There's nothing quite like that profile. Dang, you're making this hard....especially since they're $50 cheaper than the radials.
Honestly there is not that much difference in drivability factor. I have driven my '56 across Saskatchewan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, California, New Jersey, New York, Ontario, etc. Didn't notice much difference in drivability besides it may want to grab a verticle grove a little. Not that much though. I drive the shit out of my car in the rain as well. Is you fron end going to be tight? If everything is done right on your front end you should be good. Look at Alex's "Fuck You '54" he drives to Austin and Viva everyyear also does Kansas as well. Not to mention he drives back and forth from Nor Cal to So Cal. Bias-Ply's are the shit
Good info Danny. I gotta say that I'm leaning towards the bias plys though. In spite of the disc conversion, I maintained the stock front height on my car, therefore the front tires are gonna be pretty visible just like they are on a stocker. In the end, my 54 is just a toy...and will not ever be a daily driver, so....another reason to go with form over function in this area. But ohhhhhh dang....the bucketload of grief my dad is gonna give me. He's always been a function over form guy....much more of a drag racer than anything else. But hey, I'm 42. I don't think my dad can still beat me up.
yeah...the front end is all brand new....in fact, there's nothing on this car that hasn't been rebuilt. I know radials are more forgiving of a sloppy front end....but that's not an issue with this car.
The first car I EVER drove was a nearly brand new 1954 Ford Mainline 2-door. My uncle was a salesman for oilfield equipment out of Odessa, Texas. He picked up the '54 Ford as his company car from the Ford dealership one afternoon and the very next morning he was in Denver, Colorado showing it to my dad, his older brother. He had AVERAGED 100 MPH all the way from Odessa, Texas to Denver, Colorado, leaving Odessa with 7-miles on the odometer! I was 14-years old at the time and he let me drive it. I still remember it was 'three on the tree' and I was able to figure it out 'OK'...and I've never forgoten how SLICK that 3-speed shifted. He had had several flatheads and 6-cylinder Chevy's as company cars before, but said that this '54 Ford was the fastest car he had ever driven.
You will be fine then. Honestly every was telling me "Don't go with bias-ply's" but never could tell me why. Just a lot of talk. I ran bias plys anyways. I will never go back. If you want a car to ride like a new car go get a Prius. Bias-Plys will make your car!
Oh yeah another thing. I usually have a GPS and it says your average speed. I usually check that shit and it says a lot of times my average was 100mph. On Bias Plys no problem!
cool story....I can relate I bought my 54 in 1985 when I was a junior in high school. It had 10,300 miles on it at the time. (there's a cool story about why it had such low miles) Anyway, I drove the living crap out of it all through high school, during the stateside portion of my military service and all through college. I put around 80,000 miles on it total before I tore it down. It was always reliable and has been a great car.
ok...tonight's update: - installed new valve covers, with new PCV and new breather cap. - started rehabbing the license plate holder/gas cap cover. - Soldered some of the connections for the tail lights.
My tudor was purchased new as a sherriff's car in eastern Oklahoma and was in use for a few months when the long-time sherriff announced he was going to retire. The sherriff fell in love with the new y-block powered car and the decision was made to give him the car as a retirement gift and he happilly drove it, minus most of the police equipment, for just a few weeks and then died suddenly. The car was tucked away in the widow's garage. One of his friends pestered the widow to sell it, but she refused and kept the car as a reminder of her late husband. The car pretty much sat until her grandson asked her if he could "work" on it. Little did she know that "work" meant painting the front clip with a metallic blue spray bomb. She was horrified and called the old friend and told him to come and get it. The friend kept it for over a decade and didn't really do much with the extremely low mileage car with the partially blue front sheet metal until he decided to move to south Texas and take his old cars with him. He was into old Mercedes Benz's and pulled a non-running 50's model Mercedes from Oklahoma to south Texas with the 54. It was still hitched up to the Mercedes when I saw it near LaFeria, TX. My dad and I approached him to ask if it was for sale....he refused at first, but eventually relented and wanted $1200 for it. We talked him down to $1000. (I could be off slightly on the numbers...that was a long time ago.) It had the original spare in the trunk and the original bias plys on it....which were horrible. I honestly don't know how he made it all that way on those 31 year old tires. I drove it straight to the tire shop and had new tires put on it. It still had the police 10-codes on the sunvisor, a big police antenna on the rear fender, and there's still a small hole in the roof where the gumball police light was mounted. There was a wicked cool flashlight holder on the steering column and a shotgun mount under the dash. I still have all that stuff in boxes.
I'm happy to report that I finished running the fuel line this evening. It's now plumbed from the tank, to the pump to the carb. It's almost all metal line, but in the short runs where I did use rubber line, I used multi-fuel, fuel-injection line.
i have one of those column mounted flashlight holders in my coupe. i keep an old flashlight with no batteries in it. that's a really neat story. gives the car all the more personality.
Making the final connections to my carburetor linkage. I used an accelerator pedal and cable from a 69 Mustang. The kickdown linkage is from Lokar. I also went ahead and took the time to prep, paint and apply stickers to two more valve covers. These are early 302 covers that have a PCV built in. The late model covers that were on the 88 Lincoln engine didn't have a PCV (that engine vents gasses through the back of the intake manifold).
Wired up my electric fuel pump this evening Not Earth-shattering progress but every little bit counts.
I only got about 45 minutes in the garage tonight, but I'm determined to do something every night, even if it's small. Tonight, I soldered connectors, wired up and installed my dimmer switch.
My new valve covers are set up for a PCV valve....got it plumbed this morning. This shot also shows the phenolic spacer I added under the carburetor. I need some clearance to get valve covers on and off more easily, plus the heat insulation won't hurt.
Looks really good so far. Nice to see your not rushing and taking your time to do everything the right way!
Thanks Mitchell....I'm certainly trying to do it right. I watched my dad do things carefully and correctly with his rods for 30 years and I hope it's rubbed off on me. I should it having running and driving here shortly and then I'll start concentrating on the paint and interior.
Yeah....it should be fun at rod runs. However, with that big HEI sitting there front and center, anyone with half a brain is gonna see that something's aint right.
I topped off the day by starting to bend and run brake line...got the rear lines done. All the work I did bagging and tagging everything is really paying dividends at this point in the build. Case in point is the little brass (I think) fitting that slides on over the rear axle vent tube and splits the rear brake lines.
got my early Mustang exhaust manifolds mounted this evening. They were sitting loosely in place because I didn't have the right hardware to mount them. I really wanted to use the OEM style shoulder bolts with the compression washers because they do a superb of staying put. So I had to order a set from Mustangs Unlimited. They showed up tonight and immediately got installed.
Thanks Archie! My long term goal for my dashboard is to make ALL of the stock gauges and controls work with the 12v, 302 conversion. This is going to take some time, effort and money, so in the short term, I've come up with something that I think will house some switches and guages and still look decent. I was looking for something that had a 50's look to mount under the dash to perform this task and it hit me that the valve covers that came off of my 239 y-block had that look and were exactly the right size. So...I'm converting one valve cover into what I'm calling my temporary "Engine Control Module". It will house the ignition switch, headlight switch and oil, temp and ammeter. Here it is under construction and mocked up.
That's very clever. I was shocked to discover recently just how tough it is to find an under-dash panel that doesn't come pre packaged with gauges. -Dave
Your 'ECM' is a very cool idea! I'd suggest cutting the gasket flange off the ECM to make it look a little less valve cover-ish and more custom ECM-ish. Are you painting to match the dash? 12V gauge conversion isn't hard. Use your stock sending units. Then you need a Ford voltage modulator that came on every 12V Ford car and truck into the early 1980's. Until the 80's all Ford 12V gauges are actually 6V. I like modulators from a 1967-69 pickups because it has a normal spade style connector. After 1969 they have a funky snap connector. It's about the same size and looks like a horn relay. Fasten it (grounded) on the back of the dash. I put mine where the original wire junction box was located. All the gauges run off this. It has one hot wire coming in that is switched on with the ignition switch. Then go from the modulator to all the gauges. The other wire on the gauge (the colored ones) go to your sending units. (The modulator is the little box lower left with the black and white wire) Actually my wires came from a 69 Ford pu too and plugged on to the 1948 gauge posts perfectly. Even the dash light sockets plugged in. The ampmeter gauge is inductive (lower left). After getting mine working it read backwards. I had the wire (big red) running through backwards and had to cut and splice to reverse the polarity. When I did my dash wiring, I left enough wire length so the dash pod will pull all the way out while connected, in case it ever needs worked on.
Really nice build and progress going on here.She is going look good when you get her done. Keep up the good work!!
Great advice Mark. The ECM might even stick around after I do my gauge conversions because Ford went with idiot lights in 54 for a couple of the gauges. I haven't decided on white for the ECM to match the dash or black for a bit of contrast.
The Jalopy Journal
