Ulu

It's 10x20 & hangs from the house on one side with 4 legs on the other. It's stabilized on one end by my chain link dog kennel. It's just built from chain-link fence poles and clamps. But it's not tall, because I don't want it to show above my fence too much. When I need more height I can shim up the low side temporarily, but then it wouldn't drain if it rains, so I have to let it back down on rainy days. (We've had three in the past 5 years I believe...)

Some photos could prove useful. I don't think my ignition lock is original, because it has a '60's looking pentastar on the key, but I do think my door & trunk locks are the original style.

Not me, but my dad was a lifer.

The amp gage could be wired backwards as well, but any cheap voltmeter will tell the real story.

Hey, I had a Schauer too. I burned it up before I got the Schumacher. Never considered getting it fixed though. I hooked it up backwards once, and within 3 seconds it was cooked.

That instant garage looks interesting. I'm working under a tarp here. Welcome to the too-many-cars-to-get-them-all-in-the-garage club. ;-)

That's because it's the longer block, right? That's not a 230cid.

No pics, but that first trailer wheel came out pretty nice. I hit it with a water hose, then dried it & covered it in some Zip-strip to remove the smut & any remaining paint. I let the Zip-strip work in the sun a bit, scrubbed the wheel off with a stiff brush, then hit it lightly with coarse Scotchbrite. Also I needed to straighten some minor dings in the lip, so I massaged it gently with a 4 lb hammer. I cleaned the burrs with a bit of sandpaper, and now it's nearly ready. There's still a little rust that had been under paint & petrified rubber, so I'll dip this wheel overnight again before painting. In the meantime the second wheel is in the tank, and bubbling nicely. BTW, while my old battery charger works great for this, my newer "fully automatic" Ship & Shore battery charger won't work for this unless it senses a battery in the circuit that's putting out at least a few volts. The tank setup itself is indeed a wet cell, and by my measurements it puts out about 1.1 volts at moderate temperatures; but that's just not enough for the Ship & Shore to try and "charge" it. I found a friend of mine who has some big plastic barrels for me, so I'll be setting up a free 55 gal tank soon. Finally, those lams I'm using for anodes are working great. I found by just adding more lams to the + side I can bring the current draw up to 10 amps easily, and by adjusting the number of them I can make the tank run at whatever current i wish. I don't want to fry my old charger so I didn't run it at 10 amps very long. I've set it up to run at 6 amps which seems to be just fine.

These old engines are so tough that even worn out they'll still run. With sticky valves and fat clearances they"ll clatter and smoke, but if all you do is slap it back together with one new spring it'll probably still run for hundreds of miles. I ran one old Ford six until the clearances were so loose I was putting 4 pints of STP in with 3 quarts of 10-40 wt oil. Of course I live in the desert. If you did that in Minnesota, you'd have to put a heater under the oil pan or it'd never start between October and March.

That hole in the carb can be plugged with a lead ball, driven in with a punch. The factory plug is probably brass. I doesn't need to be brass, but it has to be metal, driven in tight enough to make a metal-to-metal seal, yet not so hard as to crack the carb please. You might have to make /try a couple sizes of lead before you get one that fits. You can drip blobs of hot solder onto a clean steel plate to make plugs of different sizes to try. Lead is easy to shape to the size needed. IMO, you want to rebuild this engine and only need some motivation and money. For more motivation, have a good look inside the cooling system. Think about new freeze plugs at least. How much oil is on the front side of the flywheel? Is there lots of slop in the timing chain?

They're not hard for any decent welder to make up, unless you're doing a show car & they need to be perfect reproductions.

You'll probably have to make them up. Any used ones you find will be on a car too nice to cut up, or on one too rusted to be useful.

Looks nice. Get a magnet and check the body for bondo. Don't take the owner's word about it. He probably didn't do the last paint job and won't really know. These are reliable cars and are easy to work on in general. Some things require special tools, like all cars. I think upgrading to 12 volts makes sense if you're going to drive it. If you're just going to show it, keep it 6 volts. The changeover isn't too hard if you know what you'r doing, but on a convertible you have to deal with the top motors & I don't know about them. They might run fine on 12 volts. the starter will. Just a rise in compression ratio adds noticeable power to these engines. not much sense in fancy carb & exhaust setups if you don't do this first IMO. If it's been on the market 6 months you can probably get it a bit cheaper. I'd try to. You will surely find other things that need fixing on this car before you're satisfied with it.

I have a hard time getting excited about random lead. I've bit too many split shot closed with my teeth to worry about latent lead in a dirty engine.

Maybe three wires & if so I think it's a turn signal.

Looks like the #1 exhaust valve was sitting open for years and the tappet and valve guide are now corroded & won't close. Penetrating oil & judicious tapping might loosen it up. I can't tell if the spring is broken, but if it's sat crushed like that for some years, you can bet it's weaker than the others from fatigue.

Good question. I used my old oil pan because it was in better shape. My 218 pan, however, is missing the windage tray. (I'd never missed it before, so I didn't worry about it being gone.)

Hmmm, I put my 218 oil pan right on my 230 engine & didn't have to change the pickup. Perhaps someone had already done it before I bought the engine. It was a '53 Dodge 230, but I bought it out of a '48 DeSoto.

Same thing. (Only us car guys call them condensers these days.) Anyhow, they do get damaged & go bad, and a bad one usually prevents the car from starting.

Well I decided that this $12 bin from Lowes was big enough to do my trailer wheels, and Lowes is on the way home. It's 32 gallons & squat of shape & worked out OK so far, but not nearly as sturdy as a chemical drum. I used these laminations as anodes. Even when they look like this they still seem to be kicking out the bubbles & the small tank is running well. There's 6 in the small tank & 8 in the new one, and the system is running both tanks in parallel from one little charger at about 5 amps. This battery charger has been with me 30 years now & has held up OK. Here I'm cooking a 14" wheel. After 15 minutes, it was going very well, considering that this was at night and only about 60F out.

Could that be an Overdrive manual control switch?

I caught a spinner knob in the front of my coat once, and it picked me out of the seat, as wheel came back around. LOL I felt like a real doofus. I learned to sit back and unbutton the coat.

OK I read back & saw the post about the missing plug. Now that that's plugged, perhaps the car's just not getting much gas. You need a rich mix to start, particularly when it's cold out. Can you tell if the engine's getting gas? When you look down the carb and pump the throttle linkage, can you see the accelerator pump squirting gas into the carb throat? BTW, the starter relay I used has a little button on it that you push to manually crank the engine. It won't start without the key on, but I can crank it from under the hood without a jumper. I've modified stock Ford relays to have that little button too. Anyhow, if you just put a small hole in the steel cover on the relay, you can push the plunger with swizzle stick or something small & plastic or wood (not metal.) That will crank it.

OK, so the tester light lights, which means some kind of a spark is being made. It might still be cap/rotor, but could be a damaged capacitor. I had one that looked like new but the wire was just barely hanging there. The engine cranked but never fired, and when I touched that wire it came loose in my hand. I had boosted my compression, so my flathead was a bit harder to start, but generally the compression on these engines is low enough to hand crank. Does it try to start at all? Or just dead sounding? If you're flooding a little, but it's getting a healthy spark, it should pop or backfire or something when you crank it. If it's flooding a lot you'll hear nothing. All that gas is drowning the fire.

My next tank needs to be larger and stouter. I want to dip a couple VW wheels for a trailer project. I was going to just buy some Rubbermaid consumer thing at Lowes, but I'd rather have something more industrial, even if it's used. I don't know where to buy the stuff without getting ripped off though. It's $100+ for a 55 gal plastic drum with lid, or maybe $80 for one I'd have to cut the top from. I'm thinking ag chemical companies would be the place to find them, except I suspect the EPA is making them account for every one as hazardous waste. But I dunno. Are any of you guys chem sales or maybe gentlemen farmers who would know this stuff?