martybose

My 230 motor is 0.072" over, because when we opened it up it was a worn out 0.060" over. We researched rings and found a metric ring set we liked that would clean the bore, then sent them to Venolia with a standard piston for reference. Several weeks later we received a gorgeous set of forged pistons. At first I thought that I was proof of the overbore/overheating issue, until several years later I found out how far off my temp. gauge was. Now I know that I don't have a problem. Marty

My worst car was a196(2? 3?) Falcon Ranchero, 260 V-8/4 speed. I was 25 and crewing on a Mustang TransAm racer, so I knew enough to fix the engine problems. What I didn't know about was stock front suspensions, or I might have known that the lower ball joint were totally wasted. One night I was driving to Laguna Seca on a twisty 2 lane highway when the front suspension somehow shifted to one side while going around a curve and the back end started to come around. I almost got it straightened out, but ran out of road when I hit a curbing while still sliding sideways at a good clip, flipping the truck onto the roof as I slid down an embankment of iceplant and flipped upright at the bottom. I undid my seatbelt, got out of the truck, looked at all of the wrinkled sheetmetal, then climbed up the iceplant to flag down someone to call the team owner. The car was sold for scrap after I had it towed to the shop. Marty

I used to think that mine ran hot also, until I went to recalibrate it and found that it read almost 30 degrees hotter than the actual temp. He might want to carry a meat thermometer and stick it in the radiator top tank to see what he finds the next time he thinks it is too hot. (I'm assuming it's still a non-pressurised cooling system, so that you can take off the cap while the engine is running) Marty

Needle nose pliers, a pot of water on a stove top, several thermometers as references, and several hours of patience. Marty

According to my two thermometers, I was able to get it within 2 or 3 degrees across the full range. Maybe a needle's width from exact. Marty

A while back I posted my adventure with calibrating the water temp gauge, it's fun! From my experience, if you adjust it to read 212, it will not read correctly at a lower temp until you've tried 3 or 4 different ways to adjust it. I finally got mine to read within a few degrees from 120-212, and declared victory! Marty

I've got a set that are similar to those, and I wouldn't want to try to adjust them while running. I just go for a drive with the access panel removed from the right fender, then adjust the valves after shutting the engine off (while wearing some welding gloves). It's not that bad if you've got a set of good wrenchs. Marty

Obviously one cable goes to the stud; do you have a nice clean place on the starter chassis to connect the other cable to? Marty

You also need to make sure you are getting full travel on the cable; that's what my problem was. That cable mount doesn't look very strong. Marty

I'm using stainless for all of the brackets and minor bolts, and grade 8 for things like the driveshaft. Marty

The way the transmission is configured, shifting into reverse also mechanically takes it out of overdrive, since otherwise the overrunning clutch would just freewheel and you wouldn't move. That's why you can't just add an OD unit to the standard tranny, as the OD tranny has the reverse rod going through the case into the OD unit. Marty

Adding an overdrive would have no effect, because the speedo cable is connected to the tailshaft behind the OD unit. You still need to get 10% reduction gearbox for the speedo cable. Marty

They'll work fine, but might have a tendency to squeek loudly if they aren't lubed well. Marty

I used their Hotrod Rallye steel wheel in the same sizes with BFG Radial TA 205/60x15 and 235/60x15 tires on them. Marty

I respectfully disagree. I've got all new pieces in my brakes, they were adjusted correctly using the proper tooling, and are kept adjusted. Yet this car takes about twice as far to stop as my commute car (Honda Civic) does, and I had several white knuckle experiences when someone suddenly stops in front of me and I've had to jump on the brakes. These old cars don't stop anywhere near as well as modern cars. I find myself leaving a lot of extra room in front of me, and I'm waiting for my Christmas expenses to be paid off so that I can upgrade to front disk brakes. Marty

Hurt the engine, probably not. Sound uncomfortable, you bet! On my 47, which runs a shorter tire than most (235/60-15), the engine would be running about 3200 RPM at 60-65 MPH,and sounded like it was thrashing pretty hard. With my overdrive installed it cruises comfortably at 70 MPH at 2500 RPM. Marty

My 47 Plymouth originally had a steel line from the gauge through the firewall, then a short rubber hose, then a steel line to the block. When the rubber hose started weeping I researched AN fittings and hoses, and wound up with a straight NPT to AN -3 fitting in the block, a brake fitting adapter to AN -3 fitting on the end of the steel line coming through the firewall, and a 2 foot long teflon-lined steel-braided -3 brake hose with a 90 degree fitting on the block end and a straight fitting on the other end. The hose was pre-made, and rated at 3000 PSI. Works perfectly. All of the parts were sourced from http://www.anplumbing.com Marty

Not necessarily, it depends on the transmission that you're taking out. In my case, the standard 3 speed in my 47 was exactly the same length as the 3 speed w/ OD that I was putting in, so there was no change in the driveshaft length. Marty

Isn't this number of posts mind-boggling!!!! I wonder how much hard disk space it takes to hold this many? Marty

Not really; a slightly modified version was used in Corvettes up through 1965 as the 365 horse 327 top-of-the-line option. It was only used one year in the passenger cars, however. Marty

Byron, If you were talking about the bolt which holds the generator bracket to the block and also has a threaded stud on the top of it for a ground strap, I just found an old one in my misc. junk drawer. PM me an address and I'd be happy to mail it to you. Marty

Nope, the bore is the same, but the crank has a longer stroke. If memory serves, you need the 230 crank, rods and flywheel, and you can reuse the 218 pistons. Someone needs to verify the last, as I started with a 230. Marty

I'm not really sure, since I sent both the tach and the sender to them and did a full restoration on the tach at the same time. I think it may have been around $140 for the sender conversion. Marty

Boy, from the looks of the board track in the background, he had to be laying head down on the track when the guy went by at speed less than a foot away. Big cojones, that one! Marty

No kidding! When we took apart my 230 there were 3 different casting numbers on the rods. We ground down and smoothed the sides of the rods, installed new bushings in the small end and new bolts in the big end, checked the big end for size, then weighed both ends and balanced to match. We then gave the pistons, one set of rings, the rods, wristpins and crank, damper and flywheel to our balancer, who checked the crank thoroughly, then balanced everything as a set. Seemed rather straight forward. Marty