Thread: Followed Me Home II

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I'm really struggling here! I picked out the PTFE hose, fittings and clamps to the tune of $83 plus shipping, which is too close to a $100 bill and as I look at the chassis I quite honestly cannot see any way that a tire could ever throw anything up against the top of the frame rail. It would take a multiple bank shot to get there! Then there's Mike saying he's been running his aluminum line for several years, and Jim saying that he doesn't see a problem.... I totally understand the issue of ethanol erosion, but I run ethanol free fuel (assuming it's truly ethanol free), so that's a non-issue. Bottom line, it's one piece of tube 10' long with PTFE hose connecting tank to hard line, and hard line to pump. If it needs to be changed later it's a drop dead simple swap - use the same threaded holes, change out to larger clamps and swap in PTFE.

I'm using what I've got for now, and can change it later if needed. I'll keep my $100 for something else.

Now to make a one time use tube straightening jig! Again, thanks for the input!

I've heard using a length of pvc pipe works to straighten the tubing and it's cheap/I mean inexpensive.

First, thanks 36 Sedan for the PVC tip! I had a foot long piece of 1/2" SCH 40 PVC and tried that, pushing the aluminum into the PVC then once through using a push/pull and it works pretty slick! It's not perfectly straight yet, but probably good enough for what I'll need. I was going to cut 5 wheels out of wood.... You saved me a bunch of time!
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I had been going through my stash of miscellaneous "stuff" that the PO had picked up at various car show vendor booths (like 5 different types of tubing clips for 3/8" tube plus a bag of "quick mount" plastic clips for 1/8", 3/16", 1/4" and 3/8" tube), and one thing that I'd scratched my head over was this High Zoot Moroso Balancer Bolt. Why does a guy, who's picked up a complete Chevy ZZ4 engine from the local dealer, come home with a High Zoot Moroso balancer bolt? I've got to admit I wondered about it 4 years ago, and it still made me pause - Why?
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The crank pulley has been mounted forever, I believe by the PO but for some reason this morning I grabbed a flashlight and looked in the bore..... NO Balancer Bolt!
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That got me started on a look & learn since the bolt is 2.25" long and the bore in the crank is only something like 1.25" deep. Also, the super heavy duty washer from Moroso is about 3/16" thick, and too large to fit in the balancer bore by a large overlap. I had not remembered that the crank pulley goes on before the balancer bolt, but a YouTube video on how to install SBC balancers the right way gave me the answer when the guy got the balancer seated using the threaded tool he said, "Now the crank pulley has to be installed before we install the balancer bolt....." So the pulley went back on with a dab of LocTite, followed by the Balancer bolt torqued to 60 ft-lbs. Gotta love the well done, technically correct YouTube Vid's out there! Just gotta be smart enough to ignore the trash.

Now I don't know if the PO removed the stock crank pulley to put on the fancy chrome one he'd bought, and just didn't replace the balancer bolt, or if he didn't have a torque wrench but it's scary to think of lighting off the engine and having the balancer bounce across the shop floor.... Divine Guidance! Thank you, Lord!
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So the rest of the day was taking things apart. I did another tweak on the exhaust, passenger side near the tranny with a pair of wedge cuts to increase pipe to tranny clearances and added a little gusseted tab off of one rear hanger mounting tab for the gas tank rollover vent. It's not much higher than the tank vent, but on a roadster there's not much higher ground so it'll do.
Got the LOKAR shifter pulled, the headers off, and the steering shaft pulled. This thing is starting to look bare again!
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Our heat index is just nasty these days! Humidity is 41% with a measured temp of 99F which is a heat index of 111F or so! And no, it's NOT a dry heat! For an old guy it means booking it towards the house around 4pm or so, and thinking about what's next.

I'm about ready to pull the engine & tranny, split them apart and get the engine on a stand. I've got an old engine stand that the PO gave me with the engine, and I think I'll get another one from Harbor Freight to use for a chassis rotisserie - just need to level out the support tubes so it doesn't go wonky when it spins like the '33 did...

That's about it from here. Thanks for putting up with my ramblings.

Originally Posted by rspears

First, thanks 36 Sedan for the PVC tip! I had a foot long piece of 1/2" SCH 40 PVC and tried that, pushing the aluminum into the PVC then once through using a push/pull and it works pretty slick! It's not perfectly straight yet, but probably good enough for what I'll need. I was going to cut 5 wheels out of wood.... You saved me a bunch of time!

Glad it worked for you!

Out in the barn I found the pieces of my engine stand, put it together and found that as I remembered the top tube is slanted up maybe 5 degrees, but the old orange stand actually slanted down just a hair, and the two were at different levels. Thought about going to Harbor Freight to get one, thinking two for the frame rotisserie, one to hold the engine then got caught up in how to level out the top tube and not really wanting to cut them up and weld. Lifting the back end of the newer stand to level was very close to a 2x4 under the wheels, and on the other one a piece of 1/2" ply under the front wheels brought it up to dead level.
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The big payoff was that with the blocks they are very near the same level now! I'll make blocks that are tied together with a lip so they don't fall off, but it should work!
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I remembered that the engine came to me on a nifty bolt on stand on a roller base from GM, and the tranny had been on a roller base too, so I'm good for now.
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Talking to Jim Robinson, I decided to bolt on a mechanical fan to see how it fits, and I think I'm going to go with it instead of the electric which was going to be a very tight fit to the water pump pulley. I like the idea of a belt driven fan for reliability, even with no clutch.
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I ran a small 4 blade fan om my 36, but the only traffic I ever got caught in was at the entrance to Lions drag strip.

End of the day the IFS is off. I'm seriously considering having the frame media blasted to get rid of whatever the PO put on it before, and I really don't look forward to sanding off everything by hand....
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It's amazing how fast things can come apart. Get the frame washed up and it might not look so overwhelming for sanding. I think hitting it with a D/A wouldn't take too long unless you want all of it off, then yes defiantly media blast.

I made up a pair of mounting brackets, got them Hooked to the rotating piece from the engine stands and then used the hoist to lift up the frame and slide them into the stands.
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I used some low profile forged C-channel that I had left over from my deck railing project several years ago, and it worked slick. It's rigid and plenty strong for the frame. I paid attention to adjusting the brackets on the rotating section to keep the C-channel aligned with the center of rotation, which I really didn't do with the '33. The old stand has an angled upright, so the narrower front of the chassis goes on it.
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The back is on the newer AC Delco stand, which is upright.
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I'm very happy with the mount. It's easy to move, doesn't go over center and try to flip, and isn't at all wonky as it rotates. Keeping centers of rotation aligned is the key!
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Once mounted and checked I used the flexibility to weld out the boxing plate extensions up front, and grind them smooth. A touch of body filler before prime and they'll be good to go!
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I've been waiting for 2 days for a quote from the media blasting place, and now that I've got the frame mounted I think I'll just attack it with a DA sander and be done. Jim Robinson pointed me towards one at Harbor freight that he uses, so I'll make a run to visit HF and get this thing ready to paint.
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Nice work Roger! I requested some quotes to get my frame media blasted last week too. The cheapest quote was $450 and the guy is 6 weeks out. I'll just wire wheel it and flap disc it. Hopefully I'm done before his 6 weeks is up. The front boxing plates turned out nice!

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I'm with Ryan. The "rotisserie" seems to work very well and the boxing plates looks slick.
Sand it and Paint it, let the assembly begin! WooHoo... LOL

Yeah, just after I posted I got the "quote" from the media blaster saying that there's no way for them to know what it will take to clean my frame but they think it will be between $250 and $500, but might be 1/2 that based on actual time required. Excuse me, but why ask for pictures and offer an "estimate"?

I'll sand it myself!

Years ago (many actually) a friend of my father told me the secret to successful estimating, "give em the the price, if the smile say "plus material".

I think your guy knew my Dads friend...

When I built my Track-T I used round tubing for the frame. It was actually black iron well pipe which has a sort of varnish coating on the outside. It sands off fairly easy on small pieces,.. but a whole frame with lots of welded intersections, etc.?? I bought a $15 sand blaster (basically a gun, a hose, and a siphon tube) and a $10 hood, got 300 pounds of "play sand" at Lowes, built a dam out of plywood to catch the sand, and I blasted the entire frame myself.

It took me all day, one day. When I would run out of sand in my big plastic bucket, I would shovel it up, sift it through a large sieve (from the cooking area at Walmart), and use it again. I wore out 4 tips in the sandblaster gun; I had to make a couple of them by drilling a 9/64 hole through short pieces of 1/2 inch round stock, so that slowed me down just a bit. All together it cost me $15 for the sandblaster and $10 for the hood(both which I still have), about $4 for the sieve (also still have), and $20 for the sand. The plywood and the bucket were just stuff I had lying around. It was messy and tedious, but the good news was it was cheap and, best of all, I didn't have to wait on anybody.

I have a siphon blaster and a pressure pot, I've blasted a lot of stuff but it isn't very fun. On a side note I have a mid grade harbor freight D/A sander and I'm happy with it.