Projects Gasser on Maui..... but it's just another '55

Willy, glad to see you've indexed your bellhousing. Just a quick observation I've found doing this. I only check it at 12 and 6 o'clock for up and down and 9 and 3 o'clock for left and right. Goes alot faster and that's all that's needed. If you think about it. All the weight sit's on 6 o'clock, after that you just need to center left and right.

 

glad to see your moving rite along,take care of the back.cool build......

 

Yup, got worried about it while traveling on the mainland, and had a buddy helping me, so he turned the motor over in 45 deg increments while I read it, did it twice, exact same readings every time, so left it. Plus .003 at about 2 oclock and minus .007 at about 7 oclock, so I figured I was good to go, especially after doing the flat surface and only finding about .004 variation!

Stuck the tranny in through the bell without the clutch and it registered perfectly, nice and square, slipped right in, then I put the clutch in with the plastic alignment tool, and then had to "argue" a bit to get the tranny in, those plastic tools are not the greatest to align the clutch disk!!!!!

Gettin' closer to firin' it up!!!
Willy

 

No lie there. If you ever get the chance to rob an input shaft from a junk box do it. Like butter then.

 

2loose, just found this thread today. Looks like you are making great progress. Bet you been sittin in the seat wondering how she will feel on the launch. Saw pictures of the resurfacing of the track. WOW. Last time I was visiting my friend the Mountain Man in Kula the track had grooves wide and deep enough to hide a motorcycle LOL. You're almost there, that first hit might make you pucker a little, but you will be back in line to do it all over again....Great job.

 

Thats going to be a wicked ride!!!

 

Well, the motor/tranny are in, now to hook up the fuel system, ignition system, cooling system, exhaust system, throttle, setup the clutch linkage (which needs some mods in order to work right.....), hook up the gages, tape the loose wires I don't need right away (street legal stuff, do it later....), and get it fired off and tuned up a bit before the 18th so I can do some test and tune at our local track....

Wish I was 20 years younger....
Aloha,
Willy

 

Cool build,can't wait to see her finished..

 

Looking nice. Good luck

 

Willy,

Cool ride. I get to Maui every January. Have seen the car show at Safeway parking lot. One of my favorite places is Polli's in Makawao. Coolest 4dr 55 I have ever seen.

 

Lookin good.......waiting now for the fire up video!

 

looks good

 

Frustrating day, I did get the motor/tranny bolted in solid, started mounting the carbs and found two of the bolt holes "soft", starting to strip out (aluminum) so will have to get some helicoils and fix that. Mounted the radiator and started to mount the puller fans behind it and did not like the mounting method, way "cheesy" in my opinion, so I am re-engineering the mounting method! Plus, it's two fans pop-riveted together, there is room for me to split them apart and put then both on the outer left and right sides of the radiator, but still with the shrouds in full contact with the radiator surface, plus further apart also puts them further away from the blower pulley and belt, a good thing in my opinion!

More later...
Willy

 

Well......
Today is "D-Day" and I didn't make it, just too many things undone that I want as thoroughly "wrung out" before I go making any passes down the strip....

Soooooo, will get 'er done over the winter (lucky we have mild winters here, it just gets 10-20 deg cooler on average and days about 2-3 hrs shorter, just run the lights more in the evenings and mornings, and wear warmer clothes. That's at the 2,000 to 3,000 ft elevation on Haleakala volcano where we all live [me and all my buddies...])

Still need to work out some wrinkles in the clutch and throttle linkages, not happy, will post some pix when I can. But since I am going to take that time to do this, I will also finish up all the "street legal" stuff, wiring for the lights, horn, oem side glass (the glass is all busted out on the sides....), which is what I wanted anyway, as I really wanted to license it, drive it down there on dot cheater slicks, uncork the headers, and run tens, then drive home!!!

In the meanwhile I'm helping three of my buddies get their cars ready for our end of season weekend drags today and tomorrow! A blown small block 86 Monte Carlo, a blown small block Nova, and a nasty big block altered roadster, all should be running in the low nines maybe high eights! I'll be there to help out any way I can....

Next races for us is supposed to be Feb. '12, if we can get our new "scoreboard" up and running over the winter. Hey, we're gonna start to look almost professional down at our little track!

Aloha,
Willy

 

Sorry you didn't make it Willy. When you were here a couple of weeks ago you sounded so eager to get it on the track for the last weekend.

Say hi to Willy and Cavity for me.

Dennis

PS Post some pics of the drags!

 

Well, I did run my red 58 pro street chevy truck on Sat., drove it down, opened the cutouts, and dialed in at 13.30 in the Sportsman class (street legal, 13's and slower). First run lite was a .55 on a .50 tree, ran a 13.35, and got beat by .005 second!!! A good tight race, neither of us knew until the light came on, and I had to look at the ticket close to make sure, but he did beat me, his dial was 14.4 so I had to catch him, but I did, just not quite enough....

None of my buddies did much better though, so we moved over to the spectators side of the track and got the beer coolers out and watched the rest of the racing....
Willy

 

like your truck,had one like it early 70's.327 4spd

 

Been busy with other things, but did get some new glass cut for the side doors, and had to rebuild the channels the glass is glued into for the regulator roller guides.....



The roller guides themselves were pretty good, needed to be cleaned up and painted, but the U-channels the glass fits into were all rotted out, had to replace those....

Then when I mounted the dual Spal fans behind the radiator, the fan motors were way too close to the blower drive belt, so I built a new set of brackets and moved them as far apart as I could, it gave me pretty good clearance....




Now working on finishing up the wiring, modifying and installing the clutch mechanism, and hooking up the throttle linkage.

The ignition system and the fuel system are done and connected.

Aloha,
Willy

 

Got new side glass installed, except for the left rear door, the lower side channel for the glass is being real stubborn about coming out (the rear door glass on a 4dr is kinda difficult to work with) so haven't gotten that one in yet.

Got all kinds of little things hooked up, mechanical water and oil temp gages, fan thermo control switch installed and connected, remote vacuum connections from the carbs to the manifold (under the blower), blower boost tube from the manifold to the boost gage inside and to the MSD blower boost timing controller, an overflow can for the radiator, correctly fitted hoses for the radiator, a heavy gage wire from the alternator back to the trunk to the battery (prevents run-on when the rear mounted disconnect switch is shut off...).

So got the headers out, painted em, and did a trial fit to see where I wanted to install hangers at the collectors, and did a trial fit of the "Race Ready" electric cutouts....



Still need to install the throttle linkage and get that working, and modify and install the clutch linkage and get that working, install the shifter and linkage and adjust that, and put the driveshaft back in....

Depending on what else is going on this week, might be able to fire off the motor at our weekly "Fender Friday" gathering!
Aloha,
Willy

More pix here:
LINK to updated "final build" page 1

 

We were all primed to start the motor tonite, and when we filled the cooling system, we found a leak at the front of the intake/head gasket on the right side, so stopped prepping, got the grill going and the beer out and cranked up the stereo instead.

Will deal with the leak tomorrow....
Should have put some additional sealer around the water transfer ports on each side where the heads mate to the intake, when I set the intake manifold on, I know better, just got in a hurry....
Willy

 

The leak I had observed was down the front right side of the block from the intake/head gasket.

After I stripped it down to the heads, I found water in intake port #2, the valve was closed. Cleaned it all up, and am looking at heli-coils for each intake bolt hole, as that Edelbrock aluminum looks pretty soft to me, looking down into the threads. Where the leak occurred, front right crossover port, the bolt threads looked not right, I doubt it tightened down accurately, there was no room for me to get my torque wrench in there, so I did it by 'feel', not a good way to do this.....

Am now leaning towards heli-coil'ing all the intake bolt holes and be done with it....

And then, when I assemble the intake to the heads, I'm going to use "The Right Stuff" on all gasket surfaces, both sides, to make sure....
Aloha,
Willy

 

We found a "soft" set of threads in the front intake bolt hole on the right side head, and all the holes were blind, about an inch deep, but only had about half an inch of thread, and the intake bolts were setting in only about 0.4", so I ran a bottoming tap down to 0.9" in all the holes, both sides, and put in new bolts 0.85" into the holes, more threads, more bite, and put Permatex "the right stuff" sealer on both sides of the intake gaskets, and sealed it up.



Got the motor all together and am working on the throttle linkage and the clutch linkage....

Pressure tested the cooling systems to 14 lbs today, it looks good to go!!

Am planning on a good video, but need to be happy with it before I go ahead and crank it with fuel and ignition, it's been cranked a couple of times already to 28 psi on the oil pressure gage....

LINK to updated page....
Aloha,
Willy

 

Thought I'd post a pic of the throttle linkage. Got these parts from Don Hampton Blowers, a nice setup.



I still have to fab a final link from where my hand is back to the original 55 gas pedal lever on the front of the firewall. The original gas pedal setup is real funky looking, but works just fine, perfect for this car!!!

Got the clutch linkage working, but am missing the ball that goes on the end of the rod where it fits into the clutch arm, just rounded off the rod and stuck it in there for now, am looking for that part, if anyone know where I can find one, please let me know....

The clutch feels weird, real hard at first then it gets real easy, I think it is the over-center spring on the clutch pedal, will crawl under the dash today and take a look at it, I don't know if it is adjustable or not.

I moved the lower arm on the bell crank (Z-bar) one inch further away from the motor, and lengthened it one inch. It lines up with the clutch arm perfectly now. It did not seem to increase the clutch pedal pressure too much, seemed ok to my foot, but when in heavy traffic I may get tired of it.

The upper arm was 3-5/8" long and the lower was 2-3/8" long, so I modified that lower to now be 3-3/8" long, so it is almost a 1:1 leverage factor now. There is room on the firewall that I could lengthen the upper lever arm to get back to the original leverage factor and move the hole in the firewall for the clutch pedal rod up accordingly. I would need to look at the clutch pedal mechanism setup itself and see what that modification would do to the geometry before I did that. Right now I am going to leave it as is and try it.

Another alternative is a juice clutch, could fit one on the snout of that Doug Nash inside that blow bell no problem, but wanted to try to keep that original 55 setup and make it work if I could! Love those kind of challenges, especially when I can make 'em work!

Now to pressurize the fuel system and look for leaks!

"Movies at seven, stay tuned!"
Aloha,
Willy

Link to latest page....

 

Well, spent the Christmas/ New Years holidays with the kids/grandkids in the Pacific NW (cold, rainy, but lots of good cheer!) so didn't get much more done on the car....

And we came back from Oregon with bad colds, can't seem to kick it!

Did get the throttle linkage working the way I wanted with some parts I fabbed, and got the clutch linkage working pretty well today after lengthening the arms on the Zbar. Now need to put the shifter in and get the linkage adjusted. Had to rebend one brake line from the proportioning valve front brake outlet to the line lock to get better clearance from the headers, but it looks pretty good now. Then tie up all the loose wires that are near the headers or anywhere else that could cause a problem. Then it's add fuel, check the fuel system for leaks, and might be able to fire it up for the first time!

Our local Maui track opens up on Feb. 25th for test and tune, and I definitely want to be down there to see how well this rig will run!!!

I know, I need to take some pix, but will definitely do a movie when we do the fireup.....
Aloha,
Willy

 

After lengthening the upper Z-bar arm to 5", which gave me back the original 1.5:1 ratio, slotted the firewall accordingly, and tried it, it felt good, so decided to go with that. Unfortunately, when I put the headers on, that upper arm now hits the headers!!

I adjusted the linkage to give me enough movement to disengage the clutch, that is working, but I don't like hitting the header, so will be making other changes, undecided as to what to do yet, shorten the upper arm, change the angle of the upper arm toward the firewall and shorten the clutch rod, revise the whole pivot system to move it toward the firewall and shorten both rods, top and bottom, or go to a hydraulic clutch setup.

While letting this bounce around in my head, I installed the shifter mechanism and adjusted it as close as I can, will drive it a little and make final adjustments later. Hurst shifter specifically for that Doug Nash "4+1" tranny. But it wouldn't fit very well according to the instructions, had to make some minor changes to the linkage setup before it would work well.

Then clipped my portable starter button on to the starter and cranked the motor with a timing light, set the initial timing at about 20 deg, as there should be about another 15 in the mechanical advance, and the vacuum advance is not connected. Plus I have adjustable timing on the dash, set in the middle with plus/minus 7 deg available, and adjustable boost related retard, of zero to 3 deg. retard per pound of boost. Set it at three deg.

Then I pulled the 4 fuel bowls off, cleaned them, adjusted the floats to 0.4" (upside down), checked the jets, all 4 primaries are #71, all 4 secondaries are #79, reinstalled with new gaskets, put in 3 gallons of premium, and hit the fuel pump switch, adjusted the pressure to 6 lbs, float levels all looked good in the sight windows (Mighty Demon carbs), tightened up a few leaks here and there, and shut it down.

Was ready to call it a day and head for home (my wife is a little under the weather and I've been staying home more than usual, she gets priority over my cars !!!), when three of my buddies showed up with beer and convinced me it was time to "start it up"! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera available, wasn't planning on this, but what the heck!

One guy on the timing light, one guy on the "fire hose", me inside at the wheel, and I hit the fuel pump and cranked it till it showed good oil pressure and fuel pressure, then hit the ignition, didn't fire! The guy on the light said "no spark".....

We consulted and figured it out! I was getting spark when I was using the remote starter button with the key in and the switch in "run" position, but the 55 chevy OEM ignition key has some weird function built in where it cuts off power to the ignition when turning the starter! When I just turned on the ignition switch to the "run" position, and used the remote starter button to turn the motor, it fired right up! At 3,000 adjusted the timing to 36 deg, was getting 5 lbs boost at wot, but it didn't like the 15 deg retard, worked on that, seemed to like no retard on boost the best, let it idle and adjusted the carbs a bit, the fresh paint on the headers "curing" in a very smokey manner, but it was running GREAT! And LOUD! Great oil pressure too!

I can hit that remote start button (the cord reaches inside the car) with the ig and fuel switches on and no throttle, and it just fires right off and idles smoothly at about 900 to 1,000, with that typical blower "lope" to it, can probably cut that back a bit as I get it tuned, it is also definitely running rich right now, need to downsize the jets a bit.

So what the heck, we took the backend off the jackstands and drove it out to the front driveway, it lights up the ET cheater slick tires so easy it's scary! And that's on dry, rough, broom finished concrete, we left quite a bit of rubber on the driveway! And that was in second gear, couldn't get it to go into first for some reason, will have to check into that!

So, I have to revise my wiring to be able to have spark when cranking the starter with the original ignition switch, will be looking into that today. And it got pretty warm, by the time we were through it was at 220 deg. and starting to spit a bit from the overflow can, fans not hooked up yet, so it was a pretty preliminary fire up, but I'm really jazzed that it started so well and ran so well for the first time out!

Sorry about the no pix situation, I sure will correct that the second time we do this, but I want it totally ready to drive, all necessary elec. connections done, the next time around!

Aloha,
Willy

 

Man... I've been waiting for some "first drive" video...

Do what ya gotta do... but I wanna hear this sucker RUMBLE!

And see it go down the track!

Sam

 

I just remembered that one of my buddies was off to the side with this cell phone when I was doing my series of "launches", forgot to ask if he got a pic, just txtd him asking, if so, will get that pix and post it!!!!

The front coilovers are long ones, set at about 80% compressed with a lot of extension available, they said the front end was coming up real nice on launch, but the wheels didn't get any air. Might have to try slicks to get "air" under 'em.....

Am thinking those long shocks might actually be defeating getting air, by absorbing a whole lot of the upward movement before they run out of extension. That actually keeps it safer, under control more when launching, but I sure did want to see some "air" under those front rubbers....

 

awesome!

 

One of my buds did shoot these cell phone pix, I just got them on my phone....
Just before a burnout...

How many tire miles are laying here???

I'm truly sorry, but that's all we got....
Willy
LINK to first run page

 

Worked on getting my fans hooked up today, got that done. Then fired it up and tweaked the timing a bit. Did take a mov file and just uploaded it to youtube, when I checked it got the message it is still being processed, but it should be there eventually.

LINK TO SHORT MOVIE

Naww, no wheel hop at all, just a whole bunch of passes in relatively the same area. It moves out very quickly and smoothly....

And there were a few (very few actually) oil drops on the pavement under the oil pan today after sitting over nite. Not unexpected.

Aloha,
Willy