What did you do to your non-G body project today? [2022]

[CopperNick]

HUH! Must of missed the memo. Apparently doing nothing and admitting the fact has now been added to the list of unacceptable behaviour. Also, evidently, being guilty with explanation is now considered as no excuse either. As for activities involving bladders and kidneys, okay maybe not what most people care to hear about but they do happen to be facts of life and many contributors to the various threads and forums on this site are either at the point or about to get to that point where health and physical issues are a factor that has to be contended with in terms of how much work can get done before your mind says "I can do this" and your body says, "Yeah, maybe, but not today, I've had it".

As for my current non G projects, As I mentioned elsewhere to Injected Cutty, I was able to score a donor harness from an newer engine management system that looks to have the correct electrical connections that I need for my LS. That harness is currently sitting on one of the drawers of my tool box awaiting dissection, most of which will involve the use of a box cutter and masking tape to tag the terminals as necessary.

My non G-Body G-Body is still immured in Bay One. I have to revisit the transmission linkage and tweak it a little for selection of gears.

The Indian seat pan is sitting on the bench. I lost the auctions for both the necessary mounting brackets so that project is on hold until I can set up the outside shop on the Quarter Deck and start stripping paint and polishing again.

All of this adds up to doing nothing. So nothing is what I am doing.



Nick

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

The last piece of my T56 puzzle showed up today. GTO T56 Mainshaft. These are about unobtainium right now.

Parts staged in my professional work area.

 

[Texas82GP]

Last weekend through last nights efforts to have the Cabriolet ready for the Round-Up next weekend in Austin....

I finished up the mods on a new water pump housing so I could get it painted & rebuilt. We got it rebuilt & swapped on within nano-seconds of the paint drying. The mods now allow cleanly adding a temp sensor probe so it's not screaming 'LOOK @ ME'. The water pump that was on the car was not set-up correctly. That plus the radiator pressurizing (non-pressurized system) caused the water pump seals to fail & sprayed everything under the hood w/rusty water. The new water pump was dialed in better using an actual pulley to set the shaft depth vs what the instructions said to do when I did the other one. It should be good to go. Now I'll rebuild the other one again & mod it for the temp sender bung so we'll have a back-up (smart Model-A folks that actually drive their sh*t always carry selective spare parts).

Ignition set-up was installed last week (new distributor w/better electronics + Blaster II coil + actual plug wires vs the copper strap/original set-up) but the carb was way past time for rebuilding so it was hard to note improvement. With a replacement core sourced, I had to drill out the throttle shaft bore bushings on it for some bind free action & got that done @ work. The replacement was painted this week, assembled, installed then dialed in last night. It doesn't idle down as low as a stocker (these things can idle @ 100-200rpm) but it does have a lightened V8 flywheel/clutch set-up so it's as low as it can go & works right from idle to full throttle w/no fuel leaking/dripping. Yay.

While the young gun was finishing up the carb stuff on the bench I took the opportunity to remove as much of the rust staining as I could. It's not as clean as I wanted but it def looks better than rust splatter everywhere. With the carb rebuild & swap, the remaining tank to fuel line pieces were put in place as well. All that's left for the fuel system rebuild is the screen for the sediment bowl on the firewall. It will get done once we burn though the couple of gallons I put into the tank so we could dial things in.

New LED brake lights are installed, wired-up, & have power. We have a new brake light switch but haven't installed it yet (the original is hit/miss functionally but was causing a current draw).

I've been working on de-scaling the bead surfaces on the 16" 1935 wheels so the new tire beads will seal as good as possible (not going to run tubes). Two of the wheels were decent already; the other two not so much. A few hours w/the needle-scaler & I was impressed/surprised by the surface improvement. I should have them ready for tire mounting by mid-week.

I didn't get a pic of the parking lot surface but when the young-gun took it out around the block last night after the last round of carb adjustments, he laid a couple of black marks on the concrete leaving. Not bad for a semi-rebuild of a 92yr old rebuilt 4-banger. We need to replace the firewall insulation panel now that the fuel system is all rebuilt but a few more items crossed off the punch-list & the little drop-top keeps getting better!

I doubt we'll have time to rebuild the synchronized trans & get it installed before next Thursday. Junior will probably want to thrash on that (get it done & installed) cause he's young but this old guy would prefer to not do it that way. If it was just an R&R I might be willing but the different trans requires adapting things so I prefer a slower pace to ensure there are no surprises.

We still have a bunch of parts in a pile ready to go on for the suspension rebuild so we definitely won't have the suspension done for this event but hopefully it's the final one w/the 'Death-Wobble'.

I love this project. Keep the updates coming, please.

 

[Supercharged111]

The last piece of my T56 puzzle showed up today. GTO T56 Mainshaft. These are about unobtainium right now.

View attachment 196638

Parts staged in my professional work area.

View attachment 196639

Your wife must be cool AF.

 

[Supercharged111]

I dyno'd the Camaro yesterday. I guessed and ran the car on a restrictor 2mm smaller than last season. The goal was 260/310 and it was pretty bang on.

If I snap the gas open too quickly, I get a momentary false torque peak. You can see that I still have one here, I'm thinking in the future that maybe I start the pull around 1500-2000 RPM and have the Dyno operator start recording at 2500 (as per the rules) in an effort to eliminate that false peak. It's caused by running such a small restrictor. I have a 35mm plate for 47mm butterflies. Unrestricted this motor would be right about 300/330. It appears the new timing set has shifted the power production slightly in favor of torque vs last year. Not surprising given the amount of slop in the timing chain. Or is it the fresh heads to blame? Not sure, but I got an overlay of 2020/2021/2022 pulls and the curve doesn't fall off any quicker which was a concern. I think I need to find the motivation to install an adjustable timing set and retard cam timing by 4 degrees and redyno. For now, this will do nicely and I'm not DQ'd for the racing I partook in last weekend. It also indicates that this 2015 rebuild is as healthy as it's ever been. This thing runs so good it makes me a little apprehensive to dump it in favor of an LS.

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

Your wife must be cool AF.

I live by myself with no kids..she has her own place. Ontop of that, she actually will turn wrenches too. 🙂

 

[Supercharged111]

I live by myself with no kids..she has her own place. Ontop of that, she actually will turn wrenches too. 🙂

Ahh, so the brunette is the gf. Makes more sense. My kitchen and laundry room would be stacked with motor and transmission parts if I weren't married too. Back when I lived in the dorms I had all kinds of parts stashed above the ceiling tiles.

 

[Built6spdMCSS]

Lol we were swapping engines in the dorm parking lot, good times.

Yea, that's her. She likes cars.

Supercharged111 It's not a bad setup here..the Z06 is short enough to have some nice room for the washer and dryer.

 

[scoti]

I love this project. Keep the updates coming, please.

Thank you! It's appreciated.

Goal is to have a pretty cool 100yr old car. I still have a few years to get the ideas implemented. This thing should get more miles on it this year for proofing because next year is a big Model-A Touring event in Colorado that we plan to drive them to & from.

 

[Turbo Zach]

Took the evening off to help a buddy look and buy a new (old) skid steer. It needs some work but for the price it should do what he needs.

1976 international. 37hp of v4 fury!
View attachment 196560

I had one of those before I got the New Holland going. I sold it a while back. Mine was a little bigger. It was a good machine. The only thing was it would not pick a round bale up, too light.