cudak888: 1972 Q-code - cam failure pictures

[Totalled]

That's a tiny cam dude.. It will probably barely lope at idle unless you turned it down low. Swap the 3rd for something geared more street friendly, and enjoy.

 

[cudak888]

The 268H cam is not a bad choice. Looking forward to more photos.

Been looking the car over better today. It's not bad at all, considering - but I just hit the roof after getting a look at the right framerail - it's intact except for the last 5".

The shackle and spring are riding the trunk floor. I can fix it, but I'm boiling mad over it. Trunk floor isn't too good either, but that doesn't peeve me half as much as the frame rail.

Also found that the lower left quarter rear was repaired by hillbillies. The front is rotted out too, but I was only aware of the front requiring a repair.

Easiest way out of it? New full quarter. I might wind up fiddling with the new Dynacorn repops faster than I thought.

That's a tiny cam dude.. It will probably barely lope at idle unless you turned it down low. Swap the 3rd for something geared more street friendly, and enjoy.

Pretty much a mild upgrade from stock. I can live with that.

-Kurt

 

[73vertproject]

Damn, sorry to hear that, Kurt. A thoroughbred with a lame leg. Good luck!

 

[cudak888]

Damn, sorry to hear that, Kurt. A thoroughbred with a lame leg. Good luck!

Don't worry. In 15 minutes, you fellows will be glad I bought this when I post what's for sale from it

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Picture time:

Front bumper brackets need to be straightened, but the rest of the front end is straight:

Best side shot I can manage against the wall:

Interior AFTER cleaning. BigBlue has some pretty scary photos of what it looked like upon arrival yesterday - with just about everything that was missing under the hood shoved inside. Feel free to post them, Josue.

Deluxe Ginger goodness:

BEAT Cragar Super Tricks (or SST?) wheels on Goodyear GT Radials (which I haven't seen since Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo). Rot on the quarter was known, but I didn't know that someone stuck a lousy Spectra panel on the back of it - and mounted the Spectra panel over 1" too low.

Bottom is full of peeling undercoating, and the driver's floorpan is rough - but workable. That, I'm not concerned about. The aprons are nothing but patchwork though, and that pisses me off:

This is a New York bodyshop's idea of a floorpan replacement:

About 20% of the parts that came with it. Some of it is in the FS forum now:

Rear end. Look at that Spectra quarter "repair." Whatever bodyshop did that work ought to close up for the good of everyone:

Nothing on this car is as rough as this framerail. Left one is surface rusty, but fine. Given that the rest of the bottom is rusty - but solid - I can only imagine that salt really caked itself into the back of the valance, but it wouldn't explain why the LH is still load-bearing without issue.

Oh well, looks worse than it is, really - and I'd certainly put up with this for the real Eleanor. A few days will have a replacement framerail and crossmember on it. Trick is to find a few days.

-Kurt

 

[luxstang]

Well that rot will not be a problem what with all the smashing you'll have to do for the Eleanor look. I wonder how you're gonna replicate the phone pole damage on the left front fender.

Oh, wait! You mean that other, "before" Eleanor!

 

[cudak888]

Well that rot will not be a problem what with all the smashing you'll have to do for the Eleanor look. I wonder how you're gonna replicate the phone pole damage on the left front fender.

Oh, wait! You mean that other, "before" Eleanor!

Hahaha

Yea, beauty Eleanor. All things considered though, it'd be easier to make the junker out of this one

-Kurt

 

[Totalled]

Geez... Why did you buy a NY car?

 

[BigBlue]

Sorry for the late post guys, but I had a pretty busy Mother's Day. The one picture I took of the interior does not do it justice. This was after many parts had already been removed, and I didn't get a shot of the rear seats. It was a landfill back there. Here's the passenger side with plenty of goodies:

And here you can kind of see some more crap in the back, as well as the thumb of approval from Captain Kurt himself...

This car is going to make a killer Eleanor replica. Between the yellow paint, the 351, and Kurt's Halicki vibe, it's going to be pretty legit. Who knows, maybe a Gone in 60 Seconds remake is in order :banana:

 

[cudak888]

Seeing as the car is in a very restricted area to work in right now - not to mention that both front tires are now flat - I figured that I might as well get the engine buttoned up enough to safely move it under her own power. Helps if I can work AROUND the darn thing.

This is how it looked under the hood when I got it - seller's picture. Spray-bombed turd:

Today, I worked my way to what you see here. The radiator hoses were installed after I took the first photo. I hate those Accel 8mm lines - nobody cut them to length, and they don't take a curve well at all:

Thanks to BigBlue for the radiator, shroud, and condenser. Without those bits, I'd still be trying to figure out what to do next on this pile of flaming yellow dog doo.

So far, this thing has been the ultimate poster child for Hack the Hick's new DIY book: "101 Ways to Screw Up Your 351C." Amongst his contributions under the hood were:

Dizzy cap stick-on numbers to show the firing order (see the "as-found" engine picture above). That's fine, but the numbers were marked 157.5 degrees off from where they belong. Even if I flipped the cap 180 degrees, the plugs would still be off by one terminal. Anyone want to be that the dizzy is one tooth off?

A Stant thermostat for a Windsor in the block, while a brand-new Robert Shaw 180 had been relegated to the car's otherwise worthless parts pile. It's no wonder the previous owner was hell bent and determined that it needed a three-core radiator instead of a factory original two-core - it probably overheated every 15 minutes.

Can't forget to make those holes in the shock towers to grease the front suspension.

3 ill-suited washers to space the PS pump from the cylinder head, because A/C compressors are so not cool. Sorry, no picture.

Three carb spacers - two thick, one thin. I'll get a picture of that when I pull the 4150; a double-pumper that I might convert to vacuum secondaries if possible.

Speaking of which, the choke plate was yanked out along with the choke and linkage. Nothing was plugged during this "conversion."

EDIT: 4150, LIST 6708-1

But why stop there? Why not do a bit if DIY and whack the factory fuel line short - and fail to flare the end of the line. Of all the stupid things done under this hood, this little bit of "ingenuity" really gets my dander up.

It'll be a bit longer before I can fire it up (the trans cooler lines appear to lead nowhere, for starters, and the tops of the spark plugs are rusted), but provided they didn't put rings in for a 351W, I should be able to get it hobbling around.

BigBlue has a set of tires and wheels for me, but we're up against a completely ancient 4-prong wheel lock before those wheels find their way onto this car.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Closed up and pressurized the cooling system today. Checked out perfectly.

With that, I decided to nose around the carb a bit. This is what was sitting there, missing choke and all.

I'm still trying to figure out why hack mechanics have a fascination for multiple carb gaskets. Doesn't matter now, as it's sitting on a new single gasket now, and I put a spare manual choke unit on it to plug the vacuum leaks.

The 6708-1 Holley carb works, but I found one of the primary nozzles were not squirting. Replaced with a spare, only to realize that the threads for the nozzle are more or less stripped in the main body. Anyone have a spare Holley 650 main body?

Fun stuff. I was able to get the nozzle from the secondaries (with pre-compressed gaskets) to screw into the primary bore just barely, while the new nozzle went to replace the now-missing secondaries. It is good enough for testing, but that main body will get swapped before I start moving this thing back and forth regularly.

I wired up the rest of the previous owner's mess under the hood to see if it'd crank over after a prime of the oil system and a spin by hand. Cranked no problem, so I decided to get ambitious and run a bit of fuel in it.

Crank! Vroom! Boom - or backfire, if you wish. Now I'm convinced the PO screwed with the rotor/dizzy shaft location and put it anywhere but where it belongs. Next job is to get the 351 to TDC and put things where they belong. Maybe some earmuffs too, as the RH exhaust terminates under the passenger's seat. With the shot floorpan, starting this car is akin to sitting next with your head buried in Huey Lewis' amplifier while getting gassed.

On another note, BigBlue came by today to swap hoods. Blue gets my NACA hood, and I get Blue's standard hood, which will receive the Halicki hood-pin treatment - but not anytime soon, given the rest of the bodywork necessitated on this thing:

As an ex-NY car (and seeing as Eleanor wears an NY RMH-100 tag at the end of the film), I figured that my lone 97-HPG tag would give the front end a bit of character for now.

As always - more to come.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

"I should have read my horoscope this morning..."

First off, the rotor was off 157.5 degrees on the compression stroke. Explains the backfiring:

Then I realized someone had BS'ed the timing mark with some joke aftermarket part. Just like the thermostat, the proper part was in the parts bin pile:

Installed the original. Timing difference between the two? A whopping 20 degrees. No wonder they had the plugs off by 180 and one terminal:

However, my lapse of judgement in checking the dizzy/rotor location had some unfortunate results due to the backfire:

Oh well. More amusement.

This Eleanor gal is a real PITA.

-Kurt

 

[Luke]

Bugger.

 

[marks73]

I don't think the timing did that. Pretty sure you have some other issues as well.

 

[OMS]

That usually comes from MR piston hooking up with MRS valve.

When MR piston is done, the push rod goes limp.

 

[mach71351c]

That usually comes from MR piston hooking up with MRS valve.

When MR piston is done, the push rod goes limp.

rofl

 

[matrixx]

@Don,

Lmao!!

 

[Gold Rush]

Most likely misses timing chain jumped mister timing gears, kinda explains the distributor being off. Bent valves usually accompany the twisted pushrods. I would look at everything twice.

:s

 

[cudak888]

Most likely misses timing chain jumped mister timing gears, kinda explains the distributor being off. Bent valves usually accompany the twisted pushrods. I would look at everything twice.

Timing chain appears to be new - it's not a stock unit. My bet is that it was put on the wrong key slot. We'll see.

-Kurt


Some other info: It has double springs on the heads. Can't see the timing marks yet, and I'm not dressed to tear into it now.

That said, I've got an engine stand, but no engine hoist - yet. That shall change, as I don't trust ANYTHING about Jethro the Rebuilder's motor at this point. I'm going to do a few things while it is still in the car, but if it doesn't pass a leak-down test, this engine is coming OUT. No telling what rings they put in it either.

-Kurt

 

[droptop73]

Hack mechanics use multiple gaskets and spacers to help isolate the carburetor from manifold heat. Cooler carbs mean cooler fuel, less opportunity for heat related issues. I guess that makes me a "hack" mechanic!!