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Getting the car up on scales was an eye opener, to say the least. On that front, there is good and bad news depending on how you look at it.
Right out of the gate, I’ll say that compared to other cars of this type, this one is an outright porker! It tipped the scales at 3250 lbs wet!!!:eek::mad: I knew I had added some extra weight during construction, but I was a little surprised by just how much. To put this into perspective, a typical Cobra (original or replica) runs around 2400 lbs depending on engine and the original Sebring sales brochure says my car should be around 2550. So, I had added 700 lbs to the car without my fat butt even being in it! :LOL:
I had kind of been expecting this (while hoping it might not be this bad), but it does make complete sense when you break everything down. I added a lot of metal to the structure of the car, most of it in the under cowl framework and the roll hoops and roll hoop support frame. Then there was the new metal firewall which is mostly 16 gauge steel. I had also beefed up the lower control arm mounts when I went to tubular control arms. All of this just made the chassis stiffer, so I consider that an acceptable trade off.
I also know I have a tendency to over-build things, but I’ll give myself a pass there too given the all of the custom parts in the car. If a critical custom part fails 500 miles from home, it might as well be made of unobtanium, ‘cause I ain’t likely gettin’ it replaced unless I happen to be in the parking lot of a well-equipped custom rod shop that wants to help. And, then I doubt I could afford it! The rear 3 link comes to mind. It has components that are many, many times stronger than needed, but unfortunately many, many times heavier than needed, too. The Watts link is also heavier than a simple panhard bar.
The stuff that didn’t make the performance or reliability better are things like a big AC unit, multi-speaker and multi-amp sound system, sound deadening, air suspension and larger seats. There is no telling how much was added by the over-done electrical system, alone. These things just make driving the car more enjoyable for me, especially on long trips. The seats are probably 3 or 4 times heavier than what was originally in the car, but without them, I wouldn’t be able to drive very far.
The T56 wasn’t necessary, but I like the double overdrive. I find shifting fun, most of the time. It is probably twice as heavy as the light duty T5 that was in the car but a lot stronger. The 9” rear axle is about 75-100 lbs heavier than the 8” that was in the car, but I like knowing that I can beat on it without much fear of breaking it. There is an old racers adage that says, “Worry about the ounces and the pounds will take care of themselves.” Unfortunately, that works both ways and my extra ounces made a lot of pounds.
The front/rear split was 46% front and 54% rear with me in the car. That officially makes this car a front-mid engine and helps explain why it seems to hook up so well. The 3-link helps there, too.
The weight also explains why the car rides so good once I got the shocks sorted out. A buddy that owns a 69 Camaro commented that it rode better than his car. The air suspension along with the extra weight is most likely the reason.
The main downside will be increased acceleration times. No way around that except to bump up the HP and I’m afraid that would negatively impact drivability. Right now, it drives like a stocker. No drama and no worrying about what gear you’re in (within reason). It’ll hit the 6500 rev limit very quickly (almost too quick in first), but will also lope along at 1700 in 6th gear. It also has a nice progressive throttle feel. No sudden surges in power. Just right for a car that is driven hard in corners. I would hate to change any of that.
A supercharger would be the only thing I would consider at this point. A Whipple screw type blower would add another 100 HP or more and would have that ultra-cool supercharger whine. Might even be able to adapt my big oval air cleaner to that. Something to think about although I would have a hard time slipping that kind of expense past the wife now that the car is “finished” in her eyes. And, I doubt Whipple makes a kit for the Holley accessory drive I have, so most of that “kit” would be on me to build. Sounds a lot like I’m trying to talk myself out of it, don’t it, but it DOES sound intriguing. Still, the engine is probably making an honest 400 or so HP at the crank as it sits, so I have to wonder if any more is really needed. Except for bragging rights that is. BTW – I’m making plans to get it up on a chassis dyno in the future. I would like to see what it’s doing, just for curiosity’s sake.
One potential benefit of the extra weight is that I may be able to use the easier-to-get 15 inch Cooper Cobra tires. The Cobra guys all seem to like the stickier tires for the extra traction with the lighter cars. Most of them consider that to be a safety issue given how hard it apparently is to get a Cobra to hook with something with the high wear rating of the Coopers. This car is now getting into the weight range that the Coopers were most likely made for. That being a typical American muscle car. It’s almost as heavy my buddy’s 69 Camaro!
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Time to drive the snot out of it! Nice work! Enjoy!
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Stovens, I'm doing the best I can and enjoying every minute:3dSMILE::cool:
I also had a couple of issues with the air suspension.
The first was with the auto-leveling portion. I used the same circuit on this car that I had on my T-bucket. That system worked perfectly, but for some reason the same setup on the Healey refused to work right when adding air to the bags.
My system uses a combination GM sensor/control unit that was used on high end GM cars (mostly Cadillacs) from the late 60’s to the 90’s, maybe longer.
https://i.imgur.com/ZZCs2My.jpg
I combined that with a few relays, some small industrial valves and a small aftermarket compressor. The air bags have their own valves hard piped directly to the top of each bag. This makes each bag a separate spring and a leak in one won’t affect the other. When the system needs to add air, the control unit hits a relay that opens the valves on the bags and another relay starts the air compressor. When the sensor is satisfied, the compressor shuts off and the bag valves close. Going down, the bag valves open and a separate down valve opens. No matter which direction you are going, the bag valves must open. I solved this on the T-bucket by using opposing diodes in the relay circuit of the bag valves. Simple and cheap, worked perfectly on the T, but not on the Healey. Tried my spare controller, same thing. With the diode in place on the “up” circuit, the compressor relay refused to close. Pull the diode and the compressor started instantly. I even pulled the rear electric panel and carefully traced the circuit to see if I had made an error. Nope, just wouldn’t work the same way.
There have been many different versions of the GM controller in all the time that it has been used. They all look pretty much exactly the same on the outside. The ones I have are from the 90’s, while the one on the T was from the 80’s. It may have been some internal change to the newer controller was causing the issue. Since both controllers behaved the same, the problem had to lie somewhere in the internal controller circuits, unless both controllers have failed exactly the same way. Possible but not likely. So, what to do about it?
I removed the diode from the circuit and used a separate relay to trigger the bag valves that is now operated by the compressor relay and not the controller itself. The controller only “sees” the compressor relay now and seems perfectly happy to operate it. Luckily, I had left a couple of spare relay sockets in the rear and this mod only took about a day to pull the rear panel and rewire. The control system works perfectly now.
If I had to hazard a guess on what caused this, I would say that the output of the controller must be very limited in the amount of current it can send to the relay circuit. Having two relays on the output was dragging the current down so far that there wasn’t enough to do the job. When I pulled the diode, the circuit was able to trigger the single compressor relay. Funny though, that it worked on the down side of the circuit and was able to trigger two relays, but that circuit uses two micro relays and the up circuit uses a regular size power relay and a micro relay. Must have been right on the ragged edge of the controller output.
Not much to show picture wise here, but this is a shot of the rear electrical panel. I separated this from the under-dash panel for two reasons, lack of room under the dash and the possibility that some of this could change in the future. The air suspension control might have to be changed or the sound system may go out. Eventually, all this will be hidden behind a removable panel. There are also several relay and fuse slots for future upgrades. All of the connections can be separated quickly so the panel can be removed, and the panel is fed by it’s own 4 gauge feed from the main power disconnect as well as a 4 gauge ground that runs to a 5/16” stainless bolt welded to the chassis.
https://i.imgur.com/k2TTeef.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/rNhQo5e.jpg
The radio is a Clarion Marine head unit with a wired remote control. There is no CD/DVD player since everything I listen to is either on a thumb drive or my phone. I 3D printed a holder for the radio remote that is mated to a Ram mount arm. This is temporary because I have an addition to the console planned that will incorporate this and the 3.5 screen for the Holley fuel injection. That’ll come later.
https://i.imgur.com/rFUI364.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9GUcoHy.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/EARRVMV.jpg
The amps are Audio Control compact units rated at 300 watts each. One for the four 6 ½ mid/tweet coaxial combos and the other for the subs. I didn’t have space for a true sub-woofer, so I had to use two 6x9 dedicated free-air woofers. Seems to work fine given the horrible acoustics in an open top car and there is enough volume for my half deaf ears to hear…..most of the time.
The compressor and air manifold for the air suspension. The compressor is by Viar. The fittings are all brass DOT push to connect. Solenoid valve is the down control valve and it’s Chinese. More on that later.
https://i.imgur.com/6Af9hSv.jpg
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I might be asking a dumb question, but just wondering if your newer relays are the type that have a diode in the energizing circuit? The ones like that that I have encountered will let voltage pass in one direction only.
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Ken, not a dumb question at all. Yes, a few of the relays have internal diodes, but I did check the polarity. After a screw-up at my relay supplier that left me with some odd reverse polarity diode relays (that I had no idea was even a thing), I swapped over to relays with resisters. As far as I know, they don't protect against fly-back voltage quite as well as diodes, but don't have forced polarity either. That little reverse diode fiasco cost me a day and a half of troubleshooting, head scratching and research to figure out, not to mention about 5 or 6 burnt out relays. Talk about learning the hard way!:CRY:
This was the first project I've done with a lot of sensitive electronics so I used the protected relays to keep electrical noise down. In the past, I've used relays with none. I suspect with your background in avionics, you already knew all this and a lot more than I do on the subject. I know just enough to be dangerous, as they say!:LOL:
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The second issue was a leak. Depending on load, it could leak down in a few seconds or a few hours. The way this system is built, the only real places for a leak to affect the ride height is if a bag has a hole or the bag valve is leaking. Turns out this “leak” was two issues in one.
The system on my T used two small 7076 air bags and worked perfectly for almost 10 years with these as the only springs. I knew the Healey would be a little heavier, so I upped these to slightly larger 7012 bags. But, the Healey is far heavier than I thought it would be and this forced the system to operate at a much higher pressure to hold up that weight. This was obvious the first time I fired the air suspension up, because it took a looooong time for the bags to air up. It was obvious that the small compressor was struggling to get the job done. The T never took more than about 30 seconds, even with the system empty.
The Chinese solenoid valves are rated for 100 psi and I thought that would be plenty, because that is what the American made valves on the T were rated for. I never thought the system would get anywhere close to that pressure. Of course, the Chinese valve is most likely over-rated, as has been my experience with most things from China. That 100-psi rating is probably better de-rated to about 80 psi to be on the safe side.
The higher bag pressure was causing the solenoid valves to leak by. The suspension would drift down slowly until the pressure in the bag was low enough for the valve to handle and then everything was fine.
To solve all of this, I replaced the bags with larger 110/70’s so that the system pressure would be lower and replaced the bag valves with USA made parts with a slightly higher pressure rating. This seems to have done the trick. It now only takes about the same time as the T did for the system to adjust, even from zero pressure, and I don’t think it’s leaking down much, if any, even after several days.
The new bags did present a problem in that they don’t mount like the old bags and they are shorter. The length wasn’t an issue because the old bags had way more travel than needed and the height difference was taken up by a couple of thick aluminum plates. The top plate was made with a center stud attachment similar to the old bags to serve as an adapter. The lower plate is just a spacer.
The old style bag is on the left, the new one is on the right and the new bag with adapter is in the middle.
https://i.imgur.com/ojZ52N2.jpg
Here are the new bags on the car. You can see the new valves piped to the top of the bags.
https://i.imgur.com/U2KJHhm.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/TPl6vuK.jpg
While I was at it, I also swapped out the standard coil over springs for progressively wound springs. These allow the air suspension to be the main support for a good ride but get progressively stiffer the further they are compressed. Air bags are progressive by nature, but not enough, IMO. The T would find the bump stops every now and then on big bumps. I’m hoping the progressive springs will keep this to a minimum on this car.
https://i.imgur.com/6cXXRyt.jpg
I think it’s all good now. Driving will tell. Hope to do that this weekend.
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I’ve been fighting an oil leak on the valve covers since the car has been on the road and I think I have finally solved the problem. I replaced the gaskets a couple of times and replaced the bolts with a different style, but nothing seemed to work. The leak wasn’t terrible, but it was enough to drip oil down on the exhaust ever so often and stink. Also, there was an oil film on everything under the car. With all the O-ring style gaskets on an LS engine, this just didn’t seem right. I used to expect it with the old school cork gasket engines, but the new engines are supposed to be more oil tight.
The issue, I think, was the Holley valve covers. They were badly bowed and warped. This may be a generic problem with them since I have looked at two sets, bought at different times, and all 4 covers were almost exactly the same. All 4 were out of “flatness” by pretty much the same amount in the same places. I wanted to keep these because I like using the old SBC valve covers as coil covers.
https://i.imgur.com/kNH0voZ.jpg
The covers only have minimal finish machine work done on them from raw castings and this was for threaded holes. No finish machine work was done on the sealing surfaces. When checked on the seal side, they are low in the middle of the cover by almost .060 of an inch. That’s a 1/16! No matter how good the gaskets are, they can’t handle that much difference in the sealing surfaces, and since the covers are just hunks of thick cast aluminum, they are way too stiff to flex. The bow is present on the top side, too and caused some minor issues with the SBC covers.
The Z axis readout tells the tale. This particular cover was out .051 (inches). That’s .011 shy of 1/16”.
https://i.imgur.com/lR9Wl1p.jpg
This shows how bad the top surface was. The straight edge is laying across from to top end to end. Look at that gap!
https://i.imgur.com/vaO7VBl.jpg
I fixed them by giving them a ride in the milling machine. This took them down to a flat surface, but it did create one problem. The LS valve cover gaskets have a rectangular projection on them that locks into a groove in the cover. This groove was now too shallow on the ends of the cover to allow the o-ring portion to seal. I had to trim the “tails” where needed and then resort to the old SBC trick of gluing them down with black 3M weatherstrip cement. Messy, but effective. There is still about half of the locking strip left so I’m not worried about them blowing out.
While doing the machine work, I discovered yet another issue with them. The covers that were on my car were powder coated when all the other parts were done on the car. In the interest of saving time, I machined an extra set I had that came from Holley already powder coated black. At least, I thought they were powder coated. While blowing the aluminum shavings off from machining them, I was pretty surprised to see the paint on the inside pealing off in big chunks. I couldn’t put them on like that and have all those paint chips get sucked into the oil system, so I had to bead blast them on the inside to clean them up.
The bottom cover had that much paint come off with nothing but a blow gun and shop air! You can see the new machined gasket surfaces.
https://i.imgur.com/tkZbJdL.jpg
After stripping the inside and gluing on the gaskets.
https://i.imgur.com/BThKF40.jpg
There is also another flaw in these covers. The lips cast into the cover that are supposed to hold them in place while starting the bolts are too short to work right. I could probably solve this with a couple of pressed in dowl pins, but instead as a quick fix, I made 2 headless bolts to serve as guides in the mounting holes. This worked, but I think the dowls would work better.
https://i.imgur.com/X6XtZNv.jpg
Sorry, but this is a pitiful reflection on Holley. I know they can build good stuff since the Holley mid-mount accessory drive I have on this engine was one of the best fitting aftermarket parts I’ve ever installed. It went on and functions like an OEM part. These valve covers may have been a neat idea, but the execution was pure crap.
I have about 40 miles on the car since the repair and I haven’t seen or smelled any evidence of a leak. Fingers crossed.
Speaking of oil. I changed the oil again. This time after about 3000 miles. I cut the filter apart and found nothing unusual, even in bright sunlight. This oil was an old-fashioned dino oil as was the new charge. Now that I think the oil leaks are fixed and everything should be broken in, I will be switching to some kind of synthetic going forward. If anybody wants to make recommendations as to brands they like, I’m listening. I may go with a semi-synthetic rather than a full-synthetic since I still like to change the oil in my toys every 3000 miles or so. Remember, I AM a 20th century Neanderthal after all:LOL:, and the full-synthetic stuff is pretty pricey for that.
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Sorry to hear about the valve covers. Shame really, they went out the door so poorly made. Not a good look for Holley I'd think. Oil? After a few trips I changed mine out and went with Mobil 1 10w30 for a few years. Lately I've been running Royal Purple 10w30 no real reason for the switch except it's what my parts store had in stock. But I do notice the oil pressure is consistently higher by 8 to 10 psi. fwiw..
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I know of many that run Mobil1, but I'm hard headed and have stuck with Pennzoil. I run synthetic 5W-30 in the Dakota and 10W-40 High Mileage in the Vette along with some ZDDP additive. I don't use anything but Wix or K&N oil filters.
Mike, my background was in radar though electronics was just getting in to solid state but the theory is related except in a much smaller package.
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Full synth at Walmart, Quaker State for 20 bucks a gallon, that's pretty cheap. I think I would've thrown those covers in the garbage, good save.
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Mike I think I complimented this build before, but I also wanted to say you do some awesome work fabricating stuff. Carry on.
Nolan
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More very nice work on the hot rod! That top turned out great, but your wiring and routing etc makes me want to just quit on mine. :LOL: Great work and thanks for setting that bar high. I like the radio set up as well. I was actually waiting to buy one of those off the bay. I just need other things first. Haha
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Thanks to everyone that commented and I appreciate the compliments.
I'm hoping all of this mini thrash will be paying off soon. We have a long trip planned to Tennessee. Should be about 10 or so hours one way for us. I'll be posting some pictures and maybe a video or two as well as a trip report when we get back. If everything works out, we should be in a better driving and more comfortable car.
Still have a some time before we leave, but looking forward to it.
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In my post on the Tail of the Dragon trip, I mentioned that that there was some bad and some ugly.
First the bad stuff. It's a fairly long list and I'll tackle the issues one at a time.
Those damned Holley valve covers blew the gaskets yet again on the way up. I was forced to change one in the hotel parking lot in Townsend. Both were leaking, but the passenger side was the worst. It was absolutely pouring.
Of course, I had some tools, but not enough to complete the job. I had to make a stop at the hardware store in Townsend for a few things as well as going over the mountain to Pigeon Forge where the closest parts house was.
This job took about 3 hours, including waiting for the engine to cool enough to work on. We had lost some oil (it was all over the bottom of the car) so I topped it off.
By the time we made it to Dalton, GA, it was leaking again. This time it seemed to be even worse. There appeared to be some even leaking from the rear main! This got me to wondering about crankcase pressure. I did find that the main -10 breather hose was just before falling off the baffle I had fitted to the valley pan. This loose hose would have rendered the PCV system pretty much useless, but I had a hard time believing that there could have been a lot of pressure with a total of 3 hoses capable of venting the crankcase. I also jacked the car up in the hotel parking lot to check the bellhousing as much as possible and the hoses and other connections on the Accusump accumulator. Satisfied that I had inspected everything I could, I decided to keep a close check on oil level for the next few days to get a handle on how much was leaking. I hedged my bet by arranging to have a U-Haul truck and trailer available if the leak turned out to be the rear main.
Turned out that there was so much oil on the bottom of the car and engine that it was pretty much impossible to determine how much and where it was coming from. On a bright note, it did not appear to be leaking out of the bell housing anymore. A constant check on the oil level showed that it had slowed down a bunch, probably due to getting the PCV system up and running again, but I still had questions about crankcase pressure. I decided to risk the trip home, though.
Sorry, with all these parking lot gymnastics, my wife never thought to get a picture. Too bad, it was a proper “Roadkill” moment for me. I do have some stuff coming up that does have pictures, though.
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My first thought was crankcase ventilation. I know some cams with low vacuum can add to the problem. This PCV system looks pretty cool but it's expensive: https://digital.allchevyperformance....street-engine/
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V8, I had looked at that and will try it if I can't get a conventional PCV valve to work. I'm working on solving this issue right now.
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During the trip home there was a constant stink of oil in the car, so I knew the leak hadn’t magically healed itself. With 8 or so hours on the road, I had plenty of time to stew (in more ways than one) over what to do about this.
As much as I liked the look of the Holley valve covers and Cal Custom coil covers, I decided to ditch them in favor of some stock LS9 covers. They are some of the latest from GM and have the coils bolted directly to the covers with no adapters. I have to say that the engineering on the GM covers was head and shoulders above the Holley covers and the plug wire routing is also much better. The LS9 covers were intended for a supercharged engine, so the baffling should be top notch. The hardware is designed to provide proper bolt torque, so it was a piece of cake to make sure they were tightened to GM specs. I’m much more confident that they will seal as good as can be expected from a center bolt design.
https://i.imgur.com/WonWIJl.jpg
There was one small issue. The breather hose tubes were straight and that wouldn’t work for some of my future plans for covering the ugly coils. Luckily, I had some junk LS valve covers that had tightly curved tubes and it was also lucky that GM had kept these tubes the same diameter over the years. Swapping them out was quick and easy.
https://i.imgur.com/Uof6Kks.jpg
Another issue was the location of the breather hoses. They were not in the same places as the Holley covers and required some replumbing on their connections to the air cleaner base. I decided to do most of the new plumbing with steel tubing. I learned a long time ago not to try and force a stiff rubber hose into too tight of a bend because it usually winds up collapsing.
https://i.imgur.com/Gy0sKQQ.jpg
I painted the new covers with some black VHT extreme wrinkle paint. This turned out looking nice and is a much better-looking wrinkle than the wrinkle powder coating on the air cleaner.
Another upside to the new covers is that they have a real oil filler hole. With the Holley covers I had to add a -10 bulkhead connection to the valley cover so that I had a place to add oil. This was a pain because I had to rig up a dedicated funnel that fit the -10 connection. This meant that I had to find a place for that funnel every time I went on a trip. And, of course I left it at home this time by accident. I was forced to rig up a funnel setup with some small diameter clear plastic tubing and a plastic hardware store funnel. It took a loooong time to dribble oil into the engine, but it was all I could build on short notice in a hotel parking lot and it did work.
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A plastic drink bottle and length of tubing will make a fine funnel in a pinch.
Cut the bottom off the bottle, and a hole in the cap slightly too small for the tubing. Force the tubing in and volia!
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Great idea Firebird, but I didn't have any tubing. I had to stop by the hardware store anyhow for that, so I just bought a cheap plastic funnel.
Now on to the PVC system. Just to satisfy myself, I had to work through the breather system and make sure it was working as it should. I had some suspicions about it after thinking on the issue on the way home.
Just a quick recap on my system. I bought a used Mighty Mouse oil separator/catch can that had a breather. The brand is generally considered to be one of the best on the market. I built a baffled breather that attaches to the underside of the valley pan similar to the factory setup on an LS6. The breather vents through a -10 AN (5/8”) hose to the catch can.
https://i.imgur.com/E88pyju.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/FrS5AjD.jpg
The PCV valve screws into the side of the catch can and then to the rear throttle body as close to the center of the intake as I could get it. There is a one-way valve under the breather that seals under vacuum and vents under pressure. The hose connections on the valve covers are plumbed to the air cleaner base and normally just let in fresh air. They could also vent excess pressure if it happens. The people that made the catch can indicated that one 3/8 hose should be enough to vent a 600 HP naturally aspirated engine. I’m not sure I completely agree with that, but my homebuilt breather setup should flow way more than that.
When I installed the oil catch can, it came with a screw in PCV valve. It was a clean setup so I used it, but now I had questions about it working right. I managed to find some numbers stamped on it and they indicated that it was for a four-cylinder Nissan. That was less than confidence inspiring since PCV valves are usually sized by flow for the engines they fit.
I knew that the very early LS engines had a conventional PCV valve with the floating piston like GM and pretty much every other auto maker has used forever. Later LS engines had a “valve” that was just a simple orifice and a very tiny orifice at that. I bought one of the early valves and compared it to the Nissan valve. It was obvious that the LS valve had much more potential for flow since the openings were noticeably larger. Of course, total flow depends on the valve’s internal piston.
This is the old PCV valve.
https://i.imgur.com/K7SLf7k.jpg
The new LS valve. Not as clean a setup, but I think I trust it more.
https://i.imgur.com/wkdMOLd.jpg
Now, I had to verify that it was actually working. To do that, I made a new cap for the old -10 oil filler I had in the valley cover with a connection to hook up a pressure gauge. White arrow is the pressure tap and the red arrow is the -10 fitting that I found to be lose in the previous post.
https://i.imgur.com/hYtoSj4.jpg
I hooked the pressure tap up to my vacuum/pressure gauge. This showed, at idle, there is no crankcase pressure. I still need to check it at cruise and under load just to make sure everything is up to snuff, but for now it’ll have to do.
I checked both the old and new valves as an experiment. At idle, both seemed to work the same, at least as far as the gauge I had showed. Temporarily plugging the fresh air intakes in the valve covers resulted in a small amount of vacuum in the crankcase. Hopefully, this indicates that the rings and rear main are still sealed. I hope to have the car back on the road in a few days and I can check the system under cruise and power.
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Thanks for that 34. That is the same valve that V8nutz posted about. For folks that didn't look at the links, they are talking about an adjustable, tunable PCV valve. I found the the info about it and several YouTube videos talking about it. I like the idea and will definitely give it a try if I can't get a standard type valve to work. The only problem I see with it is that it costs $125!
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It'll be interesting to see what vacuum you get when driving. I think I need to do some testing on my 5.0 in my Miata, I'll bet it's not doing it's job because I've had a lot of oil leaks in spite of using the best gaskets and sealants. Now making me wonder about the 5.3 in my truck, it has the older style valley vent, may need a puke can at least.
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V8, I hope to be posting some collected info this week. I have to admit that the adjustable valve is very intriguing and I am very tempted to pay the price.
Now that the PCV and oil leaks were once again thought to be under control (fingers crossed) I spent quite some time under the car cleaning up the mess. Oil was everywhere. After several hours I think I got most of it.
The next thing on the list was the Lucas turn signals in the front. If you recall, I had trouble with one of them and soldered the wires on. Well, this time one was pretty much destroyed when the tire got into it. Mostly, this was my fault because I pulled out some caster during the front end alignment. Remember when I said that the front tires were better centered now? Turns out that was a double edged sword. The Lucas signals are very long at nearly 3 inches! Most of that length is due to the big rubber boot that is needed to cover the weird connections. The tire contacted the boot and proceeded to rip it and the wires it held to shreds. Luckily, this time it was blowing parking light fuses and not turn signal fuses and I was able to make it home without having to deal with it on the road.
https://i.imgur.com/bzgEQVc.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/rvenGUc.jpg
There was no way to make the Lucas lights work as they were so I made a sort of British/USA hybrid. I used the front portion of the Lucas rubber boot, which also holds the lens in (it’s complicated, trust me), and an old school 1157 light socket from a Ford, I think. It was hanging on the rack at Orielly’s. I did have to make a couple of new steel plates to hold the new sockets since the Lucas plate had a hole that was too big. I made those from 18 gauge which is very close to what Lucas used.
You can see how much shorter the new setup is than the old Lucas mess.
https://i.imgur.com/ATmOMrU.jpg
I now have a bunch of clearance. I also added a nylon mounting point to zip tie the harness to the body.
These two shots show the before and after on the same tire.
https://i.imgur.com/4dY2o8k.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Zm6M8Pn.jpg
Well, let’s see. I have a replica of a classic British car, but it seems to have developed many of the “classic” British car issues. It is determined to leak oil (remember, if there ain’t any oil under ‘em, there ain’t none in ‘em) and I seem to be plagued by Lucas electric problems even though I only have 4 actual Lucas parts in the car. It’s a curse, I tell you, it’s got to be some kind of curse!!!
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One other thing that had to be taken care off while I was in Tennessee was a little tweaking on the EFI tune. I noticed that the car would heat up some while making a long uphill pull.
Considering that a stock LS1 wasn’t considered to be overheating until it got over 230, I wasn’t technically overheated. It would hit 225 and the high speed fans would come on. Then the temp would drop back to 218, hit the low speed fans and go right back to 225. This extra temp would cause a little timing rattle under load, so I had to go really easy with the throttle so as to not hurt the engine. I had reprogramed the fan override switch before we left (long story), so I couldn’t turn them on by hand. This would have solved most of the issues since the high speed fans kept the car plenty cool.
I had my tuning laptop with me at the hotel and corrected all this ASAP. First, I reprogrammed to fan override so that it was actually a fan override. High speed fan is now just a flip of a switch away. Anytime the engine was under load, and I saw the temp getting over 210 or so, I would start the fans and have it under 200 in under a minute most of the time.
Next, I pulled 2 degrees of timing out of the complete timing table. Probably a little drastic, but I didn’t want to rattle a ring land off, either. Also, I knew that the Holley software had some timing modifiers built in. One is a temperature modifier. This allowed me to start pulling a little timing at 220 to ward off any temp induced rattle.
The other thing I played with was the knock retard. I hadn’t activated this before because I had read that some aftermarket cams can create noise that fools the knock sensors into thinking they are hearing detonation. This cam seems quiet as far as I can hear (for what that’s worth), but I also had never had any issues with detonation.
After these changes, I never heard any more rattle. It is possible that some of the issue was related to altitude, but the Holley ECU is supposed to have a barometric pressure sensor built in to compensate for that. I may feed some of the timing back in now that I’m back at sea level, but honestly, I haven’t noticed any lose in power through the butt dyno (also for what that’s worth).
I have talked with someone that owns a chassis dyno and while he says he doesn't know anything about Holley ECU’s, he will rent me his dyno by time for as many pulls as I want to make. He says his machine will allow you to load the engine as if it was at a steady state cruise, too. Way more valuable info to me than just doing full throttle pulls for bragging rights.
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OK, I have some info on the PCV system. My mechanics vacuum gauge does not appear to be sensitive or consistent enough to give reliable info. It appears to be in vacuum most of the time, but we are only talking a few ounces of vacuum at most. The gauge just can’t react reliably to that. Part of the testing was with the one way valve under the breather disabled eliminating it a possible leak. I have put 500 miles on the car since changing the valve covers and the PCV valve and have not seen any evidence of oil leaks. This driving included a variety of conditions including 80 MPH + on the interstate (honest officer I was just flowin' with the traffic!:D;)). I’m still looking at the adjustable PCV valve but think I’m going to drive it like this for a while.
Now on to something else that showed up on the trip that I wasn’t even aware of until I got the car on the lift and doing an after trip inspection. Seems that the polyurethane bushings in the rear control arms were eating themselves.
https://i.imgur.com/erS4wSx.jpg
When I was building the car, I wanted to run the widest tires and deepest rims I could fit. As a result, I moved everything I could inboard on the frame. This included the air bags mounts. Doing this put the lower bag mount off of the centerline of the arm. The force the bag exerts on the arm is causing the arm to want to rotate. I knew this would happen and added the large leaf spring poly bushings thinking they would be strong enough to take the twisting force. Obviously, they weren’t. The arms had rotated far enough to be in danger of extending the bags too far. This could have caused the bags to fail.
My first thought was to replace the poly bushings with Delrin. Delrin is a semi-hard self-lubricating plastic. It machines easy and I had a piece on hand. But, when I disassembled the arm, it was obvious that the actual bushings had not failed. Only bushing flanges had come apart, so they were what was taking all the load. I had a chunk of bronze bushing material in my junk box and thought about just adding thick bronze washers to replace only the bushing flanges. In the end, though, I remade the bushings entirely out of bronze. Luckily, I had installed a grease fitting for the poly bushings in the arms since the bronze parts will need to be greased often. I’ll have to keep a close check on them for wear, but after 500 miles I don’t see evidence of any.
https://i.imgur.com/rfZ4N2S.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/AqWgFTh.jpg
FWIW - This was not the ideal fix for this issue. The permanent repair would be to fab new lower arms with centered bag mounts and offset the upper bag mounts to match. This would eliminate any twisting force on the arm and bushings. There is plenty of room for this since the 255 tires I have on the car now are about the widest I can fit. I have several trips planned for the last half of the year starting very quickly and just don’t have time right now to do any extra fab work. The bronze bushings were a quick fix with an unknown lifespan. The bronze I had came with a bunch of junk that I bought when a local antique restorer passed away and his family was selling his stuff off. It would probably be much cheaper to build new arms and go back to the poly bushings than to buy that chunk of bronze new and make replacement bushings! Time will tell. For now, it’s all good.
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OK, at the beginning of this update, I mentioned some ugly. Now that most of the bad is behind us, let’s talk about that.
Most of the trip was fine even though we had a few issues, they were nothing I couldn’t deal with or just ignore in favor of having a good time. It wasn’t until we started home that things went south (no pun intended). I’m talking about heat. The morning started out nice. Humidity was a little high, but this is the south, we were in Georgia and it was to be expected. I can deal with it. However, as the trip progressed it got increasingly hotter in the interior. The “heat dome” thing with the weather was in full force and the air temp on the road was quickly over 100. Heat index was most likely in the one teens, maybe more. The air off the road felt like a furnace, but the real problem was the heat under the dash and in the floor. There was extremely hot air pouring from under the dash and, at one point, if I had removed my left shoe and found blisters on my foot, I would not have been surprised. No exaggeration. We were drinking all the fluid we could and sucking on ice that we bought at every fuel stop. We have traveled by motorcycle before and can deal with heat, but this was nothing short of misery. The last four hours were just a race to see if we could make it home before one of us had a heat stroke. If we had had another 100 miles, I don’t think we could have made it.
By the time we pulled into our driveway, I was completely done. If the old boy that wanted to buy my car in Jackson had been sitting at my house when I got there, he would have gone home with it and that’s not a joke. I was so dehydrated that it took most of 2 days for me to start feeling good again. Not the smartest thing for a 65-year-old man to do! I even mentioned to someone that I email from time to time that I was going to have to fix the heat issue or sell the car. I just couldn’t see us using it for what we wanted to with that kind of heat. This was soon after returning home and I think that was mostly dehydration and fatigue talking, but I did seriously consider as one possibility.
After a few days, I was feeling more like myself and decided to tackle the issue that I brought home with me. Leaky valve covers and heat were at the top of my list.
I knew the heat I was feeling was way, way too much to be simply radiated through the firewall. I had used a bunch of insulation there. In some places there was four layers. I had ridden in some Cobras before and noticed extreme heat in the footwells. I was determined to eliminate this problem during construction which is why I used so much insulation.
No, what I was feeling had to be direct air leaks from the engine bay. No other explanation short of actual fire.
I felt like any leaks would have to be mostly where the metal firewall tied into the fiberglass body. I had fiberglassed some flanges that I cut out of the original ‘glass firewall to the body and these overlapped the metal firewall by a good bit. The body flanges were fastened to the firewall flanges with several bolts. However, there were a few places where this was not possible. These were the places where I focused my first attention.
I removed the inner fenders for access and then focused a powerful work light on the inside of the car at the areas I thought might be the problem. Sure enough, there were some downright huge gaps! Some of this was very puzzling because I had used some 3M seam sealer in some of these areas during construction. I can’t remember the part number, but it was in strips that could be molded by hand like modeling clay. It must have not been able to stand the conditions because it was nowhere to be found. Not a trace! After seeing the massive air gaps, it was no wonder that the temperature was so high. The air coming through these holes had been heated to exhaust manifold temp or close to it.
I used a couple of 3M products to reseal these holes. One was #08367 urethane seam sealer. It comes in tube that will fit in a standard caulking gun. I rigged up an “applicator” with a few fittings and some tubing that would allow me to reach into the deep cavities. It worked for about 80% of the areas, but in the end I had to resort to using disposable gloves and just squirting some on my finger and applying it by hand. Even though I was wearing gloves, I still managed to get some of it on my hands. I will say that if it sticks on the car as well as it stuck to my fingers, I won’t have to worry about this stuff falling out. It took 3 or 4 days for the stuff to wear off. No soap or even solvent would cut it.
I also used some 3M urethane expanding foam in a couple of places. I don’t have the numbers at hand, but it is closed cell so it won’t absorb moisture and it’s grey/black, so it blends in. I used that on the lower holes because they were so large.
Here are a couple of pictures of the light shining through the gaps. The yellow light is the translucent fiberglass of the body flanges, but the white light is a hole. I also found some other holes this way. Some were bolt holes with nutserts that I didn’t use. A couple were gaps where the individual panels of the firewall didn’t seal even though I ran a bead of silicone between them. I even found a few places where pop rivets had lost their mandrels. None of the new holes were very big, but together they added up to a substantial leak.
https://i.imgur.com/mAql8gF.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/pydOTx8.jpg
This is the applicator I rigged up. This is the first version with ¼” tubing, but the seam sealer was too thick to work well with the small tube. I had to make it over using 3/8” tubing.
https://i.imgur.com/gH5Ycbn.jpg
After driving the car on a 450-mile trip last week, I think I can say the heat issue is about 1000% better. It’s not as hot weather wise as it was before, but I was never terribly uncomfortable. There was a little warmth in the footwells later in the day, but not even close to the temp it was before. Maybe now when I get around to sealing the top with side windows, the AC might actually have a fighting chance to keep us cool.
BTW – That mini road trip was to the Gulf Coast area to visit an upholstery shop. While I’m down there for Cruizin’ the Coast in October, I’m going to have them do some repairs to the top. I’m also taking to them about maybe making a new top. While I was there, I couldn’t resist cruising a few miles on Highway 90 that runs along the beach. It was a nice day to just cruise and enjoy the weather and the car.
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Mike that sounds miserable. Glad you were able to plug the gaps and that helped! My MR2 convertible can be challenging on a 100 degree day, some of the seals attached to the new OEM softtop roof are starting to leak that makes going thru a car wash a interesting experience. It seems like the sound level is higher riding the 50 mile round trip to work every day I work!. It's amazing what little cracks can do! Glad your rehydrated and things are cooling down!
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I found something else by accident that had to be fixed. When I pulled the inner fenders to check for the hot air leaks, I noticed that the tires had been rubbing on the top of the inner fender.
https://i.imgur.com/m9fIL2U.jpg
I knew that lowering the bump stops some would fix this, but it also appeared that I had a lot less clearance between the tire and fender than I had before. Looking a little closer and I found that I also had more negative camber. It was noticeable when you paid attention to it. A quick check with a welding angle finder showed that I now had 1-2 degrees instead of the ½ degree I started with.
It was obvious that the springs had sagged some and the out of level lower control arms proved it. It was quickly corrected by jacking the coil overs up a little and if these had been newish springs it wouldn’t have bothered me too bad. Most new springs will sag a little in the first few hundred miles, but these weren’t new springs. This was the third time that I had been forced to adjust the ride height. Once not long after I got the car on the road, once again when I did the last alignment a few months ago and now I was jacking them up again. I’ve done this song and dance before on another car and it means the springs aren’t heavy enough.
I had the used the springs that Ride Tech recommended based on the leverage ratio of the front end and the estimated corned weight. The key words there are “estimated corner weight”. The car is heavier than I had estimated, and it had caught up with me. I had used 350-inch pound springs based on estimation, but when I reran the numbers with the actual weight, I needed 450-inch pound springs. The 450 springs were recommended for performance driving, like autocross. 400 was for comfort cruising. This also helps explain some of the body roll that I complained about earlier while on the Dragon.
Since I was going to be doing an occasional AutoX, I changed out the springs for 450’s and did a 70-mile test drive on a rough road to “exercise” them. So far, I can’t see that they have sagged any. I also shimmed the bump stops down a little since it was clear that they weren’t doing the job.
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Time for another post and to be honest, I’m running out of things to do.
During the build, I installed a line lock in the front brakes and added a shifter knob with a button to activate it. That knob was a Summit Racing branded part. Well, the switch button broke not long after getting the car on the road. Actually, the switch knob kept popping off and I kept popping it back onto the stud that was supposed to hold it. That is, until the stud broke completely off. The switch body is made of aluminum, but I am pretty sure the internals are plastic. I tried to get the switch out to see if it could be replaced but didn’t have any luck with that. I found out later that it was epoxied in. Replacing the knob meant pulling the sifter stick and that opened another can of worms.
When I built the console, I used a rubber shifter boot from a 69 Mustang. This boot had a molded-in metal ring inside the base. I built the console to rest on top of this metal ring, using it as a combination spacer/gasket. While this left the top of the console clean, it made removing the boot and shifter stick a real job. This problem reared its ugly head last year when I had to pull the transmission to replace the bad throw-out bearing. The stick had to come out to pull the trans and that required pulling pretty much all the major interior parts. The seats, arm rest, console switch panel, and finally, the console top had to come out. Of these, the arm rest was the biggest pain in the butt since the attaching bolt has to be accessed from the bottom of the car on top of the driveshaft tunnel. Talk about hard to get to. I vowed to fix this issue but didn’t have enough time to do anything about it on that go round. I only had 3 days to get the car ready for a long road trip. A new shifter knob was just the excuse I needed to finally get around to this problem.
I checked on a new knob from Summit but found that the price had doubled from the last one I bought. It was now $90 for a knob that most likely had the same crappy switch. I found a couple of others on the internet, but they were just as expensive and might have even been the same part under a different label. I decided to make my own. I can’t remember the exact cost of parts, but I think it was around $50 and this included an odd ball thread tap from EBAY to thread the switch hole in the ball with. The new 6-speed ball came from EBAY too.
Making the ball was straight forward machining in the mill. Just a threaded hole that intersected the main hole for the stick. I did make one change from the original and that was to reposition the switch for easier access. The Summit knob had the button rotated to somewhere between the 10 and 11 o’clock location and that forced me to roll my hand around to an awkward position to operate it. I put the new one at about 9 o’clock where it fell right under my thumb. The new switch is “aircraft” quality since it was a push-to-talk communication switch intended for an airplane. I doubt that means a lot, but it feels 100% better in the way it operates. It has a definite click on operation. The old one didn’t.
This is an old build picture that shows the original ball and button. You can see how far forward the switch is and it was just plain awkward to reach comfortably.
https://i.imgur.com/d22N83w.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/v9VtVFg.jpg
The broken stud
https://i.imgur.com/xI8xz34.jpg
The new ball and switch.
https://i.imgur.com/TciZoSz.jpg
Fits my hand much better now.
https://i.imgur.com/zOLxJgK.jpg
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Now it was on to the boot.
I had a plan to fix this without tearing out the interior, but it involved sacrificing the boot that was in the car already. I bought a new leather boot that was also intended for a 69 Mustang and had a similar metal ring in the base. The holes were the same, too. I bought the chrome trim that was supposedly for that boot, but it wouldn’t fit. It was too small. Maybe there was more than one size of Mustang boot in 69 or maybe it was a case of two aftermarket parts not fitting together. Wouldn’t be the first time that had happened. No choice but to make my own trim.
I started with a piece of 3/8” thick 6061 aluminum flat bar. I drilled mounting holes for the boot and milled a pocket in the bottom for the metal base ring. Then I flipped it over and bolted it to an old piece of aluminum flat bar to serve as a sacrificial jig. Sacrificial because I could mill into it if needed. This was an old piece that I keep on hand just for jobs like this and it has many holes to prove it. Also, the trim piece was so thin, I was afraid it would be damaged trying to hold it in the mill vise.
After getting it on the jig, it was just a matter of milling the hole for the top of the boot and rounding the edges over to make it look better. I made the trim a little long at the top and added 3 tapped holes. These are to mount a possible future expansion of the console top. I spent some time slicking the part up with my belt sander, a couple of hand files and some red Scotch-Brite pads. After trying to fit it to the car, I had to go back and notch it to clear the cup holder as well as cutting a small relief under one corner to clear some rivets.
A single edge razor blade made quick work of removing most of the rubber boot. I left the rubber covered metal base under the console since I would have had to fabricate a spacer there anyhow. With the old boot out of the way, it was just a matter of soldering some wires on the new switch and assembling the new knob on the stick. No issues there and the job was done quickly.
The old look was cleaner, but somehow the new setup looks better to me. Maybe the console just needed something to fill in the bare top. At any rate, pulling the stick will be a piece of cake now. Taking only a few minutes instead of an hour and a half.
Before the mods.
https://i.imgur.com/w1bU2rd.jpg
New trim with the cavity for the boot.
https://i.imgur.com/jXESi5e.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/eIlM9sU.jpg
Done and installed.
https://i.imgur.com/p3nAr4y.jpg
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Folks, it’s been almost exactly a year since I first drove this car after 8 years of building. Cruisin the Coast is next week, and the car had 50 miles on it when I pulled out of my driveway to drive it there last year. It now has just a few under 6400 on the clock. The picture in my avatar was taken the first day we got to the coast, and I can tell you that the car is now much better than the car in that picture.
Here’s the beach shot and shot of the car the day I got it home from Florida all those many years ago. It would be hard to tell that it’s the same car.
https://i.imgur.com/pfusdmM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/5elz3y4.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/TPuDPYS.jpg
After a year of tinkering, tuning and all-around honing, otherwise known as fettling, the car is where I think it needs to be. It is reliable enough to serve as a daily driver and that is at the top of my list of requirements. I feel it would take me anywhere there is a paved road and bring me home again, be that around the block or around the entire country. It’s fast and a ton of fun. The general public’s reaction to it tells me I must have done something right in the looks department. There are still a few things that I could do to it and eventually will, but nothing that it really needs except driving. My mother has been having some health issues and we might not get to go to CTC this year, but if we do, the upholstery shop is supposed to repair the top. For now, that’s pretty much all it really needs. Unless something breaks or something major has to be changed, I’ll probably give this thread a rest for a while, but as the old saying goes “They’re never really finished”. This thread ain’t completely dead yet and I will do an update if anything major gets changed, but I doubt anyone wants to hear about mundane things like oil changes!
I want to thank everybody that followed along and put up with my long-winded posts. It’s no BS that I’m honored that so many people have been interested in this project over the years. I’m certainly not tired of the car because it’s simply too much fun, but with this one pretty much done, I think it’s time to start something new.
Here's a teaser of things to come, hopefully.
https://i.imgur.com/ZpZGKEa.jpg
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And thank you Mike.................it's been a master class in taking a mundane kit car to a level not often achieved. Ya done good!
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I can’t put it any better than Uncle Bob. Ya done good Mike.
“……..I feel it would take me anywhere there is a paved road and bring me home again, be that around the block or around the entire country. It’s fast and a ton of fun. The general public’s reaction to it tells me I must have done something right in the looks department…..”
From first hand experience, I can attest that your goal/results are not easy to obtain and to pull it off takes it takes knowledge, skills, an eye for what “right”, and a bucket of patience. Of course there is also the judicious use of the “magic words” we sometimes use on such projects.
I’d tell you to enjoy the fruits of your labor but it appears you already are. :3dSMILE:
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Gotta agree, thanks for carrying us along on your build! It's been great, and you've ended up with a great "Healey"!!
Will you be doing one of those Joe Martin/Dave Kindig renderings of the truck to show your plan for it??
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Mike it's been educating to read your post, and fun. Great job and Ditto Uncle Bobs praises. The truck should be cool too, I like it as is!
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Thanks again, guys. And yes, there were plenty of those "magic words" used over the years!:3dSMILE:
I'm currently working on a good intro to the truck build. Too much stuff going on with getting ready for Cruizin'the Coast.
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Mike, great work on the Healey fixing and modifying it to perfect it. I've enjoyed your long posts and I always learn something or am amazed with some of the pieces you have built. I've since been on the hunt for a table top mill and a shop lathe so I can do the same in due time. I look forward to the truck build and hopefully you can go on CTC.
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I've been off for awhile and got caught up on the Healy. I was feeling your pain with the heat leaks, that sounded awful. This build was and is a fun one to follow along on, I like you put much thought into every piece. If it's like Rita, it will never be done but always finding ways to improve things. I'm looking forward too the square body build!