Projects International KB 7" chop

It has been a year and a half since Your last post............. any
updates ? I would like to see how it turned out !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

It got sidelined while I was getting my life back together after the divorce. Now I am setting up my shop to work out of and might be able to make some progress happen between jobs.

 

Worked on the front brakes for it yesterday. This is also my prototype for early Ford brakes that I am developing. Wide five front hub with bolt on adapter for disc brakes. It will also work with 40 style drum brake wheels when I get the front hub cast and machined. Same caliper bracket for both. If it does well I will also cast aluminum wide 5 disc brake hubs.

 

Hey Jim, good to see you back in the game.

 

Feels good to be doing something for myself for a change.

 

Did you ever do anything with the BD269 and the 5 speed transmission?

 

I sold it to a guy in Arizona.

 

awesome work on that binder!

 

Thanks, it's been on the back burner for a while while I work on customer cars.

 

Lucky Guy. Thank you for the update

 

Here is the latest on the International. The engine that I was going to use is a 258 6 cylinder AMC engine. I still plan on doing the 6 cylinder but with a twist.

The bore spacing on all the AMC inline engines is 4.38, if that sounds familiar Ford Y-blocks, small block Windsor, and 335 series also known as the Cleveland have the same bore spacing. I just got a pair of heads from a 335 series engine and I have a Jeep 2.5 4 cylinder engine.

The plan will be to do some modifications to the Cleveland head and make it fit the 4 cylinder engine. The head bolts line up on one side and are 3/8" off on the other side width wise. I will weld in some cast iron plugs and redrill the exhaust side head bolts 3/8" inboard. The other problem I have is the water jacket holes in the deck of the head are in the wrong places and will have to be welded shut.

This is a canted valve head with huge 2.06 intake valves. The original head on the AMC engine is quite restrictive and has the intake and exhaust on the same side. The Cleveland head has much larger and improved ports along with being a cross flow head.

I have already bolted the head on one side and installed push rods to see if they will clear the block. The intake pushrods will have to have a notch at the top of block to clear them. After modifying the head I want to create a casting pattern and cast an aluminum head for this project.

This is a twofold endeavor as the architecture of the 4 and 6 cylinder engine is very similar adding two cylinders to the head design will be quite straightforward. There is a large market for these engines and hopefully the new head because they were installed in Jeeps and other AMC/Chrysler vehicles from 1971-2006. The International will be the test bed for the R&D work on this project.

 

The 4 barrel Clevelands had ports about the size of your average toilet bowl. As I recall the 2 barrel version was a very similar layout with somewhat smaller ports and valves. For a responsive street engine of small displacement you might take a look at the 2 barrel heads just for shits and giggles.

 

I am using the 2V heads to set this up as 4V are really designed to for 3500-7000 RPM. The only thing I don't like is that you can't get closed chamber 2V iron heads. I would actually like to use Australian Cylinder Head Innovations 3V heads with 185 intake ports and raised intake and exhaust ports.

 

Must be some around, lots of Aussie guys on here that could probably find some for you. This is an amazing network of like minded fellows.

 

Nice work on the cab! I like the proportions, doesn't have a squashed look like some compound curve roof chops end up with.

 

When I am back at the shop I will post some pictures of the head swap.

 

I am also working on a bellhousing adapter to go from the GM 60° V6 pattern used on the 2.5 4 cylinder to the standard AMC V8 pattern used on the 6 cylinder engine from 1972 on. I will bolt a steel adapter to the back of the crank to change the pattern of the 2.5 to the inline 6 flywheel and space it back for the bellhousing adapter thickness.

These engines are both internally balanced so that is not a problem. Only 84-85 2.5 engines were carbureted, the rest were EFI and therefore need a crank position sensor. All of these engines take the crank signal from notches in the flywheel. I will make a provision in the adapter for the pickup and attach a notched ring to the front side of the larger flywheel to trigger it.

GM 60° to AMC will be the first adapter I will make as it is needed for this project. The next adapter will use the same crank spacer and flywheel but the bellhousing adapter will fit small block Ford. The ring gear has the same tooth count and diameter between Ford and AMC/Jeep.

The next adapter will be the GM 60° V6 to GM 90° pattern common to almost all Chevy V8 engines. This adapter will be drilled and tapped in the bottom for the GM starter and the flywheel will be from the GM inline 6.

 

I have an Australian 2V closed chamber head on the way. It should show up in a couple weeks.

 

2.5 4 cylinder Jeep engine with the 351 Cleveland head on it.

 

Bellhousing showed up today so now I can start on the adapter plate. The second picture is of the crank position sensor mount. It looks like I will need a 2" thick adapter plate to make it work. The upper holes are very close to the width and height of a small block Ford engine.

 

The Australian 302 Cleveland 2V closed chamber head showed up. This is the head I am going to modify to fit the Jeep 2.5 engine. It's a crack head but after it goes through rehab at the head welders it should be good to go.

 

Dropped the crack head off at the machine shop to be pressure tested and see if the crack goes into the water jacket or is more of a surface crack. Either way I will get it fixed by drilling and pining or welding.

 

Got the Australian Cleveland crackhead back. They were not able to pressure test it because there are no water passages on the intake side. They magna fluxed the head and it looks like the crack does not extend onto the valve seats. Heads from left to right:
1) Australia Ford 351C 2V closed chamber
2) America Ford 351C 2V open chamber
3) Jeep 2.5 4 cylinder
4) America Ford 289

 

Has anyone successfully welded a cast iron crack like the one pictured above. I have used Muggy Weld rod to build up some broken exhaust manifold ears on a cast iron head before. The wire was for use with a stick welder but I removed the flux and used a TIG welder. It turned out okay but wasn't pretty. I'm looking for other options.

 

I like the CornBinder Chop. It was that big graceful cab roof radius that attracted me to mine years ago. Your agressive chop seems to still have kept that gracefulness! Quite the Feat. I'll be following.

 

I loaded up the International cab, frame and nose in the bed of my truck and took it to an unfinished car show. I won a trophy. LOL When I brought it back I unloaded it in front of my shop.

 

Got a chance to work on it this evening. I'm using a sectioned hood for the bottom of the nose. Worked on the filler piece between the nose and the outer.

 

I have gone deep down the cross flow head rabbit hole. Putting a V8 head on creates push rod problems that are inherent to all of the common inline engines. Ford 240-300, GM 194-230-250-292, Jeep 258-4.0 and its 4 cylinder little brother the 2.5 have the cam as close to the cylinders as possible and the pushrods are parallel to the cylinders. V8 engines on the other hand have two 90° banks of cylinders and have to clear the crank shaft so the cam is moved away from the bottom of the cylinders. The valves in both I6 and V8 are leaning towards the intake. This is what exacerbates the problem.

The only way to really make a cross flow head for the I6 is to keep the intake on the opposite side of the push rods. You will then run the exhaust out between the push rods. The intake and spark plugs will be on the same side and I would think that a twisted wedge with canted valve design would be the best.

I would like to use a 351 Cleveland closed chamber design and when the head casting pattern is done Ford 4.48, GM 4.4 and Jeep 4.38 bore spacing will be incorporated into each design. The heads will be very similar to each other reducing R&D costs.

Bruce Sizemore who ran a Pinto with a 300 and welded Cleveland style heads did quite well in 1975 running in the 9s at over 130 MPH. He is working on a 300 using LS heads now. I think that it might be easier to do a clean sheet design rather than adapting V8 heads.

As for progress on the International, it is sitting mocked up in the driveway while I am working on customer vehicles in the shop. Got to earn the money so I can play later.

 

I hope things are going well. Cool truck project and interesting R and D with the cylinder heads. Cool to know work like this is being done locally. Any updates would be cool to hear.

 

Man, that is some “out of the box” thinking! I love it. The chop looks great, and who doesnt like the look of a kb nose? Cant wait to see more.