On The Hook Two

Last week end was our club get together for our annual SLO run (run to San Lois Obisbo) It's about 250 miles north of where I live. It's an invitation only get together for the Bay Area Roadsters,(San Francisco) and the SLO, and the California Roadsters (Southern California). I went over my roadster front to back checking everything I could think of, changed the oil, ran the valves twice and I was ready. My wife had to go to a convention in Las Vegas so it was my grandson and me.
We packed our bags took out the bottom cushion of my rumble seat and packed everything away. We met 6 other club members at Denny's restaurant at 8:30 last Thursday and we all took off at 9:00 a.m. with a meeting place for lunch where we would meet up with the other 18 cars in our club for lunch, then all caravan together into San Louis Obispo.
I was 4th in line about 10 miles into the trip when my car backfired once out of the exhaust, then died. I coasted to the side of the freeway and stopped. I just had a gut feeling it was the ignition. After checking all the fuses and everything seemed fine I was pretty sure it was my distributer. The problem is you can't even see my distributor in my car. So I new I was done. Two of the guys stopped to help but I told them to go on, it was dead.
My grandson says, "Papa let's take the truck," I love this kid!
I called my wife, told her to take one of the guys from work to our house and have him drive the truck to where we were, and have some other guys bring a trailer up to haul my roadster home.
In less than an hour we back on the road trying to make up lost time. We caught everyone at our lunch stop. They were just finishing up, but they waited for us to eat and we were all off.
We pulled into the motel at 3:30, unpacked and looked forward to dinner. My room was next to Steve Moal. I had to take a picture of my truck parked next to his car, what a contradiction of cars :LOL:
Here are some other shots of the run. My truck went 730 miles and averaged 18.4 mpg. I was amazed and it never missed a beat.
Ken

Some More, we stopped at a restored hotel and saloon

Other then a breakdown, looks like it5 was a great trip! Always good to have a spare!!!!!

excellent pics ken , looks like yall had a great time!

Thanks for the pictures, I've been trying to get my busted body riddled with pain moving this morning, and when I saw the pictures it makes me feel better seeing those beautiful cars plus one truck. That’s the best part of hot rodding driving with a group, and the town was awesome. Aren't grandkids the best, my oldest one just spent two days with us and we really had a good time.

Richard

Well, the breakin' down part sucks, but ya gotta love the kid goin' right to plan B..............must be good genetics! San Looie O is a great place to cruise to.

Dave-Yes it was, we had good weather and a lot of good friends.

flh4speed-Thanks, we sure did, really look forward to next year.

Richard-You are right, there is something about riding around with a bunch of old cars. The grandkids keep you young, I think, If that's true why am I so tired at night? :LOL:

Bob-He did, I'm thinking this might be a long week end for him, but I think he would go again this week end if there was another run. I got to tell you 700 miles in that thing is a long trip :LOL:
Ken

You've got a budding hot rodder there for sure Ken...........nothing is going to stop that Kid. :3dSMILE: :3dSMILE: Sorry about the breakdown, did you ever find out what caused it? Nice that you were able to get right back on the road and enjoy yourselves.

What beautiful countryside too, looks like Old California for sure. Bet the two of you will never forget the trip..........I know your co-pilot won't. :) :)

Don

Don-Yep, he's a good kid. The night before we left I took the car out a ran it pretty hard threw the gears, thinking I would sort out any weak links. All I did was make a weak link. What is funny is I came home bragging to my wife how the car was running so good. So the first thing she says to me when I call for help was, "yeah, you told me they always run there best before they blow up" :LOL:
What really happened was when I ran it threw the gears was made the rotor run up on the shaft, then when we left the restaurant we all nailed it again getting on the freeway. Once it started moving up on the shaft it finally came into contact with the lugs inside the cap and snapped it off. The new style rotors have two set screws on them to prevent this.
It really is pretty up there, I took 119 pictures. I hope he doesn't forget all these memories after I'm gone.
Ken

The other thing is that you taught him a valuable lesson.......you can't let life get you down. Make lemonade, go to plan B, and all that stuff, but just keep going. Don was pretty discouraged when his T ate that valve on the way to Daytona, but there is always next year and that the car can be fixed. We hot rodders soon learn that these things do occasionally have problems and it just goes with the turf.

Lucky that you knew where to find a trailer!!!!!!!! :rolleyes: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

Don

Don-you are absolutely right. If anything out of all this he just learns that. He asked me once why I like working on the cars so much, hope he puts this all together when we go out with them and have a great time.
Yep, that Kendon, Home Depot, Henry Ford car .................. Do I sound like Tony Stewart?:LOL: :LOL: :LOL:
Ken

I got it back together,went for a cruise and it did it again :mad: :mad: . I checked for any side play in the distributor shaft when it was apart and didn't seem to have anything extreme. I'm going to take it apart again tonight.
Ken

Ken,
First let me say I do not have anywhere near the knowledge that you have.

I had a brand new import car 1971 I was constantly resetting the points. I took the distributor out but you could not rebuild it. It turned out the shaft was bent and that would throw off the dwell, when the engine would get shutoff sometimes the dwell was to wide. I would reset the points, start it up, it took awhile to figure it out. New distributor did the trick. If you have an extra one you could try it. Just thinking but that was my problem.

Richard

Ken, if it's not side play, is there vertical play in the shaft when the dist is installed? That sure is a funky rotor, what brand is it?....this is in the ex-Indy motor, isnt it? Perhaps you have to shim the distributor shaft if there is too much vertical play.....can you see in the cap where it hits the terminals?

mike in tucson

Richard- Thanks for replying, I don't have a spare, but I may have one soon :LOL:

Mike- No, this is a Donovan, the distributor is a Vertex HEI that looks like a mag. Thanks I will check that, it makes sense.

What a great day with the grandson regardless. and the ol' truck sure fit right in with that group ! Thanks for the pics ken, very fun day it looks like.

Ken, have you had any conversations with Vertex about the problem? That unit you have is really a nice piece from what I have seen in the magazines, certainly not a cheap piece by any means. They must have some idea what is going on and I bet have seen this before.

Don

Don,
I did, here is the problem as for as I can tell. I took the car apart again this morning and the rotor was broke again. Robot and another good INTERNET friend told me to check the amount the main shaft was able to rise, I did. and it only has .005 of rise.
Apparently, there are two versions of this distributor. One is for computers that require an external coil the other like I have in my truck has an internal coil. If you look at the photo in my last post there fix for this is to use this steel ring around the bottom of the rotor with two set screws. The problem with that on my distributor is the set screws will hit the magnetic pick up when it rotates. So Monday I will get another one and put in flush mounted set screws so the clear.
But this is what bothers me. I have about 2200 miles on my roadster and it just broke. I put the new one on and it broke after 10 miles. It fit tighter than my old one to the best of my memory :HMMM: And how does centrifugal force cause it to rise?
The good thing is that everything on my car is out in the open and REAL easy to work on.**) **) :LOL: :LOL:
Ken

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Originally Posted by brickman

What a great day with the grandson regardless. and the ol' truck sure fit right in with that group ! Thanks for the pics ken, very fun day it looks like.

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Yes it was, and I think I had the nicest looking car there :LOL: Thanks.
Ken

Here is the two different styles, on the left external coil, (msd and 900 ft. of wire)on the right three wires and your done, positive ground and tach.
Ken

Ken, this is a stretch, but I had a '64 Chevy that started breaking rotors when I got on it. Drove me nuts, then I found my one motor mount had broken and the engine was lifting up under torque and the cap was smacking the firewall. In the picture your distributor is very close in there, could this possibly be what is going on in your car?

What made me wonder is that you said it happened when you got on it and that it was fine for 2200 miles. Maybe something has loosened allowing your engine to move around a little?


Don

hay ken that mag dosent have somthing wierd like a hollow shaft and crank case presure is pushing the rotor up. probly not but just a thought I KNOW ALL THE RULES AND I KNOW HOW TO BREAK EM TED

Ken
I am more motivated than ever to get the truck done. You've once again inspired me. What a great way to turn a setback into a positive day. Your grandson must of had a blast. Nice drive too. Beautifull area, nice scenery and a bunch of nice rods all in one! Is one of those shots in Solvang CA?
P.S.
How's Tina's knee coming along?

Don, I swear I was thinking the something but didn't want to say because the guys may think I had lost it. Yes I thought if the distributor was close and the torque could get it against the firewall it could happen. I think Ken said in the beginning it was hard to get to when he called for the truck.

Richard

Don-I checked to see if anything was hitting and the conditions of my motor mounts and that's not it, good idea though.
I have been ringing this things neck since I finished it though, that motor sounds so good around 7000 going threw a underpass :LOL: :3dSMILE:


Ted- No i checked and it is solid, but , thanks for the advise.


Steve-Going out with all these guys really motivates me also, I have been working on my new car every second I get. Matthew (my grandson) did have fun, he never asked if we were there yet, or when are we going home. He wanted know were we were going next!!We were very close to Solvang a couple of times, it's just beautiful country there.Going threw Monterey when the 101 goes right by the ocean and you are in a roadster :) Doesn't get much better, in my opinion. We actually looked at a place in Cambria, I'm close.
She isn't doing very well. They are going to put here back in the hospital put here under again and CRACK her knee. You probably know more what that means than me. I think it means they are going to break the scar tissue up so she has more range of motion?


Richard-Please don't hold back on your suggestions, I am at a loss. I'm going to try the set screw thing tomorrow.
Ken

Ken, we had a similar deal many moons ago with a Joe Hunt modded Vertex mag.... When you gassed it, the disributor shaft would climb up the cam gear and snap the rotor.... It was many years ago, but seems like Loren discovered it while playing with the mag on a distributor machine... Think he added a shim or something.... I could track him down next week and get the exact details if you want....

PS---Don't blame me for not remembering all the details, I was just the driver!!!!!:LOL: :LOL: :LOL: They used to right the instructions on the gauge panel for me-----Turn left, go fast!!!! Only took two season for me to memorize the instructions!!!!!!:LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

Thanks Ken,
I sure hope you get it fixed soon. I have a true story that happened to me. 1968 I was driving home from work in my 57 Chevy 2dr. ht. All of a sudden the loudest backfire and the engine died. It was on a busy expressway coming out of Chicago no less.
I thought I blew it up had it towed to a friends garage, I was single but had married friends that had garages. Another friend had a 56 Chevy 2dr. wagon not a nomad but a 2dr. I bought the wagon for the engine, I think at that time maybe $100 I pulled the engine myself and took the engine out of the 57 my self. I worked all night long on the switch. Before I actually pulled the engine from the 57 I noticed a wire was off the coil. I had everything disconnected and ready to come out. I was so upset I said to myself I’m not stopping I’m switching anyway.

I have always heard start at the basic’s but it seems like I always think the worst first.

I see someone is having trouble with the knee good luck to her the knee can be very painful.
I had a motorcycle accident 1969 and it’s been bad ever since, 5 surgery’s now it needs to be replaced but I just hate to go through another surgery, I need 4 but at my age I’m not too eager to go.

Richard

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Originally Posted by ford2custom

I had a motorcycle accident 1969 and it’s been bad ever since, 5 surgery’s now it needs to be replaced but I just hate to go through another surgery, I need 4 but at my age I’m not too eager to go.

Richard

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I think they next surgery I will allow them to do on me will be the autopsy.....

Back when my Falcon was stock and still had the points distributor, the rotor did hit the cap once and destroyed the cap and rotor. put new rotor and new cap on, and it was fine, never did it again but I replaced the distributor after the rebuild and I didn't put very many miles on the car b4 I rebuilt the engine.

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Originally Posted by Dave Severson

I think they next surgery I will allow them to do on me will be the autopsy.....

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I think I will give mine also, the Doctor's can't believe I'm able to use my right arm it is so bad. Every morning I tell my wife I can't do this anymore, the back, both arms, both knees, left wrist was eggshell cracked. But you read about Chris, and he keeps me going. Let me know when you plan on going maybe we can save our wives some money.

Richard

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Originally Posted by ford2custom

I think I will give mine also, the Doctor's can't believe I'm able to use my right arm it is so bad. Every morning I tell my wife I can't do this anymore, the back, both arms, both knees, left wrist was eggshell cracked. But you read about Chris, and he keeps me going. Let me know when you plan on going maybe we can save our wives some money.

Richard

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Wife???? Had a few of them, gave up on married stuff.....:LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

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Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Wife???? Had a few of them, gave up on married stuff.....:LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

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There goes my wife’s discount:confused:

Dave-I checked that and it only had .005 of movement, Robot said anything under .010 was good. Turn Left and go fast, that's funny.

Richard-What a story, I think I would of shot myself after all that work!! Thanks, she is going in again next week.

Dave- I'm with you, and I hope my check bounces :LOL:

Matt- I checked that real good and I have good clearance, it's tight but know contact.

Well, I got a new rotor this morning. Went by the hardware store and picked up some set screws, and put it together. Drove it about 20 miles and it's still running. So maybe they are right it is being pulled up into the cap from centrifugal force.
Ken

The way the rotor conductor is bent downward will cause a slight upward couple at the conductor anchor point in the rotor due to rotation. Are there dimples for the set screws to seat in the shaft? That would be the optimum for making sure it holds.

Kitz