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jsturner

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jsturner last won the day on December 28 2013

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    Northern California
  • My Project Cars
    1951 Chrysler Windsor

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    Northern California
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    Old cars

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    Mechanical Engineer

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  1. I built my own, see thread here: http://p15-d24.com/topic/35043-diy-fiberglass-heater-duct-heater-rebuild-volvo-heater-valve/?tab=comments#comment-356088
  2. I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the '52 Chrysler wagon that Icon 4x4 put a 6.1 in: Hot Rod Magazine featured it: http://www.hotrod.com/featuredvehicles/hrdp_1104_the_derelict_1952_chrysler_town_country/ It was on Jay Leno's Garage: And Icon's site has some shots of the bare chassis: http://www.icon4x4.com/dr/derelicts/gallery?c=main Pretty cool car I think. They kept all the modern engine managment (except cylinder deactivation I think) but put some early Hemi valve covers over the 6.1's coil packs. I've thought about doing something similar, and might someday. At this point it's becoming so expensive to rebuild an engine, swapping in a modern one is making more and more sense. I'd get a whole donor car from Copart. 2WD truck might be best because it has an intake manifold with the throttle body facing the side rather than straight into the radiator. Icon just kinked the intake to make it fit, which looks pretty restrictive:
  3. Here's mine, using the VPW crankcase fitting and PCV valve and a custom bent/accidentally kinked tube. Someday I'll cap the oil fill tube with something that seals and run a line from there to the clean side of the air cleaner like Donald's. I had to richen the idle mixture to compensate for the extra air but it wasn't a big difference.
  4. Not to threadjack but for the benefit of others considering an electric fuel pump: I put that exact airtex 6 volt electric fuel pump on my '51 Chrysler earlier this year. You're going to love it. I did mine for a few reasons: 1. My mechanical fuel pump was starting to leak a lot due to our lovely modern fuel chemistry. 2. No more vapor lock. Modern fuel has a much higher vapor pressure than when our vehicles were built. That means it evaporates really easily, especially the so-called winter blend, which is sold at some stations well into summer hot weather because they don't fill their storage tanks that often. This is great for atomization and combustion and such, but it means the fuel evaporates at the drop of a hat. This is exacerbated because of the suction in the line betwen the stock fuel pump and the tank. Even with properly routed fuel lines and heat shields I fought vapor lock throughout a cross-country trip in May last year, during a heat wave when lots of stations were still selling winter blend gasoline. Modern cars are unaffected because the entire fuel system is pressurized, which increases the boiling point of the fuel. Now that we have electric pumps at the tank our fuel systems are under pressure and we should be nearly immune to vapor lock. 3. Faster starts and no more priming. Before when I shut off my hot engine the fuel in the line drained back to the tank. Heat soak in the engine bay boiled everything out of the carb float bowl and pump-to-carb plumbing. Of course I'd have to prime it to get it started again after that. Now, when I turn the ignition on the electric pump primes the fuel system and fills the float bowl. Same goes for when the car sits for a while. I learned a couple other things while researching this stuff; you probably already know this: - If your mechanical pump is still plumbed into the system and the diaghram fails, the electric pump will completely fill the crankcase with fuel. I bypassed mine. - If you crash and your fuel plumbing is damaged but the electric pump is still energized it will busily pump all your fuel onto the hot exhaust manifold, probably causing a massive inferno and roasting you alive, which is always fun. Airtex sells an oil pressure switch you can install so the pump shuts off if the engine stops. The switch is bypassed during starting. That's on my to-do list. - Modern fuel also kills most cheap rubber fuel hose. OEMs and big-budget hot rodders use teflon hose and fancy AN fittings which is great, but for us mere mortals I hear Gates Barricade hose is the way to go.
  5. To me, old cars are cheaper and more fun than any of today's silver jellybeans on wheels. Even having developed some of those jellybeans, I'd never buy one new. I can't believe how much they cost, even the cheap ones. Also: - Old cars are unique and stand out - They make people smile - They make me go the speed limit, so I enjoy the trip and don't stress. - They make me avoid major highways, so I get to explore cool backroads and see new things. - I enjoy watching the guy in the new BMW behind me have a temper tantrum because I'm going the speed limit. I wasn't around then but I don't think things were unequivocally better in the mid-20th century. There were far fewer people in the world and people lived slower, simpler lives, so maybe we weren't as stressed and crowded and competitive with each other as we are now. But materialism and consumerism was rampant. Look at mid-fifties cars and magazine ads from the time; it was all about flashy chrome, outdoing the neighbors, and buying the latest appliances. People bought a new car every two years, which is nice for us old car enthusaists today but kind of disgusting really. I think that era started the notion that there is no success without perpetual growth. We still seem to think that if the economy isn't growing, if the population isn't growing, something is wrong. And that's going to bite us in the butt eventually, because perpetual growth isn't sustainable. Sorry for the rant
  6. I have a 251 and didn't use the felt. My damper hub doesn't have the cup shape for it. The seal can be a little tricky. I got mine in backwards the first time. That metal lip on the seal housing threw me off because if I installed the seal the way the rubber lip wanted it to be, the metal lip hit the timing gear. So I thought what the heck, and installed it with the metal lip facing out. Massive oil leak, of course. Don't do this: I think someone screwed up on the application of this seal. The metal lip is supposed to work with the oil slinger in the 331 hemi, and maybe a different flathead than mine. When I bought another front seal to fix my oil leak, it had the same metal lip. I ended up carefully cutting the lip off with a hacksaw blade and installing it with the former metal lip side inward. This put the seal lip facing the right way and eliminated the contact between the metal lip and timing sprocket. I also sleeved my damper hub, and now have zero oil leaks from the front of my engine. (The rear is another story )
  7. I was thinking about that. The stock front mount is just a block of rubber vulcanized to two steel plates. How much torque would it take to tear that apart? Maybe it's a lot tougher than I think. +1 on the chain torque straps The front mount is the normal mount point for our flatheads of course, but our engines are meant to be backed up by a transmission with two mounts, one on each side of the bellhousing. Chop's transmission is meant to be behind an engine with two mounts, one on each side of the block. I know a few folks on the forum have later model automatics behind their flatheads; how did they mount them?
  8. Very cool, it's nice to see people using our engines in unconventional ways, and refreshing to see a hot rod with something other than a small block GM in it. Nice fabrication work too. I notice you only have two engine/trans mounts. Most vehicles that I know of have at least three, otherwise the engine/trans is free to rotate around the axis between the mounts. Any plans to add another mount, or are you pretty confident in your current setup?
  9. Finished except for the strap over the duct where it meets the heater box, and some grommets. It doesn't exactly blast hot air but it does get the car warm inside. There's a slight smell of fiberglass resin but I expect that will go away as the resin cures completely. I didn't bother with any sound deadening and I can't hear a difference in noise inside the car. I plan to ditch the dual glasspacks that came on the car in favor of an original-style exhaust system, so maybe I'll hear it when the exhaust is quite.
  10. I thought about fuel injecting my flathead a while back, and did some research and bought this book on the subject. I highly recommend reading it if you have any interest in EFI. From what I could tell, many EFI systems do not time the injection event to the intake valve opening, and instead pulse the injectors constantly, varying the pulse width to control how much fuel they're putting out. This means that the siamesed intake ports would not be a problem; you'd just have one injector sized for 1/3 of your displacement at each of the three intake ports. Also, ideally the injector should point directly at the back of the intake valve. This is why modern engines usually have the injectors on top of the intake manifolds. On our flatheads, you'd want the injector underneath the manifold, pointing up at the backs of the valves. If you wanted to do this you'd need to fabricate a custom exhaust manifold that went above the intake manifold. The added benefit of this is that you'd get rid of some of the exhaust heat in the intake manifold, bringing down the air temperature, which would likely allow you to advance the ignition timing some and get more power and fuel economy. Another option that would get you the EFI reliability you want is throttle body fuel injection. If you're not familiar, this is where a butterfly throttle valve, airflow meter, and single injector replace the carburetor. It's basically an electronically controlled carburetor with feedback from an O2 sensor in the exhaust. This would be simpler to set up. It could even be done so that you still use the stock air cleaner. If you have fluid drive you'd need to set up a kickdown switch somewhere on your throttle linkage, or use the existing carb as a throttle body and retrofit a throttle position sensor to it. Of course you'd need to install an 02 sensor in your exhaust, and maybe a crank position sensor somewhere. And it would be difficult to make an EFI system work with 6 volts, so if you haven't converted to 12 volts yet you'd probably want to. Any EFI system will need dyno time to properly tune it and get the most out of it. You have to create a map that tells the computer how much fuel to inject for any given throttle position and engine speed. The cool thing about this is that you can create two maps that you could change between with the flick of a switch: one for fuel economy and one for power. All of this is doable, not trying to deter you. I really want to see an EFI flathead! However, you could get easy starting and freedom from vapor lock with an electric fuel pump (this one is 6 volt) back near the tank. As far as power, reliability and towing with the stock setup, I drove my '51 Windsor from Ohio to California last summer. I was moving, so the trunk and backseat were jammed full of stuff, plus I was towing a trailer with a 550 lb motorcycle, shop equipment, bicycles, and furniture on it. I took Highway 50 the whole way, which includes many mountain passes, including one at 11,000 feet. The car didn't have any problems with the altitude and of course I was crawling up the grades at 25 mph in low gear, but hey, who's in a rush? For power steering, check out Borgeson. They sell power steering conversion kits for a bunch of classic cars, using GM integral power steering gearboxes and pumps. They don't have an application for us, but I bet something could be made to work. Integral power steering boxes are used on a lot of heavy vehicles, including, I believe, the early Mopar systems.
  11. Do you remember if this was from some later model car, something that could be found at the junkyard? If so maybe I'll go back and poke around, see if I can find a closer match to the original.
  12. After the resin cured I sanded the rough edges and stray fibers. It's good to do this before removing the foam core because the foam backs up the fiberglass and makes it easier to sand with some force. Then I used a spray bottle to spray acetone on the foam from one end. (I didn't tape up the ends) The foam dissolved easily and not much acetone was required. The packing tape, glue, and plastic film that was on some of the foam was untouched and remained in the duct, while most of the foam dripped out with the acetone onto the cardboard I had underneath. The mess was pretty minimal. Using rubber gloves I pulled out most of the stuff left inside the duct and then peeled out the packing tape liner, which came out in one piece and took all the mess with it. The acetone evaporated and I was left with dry scraps of hard plastic, all that was left of the foam. I think this could probably be thrown away or recycled. Any chemists here? The duct came out nice! The inside is smooth and shiny, with no foam or tape left. I think the car wax made it really easy to remove the tape. With two layers of fiberglass it's plenty rigid. I can handle it without worrying much about damaging it. When I tap it with my fingernails it is a bit noisy, so we'll see if it acts like a drum in the car. Might have to put some Dynamat inside on the flatter areas. I don't think smell will be a problem since the acetone evaporates very quickly and the smell of the resin is going away. It fits ok; I had to trim the rubber seal a bit and I'll have to put some safety wire around it to actually seal. Definitely need a thick gasket at the firewall since I didn't get the angle quite right. Should work though! Next I'll paint it flat black, hook up the heater hoses, and final install everything.
  13. My heater core and blower fans were ok functionally but all the housings needed some TLC, so I took them apart and cleaned and painted everything. Wired up the defroster and blower fans per the factory wiring diagram. I used Evapo-Rust on the linkages and then clearcoated them. This linkage needs to be adjusted so both dampers in the box have their forward edges touching the heater core when the lever on the dashboard is in the "OFF" position. I added a couple flat washers under the control arms so they wouldn't scrape my pretty paint: Next up: the DIY duct. I'd never worked with fiberglass before so I took this really slowly. I bought a 2x4 sheet of 2" foam insulation and some cheapo brushes at a hardware store and fiberglass cloth and resin at Autozone. I cut and glued together the foam and then carved it with a hacksaw blade to shape the duct. This is a very messy process; little bits of foam get everywhere. Tip: use Gorilla Glue. It won't eat the foam and it expands to fill less-than-perfect foam interfaces. I used wood glue and it didn't dry for a week. Make sure your corners are smooth and rounded so the fiberglass cloth can conform to the shape. Test fit about a million times, and when you're satisfied with the fit wrap the outside in packing tape. This keeps the fiberglass resin from going into the pores in the foam and prevents any possible melting of the foam. I made a sheetmetal bracket for the firewall end and a rubber seal for the heater core end. The bracket has holes in the flange that mates with the fiberglass duct; the idea is that resin will flow throught the holes and make the bracket integral with the duct. I also pre-drilled the screw holes that will attach it to the firewall, since this will be difficult once it's all one piece. The seal is cut out from an old inner tube and also has holes to trap it in the fiberglass. I left and inch or so of rubber hanging off the end of the duct; this should fold inside the duct and seal to the heater core. The ends of the rubber are stapled together: I applied car wax to the taped surface of the foam blank. Hopefully this will act as a parting compound and make the tape come off easily later. Finally I used a piece of wood as a stand, drilled some holes through it and stuck bamboo skewers though it up into the foam blank. This way the piece stands up by itself while I lay the fiberglass. I also screwed the bracket down to it to hold it in position. I cut my fiberglass into strips, mixed up some resin, and laid on two layers: Now waiting for it to cure, then I'll melt out the foam and see what happens. Got my fingers crossed.
  14. Thought I'd share my latest project with everyone. Maybe someone will find it useful. As we all know, the original cardboard duct linking the underhood heater core to the firewall on many of our cars is less than durable. I got my '51 Windsor with a galvanized steel, riveted, duct taped abomination in place of the original duct and I couldn't stand to look at it in the engine compartment (there are a lot of other interesting no-noes in this picture too; see what you can spot): Unfortunately, replacements are either very expensive or very low quality and sometimes both, so I didn't like that option. I decided to make my own out of fiberglass using the lost foam method. This is where you make the inside shape of the part out of styrofoam, lay up fiberglass on the outside and then melt out the foam core with acetone. More on that further down. First I needed to get the rest of my heater in working order. My heater control valve under the dash was missing and replacements are expensive and contain 60-year-old rubber, so I did some poking around and it turns out the 1975-91 Volvo 240 uses a very similar valve; in fact it's made by the same manufacturer, Ranco. I decided to see if that would work. Plenty of old Volvo 240s at Pick-n-Pull, so a valve was easy to find. It's hidden in the driver's footwell behind the plastic cover to the right of the gas pedal. You have to disconnect the heater control cable, two heater hoses, and extract the capillary tube from the adjacent heater duct. The right way to do this is to pull the whole dash out of the car, then separate the halves of the heater box and pull out the capillary tube. I expedited this by breaking the plastic duct around the capillary tube grommet and pulling it out the new hole. Apologies to Volvo enthusiasts. Back in my garage my Chrysler control cable needed the loop clipped off the end and then it was easily attached to the Volvo control valve: A couple differences between the original Chrysler valve and the Volvo valve: the pipe/valve assembly is rotated 180 degrees, so the inlet faces away from the direction the control cable comes from. This means either the control cable or the heater hose that connects to the cylinder head must loop around to the far side of the valve. The pipe/valve assy could be uncrimped and installed the other way, but that seemed like an invitation for leaks and my control cable was long enough to make a big 180 degree turn under the glove box. I installed the valve with the short (inlet) pipe facing the cylinder head: I also had to gently bend the inlet pipe away from the firewall to be able to fit a heater hose and clamp on it. I had to cut away some of the firewall sound deadener on the inboard side as well, to get a better angle. The original Chrysler part has longer brass pipes that aren't such a tight fit. I put a tinnerman nut on the firewall and one on the heater valve; one screw is installed from the engine side and one from the interior side, since the pipe blocks access from the outside. I coiled up the capillary tube (don't kink it!) and stuck it into the interior heater duct through a conveniently damaged area so it will pick up heat:
  15. If the '49 New Yorker oil filter housing is the same as the one on my '51 Windsor, you could use a Fram CH192PL filter which comes with the correct o-ring and can be found on Rockauto.com. But that filter is listed for '50 to '57 New Yorker, so maybe it won't work - but worst case you could buy the filter just for the o-ring. The more people who buy the CH192PL, the more likely Fram will keep making it! Another option that's worked for me in the past is to use a water softener o-ring from tractor supply. As unlikely as it sounds, it stopped an oil leak I had when the old o-ring got nicked. These come in packs of three or four different size o-rings. I think the one that fit best for me was blue. Something like this. Good luck! Edit: Looks like the Wix 51062 and the Fram CH192PL interchange, so you should be able to use the CH192PL. Now I remember trying to use the 51062 in the past because it was available locally and having to reuse my o-ring because Wix doesn't supply one with the filter. Which is why my filter housing was leaking and I needed to buy an o-ring from Tractor Supply
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