Whippet Update

I had the chance to roll the Whippet out, take some pictures and take it for a test drive.

I just temporarily wired it to drive it.  I have a speedway wiring harness for it and am currently installing it.

Amazingly it drove very well and ran great.

Bird Car Part 2

So this is what has been taking up a lot of my free time lately.  I had a 77' T/A when I was in high school, so I have always had a soft spot for the "Bird Car" as my niece used to call it.

This is a 1978, with the 6.6 or the 400 Pontiac engine in it.

I had been looking for a T-top, 4speed but the condition of this car made it a no-brainer to buy.  So, a coupe/automatic it is.

This is what my father in law is going to see a lot of through the windshield of his 68' Chevelle :)  This Pontiac had a lot of engine work done before I bought it.

Progress on the Whippet

I made a mount for the battery out of angle iron, I don't have a good picture but, it just follows the perimeter of the battery then has a clamp that goes over the top.

 It's been slow going on the Whippet lately but, I have been able to get a few things done.  The above picture shows the rear panel that I made to tie the rear together.  I made it from 18 gauge.  Its hard to do long bends without a brake but, if you take your time you can do it with some clamps, angle iron and hammer/dolly work.

This is just a shot of the inside of the panel.

I cut down the decklid to make it fit better and installed the taillights. 

I installed a piano hinge on the bottom of the decklid and got some spring latches for the top that I haven't mounted yet.  I am currently working on bleeding the brakes after installing all new brake components from Thompson's Garage and a new 48' ford style master cylinder from Speedway Motors. 

Till next time keep your ears and eyes open for hidden car treasure!

Whippet Progress

So I was able to let the flathead go through a heat cycle so I could re-torque the head studs.  It's got a bit of blowby.  It needs to have a rebuild in the near future.  I will just baby it for the summer and maybe go through it next winter, otherwise it runs great.  Oil pressure stays at about 5 psi at idle and goes up to 20 at higher rpm.  Flatheads are known to have low pressure.  The temp stayed right around 180 so that was good. 

The V-man was digging the progress

I took a headlight bar I had and butchered it to fit.  It turned out pretty good, I just mounted it to the F-1 Shock Mounts.  The Headlights are a pair of 30-31 Ford Model A's with a sealed beam conversion.

I finally figured out that on a positive ground electrical system you need to positive ground your electric fuel pump as well.

For the shifter linkage I picked up some solid round bar.  I heated the ends of the two pieces I cut and bent them at 90 degrees.  This end goes through the hole on the shifter.

I then just strong armed the bars with a pipe bender to the shape they needed to clear each other and to smoothly shift through the gears.  Then I just drilled holes through the bars and slid them over the transmission shift levers.

I finally found a use for the vintage Hamms can I had laying around.  It's now the radiator overflow container.

I finished up the dash with the guages, switches and an ash tray for a smoking habit I don't have...I just thought it looked cool.

I also got the front toe board installed.

Bakken Life

Want to move to North Dakota?  This is your commute...

This is where you are going to live, this is nothing compared to the consentration camps by Tioga.

Donkeys learn to hate you because you are drilling for oil on their land!

1929 Willys Whippet Mercury Flathead on Model A Frame

Recently I made the pedal linkage for the Whippet.  The pedals are from some kind of early Chevy that I found in a junk pile somewhere.  I used a clutch shaft from a 1946 Ford, I ordered it from Vanpelt sales but it is an OEM part.  The clutch is a bit hard to push in but it seems to work ok.  A 40’ Ford had longer pedals for a easier pedal ratio.

If I could give any advice on two carb setups for flatheads, it would be don't use the Edelbrock Super Dual.  I ended up having to offset the generator by using an Offy offset bracket that I got from Speedway Motors.  Then I had to invert one of the water necks and get a longer upper radiator hose to fit around the generator.  Then the inlet on the front carburetor is very tight to the side of the generator.

I made up these hose adapters for the lower radiator outlets to the water pumps.  I used 1x2 rectangular tubing and some round tubing because rubber hoses don't bend that sharp.

I ended up using an old dropped axle I had on the front.  I bought a Posies reverse arch front spring from Speedway, along with new perches and shackles.  I hate the cheap bushings they send with the shackles though, they shatter like glass if you are too rough on spring installation.

I used the Speedway complete brake line kit to run all the brake lines.  It worked well but I had a lot of left over brass parts that I paid for and didn't need, but they come in the kit.

I ran the front hard lines under the front crossmember.  I later put a T in the center.

I sourced this in-line 6 volt electric fuel pump from O'reilly auto parts.  I had a vintage Autopulse fuel pump installed because it looked cool but, apparently today's gas has alcohol in it and turns the rubber diaphrams of the vintage pump into silly putty, then sprays gas like a sprinkler.

I should be sponsored by Speedway or something, I got this poly 10 gallon tank from them as well.  On my last car I used an old steel tank.  It took me 2 days of cleaning the inside, then I had to seal it and wait a few more days to even test it, so this was way easier.

So last weekend I tried to fire the Flathead up but the rings wouldn't seal in the cylinders.  So I soaked them in Marvel Mystery Oil for a few days.  The oil makes the rings expand.  The oil also makes it smoke like crazy until it all burns off as you can see in the video.  I had to shut it down because I didn't have an oil pressure gauge or temp gauge.  Runs pretty good for an engine that sat in a truck seized up for about 30 years.

1929 Willys Whippet Progress Pics

Bought some sheet metal and took a stab at forming my first decklid, it didn't turn out too bad.  It would have been much easier with a shrinker/stretcher.  I just made a million notch cuts and slowly bent it then welded it to hold the shape.

These are Ford F-1 shock arms.  I made some brackets for them to bolt too.

I then made some  mounts for the lower  part of the shock and welded them to split wishbones.  (I might need to move the mounting hole to the inside because the tires rub the metal).  Now I know.

I slowly made the floor pans.  I had to make templates then go cut out the metal with a plasma cutter. 

The little hatch to the left is to fill the brake system through the master cylinder.  The slot is for the transmission shifter.

I cleaned up the frame and painted it.  Started the semi-final assembly.  If I keep the car I will probably take it apart and fix the stuff I hate after I drive it for awhile. 

1949 Mercury Flathead Resurrection 1929 Willys Whippet

Once again this is what I started with, a 1949 Mercury 8CM Flathead.  It is a 255 cubic inch about 114 horse power from the factory.  We bought an old farm truck and parted it out and I kept the engine.

I tore it down to where the cam and rotating assembly were still in the block and started cleaning.  2 days of cleaning later it looked like the picture below, with some paint of course.  The water jackets are notorious for building up rust resulting in over heating, so I cut up coat hangers and put them in an electric drill.  I then would spin the hangers while pushing them in and out of the water jackets to loosen any scale that was built up.  It helped to have the engine on a stand so I could spin it upside down.  Then I would tap the block with a rubber hammer and pounds of junk would fall out.

I installed a pcv valve in the valley of the block to help with ring seal when the engine is running.

The engine probably should have been honed and re-ringed but if it isn't stuck it will probably run, so I took a chance and started putting it back together.

I picked up an older Edelbrock Super Dual Intake Manifold to run two Holley 94 carburetors.

These engines run two water pumps so I found the truck style through Napa online.  I already had my motor mounts built on the frame so I wanted to stick with what I had.  I got exhaust manifolds from a 1934 Ford Flathead because they work as a dual exhaust where the merc came with single exhaust.

I switched the block over to head studs instead of bolts because they seal better and are less likely to snap off.  Just make sure yoou get the correct year because they are different lengths.  I found a deal on the Hamb website and found out they were for a earlier year, they still work but the bottom row has a lot of thread showing.

I picked up some chrome wire looms and a spark plug wire kit from Speedway.  This was my first time making spark plug wires and it was actually pretty easy, getting them to slide through the looms was the hard part.

1931 Chevy 5 Window Coupe

This is a video we took the first time I ever drove the car.  It had a bit of a death wobble in the front end but I ironed that out later.  It was an amazing feeling driving something that I built from a truck that was buried in the dirt for about 50 years.

This is the Coupe right before we started sanding it for paint.  I took it out for a test run and the torque converter went out.  I took these pictures after it died.

I was trying to get this car ready for the Glendive car show and the converter went out about 3 days before the show.  So I pulled the engine and transmission, replaced the converter, installed the red lexan windows, sanded and painted the body and put the floor in in 3 days.  Needless to say I made it to the carshow.

Tara made the seat cover for me.

This is a 30's Pontiac dash

These are a couple of the pictures they used in the Rebel Rodz magazine that I had a 2 page layout in.