Cool! Gulf Shores is a pretty neat area.
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Cool! Gulf Shores is a pretty neat area.
How is it increasing resistance? You use the solenoid to send the voltage down the battery cable to the starter during cranking only so the cable isn't hot the entire time. I was joking about saving money and weight.
Although, this is a good safety feature irregardless.
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Any component added to a circuit adds to the resistance of that circuit. Adding a Ford solenoid in series with a Chevrolet solenoid, except for a safety feature, is a band aid at best. If the engineers at GM thought that by adding a Ford solenoid in series with a GM starter and solenoid would work better I'm sure they would have done so years ago. There are a number of possible causes if the engine won't start, starter won't spin, and they are:
1 Bad or loose grounds
2 Corroded cable(s)
3 Too small gauge wire running from the battery to the solenoid
4 Badly worn brushes in the starter
5 Arced contact in the solenoid
I have encountered all 5 of those things in my almost 60 years of messing with cars and trucks.
Just my 2 cents on the solenoid discussion.
“…..If the engineers at GM thought that by adding a Ford solenoid in series with a GM starter and solenoid would work better I'm sure they would have done so years ago……”
Ken as I recall at one time GM did sell remote solenoid kits for hot start issues over the parts counter……of course that was at least 20 years ago.
I run a Ford solenoid on a lot of the stuff I build especially GMs. The experience I’ve had with heat soak issues on GMs (especially Chevrolets from the 50s-70s) is that when it heat soaks you can still short across the battery lead and solenoid terminals at the starter and it will crank. This has always lead me to the belief that while a heat soaked solenoid (higher resistance to activate) is partially the problem the main issue is higher resistance in the wire that activates the solenoid.
I’ve tried running a heavier solenoid activation wire to the starter on a few occasions and only had mixed results. Using the remote solenoid has always eliminated any heat soak non-crank issues I’ve run into. When I wire the Ford style solenoid I run a busbar/heavy jumper wire between the Solenoid terminal and battery terminal on the starter and relocate the solenoid wire/charging wires and battery cable to the Ford solenoid. Basically when the remote solenoid is activated the solenoid on the starter will receive full voltage/amperage thru the busbar/jumper wire.
Of course there are a few other benefits. It makes a convenient place to hook up a remote starter switch when you need to crank the engine over, it eliminates having a live battery cable running down by the exhaust and you only have the battery cable to remove when you need to remove the starter.
Anyway like I said just my 2 cents.
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" .........if it wasn't for GM, I wouldn't have much business in my shop I had......."
Come to think of it :LOL:
Before Subaru came out with their Outback commercial Chevy trucks had one that used the same basic closing line...... something along the lines of:
"90% of Chevrolet trucks sold in the last decade are still on the road"
I had a friend who would grin every time that commercial came on........until one day when I said "well at least 10% were able to make it home" :D
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I don’t know, I worked in an independent garage for a few years, and I remember Ford Escorts coming in on the wrecker nearly every day. 99% of the time they had either a broken timing belt or a bad ignition module. The worst part I remember about GM’s was constantly changing starters on Chevettes. What a miserable job. I haven’t touched a Chevette in about 20 years, and I hope I never see another one. lol :rolleyes:
On the Ford solenoid thing, I “think” Mike P is on the right track. I think at least part of the problem was too much voltage drop along the ignition switch and the small starter wire. Chevy engineers did a lot of things right, but mounting the solenoid on the starter, and near the exhaust, was not one of their better ideas. Making valve covers with only four bolts in them was also not a brilliant idea. :HMMM:
I grew up die hard Chevy, then I tried Fords which have never disappointed me. Now I have 2 Dodges, a Chevy, a Ford and a Hyundai on the yard. For reliability, all brands have treated me pretty well. For non critical parts falling off around me, GM takes first prize in that category.
I finished the welding on the rear axle brackets. I changed the king pins and all 4 wheel cylinders, painted both axles, and installed them.
I placed an order with McMaster Car, and got grade 8 bolts and nuts (metal locknuts) for everything on the suspension and steering.
I fired up the engine and made a bunch of noise for a couple of minutes!
I fiberglassed the floor in from the top and bottom, and made a metal bracket to stiffen the ride side of the body behind the door.
Today I’m working on wooding the body. I’m using 2x4’s, and doing plenty of cutting and grinding to get them to match the curves of the body. I’m going to use bondo to stick them in, and then fiberglass them. I like my seat back tilted more than most, and I’m willing to sacrifice a bit of leg room to get it that way. I built some shelves behind the seat to store some tools and such.
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I like watching these glass builds, it's a learning thing for me.
Yesterday I finished all the itchy messy fiberglass work. Then I flipped it over and covered the fiberglass resin with truck bed liner.
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I get itchy just thinking about the glass work I've got to do sometime in the near future! Good to see some updates.
After changing my mind about a dozen times over the wheels and tires, I finally bought the fronts. :) I went with some US Wheels rat rod wheels, 15 x 5 inch. I got a pair of 165/80R15 Hankook tires from Wally Mart. These are made for 1960’s VW Beatles. Coker makes some great looking tires, but these things were only $52 each, and they’ll work just fine.
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One suggestion on tires. My T was very sensitive to front tire balance. If they got out of balance, the front would get a strange bounce at certain speeds. I also learned to jack the front up if it was not going to be used for a long period, like over the winter. Otherwise, the tires would flat spot and bounce like crazy. With almost no weight on the front, it was almost impossible to get enough heat in them to round them out again. I went through a couple of set of fronts before figuring that out.
Interesting. Did you have radials, or bias ply tires? The guy I bought the body from warned me about that also. He said that if I have any problems I should get the tires trued. He said that having round tires is every bit as important as having them in balance.
They were bias ply, that was in the 60's and the best set I had were Pirelli's that were on the 40 when I bought it. I drove both cars halfway across the country, the 40 from San Diego to Dayton, Ohio in 62 and the 36 from Dayton to Camp Pendleton in 64. One thing about driving a straight axle car or truck, you drive it, it doesn't drive you.
And if you found yourself on an asphalt roadway where the lanes were not packed exactly the same height, you had better be cold stone sober and up on your game. I wouldn't drive another straight axle car if you gave it to me. Take it from me, the "Good Old Days" weren't what they were cracked up to be in ALL areas of hot rodding and drag racing.
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They were VW size radials on steel wheels. Brakes were very heavy 39 Lincoln drums. All this weight created two very powerful gyroscopes. The axle itself was a 39-40 Ford I-beam and was pretty light compare to the wheels, tires and brakes.
I think what I was experiencing is known as axle tramp, where one side of a straight axle affects the other side through gyroscopic precession. The tire imbalance caused a little instability in the tires and this was amplified by the heavy wheels and brakes. Essentially, the two gyroscopes started fighting each other to remain upright. At just the right speed, the axle would bounce from the left wheel to the right wheel(not a wobble or shimmy, but a bounce) and could become pretty violent if you stayed at the "trigger" speed. Once I learned what the speed was (about 50 MPH in my case), I just didn't drive there. I either stayed under it or drove through it. As long as the tires were round and well balanced, it really wasn't that noticeable and the car drove very good, even at speeds over triple digits (closed course, insane driver, don't try this at home kids:3dSMILE:).
At the T-Bucket Nationals, I got to talk to a lot of bucket drivers and found out that many T's experience this type of bounce from time to time.
I know a fellow that had a really nice 32 coupe with a traditional straight front axle. He built it with help from his dad who was an experienced old time hot rodder, so it was right.
He ultimately sold the car because he just couldn't get used to the way the straight axle drove. He learned to drive in modern cars and the beam axle was just too different for him. He told me that he never felt confident that he was fully in control of the car.
His dad told me that it was very tight and you could drive it with one hand, but he grew up driving straight axles. The old man said the problem was that his son fought the car with white knuckles instead of relaxing, trusting the steering and suspension and just guiding it where he wanted it to go.
Now, if you want a miserable driving experience, find yourself an old twin I-beam Ford truck. After a few miles of wear, you didn't actually drive them, you kind of herded them between the ditches! Great farm trucks, but terrible on the highway.
I know what you mean. Years ago the first exit off I-5 past Disneyland heading north, I believe it was Anaheim Blvd, was like a washboard for the first 1/4 mile or so and it was one of the few times I drove my coupe with two hands. It was so bad that if you didn't slow down considerably you could lose control. I would scare the hell out of people by taking it a little faster than I should have. Those were the good old days.
I had a ‘78 and a ‘79 Ford twin I Beam. One day one on the way to work one of the front shocks started leaking badly. I hit a dip in the road and nearly bounced it into the ditch on a clean, dry, paved road. I put a small block Chevy in my ‘79 Ford pick up.
You are the spawn of the devil!!!!!!:LOL: What a terrible thing to do to a nice Chevy engine!:eek:
I was a at an event in my 46 and a guy came up admiring it. He was really into it until I told him it had a Chevy engine. I told him he could buy it and put any engine in it he wanted. It didn't bother him that much apparently!
LOL! :D
The best part was I had “Powered by Chevrolet “ lettered on the tailgate. Plenty of people told me that was the best Ford ever, or a terrible thing to do to a Ford. :eek:
Throw caution into the wind, a rebel without a cause! lol
It’s not practical to put the tie rod behind the axle on this car due to the frame and radiator location. So I’m leaving the steering arms pointed forward. I heated the arms up and bent them out about 2 1/2 inches to get the Ackerman in the ballpark.
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I shot some primer on the body and sat it on the frame. The paint will come later.
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In my T-Bucket I really couldn’t find the space to mount a neutral safety switch near the transmission. So I mounted it behind the seat instead, and ran a cable to it. I used a 1960’s Chevy pickup switch, $16 from Amazon. I also used a Schwinn bicycle brake cable from Walmart. The beauty of using an OEM style switch is that the car will start in both park and neutral, when you wire it through the two terminals I am pointing to. You could also use the other two terminals, and wire in backup lights if so desired. I drilled multiple holes in the switch “lever” to adjust the amount of travel. After about 10 minutes of cable adjustments and trying different holes, I got it to work perfectly.
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That thinking outside the box!
It’s starting to look like a Hot Rod! :D
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Great work and craftiness! It is looking real nice. Are you still under your target goal on the budget? (I can never accomplish that)
Thanks Ryan!
Nah, I’m a little over budget, but not too bad. I’ve splurged a little here and there. I’ll do a budget update soon.
It’s taking a little longer than I’d planned. I’m 2 1/2 years into it now. But I’m happy with how it’s coming out so far, and I’m having fun along the way.
Today I was working on building the pick up box. Maybe I’ll get some pictures of that up tomorrow.
That's what really matters! You'll get to cruise it soon enough down there. :LOL:
I got the brake lines all installed and bled out. To me the Speedway Motors T-Bucket brake pedal looks and feels too tall. I’m thinking about cutting it down shorter, but I’ll wait until after I test drive this thing to make that decision.
Today I’m working on installing the Speedway wiring harness. It seems pretty darn good for the price, $150. I’m mounting the fuse block under the dash. I’m thinking that should keep it pretty safe from water. A lot of guys put them under the seat, but I’m trying to keep a little free space there for carrying stuff.
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Ohhhhh the wiring. That will be a nice Saturday job that will turn into a week on your back :CRY::CRY: