, and give them a fresh coat of paint.


Charlie torquing the new heads down.


Dave welding away.

 

Johnny taping on of the water holes for a plug.


Greg standing around again....


Dave making some progress


Okay I guess Greg was just waiting for some paint to dry. Here is the headlights back together now.


And look at that! One NOS head ready to be used and become worthless haha


Yep, just an old empty box now.


Dave cleaning up his welds on the intake


Dumping some coolant in. Those heads are definitely worthless now! Whats even worse than coolant in the heads is, afterwards we fired it up and drove it around the block. Oh well, they were NOS haha


Dave still cleaning up his welds


And the finished intake! Now I just have to polish it to match the heads!





And there we have it, that was what we did while Vancouver was having a riot. Hockey fans are weird, even weirder than car guys!

 

You said it Brother!

Make sure you frame up those Edmund's Instructions & Warranty - not like you see that every day.

But I think you voided the warranty

.

 

i play hockey, am a hockey fan, and a car guy...i must be really weird. glad you used those heads they were made to be used, not collect dust. the box and instructions are probably worth something.

 

Cool Lee. Nice to see you used the heads. I have never really understood the theory of buying vintage parts and have them sit on a shelf or hang on a wall.

 

Fred doesn't look impressed with Daves welding!

 

Neither have I, yet I have an entire room full of vintage parts hanging on the wall, or sitting on a shelf.
For the most part though, all the parts eventually will have a home on something I own.

 

LOL well it looks like you have taken your first step towards recovery. Admitting you have a problem is always the hardest part.

 

Yea, best night of the week again! Tonight Charlie joined us again (he sure is getting in the habit of hanging with us, good thing we like him) as well as Fat Dave!

Johnny bought us some pizza and wings, Charlie and I took the roadster to the store for a round of slurpees (thanks Charlie!) and we got started on the T Bagger Coupe.


Last time we worked on the T we were trimming the 39 ford X member to fit. Tonight's plan was to finish it off.








Daves task was to finish up the rear spring mounts. So him and I went out to the shed and dig up a 39 ford spring.


Dave taking the old bushings outs


More X member fitting


Charlie builds race motors for a living, so we figured it's probably a good idea to let him take care of Johnny's 283. I'm not 100% sure what Charlies plans are, but I heard him and Johnny talking about a 327 crank, .100 over domed pistons, solid lifter cam etc...




More X member trimming

 

More bushing


One of the many expressions of Dave.
Dave could have his own thread, just on him alone


More X member fitting




Once I had the X member fit and tacked in place, we flipped it over and Dave pie cut the 6" X member to fit the 4" frame rail.




Johnny and Charlie got the entire block stripped down by the end of the night. And in the process I got hit with a crankshaft. Literally





Underside of the X member. All fit and tacked, just needs final welding now




Yea I know how to push a broom....


And at the end of the night, we managed to get all the cars squeezed back inside.

 

love the stroker motor! good choice.

 

I think so also!

 

My fav. thread!
Im really happy to see a group like you guys! its very rare!

 

Nice! 283 with a 327 crank is a classic combo and they scream like a fuckin' banshee. That T is gonna be one sick lil hot rod!

 

the one i built for mine is a 327 with a 283 crank=302 the hard way, i have a 3speed with '57 chevy rear with 456 gearing. it will scream!

 

Another great update. I've got to get my ass down there one Wednesday night. It must be way more fun that what I did last night, put eavestroughs on my garage.

 

I love you guys





BloodyKnuckles

 

Yes Wednesday night has come and gone again. This week was Dave's night, and we had a few guests again. Fat Dave and Charlie joined us, as well as Colin.
We started out the night by chowing down on some Chinese. A shit load of it at that!










After supper we tackled the "Agenda" Dave made for us.
As you guys know Dave had some trouble with no oil pressure when he attempted to drive the car to Calgary 3 weeks ago. Dave ordered a new oil pump last week so Charlie being the "engine guy" got the job of pulling the pan.




Colin and Johnny took Daves Dr Suess Mufftrupmet exhaust system off to clean it up and give it fresh coat of high heat paint.






Fat Dave and I took on the wiring tasks. Dave bolted the horns on and wired them up. A new longer wire from the coil to the dizzy was made. I pulled the dizzy out as Dave bought a new one, and it needed to come out to change the oil pump.






Somebody was spying on me as I was "wiring the horn up under the dash"


About the time we had that done, Charlie got the pan off and found the oil pressure problem.




Looks like Dave fancy speedway beehive oil filter came apart and plugged the screen for the pick up tube.

Charlie pulled a main cap off, and found more bad news. The crank feels like a crappy old brake drum!


And the rod bearings are toast also!


Daves rod bearings have officially made it to my "Offerings to the Gods of Speed" shelf.


So now the "new" motor is coming out. We found a 261 for $100 that "may run" so were gonna try that route just to get it going for the summer.


In our high hopes of Daves $100 engine working out,we bring you this video. Hopefully the guy selling it is not Ralph Williams!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rpZZHqrR0I

 

Love this thread

 

Thanks

 

Well here's to hoping Dave's $100 engine works out for him. Thanks for the update.

 

did the motor knock? did you try cleaning the screen and running it?

 

The motor only made a slight clinking on decel that sounded like clutch. When we pulled the pan and found the screen we pulled the thrust bearing and it was wiped as well as the radial side was down to the copper. I was surprised there was so little noise. The #6 rod I could move 1/4 inch back and forth. Didn't bother trying to run it. It's toast, it's actually worse than when we rebuilt it, you can feel the grooves in the journals. The rods were ground 30 over already and I wouldn't want to go to 60, it's so bad......

 

try just putting new bearings in and running it. My 327 crank was worse than that and the motor never had a single bottom end issue.

 

the # 6 rod has a raised spot where the oil channel was...... not too sure thats a good idea.

 

bad news Dave...bummer...your 100 dollar motor will run like a champ though...


Love this thread...thanks so much for posting.

 

Yea Wednesday night again! Tonight was my night so we worked on the roadster after a quick trip to Harveys for some burgers. Tonight was busy again as Colin, Charlie and Fat Dave joined us again.
The roadster had started giving me ignition problems latley and burning out plugs. After some research I learned it was my stock distributor causing the problems. I guess you cannot run a stock 8ba dizzy off a vacumn port in the manifold. It needs it's vacuum from above the venturis in order to pull the correct amount of vacuum. Being my car has 97's on it, there is no vacuum port in the carbs.
So the solution? a GMC Bubba ignition! Bubba takes chevy distributors and modifies them to fit in the ford engines, and then recurves them so they will run with the 97s. Luckily my shoebox that i don't drive had one in it, so tonight we swapped it out with the stock one in my roadster.



Stock set up in the roadster.


Bubba ignition in the shoebox






While the three of them worked on getting the Bubba out of the shoebox, I pulled the stock on out of the roadster.




Here I am ranting about how much parts guys piss me off. Fat Dave and I had to make a run to try and get some new plugs, and unfortunately we came back to the shop empty handed.


While I was putting the new dizzy in, Fat Dave and Colin re torqued the heads




And done!


I have to say, this dizzy made a HUGE improvement!!! I'm very happy with it!

So you guys wondering where Dave was??
He grabbed the Edmunds intake and went to the back of the shop to clean it up a little more.






Still not finished yet, but it's coming along nice!! Thanks Dave!

 

So I guess last Wednesday was too boring huh? Well to make up for it Charlie took a bunch of crotch shots of Dave, so maybe you guys will like that? I know we did!

Tonight was Johnny's night, and we were suppose to cut and polish the roof on his Edsel, but he still does not have insurance on it, so he couldn't drive it over to the shop. So instead we worked on the T Bagger Coupe.

Same crowd as usual, except for Fat Dave. He had to play a gig tonight.


We started by removing the cam bearings from the 283 block so Charlie could take it work and hot tank it and magnaflux it.

Here they are lifting the engine off the stand. I don't think they realized there was overhead crane right behind them


While Charlie and Johnny were doing engine stuff, Dave Colin and I picked up on the X member and rear end fitting.


Dave made a fish! How nice!


Putting the ladder bars together


For some reason there is a shortage of new 35-40 ford rear u bolts in town, so I found a set of used ones in the shed, but I didn't have the lower plate that actually holds the spring in. So Dave made a new set.




Here is the mock up of the ladder bars. The X member had to be notched. It will be boxed for strength once everything is fitting nice.




Here is the template for the ladder bar mounts of off the X member.






Block all ready to go.


Heads? I don't think anything was done with them.


Oh yeah that why nothing was done with the heads, Charlie and Johnny spent all night researching parts. From the sounds of it they are gonna go with a 327 block donated by Charlie and a set of camel bump heads.
I guess no more 283 with power pac heads.


Kind of a shitty picture, but here is Dave plates finished and bolted in.


And Fred!


Thats about all. The ladder bar fitting took me the better part of the night. Lots of looking and thinking and mocking up before we finally decided on a place to mount them. I'm pretty happy with this though.

Tune in next week, when we start on Daves new 235!

 

Man... again... you guys have a ton of cool shit going on... and look like you are having a BLAST!
Keep on... keepin' on!

Sam