Silencing the "A"

 At the ripe old age of 16 (give or take) I had to build headers for the drags. While I was welding these together, one of the neighbors near Dad's shop stopped by to chat. 

He stated the obvious, " they're going to rust here in Los Angeles"! I knew this but Hi Temp Paint?

I work down at Fenton, he says, get'em done by Thursday and I'll run'em through with the porcelain manifolds over the weekend. Cool!!

Which weekend? and what color? He finally brought them back two weeks later (purple???) Well.... OK. It only cost me a case of beer and they wouldn't rust!

They didn't turn out quite as neat as I thought they should but WOW were they loud!!

Now just hit the carriage advance key and we have Sanderson and Ceramic coating. I really wanted a set ever since the stainless block huggers turned colors. They make the "A" a real Hot Rod!!

The headers arrive and they are gorgeous! Sanderson sends a set of inserts to quiet them down but they need to be carefully laid out and drilled on the BOTTOM of each tube at an appropriate distance from the end to the internal insert.

Using great CAUTION, this is accomplished with no disasters.

After drilling and tapping the inserts for some 10-24 stainless screws installed them and proceeded to put the Zoomies on.

Fired it up immediately!!

Within 60 seconds I knew this wasn't going to fly. Drove down the street and my buddy comments "Not too bad after you get about 8 houses away!"

I'm old school, and have fabbed my own silencers for years. Online I found DRAG Specialties mini glasspack cores (inserts) for Harleys with straight pipes.

I'm into glasspacks (Mitchell , Yuki) from long ago. At first sawed core (quietest) louver core (better tone) and then the loudest perforated core.

These are the perforated core but nicely done. Ordered eight and then waited for them to arrive from Florida. Each of these are rated at 50 cubic inches so should not be to detrimental to the 327" Chevy.

Had to sleeve them to fit tightly and installed with the same 10-24 screws.                                                                                                      

                                                                                            

All done!!

"I love it when a plan comes together"

Not much tone and still a wee bit offensive but we ca live with them now.

This is HOT ROD stuff!!

Custom Exhaust

 To an old muffler man, everything that involves an internal combustion engine should have a correctly fabricated exhaust system. Does it have to be magnificent?? NO! It should however be appropriate for the unit.

This is the exhaust That I fabricated for the "A" years ago. Aluminized AK bendable components are fine for the Southwest. they are clean and stay that way.

This setup with 18" louver cored glasspacks sounds good without being offensive.

 

I shouldn't have but why not???

Sanderson fabricates an absolutely gorgeous set of silver ceramic coated Zoomies and the 16" option fits the "A" highboy very nicely.

BUT  LOUD !!!

So very nice!!

I will be banned from the housing tract after a very embarrassing banishment from the workshop!

What to do??

Fix it!

Things Get Tight!!

 The supercharger (Weiand 144) had damaged and incorrect pulleys. Add that to a nice Alan Grove serpentine drive installation and SECRET WEIAND SPACE SHUTTLE COMPONENT dimensions and it is fit as you go.

The correct pulley ratio required a 7" drive and a 3.75" driven pulley from Holley. The 7" came new from the internet at 1/4 the price and required a crankshaft pulley spacer.

Sent a very nice Speedway spacer to Dick in Southern California for final machining. Dick was my Cub Scout Buddy maybe 70 years ago. One of these days, I want to share the "Don't Look Back" story with Dick 60 Years in the past.

Now we have the Alan Grove installed with the Weiand 6 rib drive in front of that and and 2" billet spacer for the 18" reverse rotation Perma Cool flex fan and still have 1.3754" inches to the new Champion radiator.

Remember the 16" Heavy Duty SPAL pusher on the front. Getting all this in there without disassembling the windshield wipers and bleeding all over the shiney stuff was stressful.

Vegas cooled down a bit before the test run but so far never over the 180 degree thermostat without the SPAL, and five (countem 5) pounds of boost!

                 We Bad!!!

I'm Exhausted

It's been a busy couple of years, chasing cars and surgeons. I am getting after the cars now.

The '34 Chevy and the Corvette went down the road  this summer and a 1940 Ford Coupe appeared in Eastern Arizona.

This was a show car built in the mid 90's in New Mexico. Some one did a very complete fabrication with excellent detail. I was fortunate to find it.

Age and a more forgiving seasonal temperature caused a few issues with cooling and the tires were dated 1993.

I serviced the engine and transmission and the cooling issue remained. At that time, a Weiand 144 supercharger fell into the garage and allowed a more complete engine and cooling service.

A plugged radiator and a wee electric fan were the answer. The main culprit was the radiator pluggage caused entirely by the corrosion of a wire liner in the lower radiator universal hose. the expensive radiator core was plugged with small white beads that were growing by the hundreds in the wire liner.

This is Fabulous Las Vegas with temperatures 105/115 in the summer. More cooling is required with an engine containing corrosion residue.

1. A new Champion radiator with  an 18" Perm A Cool reverse rotation Flex fan.

2. Elevate the radiator 2" to better center the engine driven fan.

3. HD Spal 16" pusher fan on the front of the new radiator.

4. And the serviceable coolant filter from Champion to prevent this from recurring.

More soon......

Thirty Nine Years New

After two years of work, the Stude made me tired to just look at it. I passed it on to a new and fresh builder. No regrets.

I decided  to move on to a new project (less than 50 years old). Dick and I like RED so here we go.

 As usual, the 1980 Corvette was not quite as advertised. 

I drive entirely too far for projects (and pay too much) so we load it up in the snow (white !#%^%**) and head for home.

Believe me when I suggest that this was a very long trip and my buddies that navigated for me forgot to bring a change of underwear!!

This is amazing, it fits the garage better than anything I've had in there.

Yes, it had been run hard and put away wet but after a year of tinkering it goes like hell and turns right (or left) at 55 mph. So very cool!




Only 39 years old and lots of fun.  I've got to figure out how to supercharge it without fuel injection......

Vacation

The Model A was on vacation for about 5 months. The 34' was a larger driver and since I couldn't  corkscrew my 6"2" self into the "A", the Chevy was it.

About three weeks ago I squeezed in to it and went for a ride to the Sunday morning meet. On the way home I put the pedal to the metal in low gear..........OMG. Everything was magnificent until the windshield was covered in Prestone green.

At 1300 miles the new water pump blew the shaft seal....... All fixed now, we're going to carefully try this again. 

The Wheel

I've been driving the "A" about a year now (carefully) and about 1100 miles. No where near the miles I put on the 34'. This one is way too pretty to scratch.
The original steering wheel was a 13" Grant as measured during the build. It was too small and an irritation to drive. 
Finally needed a wheel for the Stude, I replaced it with a 15" ForeverSharp banjo style.

The larger wheel is easier to drive and very flashy.

With just this new addition, I bet we're good for an additional 6 MPH in 2nd gear!!