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

Got my preliminary "safety inspection" yesterday (required once a year in Hawaii, they look at lights, horn, mufflers, tires, brakes, windshield wipers, looking for a safe, fully functioning car....) on the '55, then went to the DMV and pulled the plates out of storage and put them on the car. Once I finish welding up the muffler system I will get the final safety sticker put on the rear bumper and it's LEGAL!!!

The safety inspector did tell me I have to put on a front bumper to get the final inspection sticker, am looking a fabbing up some sort of nerf bars, something that will get me passed......

I got a new mini-cam, called a GoPro (LINK), from my kids on my b'day, it gives a bugs eye view of the cab and out the windshield when mounted on the roll bar, need to set that up for the first legal drive down the road!!!
Oh Boy, Watch Out....
Willy

 

This is not a good week!
Having trouble with the camera, not sure what I did to it....

I did get the car licensed yesterday, after putting on mufflers and running pipe to the rear bumper, it is quiet, and had to put on a front bumper, so made up some nerf bars, will post pix when I can....

Did some driving around for about an hour, and it kept dieing off, and is not running well at all, so back to square one on the tuning....

And was doing a calibration procedure with my old Innovate LM1 air/fuel logger prior to my "run", and it went up in smoke. Am trying to find out how much it will cost me to have Innovate repair it for me....

During the tuning process, my much more expert buddies convinced me to remove the power valves and just tune with the jets and accel. pumps, but there seem to be way too many flat spots and bogs, it's just not fun to drive, and it's just not making power, so like I said, back to "square one".....

On the good side, it does handle and drive nicely, the steering and suspension system is working just fine, Thank You!!!

That Doug Nash gear box is close ratio, did not expect that, or at least did not expect it to be as close as it is. I started skip shifting it yesterday when driving it around to get a feel for it, 1-3-5, and at 2500 rpm in 5th I'm only doing about 45, looks like I need more gear for the street, currently 3.50 so expected it to be better than I am seeing....

Back to the shop for awhile!
Aloha,
Willy

 

No, I wish. Just looked at my dates and it's march 26-April 7. Looks like I'll miss it by just over a week. Dang!

 

Well,sorry I'll miss ya, if any cruizes show up while yer here, I will probably be there, look for me....

Drove it quite a bit today, added an additional 1/4 turn to the idle screws, that stopped the "dying off" at stop signs, and put in a pair of #4 PV's (power valves) in the two primaries, reset the timing to 38 deg max and put in 2 deg of timing retard per lb of boost and it seems to like that much better. With the 73/74 jets (prim/sec) and no PV's, I was getting nice dark tan plugs but it was running like a POS. Running better now but plugs black again, so down another size on the jets and try again....

Aaaggghhh, tuning, definitely not my forte....

I just poured myself a tall single malt with lots of ice and turned on the evening news....

 

Been doing a fair amount of tuning on this old Olds 425 motor, and it keeps getting better and better, running pretty crispy right now and the plugs are burning a nice coca cola brown color.....

Now running 72/74 jets, the #4 PV's (primaries only), 18 deg initial timing (w/no vacuum) 28 deg idle timing (ten deg. vacuum advance), 20 deg. cent. advance coming in late for 38 total at about 3000, and two deg retard per lb boost up to 10 deg total at 5 lb max, so it has 28 total at full bore and boost, and it is running pretty good now. Might need to fine tune the accel. pump cams or squirters.

Headed down to the track for our first race of the season yesterday, but only to watch, still need to put restraints on the front of the ladder bars, and I want to reinforce the ladder bars with some diagonals before I go doing any crazy launches....

And the Mallory 250 (black) fuel pump gave out on me half way down to the track! A buddy towed me back up the hill to the shop, and I took my 58 truck down to the drags. Was fun to watch, but not the same as getting into it on the track!

Next month, watch out!
Willy

 

Got a Holley Blue fuel pump in there now, and it's running great! Got the "Race Ready" cutouts wired up, can open 'em from the dash while driving, man is that ever cool....
Now I just gotta be careful where I do that, the "blue lights" won't like it much....

 

Did get a little vid done running up the mountain to a buddy's house...
Speed limit was 45, but at one point I did roll it on a bit in 1-2, then shifted to 5th...
Still haven't hit it hard, but soon....
LINK to Kula Run vid
Willy

 

nice,video had me wanting to put my foot in it

 

Ya, it's really hard to resist puttin' my foot in it.....
Didn't have a camera with me, but did find a straight stretch of 2 lane yesterday with no traffic and hit 5k in 4 gears, whatta rush....
Motor should be good to 7k, but want a few more hours on it first....
It definitely wants more rear gear though, am looking at that....
W.

 

I got a "new" axle, it's a '48-'52 vintage Ford F1 pickup front axle, and will fit my front spring's 29" spacing exactly with no modifications. But needed to drill it to get the 'old' look:



LINK to more pix....

Now to swap it out with the old axle....
Aloha,
Willy

 

Great looking project man. My wife and I love Maui, we haven't been there in a couple of years but we are hoping to get back there this summer. Looking forward to seeing more updates.

 

Some of us never get sick of 55's, in any form!!

 

I love 'em, have three, next one is the stepside pickup, then on to the hardtop Bel Air...
They will all get done and running before I am through....
Willy

 

Gutted the front end, painted the new axle, doing a few other chores while it's apart under there, here's the 'new' axle next to the 'old' axle....
I'll mount the 'new' axle first then move the spindles over and the rest of the stuff....
Willy


LINK to more pix here.....

 

Really ENJOYED the video! That was awesome. The sound of the gears are too cool. Makes me want to put a little quieter exhaust on my 55 so I can better hear the rockcrusher!

Been following this one for awhile. Nice to see your ride running and driving!

 

There is one stretch of country road where I might be able to get a good run in. After I get the front axle swapped out, am thinking of putting on the ET Streets and recording a run up that road. Our next race is on April 21st, and I will definitely get some vids of those runs....

 

Got a pair of mufflers hung under there, it really quieted it down, now all I can hear is the blower whine and the Doug Nash 'rock crusher' style gear noise...

LINK to more pix....
Aloha,
Willy

 

Got the "new" front axle installed....

....But unfortunately I suddenly remembered that I had originally rebuilt the "old" ('59 Ford F100) axle with ten thou oversize kingpins, bushings and reamed that axle's knuckles to fit...
Now I have to find the correct reamer and ream this axle's knuckles to fit my ten thou oversize kingpins.....
Aaarrrggghhh....
It never ends....
Willy
LINK to more pix....

 

Nobody locally has the type of adjustable barrel reamer I need to take ten thou out of the axle knuckles to fit my kingpins. Several guys suggested honing to fit, but that process is not the best way to go for what I want to do.

My brother in Oregon has what I need and is mailing it out to me so I can get the job done properly. Here's a shot of when I did that same job on the "old" '59 axle last year....

LINK to more pix....
.....using that same reamer. So I get to do it again, on the "new" '52 axle....
Oh What Fun......

My new air/fuel logger, an Innovate LM-2 showed up yesterday, so I now have the software installed in my laptop, and have an A/F digital meter that I will install in the car to display the logger's reading when I have it in the car. Looking forward to doing some fine tuning with this device....

Choice of red or blue display on the gages, I went for red....


LINK to 'tuner resources'....

Lots to Learn.....
Aloha,
Willy

 

Still waiting for the reamer to show up....

In the meantime I had a couple pix on what I did to the hood finish, so posted them here and on one of my pages:
LINK to page....

Aloha,
Willy

 

Pulled the exhaust system out and sand blasted it, painted it with VHT black. Then a day later frosted the headers only with white. That is supposed to do a better job, as my first attempt with the white VHT only on the headers did not stick, flaked off over time....


LINK to "new mufflers" page....
Aloha,
Willy

 

I've been busy.....

The reamer my brother in Oregon sent over arrived, so I did the axle knuckles and fitted on the spindles...

LINK to more pix...
Aloha,
Willy

 

There were also some mods to the front suspension, as I felt there was more side to side movement in the front leaf springs than I liked, so I fabbed and installed a panhard bar...
It worked well, really settled down that front end, firm and straight, so when I was swapping out the front axle, I also took it apart, painted it, and put it back in....

Some of the pix (like this one) was from when I first fabbed it up and road tested it....

LINK to more pix....
Aloha,
Willy

 

Nice project.

Just a tip, those rubber caps on your water pump will not last. It's a time bomb.



I ended up removing the heater hose nipple & I installed a freeze plug. The p/n that fits is Dorman 555-012 (jegs has 'em)

Can you please tell me what brand & model of video camera you used while driving your car? Great quality

Mahalo

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll follow up on that....
Am aware of those rubber caps, have four spares just in case, but yeah, freeze plugs sound like the way to go...

The camera is a GoPro Hero 2, my kids got for me for my birthday, just learning how to use it....
http://gopro.com/products/?gclid=CKLU4qiTsa8CFakERQodZUliGQ

Aloha,
Willy

PS. like your avatar, looks like a 58/59 chevy pickup, here's a pix of mine...

 

Yeah, it's a '59. My mom bought it for my dad in 1960.
I got it in 1981 when I was 16

Thx for the pic, I really like yours

Here's a bunch of photos I've collected on the web

http://59chevypickup.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=7596816

 

Thanks for the pix, here's some more of my '59 (the year I graduated from high school...)
Home Page for my '59 Chevy stepside

And here's a shot of the completed axle swap. Now to put the wheels on, align them, and go for a ride....

LINK to that page....
Aloha,
Willy

 

Before I can run at the track this coming Saturday, I had to add ladder bar restraints, as required by the NHRA rules. Here's what I came up with:



LINK to how these were designed and fabbed....

Now all I need to do is add a "diaper" under the oil pan, as required, just in case I "blow the motor".....
It's new in the NHRA rule book for the 10 second cars....
And I do hope to get into the tens....
Aloha,
Willy

 

Drove down to the track with my G-Force T/A Drag Radials on the back, P325/50R15 on 12" wide rims, DOT street legal, they just barely fit in there with the minitub job I did....

Wasn't sure how much tire pressure to run on these tires, but decided to start hard and see, easier to let some out as I got a feel for it. So started at 20 lbs....

As this was the first time on the track with this car, I was just going to do test and tune, which ran from 2:30 to 4:30, then if all went well and I had a good feel for the car, I'd sign up for one of the events at 5:30, which included 12.90. 11.90, 10.90, and "Fast Gas", 9.99 and faster. Thought I had a good chance at 11.90, and maybe even 10.90 if it all went well....

As I was waiting in the staging lanes, I kept running the motor to keep the heat up, those aluminum heads are slow to warm up, and with the blower I wanted them hot (180 deg.) before I went and ran full boost on 'em. ARP recommends a lighter cold torque setting of 65 ft-lbs on their head studs when running aluminum heads, with their high pressure thread lube, as the heads will tighten that up when they warm up. I re-torqed the head studs, cold, last thursday, and added 5 more ft-lbs, with fresh lube on each stud, one at a time, as the 65 ft-lb recommendation was for non-boosted applications, and with my 5 lbs of blower boost, decided to torque 'em to 70 ft-lbs. I'm running the Cometic head gaskets on it, so far so good....

First run, had the "GoPro" camera in the car, and forgot to turn it on, did a good burnout in the wet box, 3rd gear, smoked the tires nicely, got into the lights, and had a little problem getting my line locks to come on, and was afraid of drifting too far forward, but finally got it set just as the lights came down, so was slow off the line, 1.8 reaction time, sheeesh.....

Then I bogged it off the line and had to hit the clutch and go again, but got it going good, and hit my gears all good at the red shift light on the tach, which was set at 5k....

The car went straight as an arrow, no messin' around at all, a good clean straight run once I got going....

Ran out of gear in fifth (Doug Nash 4+1) at about the 1000' mark, and ran through the last part of the track on the rev limiter. Time was about 13 even and at 110. Need more rear gear. Had the rev limiter set at 5800....

So went back and got in line for another run, upped the rev limiter to 6800, set the tach shift lite to 6500, and dropped the tire pressure to 18 lbs.

Did another real nice burnout, 3rd seems to work good for that, got the line lock set right in the lights, got a good launch and BOOM, BANG, GRIND GRIND.......

Thought I'd lost the rear end, but I sheared off the front u-joint, and the remaining stub sticking out of the back of the tranny was banging around on the front piece of the driveshaft, shut down and coasted to the side and took a look under to see what it was. No debris on the track, it was a clean break, so the track guys helped me push it back into the staging area out of the way, but the spinning driveshaft was banging like crazy on the rear of the piece still in the tranny. Got my tools out, the car sits high enough to crawl under it easily, and I took the safety hoop off and pulled the drive shaft out. Put the tow bar on and my wife towed me back up the hill to our house. The driveshaft is a little banged up from bouncing around in the safety hoop, but looks ok, straight. So a trip to Napa this morning to get another u-joint!

And in the meantime I'm shopping around for more rear gear, I was sure that was a 3.50 in there, but it sure felt like a lot lower than that going down the track, will find out for sure what it is. If it is a 3.50, will probably go for as close to a 3.0 as I can get for a ford 9"....

Thank God for safety hoops on driveshafts....
It did it's job very well....
Aloha,
Willy

 

Not sure what you're running, but 1350 truck u-joints may be a good upgrade.

I have Denny's "Nitrous Ready" half shafts w/1350 UJ's in my Vette

http://www.dennysdriveshaft.com/