Middle of the week update,I like it. As for lowering the rear,if you have a flat it's already gonna be a bear to change the tire,two inches lower would you be able to do that in the shop,much less on the side of the road? HRP
Agreed ! We decided we like it just fine . I'm not a fan of the "in the weeds" look. The fender skirts and the chop make it look just nicely dropped a little.
Here's a photo of our radiator collection, all 3 of 'em. The last radiator came in without so much as a scratch, so we proceeded to install it. I really have to thank Champion Radiators here. They replaced the freight damaged radiators quickly and with no hassles at all . GREAT customer service. The radiator fit our revised opening nicely and bolted right up. we are using a flex fan on the engine rather than electric fans. I'm sure it'll work fine. We covered the fins with cardboard to protect them from inadvertant damage. The lower right corner of a 289 is a real clusterf**k. We have the fuel pump, filter, oil pressure sender and the oil filter all in one tight little area. We had to put the oil pressure sender on a 4 inch extension to get everything to fit Steve made more progress on the wiring. All in all, a good day
Looking Good! An extension for oil pressure is pretty common on those sbf's. Champion Radiators was a real stand up company to treat a customer like they did, kudo's to them too.
Chuck,everything is shaping up well,but I'm not a fan of the flex fan's as they really move very little air and in my honest opinion are dangerous,a fellow club member lost a radiator when the fan came apart. I prefer a steel fan and have used this one on all my builds.HRP
I just picked one up myself. 17" - 27degree pitch 2-1/8 inch fan depth. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I agree 100%. I've had good luck using fans from old cars and reconditioning them. Bonus, they usually have a fan clutch to boot.
OK.... 3 weeks. I'm getting involuntary muscle twitching, itchy skin AND double vision. I need a fix Chuck. I.. I think I have an addiction.
We haven't been sitting still, but a lot of stuff we are working on now is taking much longer than expected. The upper radiator hose is a mustang unit.. The lower hose is, I don't know. I just walked up to all the hoses in the back room of O reilly's and picked one that would work off the wall. The radiator cooling lines were next. We bent them out of 5/16 steel tube and used rubber hose to connect them to the trans and the radiator so they don't crack from flexing. What a pain in the ass. I'd rather do major .bodywork any day. Here's a photo of the lines snaking from the radiator to the trans. Getting crowded down there. We need an antenna for the radio, and there are lots of choices. I chose a simple kinda stock looking setup. ( cheap too! only ten bucks) The other guys wanted to mount two antennae, one on each rear fender. Just seemed too fancy to me. After all, it is a "Ranchwagon". ( sorry for the fuzzy sideways photo) The real fun was reuniting the hood with the rest of the car. It took 3 of us the rest of the afternoon to get the hood to fit the opening. It still needs some fine tuning, but we're almost there. We love the look of the rounded hood corners and how well they work with everything else going on up front. The front end at first glance looks stock, but it has frenched lights, rounded corners, molded and lowered front pan, a lower valance and non stock lower chrome trim. Having the hood in place also makes the chop more apparent. Now if I can just come up with a set of power steering hoses we can get this thing off to the muffler guy.
Well, here's what is going on. I have a Ford power steering pump and hooking it up to the fatman M2 rack was a bugger. No one makes a set of hoses for this, so we had to find ends and have custom hoses built for our application. (seems that all rodders use Chevy power steering pumps) Then the hoses wouldn't quite clear the motor mounts and they had to be clearanced A real pain in the butt, but we got it accomplished. Then we started to connect the push/pull heater cables to the heater. In 1953 Ford was really enamored with vacuum operated EVERYTHING! Even the damn heat/ defrost selector was vacuum. We found an inline cable operated valve and installed it. There are 4 cable operated functions on our heater that are all controlled from one master. Heat/defrost, Right air duct, left air duct, and heater valve. I went and bought choke cables for all these functions, but as I found out tese will never do. They are too tight. Sooooo, I had to purchase heater specific cables at 30.00 per each. OUCH!.. Spent all day under the dash hooking up and adjusting these bastards. Here's a pic of the valve. Then the hood safety latch needed installation. I don't know exactly what is off, but this thing is way too far forward. We'll make new mounts for it next week. Finally the cancelling mechanism for the turn signals was AFU ! We worked for over 6 hours trying to adjust this. Another time suck! Well folks, that's what we've been up to. It hasn't been easy, but that's hot rodding. We're not giving up, We're not giving up, We're not giving up, We're not giving up,
Well I know some of you have been waiting for updates on the wagon. Rest assured we are still at it every Sunday. Nothing much picture worthy. Steve got most of the wiring run and connected, and we found out by accident that the motor actually turns over. We also have the hood latch problem solved. This week Chuck got a new driveshaft made, and got one door window and wing glass cut so we can see if our patterns were correct. Chuck worked on the window fitment and we all pitched in to try and get it adjusted to where it rolls all of the way up. I spent some time the last two weeks under the car seam sealing all of the new voids we made installing new floors and started undercoating so the driveshaft can be installed. Steve spent the day wrapping the wire bundles and fastening them out of the way, and Nick has been refining the tail light/ gas door mechanism.
And here's some pictures of that work. I went out in the shop a few minutes ago and DAMN! The window we spent all day installing had cracked clear across!
Check for a screw or nut coming in contact with the glass,as odd as it seems we got all the glass installed in the Deuce pickup and the next day the passenger side glass was cracked. You guys are doing a great job. HRP
I'm pretty sure I got one of the clamps too tight that hold the glass into the mechanism. Live and learn I guess. I'll get more glass this week and we'll try again.
Finally we had a day that let us feel that we really accomplished something. We removed the side widow we broke last week and looked at everything carefully. I broke the glass by tightening the mounting screw too much, but we also noticed that the power window mechanism wasn't in real good line with the front and side channels. We shimmed it out, and now the new glass fits and moves perfectly! I had the windows cut in clear glass- no tint. I love the clean look it has. We went to install the new driveshaft , and realized it is too close to the floor of the car to work. We had to alter the transmission mount to lower the tail of the transmission. Here's what it looked like before, and here it is after surgery. It went smoothly. Now the new driveshaft is a nice fit! We finally feel like we're coming down the homestretch on this project!
You guys are doing great! All of us that build things have the same stories. I sure hope I'm in the right place to see the finished car someday.
Just keep whittling away with that list and you guys are going to have a running car before you know it! HRP
You are doing a nice job on that build- Did you have to change anything else when you re-fabbed the trans mount? Did the driveshaft angle not change with that big of a drop on the transmission end?
The total drop was one and a half inches. It didn't change the angles all that much. I think we'll be OK.
Your fab work is nice and clean-"patiently waiting" to see it out in the daylight under it's own power.
If the drive line angle does cause a little vibration it will be easy to fix with wedges on the rear spring pads after your up and driving, no big deal. I am also "patiently waiting to see it out in the daylight under it's own power" like AA above said.
Actually that section we cut was a piece we added on to the original mount for the car. We thought we needed it with the different engine and trany we put in, but it turned out we were wrong.
The Jalopy Journal
