Projects Finally My '26 Chevy Roadster Build

Hey, Six Ball;
Just saw this, sorry about your friend Bruce. My condolences.
It is too bad things worked out that way.
Marcus...

 

Life throws many curve balls...many times they hit real close to home......sorry about the loss of your friend @Six Ball...damned evil disease...

 

EVIL SHIT.

 

Six Ball sorry to hear about Bruce. Please except my heart felt condolences for you and Bruces family. Things seem to be happening faster now days---And I do not like it!

 

Thanks guys. He was a big gentle man and he took a ton of engine building knowledge with him. I suspected something when he just couldn't get started on my engine. It just needs assembly and he kept finding things to put it off. Oh well, every silver lining has a cloud.
My stuff is here and I need to find room for it. LeRoy and some others are going to help his family find homes for his stuff. His grandson is getting lots of it, all he wants. I wish he could have the new shop. I think it is 100' x60' maybe bigger? Bruce was so excited about being the host of much of our building. There was going to be a wood shop, machine shop, paint booth and general work space with a couple of lifts. Everything was ready.

I inherited the chassis table we built. Bruce supplied the space, I bought the material, and LeRoy welded it together. It was a fun couple of days. It is huge and heavy. I'll get it up here and put my frame back on it. A lot of the rest of the build will happen right there! It won't always get to a frame table but a solid big work space/welding table will be good to have. I'll have to take my son's woodworking bench to him in Reno to make room and I'll need to make a few more dump runs. I need to get my trailer ready for some hauling before Friday. Going to miss Hot August Nights & Bonneville but they will be there next year and so will I!

 

Dump run.... Did I hear dump run 'S'? I sure hope there will not be any 4banger stuff in there!!!!

 

Man what a bummer sorry to hear that. Lights a fire under me to get some work done, that clocks always ticking :/

 

Wow, that sucks a hard boiled egg if you ask me. My condolences to his family and friends like you Six Ball...that's a lot to deal with when it happens so fast.

 

I got the wood bench delivered to my younger son this evening and need to make space for the metal one tomorrow so I can pick it up Friday morning. It was hard loading it alone even with the tractor.
No Chevy banger stuff going to the dump. I'll probably even hang on to the Ford stuff for a while longer.

 

It's the weekend Six Ball, you had better not be slacking!

 

The frame table is in my shop. I hauled a 28-29 pickup to LeRoy's. I'm hauling a '54 Studebaker coupe to another friends place this morning. A boat, tractor, & '52 Ford are also safe at LeRoy's and the T roadster and Camaro are on their way to California. We've been busy but my son and I squeezed in the Hot August Nights swap meet yesterday.

 

Good progress! Did someone buy the roadster and Camero?

Now that the frame table is in your shop, that'll be easier for you to get to! I'm sure you'll remember Bruce for all the help he gave you, especially after you have it running! Somehow he will always be a part of this roadster you're building!

 

I'm not sure about those two. We are just trying to help his sister and her grandson deal with a bunch of stuff they had not expected to come their way. I just do what I'm told. The Stude is at it's new home.

 

Six Ball Sorry to hear about Bruce....Condolences to family and friends. Hope you are doing well. Ron

 

Thanks Ron, I'm fine. Its been a little tougher on LeRoy. They were friends since high school at least. They built cars, guns, and boats together all their lives.

 

Sorry for your loss @Six Ball , losing a friend like that cuts deep. I am glad you are able to help the family and keep your stuff moving along.

 

Thanks for the kind thoughts. His sister will be here this weekend and will oversee much sorting. Well have a memorial at the Bar Sunday.
The logical next step on the roadster is to assemble the engine and transmission and stick it out of the way until the chassis is ready for it. It'll open up a lot of space and empty some drawers & boxes. I need some progress. I've been putting off small projects I can do while obsessing about things I'm not sure of. They will get worked out as I get to them.

 

Progress is being made on some small stuff. Today I cannibalized a Mallory Chevy V8 Double Life distributer to get the parts I needed to complete the Pontiac one I turned to fit the four cylinder before I remembered that Pontiacs turn the wrong way like Studebakers. Funny how the parts are the same except upside down with the RH number on one side and the LH number on the other but you can not just turn them over. You have to bend tabs and reset pins and the weights are just backwards. I looked for parts for a while. Today I just took a Chevy V8 one apart and will use them in the Pontiac housing. The shaft in the Chevy is messed up. Looks like the gear came loose and spun. I have it cut it off anyway and mill the oil pump tab on the end. They were both the ones with mechanical & vacuum advance and use the old 2 piece cap.
I have been painting and repainting engine parts so I can put it all together. I finally decided that I have been stressing too much about cutting down the pistons. I've been reading and watching videos and am convinced that it is something I can do. The first fixture I built to mount them on the mill failed . I tried using material based on how easily it fit together instead of strength. The design will work but I have to make it stronger. I'll post some pictures when something is pretty.
My son is going to help modify the Fenton small block header. He is a far better welder than me and this will take some good welding. The frame table has disappeared under all of this but it's helping to get the shop in order.

 

Progress! This is awesome! Glad to hear it

 

That sounds like serious head scratching stuff...but keeps the mind working...

I guess if you reverse a Chevy in a few places you get a Pontiac......but that is where a machinist type mind can take a part from a any auto and adapt it as tolerances are the true defining factor that can make it happen...

 

Great news about the progress! Making me feel like a slacker, which is GOOD! I understand losing the frame table. It sure doesn't take long to melt into the surroundings!

 

Lucky thing is that Mallory Double Life vacuum advance distributers are evidently a lot like BW overdrives in that the same innards were put into the case that fit the application. If I had torn this sacrificial Chevy version apart years ago this thing would be ready to stick in the engine. Basically using the Pontiac housing because it had enough meat to turn it the lathe to shape it for the 153 and all the inside parts from the Chevy V8 version with a shortened shaft. I'll probably have to play with springs and weights. It looks like there is a max advance setting on the middle plate.
I probably could have used a Chevy 6 housing but I've never seen one with a vacuum advance. The sixes had an outside advance that might work on the Mallory? The mallory advance is a brake setup like the old Ford flatheads as opposed to a diaphragm used outside the housing.

An interesting thing from yesterday, the Pontiac shaft was too short. One of my old Chevy six distributers had a two piece shaft the bottom piece held by a pin through a male & female slotted connection. While disassembling it the pin broke? I may have sidestepped a disaster!

At least the table will be there when it's time. I want to get the frame done, possibly the roller stage, and then build the body on it. It may still be on the table or on the ground, we'll see.

 

I'd love to see a picture of the advance unit on a double life.
I have a NOS ford small block one that I would love to add a vacuum advance to.

 

I got one more part painted but I may save all that until the engine is closer to assembly. Here are some distributer pictures and notes, mostly just comparing the two. The Pontiac is on the left & the Chevy on the right because that is the way they turn. Dumprat if you have questions about the advance I'll try to answer. As far as I can tell the Z series had vacuum and it was cast into the housing at the start. It looks much like the tach drive body. I can not figure out how to integrate words with the pictures.

 

The point plates are the same so are the lobes. The weights are backwards. There must be LH & RH weights.The Pontiac lobe has a number and arrows pointing both ways. All plates that have a number and LH or RH have the other number & direction on the back side. The Chevy shaft bushings are worn out maybe from the gear failure. The advance button seems to rub on the weight plate when the vacuum is too low to compress the spring and pull the piston back.
I'll probably have to find someone with a distributer machine to set this thing up.
A bit more study ZC series had Vacuum advance YC series did not. However some YCs were cast with the boss for the cylinder but it was either cut off or not machined. If one has the boss the cylinder could be bored and all you would need is the piston, spring, and plate with tube fitting.

 

Today I sorted, swapped, and test assembled parts. It is all going to work out fine. I dug out a YC for the old Chevy/GMC six that has the boss for the Vacuum advance. It has a blank plate that covers a smaller hole that was not machined for the advance piston & spring. You can see the weight plate in the holes that the piston rubs on. I think I could machine that and have one of these for the 270 in my pickup.
In the pictures on the left is the cut down Pontiac with the Chevy V8 shaft showing how much I need to shorten it to make it the same as the Chevy 6/4. I'll actually take my measurements from the stock 153 distributer because there is a little difference. Also in the pictures is the first two piece shaft I made because the Pontiac was too short. I took the bottom piece from a Chevy six that had a two piece shaft the only one I've seen. The roll pin that held it broke. I'll cut the shaft and mill a tab on the end for the oil pump put the gear on and drill a hole for the pin. After a bit more cleaning and some lube this thing will be ready to go.
The Dual Life V8 models had four lobes that ran two sets of points. Each set fired 4 cylinders alternately. One set of points will do my four cylinder just have to figure out which set. I have a new 4 cylinder cap. I'm hoping one of my big Mallory condensers is good. I have plenty of points. I have a friend that had a dragster with two of these engines that ran on one V8 distributer.

 

Good progress! I somehow missed your work on Sat., I guess I'm getting old...LOL Actually not getting, I AM old...just not as old as my truck.

Keep that momentum going!

 

I'm older than your truck.
A line from a song I wrote: My pickup's a Chevy 1953 you might think it's an old one but she's newer than me.

 

SO, after all this I find that Mallory did make at least a YC 452 HP that fit the 153 Chevy II engine. Also listed is #682. I do not know if they made a ZC(vacuum advance) version of either. I found a picture of a YC 452 HP but searches have turned up nothing else. The engines were heavily raced so they must be out there. Mine will work just fine.

 

Those Mallorys have points in them, right? What's the advantage of using them? Do those have bearings in them by chance? I had a problem that was really hard to troubleshoot. The shaft became out of round, which was an intermittent problem....and it was pretty hard to figure out, took about 2 months. Which is why I was wondering if they had a bearing on the shaft?