A Change of Plans

February 25, 2017

At this point in time, we originally would be in South East Asia and not returning until late March. Due to the travel ban, and JoAnn being a green card holder, we were concerned with being out of the country as the government sorts everything out. You never know and being safe is better than being sorry.

Therefore I was able to steal a few more days to make some progress on the hot rod. We are now trying to get it in shape to drive around before we start fitting the body, doors, hood and trunk. 

We also made some changes and redid some things we weren't all that happy with. For example, we changed the master cylinder lines and relocated the reservoir to the engine compartment. See before and after pics. 

When we changed out the headers, we thought we had to give up on the EGR( exhaust gas recirculation) because the EGR pipe was too short and the connectors were different sizes. Larry came up with the idea to chop up a mustang EGR pipe and lengthen it. This worked and we used a flexible pipe so it was able to be routed better. Now we are back to having the car meet emissions and in the end, run better without reflashing the computer. All the headaches with PATS is paying off.

We also then added a dummy rear oxygen sensor post catalytic converter to fool the computer since we removed the catalytic converter and the computer is only looking for a signal acknowledging a converter is present.  We installed new front oxygen sensors because the computer uses this information to determine if the engine is running rich (too much fuel) or lean (too little fuel).

We also installed the transmission tunnel, the accelerator pedal area is tight - we may have to move the brake pedal - we will test it out once we have the seats in.

Lots of wire loom in front of the shifter  - our plan is to fabricate a center console with a tablet ( like a Tesla, only android) to cover this up, house the speakers and the air con controls and have the battery disconnect switch in a compartment that covers. We are working out all the wiring for that now.

Routing the Coolant Hoses

February 6, 2017

The engine cooling system on our engine is not standard. Let me explain. Most engines have a thermostat that keeps the water in the engine circulating until it gets to between 175F and 200F degrees. Then it opens up and the coolant flows from the top of the engine into the upper radiator hose to be cooled. This is so that in cold weather the engine can warm up quicker for optimal performance, better emissions, and fuel economy while running below 200 degrees. In most systems, all the engine coolant runs through a single output through the thermostat housing and into the radiator. In our engine, there are two outlets that then are routed to a 4-way union that houses the thermostat.

Since our radiator is in a different location and our overflow tank is not set up to be large and above the radiator and 3 different hose sizes, this setup is cumbersome and difficult to recreate. After a few days of trying to make something work out without success, my brother Larry postulated the question - why have a thermostat? After some discussion we determined we don't need one. The car will hardly if ever see engine temperature below 50 degrees - no winter salt and snow driving, so the amount of time warming up is minimal. This made the job a bit easier, but now we needed to replace that 4-way union with a 3-way with two 1.5 inch hose inlets and one 1.25 inch inlet. No standard part exists that we could find ( a week of searching), so we decided to make our own from copper plumbing parts. Also a bit tricky since most copper plumbing installations don't mix pipe diameter sizes.  After a few trips to different stores and a few designs and some flexible hoses, we have it figured out. We started with a dry build and then soldered things up. Now we will have to see if it leaks or not once we fire up the engine again.

Mods - Not Those British Gangs in the 60s

February 3, 2017

We weren't happy with the way a few things were panning out and decided to spend the time modifying them so we would feel better about the build.
The first was the drive shaft. There were two things bugging us. First, the yoke ( the end that goes in the transmission) had a lot of play and second because we moved the engine forward a few inches to get better clearance at the firewall, the yoke was exposed more than usual. 

So we went ahead and used the yoke from the Lincoln drive shaft, which we knew would have a lot less play and would marry to the seal better (yellow ring in the picture) and we sent the drive shaft after some measuring to a drive shaft fabricator to lengthen and rebalance it. Now it feels right - no play and looks normal (about an inch of visible yoke)  at the transmission. I have also included a photo of the difference in length of the old Lincoln drive shaft (minus a yoke) and the new one.

The second mod we did concerned heat transfer from the exhaust system into the passenger compartment. After installing the mufflers and thinking about the very thin sheet-metal floor we were about to install, it was becoming obvious that we would have a heat problem and possibly melting carpet. We do plan to put some heat and sound material on the floor under the carpet, but it still concerned us. So we did two more things to help mitigate the heat transfer. One is we fabricated some heat shields that will cover the mufflers and deflect the radiant heat away from the floor. We also lined the underside floor panel with the same heat shield fabric we used on the firewall. It's rated to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. Mufflers run about 300-500 degrees so we should be better with these modifications.

The heat shields

the underside of the floor panel with the heat fabric

with the heat shield mounted, it's cut to fit around the frame x bracing

Now the floor is installed