Hey!!! Got some real work done today.

[brianrupnow]

Temperature finally came up out of the deep freeze today. Went up to 30 Farenheit.----Fired up the garage furnace and had a good day playing mister Hotrod with the roadster pickup.. I installed my new 1" bore dual chamber master cylinder, bent the brake pedal arm to suit my application and installed it, cut the hole in my floor, and now have a pedal arm. I will wait untill I install the column before I figure out what I'm doing for a pedal. I do know that the pedal won't be centered on the arm, it'll have to be offset mostly towards the center of the car to clear the column. It looks like all my left foot is going to do is work the dimmer switch, as the steering column is going to be too close to the floor at the bottom to get my left foot over to the brake pedal side. (don't know how I'm going to load up that 350 turbo for stoplight drags----You know what I mean, watch for orange light, stand on the brake pedal with your left foot while standing on gas feed with right foot, waiting for light to change and launch). I cut the floor and installed my Lokar floor mount parking brake. (I actually did manage to get it between the bucket seats.) I installed a new bottom rad hose, but haven't been able to find one that fits the top yet---(they get kinda ugly down at the auto store when I want to root thru all their stuff on the rack). I measured for a driveshaft today, then proceeded to cut the rear yoke off my 85 Pontiac driveshaft (the engine donor car), and tomorrow I will cut the driveshaft to length (29" eye to eye). I will take the cut off driveshaft and yoke down to the local machine shop this week and get everything squared up on their big lathe before I reassemble and weld it. All in all a very satisfactory day. Whenever I go 2 weeks without doing anything towards completing the car, I worry that maybe I'm losing interest. (That only happened once, about 35 years ago, but I still worry about it.)

[chevy 37]

brianrupnow I did the same as the temperature got to around 32 this afternoon. Are you from Barrie Vermont.? I use to live in Vermont in a little hicktown called craftsberry common. It was about 10 miles from Hardwick. That was along time ago. Miss those days and found alot of old cars sitting infields that the farmers would let youwork on.

[brianrupnow]

Chevy37----Well no, actually I'm from Barrie Ontario in Canada. Barrie is a city of 125,000 about 75 miles straight north of Toronto. (north shore of Lake Ontario.) This is a very beautifull city, as it is one of the "transition" cities, being at the top end of industrialized southern Ontario, and right on the edge of "untamed wilderness Ontario" (thats an exageration, but you get the idea).

[BlownGoat]

Sounds like you got some real good progress done today, so much going on here lately I hadnt had much time to work on mine but plan on finally getting back to it next weekend to streatch the rear fender openings.

Been in the deep freeze here in the detroit area as well but finally starting to edge closer to 30 degrees the last day or two. Garage heat works good at 30+ degrees but colder than that and you have to leave it on the whole time i'm working and that sucks down the propane to fast so hopefully next weekend will be above the freezing mark.

BG

[Stu Cool]

Wow, Brian you are jammin! At this rate you will be ready to drive it once the snow melts!

Pat

[Dave Severson]

Dang Brian, could you slow down a bit??? You are starting to make me feel bad. All I've got done lately the last couple months is work on everyone else's car!!!!

[Mike P]

I read the thead about 7 AM this morning and was going to go out and finish up a disc brake conversion. Went to the window and looked at the thermometer ......20 degrees needless to say I'm still on the computer. It should warm up to 60 or so this afternoon .

You know, I don't remember them saying anything about this in the AZ travel brochures

[brianrupnow]

Mike P---Cold weather sucks. For some reason I thought the temperature in Arizona was milder than that in the winter. I didn't know that it got that cold down there. I know that you get some really hot summer temperatures---(our warmest day here at mid summer gets up to about 90 Farenheit)

[Mike P]

Well, where I'm at it's about 4500 ft, and on top of that I live in a little hollow where the cold collects. Where I'm at it's usually about 15 degrees cooler than Techinspector up in Phoenix gets.
A lot more enjoyable in the summer. but we pay for it some winters.

[brianrupnow]

Sunday at 4:11 PM---had some good luck this morning, went to a different auto supply store, and found a top had hose that fits my application perfectly--of course it was about 20" too long, kinda looked like a perverted elephants trunk, but part of it was "just right". Damn thing cost $28, but it works good. I hooked up a battery this afternoon after wifey and I had went for a Sunday drive, and actually had the engine turning over for the first time, on the starter. Now remember, this engine aint new---its an old 305 Pontiac, circa 1985, with a new timing chain and gears and a bunch of chrome goodies. I am just about at the point where I could run a jumper wire and start the engine. I am somewhat reluctant to do this, as the car is up on blocks to make working underneath it more comfortable, and I am always concerned about a fire. If the darn thing pukes any gas out the carb and backfires thru the carb before I get the initial timing set right, I can't roll it out of the garage. Probably if I wait a week, curiosity will win out over caution, and I will make sure my big fire extinguisher has a full charge, then go ahead and start the motor anyways. It ran good when I bought it, the donor car was actually driven to my house from about 50 miles away, sounded good, no knocks, no smoke. Now that I've tore the front cover off, replaced the timing chain and gears, new oilpan, massive clean-up and paint job, I am anxious to make sure it runs O.K.

[Don Shillady]

Since Brian has been quite decent with me maybe I can ask a really dumb question and not be razzed too much. I am, of course, trying to keep up with Brian (fat chance) in my roadster build and I "cheated" by paying for installation of my engine, trans and rear rebuild. Along the way I had a professional cut and balance a drive shaft and it is installed now. However I need to change the speedometer gears in the 700R4 and that requires I remove the drive shaft and unbolt the short tailshaft housing (there is no fluid in the trans yet). Since the driveshaft has a Ford yoke on the rear and a GM yoke on the front I would like to decouple it at the rear and slide out the driveshaft so I can unbolt the tailshaft housing. I have rebuilt U-bolts on both ends of a MG Midget driveshaft and I just want to check on this. Just remove the circle-clips from part of the rear yoke and tap out the crosshaft?? This is an easy step but I don't want to mess up my new driveshaft.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

[brianrupnow]

Don---unless I am missing something here all you have to do to remove the driveshaft is remove the 2 u-bolts (or retaining straps) that hold the year universal joint to the Ford rear end, put a big screw driver between the u-joint and the rear end snout, and give a pry. This should let the front yoke slide up into the tail end of the transmission to let the driveshaft and rear universal swing clear of the rear end, then pull it straight out of the tranny tailstock. Just be very carefull to hang onto the end of the driveshaft with the hand that you are not prying with, so that the end don't fall down on the floor and knock the end caps off the u-joint, or you will be crawling around on hands and knees for an hour, chasing down needle bearings.

[Don Shillady]

Brian Thanks, that is sufficiently different from what I was going to do so that I might have made a mistake.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

[BlownGoat]

Should just be able to do as Brian said and remove the 2 cap u-bolts. A good thing to do before you lay the shaft aside to do the rest of the work though is to wrap the caps with some electrical tape to keep them from getting knocked off if the shaft was to get moved around while its off. As Brian mentined crawling around trying to find a bunch off tiny needle bearings is no fun at all

BG