Thread: I couldn't build it for $3 K either!

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I thought that since I had been away for so long that an update might be in order.

The car has been on the road for 6 years and has racked up a little over 16,000 miles on the odometer. It has proven to be reliable and has served us well.

Most of the miles have been put on it traveling to shows and other events. I don't get to drive it much otherwise. Most of our trips are 200 to 400 miles round trip. We put 1800 miles on it in one week this year during the NTBA nationals in Mountain Home, AR, including a side trip to Springfield, MO. It's made that trip twice over the years.

We also took it to east Tennessee, but trailered it on that trip. The only reason we hauled it was that we also took the motorcycle. That's the only time it's been trailered.

On that trip we drove over the Tail of the Dragon (US129). That's a famous motorcycle and sports car road. They claim 318 curves in 11 miles. Easy to believe, too. The little car was a blast to drive there!

I wish I could say that I got everything right and the car is the same, but that isn't quite how it worked out.

Brake issues were the main problem. I built the car with power brakes and that turned out to be a mistake.

The big Lincoln drums on the front overpowered the S10 drums on the rear. With 60% of the car's weight on the rearend, there just wasn't enough weight transfer forward during braking to justify all that stopping power on the front. The rear brakes did almost nothing and the fronts would lock at anything more than a gentle stop.

Often, one side would lock before the other and the car would pull violently to that side. Problem was that it didn't always lock the same wheel. I know that sounds crazy, but that's the way it worked. No amount of adjusting helped. The proportioning valve in the rear circuit (as per standard practice) was useless. Plumbing the prop valve in the rear circuit may work fine on a nose heavy sedan, but on this car it didn't.

The solution was to ditch the power brakes, eliminate the prop valve and go to a dual master cylinder and balance bar setup. I set it up with a smaller bore master for the rear brakes to build more pressure on that end.

Of course it wasn't quite that easy. The pedal ratio was setup for power brakes and there wasn't room to change the pedal without pulling the trans. The power booster was mounted in the rear and operated with a long pushrod, so I fabbed what might be called a mechanical booster. It took the place of the vacuum booster, reused the pushrod setup and held the dual Wilwood master cylinders. This allowed me to increase the mechanical advantage and reuse the existing booster mounts. I've since found a few examples of factory brake setups that use intermediate levers (mostly on pickups), so I guess mine isn't unusual after all.

With all the brakes working like they should, the difference in stopping power was nothing short of amazing! No more playing the front wheel lockup lottery, either. Problem solved!

Here's a few pictures of the setup.









Mike

The other changes are fairly minor, but worth mentioning.

The air cleaners in the build pictures have been changed. The "helmet" style cleaners look good, but they severely restrict air flow. The bell shaped covers fit too tight around the filter elements. On the ones I have, there is just a tiny sliver of an opening on the perimeter. The small 4" filters are restrictive at their best and don't need any help. I replaced them with finned aluminum open element pieces.

I also had a front end bounce issue that I chased for a while. It always happened between 50 and 55 MPH. I was beginning to think I might have to change the front shock setup. It turns out that the brand new front tires were out of round. I hate to think that I was going to make major changes when the solution was just that simple.

The rear auto leveling air suspension works like a charm. No matter what the load (including pulling a trailer), the stance is right and the ride is about as good as a 1700 pound car with a solid axle can get. It seems to amaze bystanders when the car levels itself, too.