CAR 1  May 17th—My third child is near so work on the car should soon be coming to a pause for a while.  I’ll take some time to move into my new shop and get organized. 

Chris came down from Arkansas this past weekend, after being sworn in as an attorney by the Arkansas Supreme Court, and installed the wire harness.  He’s pretty good with that stuff and the Painless Performance harness is fairly easy to deal with if you have some experience.  The only thing that is a little difficult is hooking up the stock ignition switch to the switch panel that has rocker switches to start the car.  Most aftermarket wiring parts like this harness are GM color coded and work well in GM cars.  They give you little info on Fords.  Chris found it easier to use a GM headlight switch instead of the Ford.  I’ll probably end up with forklift ignition switch to make the starting panel hot.  Make sure you spend the money on the

Latest News & Work Progress

CAR #1 March 8th - I’m reconstructing and fabricating a new brace assembly for the nose.  I call it the “box in front of the radiator support”. The old one is too rusted out to use but some pieces are reusable.  The original is stamped so this is quite a challenge to make it with the equipment I have available. 

I’m using 18 gauge cold rolled sheet metal.  My bead roller does not like it.  I finally got my brake adjusted so it will bend the metal pretty well.  I built my stand for the brake a little to high and hurt my back bowing up on the metal last night. 

This work could have been avoided.  I heard about a guy in Florida that fabricates new fenders and header pan assemblies for Talladegas.  I called the guy several times and he would never send me pictures or call me back.  Finally I decided to look elsewhere and located some NOS fenders in North Dakota.  I paid an arm and a leg but where else are you going to find these rare pieces?  The old fenders were OK, but would have taken a lot of very skilled work to repair them. I decided to try and locate a pair. The cool thing about the new ones is that the left side fender is unfinished.  It supposedly came from an auction at Holman-Moody.  The extension is installed but the seam on the outside has not been smoothed. The hole for the marker light is not cut out either.

Pictures of the original “box”

April 3rd -

Chris got his results back from the bar exam on April 1st.  He passed!

 

Good News!  Work has started on Car #2.  The ultimatum combined with the fact that I started doing some work myself in their shop started something. .  I just hope the momentum carries on to the other needs of the car.

 The engine has been torn down and is scheduled to be cleaned and rebuilt next week.  I’ve ordered an ARP stainless steel bolt kit and a new distributor and coil.  I decided that rather than fool with the current ignition system it was time to upgrade to something more reliable. We will be installing a Mallory Unilite distributor and coil.  Everything looks pretty good inside the motor as a previous owner had major work done back in 1999.  It was bored .030 over and a huge cam was added. It is now a 433 Cobra Jet.  I understand that it has not been driven very often since.  Pictures of the motor are below.

 

Car #1 is progressing nicely despite a little time away from it. Chris will be down later this week to help for a few days.  At that time I hope to have the roll cage in, battery apron replaced, and repair a few rusty spots in the trunk.  We will probably try to finish wiring the car as well with a harness from Painless Performance.

I purchased a lower dash section from a Fairlane on Ebay.  I installed it just to measure the dimensions for the upper dash.  I used 20 gauge phos-coat steel and fabricated a plain and simple upper dash.  I choose this route instead of stock because of the NASCAR look I’m going for and I want to use new gauges and a panel with rocker switches for ignition and other accessories.  After I nibble the holes out for defrost vents, gauges, etc., I’ll disassemble everything and take it to Kelly for a coat of flat black.  I hope to finish the project I started a few weeks ago manufacturing the bracing for the fenders and nose.  About half of it is done at this time.

Car #2 Pictures

A few of the pieces I have made for the front bracing

April 11th—My beloved Mudbugs hockey team got knocked out of the playoffs Thursday night with a game 7 OT loss.  I’m too busy and excited about the cars to feel down right now.

Chris came down from Arkansas this weekend. Car #1 has a roll cage now and the replacement of the rusted out battery apron and panels where the shock mounts used to be is completed. We wanted to do more but we wasted a lot of time a on Saturday.  The welding supply company replaced our argon tank with another empty tank.  That combined with sleeping late and going to eat lunch at Trejos (Chris’ favorite Mexican restaurant) meant that work didn’t start on Saturday until nearly 4:00pm.  This was our first attempt at a roll cage and it was a lot more work than both of us thought.  I’m also starting to realize that it doesn’t matter if you order parts specific for your car, you must always modify them to fit.  This is custom work all the way. 

The cage looks great and is properly tied into the sub-frame.  It’s mostly for looks, but I can feel good that it is safe and installed properly.  The engine bay without the shock towers is huge.  I’m considering going with headers inlieu of the stock exhaust manifolds.  My custom dash pad that I built is near completion and I will send it to the powder coaters soon.  Next on the agenda is to install the fuel tank and new fuel line, rubber coat the fender wells, and work on the interior.  Interior work will include installing sound deadener, the rear package tray, moulding, and adjusting the windows.  There are a lot of small details to complete before it is ready for the carpet and seats.  The next big project that I will fly Chris down to help with is the installation of the wiring harness. Pictures of the latest work are posted below.

 

Car #2 is progressing nicely.  The engine has been torn down, inspected, and is being reassembled.  I had to take the heads to a machine shop to have minor work done.  There is a small fracture around one of the bolt holes.  I’m also getting them to resurface and inspect the heads.  About half of the push rods were bent so I’m going to get all new ones and bolts too.  The block has a new coat of blue paint and the valve covers and intake manifold has been glass beaded and sprayed with clear coat.  Everything should be back together in a few weeks. I really think that the car will be finished by the end of April. Things are really starting to come together.   Pictures of the latest work are posted below.

Get the camera out of my face!

Car 2  May 17th—I jumped back into action again after little progress and started doing some of the work myself.  I started to replace door seals and window felt. 

The heads were taken to a local automotive machine shop to be cleaned up and checked out.  It turns out that the seats are bad and the heads are in bad need of repair.  After inspecting the engine more closely we found more areas that cause concern.  The shop that rebuilt the motor before did a poor job.  The cam they used was too big and is causing problems.  They also installed the cam bearings sloppy and balanced the engine in a less than desirable way.  I’ll be taking the whole thing to the machine shop to be checked out and repaired before changing the cam and whatever else needs to be changed.  I guess it will be hurry up and wait for a while longer.  It will be a solid running car when it is finished. 

CAR 1  November 22, 2005— Chris came into to town a couple of weeks ago and we got to work for a few days.  The brake system, including the emergency brake is completed.  I finished the black aluminum interior on the package tray, sail panels, and back seat/trunk divider area.  The front bracing is complete and just needs to be bolted on.  I’m waiting until the engine is fully assembled before doing so.  Chris got busy building a custom set of headers for the car.  Without the shock towers you think it would be easy but the engine mounts, oil filter/cooler steering shaft, and power rack created some obstacles.  In  typical redneck hotrodder style, we broke out the reciprocating saw started cutting.  In no time Chris had the right side welded up and fitting well.  Next time Chris comes to town he will finish the left side and we will send them off to be ceramic coated.  The alternator, power steering pump and electric fan is ready to be installed after the headers are completed.  While taking the bracket off of the p/s pump, a huge Black Widow crawled out about an inch from my hand.  Goosebumps!  We did go ahead and mount the water pump, power steering lines, oil lines and cooler. The floor shifter is now mounted. We really had a great time drawing pornographic art in scrap sheet metal with my new plasma cutter.

Next step is to finish headers, wrap up the wiring, get drive shaft modified (again), assemble engine, and get ready to go to the body shop.  Check out the pictures below.

painless gauge harness.  I was told it was worth every penny.

I finished my custom dash and had it powder coated along with the stock lower dash.  It turned out great.  Pictures are below. 

Every single inch of the car has been covered with sound deadener. I’ll use aluminum tape later this week to seal every crack. 

Since the trunk area was finished, it was primed, covered in sound deadener, and the refurbished fuel tank was installed. 

I finished the custom package trey and sails made from aluminum a while back and installed them.  I must admit that it looks great and gives it a very racy look.  I removed the rear window and cleaned the area well before we put it back this weekend with new clips for the moulding. 

The new battery tray and bracket were bolted into place.  I repaired the old oil cooler brackets and cleaned up the alternator and starter.  I installed the reman wiper motor as well.  Chris installed the coil and the next time he comes down we will finish the brakes and engine compartment.  I’m very close to finishing all of the front bracing for the fenders and nose area. 

I don’t have any bumper brackets for this car so I took the ones off of the other car and took them to a machine shop.  I’m having two sets made and having them and the front bracing powder coated.  Things are moving along pretty well and the car should be finished by the end of the summer if we keep on this pace.  I have all of the interior parts I need to put it together after paint and body including a new custom set of door panels I had made by a local upholstery shop.