Oops I'm doing it again....I lost my head...

OK, back in the garage, long weekend helping an old friend out, getting ready to liquidate his collection of stuff... Anyone for a 69 Talladega?

These were waiting for me when I got home. New seals for my half shafts!
 

About $13 each.

Here was something that I wanted to display as well...FYI thing.... This is a fuel filter that I carried as a spare in the tool box in my Goose. Installed it in my son's 68 Cougar a few months ago....and recently started having problems with sticking float needle assys and flooding out.... One day I was working on it and pulled it off to see what was in it, in terms of what would fall out of it....well, I heard something rattling around in it!!! Figured that was not right, so replaced it with an original Ford part, similar, only much smaller in diameter. Last week, got bored and wanted to see what was inside..... Glue had separated and filter was rattling around loose, letting crap float past the filter! No spring to hold this one in place!!! CRAP filters!!!! Beware next time you buy..... I won't be doing this again!

 

Here is what I installed back into the Cougar. (FG-44A Gasoline Filters. They cross to Ford D3FZ-9155A, Fram G3515, and Puro GF24.)

 

Will be doing something similar with the Goose too!

Steve

Days 9/10

Clean, clean, and clean. I know I just did this 20,000 miles ago.....but it needed to be done....oil seepage, blown header gaskets, blown header pipes(!), and just plain road grime....

Found one of my lower a-arm Uni-bal booties will need replacing again. One was getting hard and had cracked, other one was soft and supple, yet I replaced them at the same time! Go figure.... That is a job that doesn't need to be done now, and can be done easily with the car up in the air and one bolt..... I hope!

So I cleaned off the frame as best I could with some solvent based cleaner. Here is the after shot.

 

It will need some paint on the top rails where the headers were REALLY close. I do need to lower the frame mounts back to stock, but it is good to know that they can be lifted too!

Here are two shots of the cracked shock mount after I got the sway bar and everything else out of the way. Looks a bit worse than first expected. It actually started tearing the metal that would be directly under the sway bar mount!

Rear view looking forward:
 

Front view looking backwards:
 

Recommendations to date have consisted of removing the old brackets, replacing the top section of the frame with some 1/8" stock and then welding it all back up again....

After looking at the different thicknesses of the steel, this would seem logical. .125" is only a few thousandths thicker than the original steel used.

Steve

Day 11
When things get worser....should be the title, or perhaps day 13.....or I stopped cutting because I ran out of Dremel wheels!!!

....actually I didn't run out of Dremel wheels, but my balloon got seriously deflated by what I discovered tonite!

I cut off the LH upper shock mount and part of the piece that the sway bar attaches to, in order to expose the top piece of the boxed frame rail, thinking that this was the extent of my problem. Wrongo! Once I got the piece out of the way, I discovered that the crack extended all the way down the outside of the frame rail, and wrapped around underneath! It hadn't gone 360 degrees around, but it was well on it's way to 270!

I used a variable speed Dremel with 1" cut off wheels. I started with a 1/16" wheel and when I got thru the steel in some spots a thinner wheel (.035" or so) worked to get at the welds that were deeper inside the outer cut. It allowed also for some movement of the Dremel....or unsteady hands....before the wheel shattered....! I only used a hacksaw on the last cut across the sway bar mount, as I couldn't get in there real good with the Dremel, and it was a straight cut...

In the following picture, the stainless rule is sticking in the crack as it heads down the outer side....
 
Note the lack of a drain hole in this area. I would have thought that a hole or notch at the bottom of the shock mount would have been in order, similar to what was done for the engine frame mounts. At this point, that wouldn't sacrifice any strength.

Here are the pieces that I cut off today....sorta feel like Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly" with this collection of parts....! Check out the piece that I removed from the sway bar mount. I thought perhaps it was a solid piece welded on to the top of the frame rail...nope! Piece of boxed or bent steel, with two nuts welded on underneath!!!
 

Time to consult some experts in the club and see if a chassis shop is in order....or just more cutting and more welding.....!

Next, take measurements and pictures of where things go...then grind some of the excess weld material down a bit to facilitate fabbing new parts. All of the mounts are made from flat pieces welded together! No shaped box tubing here!

After that, I'll tackle shortening the engine frame mounts back to stock height. I was thinking about it today, and if you wanted to lift your motor quickly, why not put spacers in your engine mounts where they attach to the block? Use longer bolts, and 1.25" round spacers and you would have plenty of support...make them as thick as you need. Would negate the need to doink around with raising the frame mounts! Am I missing something here...could it be that simple? (MIne was raised 1-9/16"....which is a LOT, but if you wanted to come up 1/2" or so, I think it would be fine.....)

Ciao!
Steve

Day something or other.....13-14...all running together, with little progress, BUT, forward intentions!

Car is scheduled to head to a frame shop this weekend. Owner also has a Goose! So should be interesting to see if we get any work done between BS storms!!!

Have spent the last couple of weeks sort of agonizing how I was gonna get my "three wheeler" onto a trailer, as since I cut off the top shock mount, there would be no way to anchor the top of the suspension to limit travel! Ooops! It just fell on the ground...!

Earlier this week, late one nite while looking at it, it struck me! A crutch is needed! AND, I have all the convenient places for which to mount it! I was gonna build a cradle or some elaborate 4th wheel of sorts....glad I didn't get that far!

 

I found some old scrap 1" square tubing out back (OLD mainframe computer chassis!) that I drilled, cut, welded and drilled some more to fit. It mounts in the lower a-arm where the sway bar end link would fit, and anchors on the top frame rail, where previous owners mounted a remote oil filter. How convenient and nice of them! (NB: I need to move that damned mount....all it does is drop oil all over my exhaust system when I change oil.....!)

I test checked what I figured would be the top a-arm angle when loaded and sorta went with it, using the RH side as a pattern. No engine or trans so should be fine to just get it onto a trailer and off a couple of times, even if my design is off a tad!!!

I also started removing "stuff" in order that the frame shop will have less crap to deal with. One thing that I liked about mod's the PM's did, was this shield on the wheel opening area!
Here is the LH side without:
 

You can see all the way to China!!! Contrast that to the RH side with the shield still in place.
 

These are pretty nice! They work really good at trapping crap (and probably heat) in the engine compartment....I can only hope that they have worked as well to keep an equal or greater amount of crap OUT of the engine compartment!

Here is a shot of the LH shield removed. It is fairly thick rubber mat of shorts. A good 1/8 to almost 1/4" thick piece, nicely trimmed to fit around rotating and upin' and down'in things!

 

So my list of stuff to do before Sat morning is slowly shrinking. Had to write an auction for my friends 69 Talladega sale tonight. That was tense!

List looks like this:
Drain rear brake system (Clutch is done)
Loosen rear brake line to caliper (for easy removal of LH rear suspension as a unit if needed).
Drain Gas Tank- gonna be weldin' goin' on!

Remove vacume line from lower left frame rail. (Don't want it to get bent or damaged)
Remove LR brake caliper...may do this before it leaves instead of just loosening connections.
(Already loosened upper/lower a-arm and trailing arm connections)
(Took off apron)

Call about trailer for Thurs or Friday pickup!

Remove carpets off of wheel well arches!? Will be towing with no rear hatches, don't really want them to beat themselves to death in the wind! May bungee them down....

Remove AC pump? If I can find suitable fittings to cap the system, I'll just remove the AC pump. System has lost it's charge but remains "mostly" air tight....just don't want system to be open to atmosphere.

Put wheel back on and remove jackstands put car back on floor!
Hide all the crap stored on top of the car, somewhere else in the garage!!! UGH!

Ciao!
Steve

Well, the car is at the frame shop, getting it's butt shored up!!! Here's are shots of the car loaded and ready for transport! Car looks fast and sexy still!!! It was fun watching the Corvette drivers do the neck-whiplash moves to see "what was on the trailer!?" while in transit!

 

 

Had to brace up the frame so that it didn't "bounce" on the brace and bust something else!!! You can see a different view of my temporary brace!
 

The chassis expert immediately recognized that my rear mounts had also been raised slightly, as the welding "looked like MIG". Comparing shots of his Goose, I could see what he meant!

Now, I'm having the extensions removed on my frame mounts but that doesn't mean that I won't want to raise it back up a tad if I have the room!!! So, I intend on leaving the rear bolt holes where they are, above the tops of the frame rails. If you go way back in this post and look at some of the reinforced mounts for the ladder bar and top shock, you will see where these same bolt holes are in about the same position as mine are now. The earlier versions have these holes below the tops of the chassis rails..... Raised the trans bellhousing close to an inch! Any more clearance on a bellhousing to tarmack is a good thing in my mind!!! Hope to go retrieve the car this weekend!

Ciao!
Steve

Day 15 or 16 or maybe it's 25.....

Good news is that the car is back from the chassis/frame shop! Took it to a place just about 20 minutes east of Sacramento. Owner/fabricator was SUPER interested in looking and working on the car! We talked a LOT about ways to make this a stronger car in some areas...and he came up with some good ideas.

I think once he got into this job, the way that the Italians did the job in the first place kept him challenged in what appeared at first glance to be perhaps a straightforward job... yah right!

Anyway, the end job is fantastic! Not only did he and his crew repair the cracked shock mount, but he added additional supports to the tops of the shock mounts, and modified the ladder bar to accept two more mounting bolts! (This is similar to cars starting around the 900's from what I've seen guys posting (mine is #878).... Factory musta had some busted car reports coming in!)

Here is a shot of the LH shock mount:
 

He added this piece down the LH vertical support:
 This mirrors what the factory originally did on the RH side to make up for the notch in the frame to accommodate the shifter linkage.

While they were in there with the cutting and welding tools, the frame mounts for the engine were lowered back to the stock location!
 

Now, if I have room to raise the motor after I get it all installed....I will add shim plates under the mounts on the engine block!

Now I just need to get back on the motivation train to get it all rolling again!!!

Yesterday I did buy the silver paint I want to use on the chassis.... baby steps...baby steps!!!!

Steve

Here is a classic example of why doing work on classic cars takes so darned much time!

(I haven't been working on the car much lately...have been multi-tasking it with a project in the backyard that includes new sprinkers getting dug in, and now I'm expanding our back patio area, so am leveling dirt, moving dirt, gonna shovel in sand, and lay in a few hundred square feet of stained pavers....have been busy and have a bunch to go!) ( I did order new motor mounts...! They are on their way!)

Out back, on the left and right sides of the engine, there are two "heat shields" (asbestos sorta stuff....) that are meant to keep heat off of the stuff in the LH luggage area, and on the other side, the gas tank.

Well, the one on my LH side is toast, and I have been meaning to replace it with something more modern with less or no asbestos content.

Since I have the engine out, this should be an easy job. I figured about an hour per side.... I ordered some "prime candidates" for materials, and a day or two back decided to jump in and pull the shield off and see how it is constructed and what I can do to rebuild it!

(There are before shots above somewhere....)

Here is a shot of the insulation pad and the heat shield removed from the wall of the engine compartment. Now keep in mind that I've already welded a canvas Eddie Bower bag to the inside carpet of the LH luggage area a few years back, so I know there are issues.....

 

Hole is not really obvious.

Removing the small 11ish x 14"ish asbestos pad reveals this!

 

Had not figured on this piece being so destroyed!!! (This is the same crap that DeT glued to the bottom of the gas tank and the insides of the doors and rear quarter areas. REMOVE THIS STUFF AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE!!! It does nothing but trap moisture against the steel....and we know what that results in? Ferrous Oxide.....ugh!

Here is the other side of the heatshield, note the thru hole...this is the side that sits against the inner pad.

 

Here is what awaited me underneath the padding..... ya think those headers got warm?

 

I had not planned on refinishing the engine compartment walls.....!!! Not sure how much I want to do! It will NEVER end.....

Lastly here are the two products that I am considering. Both were procured from Aircraft Spruce. The stuff on the left "Fiberfrax" is what I want to use to recreate the asbestos stuff in the small shields. I was thinking of backing it up with a small piece of the stuff on the RH side "Cool It" that would be hidden from view.... It is two silver metallic sorta layers with a thin sandwich of yellow fiberglass sorta looking insulation in the middle.

 

I'm not real wild about using the Cool It for the engine compartment wall....not sure about the silver look.... Will see what some others have done and how they came out! Feedback is good folks..hint hint....

So here is how my "hour long job" (per side) has turned into a saga.... Now I need to source some flat head rivets, cuz the asbestos was held in place with rivets.... I need to source, pattern, and install padding before the shield, AND I need to clean, sand, and repaint the inner fender well before I can do either of the previous!!!! Double UGH!

I sure am glad this is one damned fine looking automobile!!!
Ciao!
Steve

New Motor mounts. Had to buy 12 to get 2....so will have a few extra sets to get rid of!!! Bought stainless nylock nuts, and hardened washers for backing up the nuts. 12MM studs, 1.185" (30MM) tall. 500lbs rating on each.

 

 

More later...


OK, it's later! (6-30-09) After digging into the material these mounts are constructed of, I found out that their temp rating is far lower than what I would feel comfortable using or selling to anyone else. Something like 140F, 160F max short term. Having a 195F-ish degree engine(core temp) and headers passing down about 4-6 inches away.....I don't think so. Am working on having these remade with something that is more like 240F tolerant plus much better resistance to oil and gas exposure.

Does anyone have a new original mount handy??? Even a toasted original may be good just to be sure that I am not chasing down a wild goose trail! Hah! These are 1-1/8" thick but I would just like to know how thick the originals were....

Anyone need some HD vibration isolators for some heavy equipment? I have some I can turn loose!!!

UPDATED 11-15-09 I have new nitrile rubber mounts now in stock...they look just like these, but are a better suited rubber for exposure to high heat, gas fumes, oil, and grease. See my posting in the Goose for sale forum for more info on purchasing a set of these!


Steve

SMALL PROGRESS IS GOOD PROGRESS....RIGHT??

Went to Reno with POCA and had a blast, finished up my patio project so that I could throw a party for the wife's birthday....(and garner up some stock of brownie points!....) and am now ready to dive back into the Goose!

In between laying bricks and everything else, I managed to find some rivets that were close but not that close to the originals, and a rivet set (punch) to set the rivets with.

My dad sent me this from his garage....to mine.... I wanted something simple.....and while this is bigger than what I was thinking about, sure makes it simple to set rivets!!!

 

I bought some dies for the rivets, and he machined up some adapters to make them fit into this press. Works like a champ....once I clamp it to the bench...!

Here is my end result after bead blasting the heatshield frame and painting it "BBQ black" (flat black hi-temp) cuz I couldn't find any hi-temp semi-gloss black at Home Depot and I wasn't about to chase around looking for a can of paint for something that you can't see once the engine is in place!!! I had one spot next to a rivet where the tin had evaporated a tad, but as I said, not going to sweat this particular detail a whole lot!

 

Another bit that was needing servicing was the rubber bushings at either end of the trans cross member. A while back I had sent back some drawings to my dad, a retired machinist, and he made me up this pusher/holder affair to push old bushings out, and new in... What complicated matters was the fact that the resting surface on the crossmember is not flat due to welding during the construction process. This required putting a step in the holder.... Looks like it will work just fine, either side now. I'm not going to push my old bushings out just yet until I get all of the other pieces to fit properly, ie sway bar, ladder bar...

 

AND last but not least, I was missing the RH idler pulley stand for the engine/jackshaft idler....and Greg T., another local Goose owner working on a puzzle car, came by the other nite before the PCNC meeting to check out my car and take some reference pic's to aid him in getting his car back together! He brought by this pulley and stand-off assy and I'll spec it out, make a drawing, and have my dad whip out one of these for me! Sure is great to have local guys with cars that are apart!!!

 

NEXT! Make up a cardboard pattern, and cut out the LH heat shield for the firewall, sand down the old garpy paint, and get it coated with something high temp that will accept the adhesive backed temp shield that I got from Cool It. (Not the yellow stuff I initially bought) This stuff is called "Aluminized Heat Barrier- Adhesive Backed" and is about $55 for enough to do the left and right bulkhead/firewall areas. Sorta pricey, but made to mount near heat sources.... Everything else I have looked at just didn't wax my paint.....so to speak.

Plenty to do, but I figured I'd update the post!

Ciao!
Steve

OK, take 2.....

Back on the Goose again, after about 10 weeks of little to no proper progress!

Spent some time looking into finding a new idler pulley standoff, for the front of the engine, but this turned out to be a "goose" chase...of sorts! Will have one made....

Worked on getting some new parking brake cables made up, but no luck finding the eyelets for the small 3mm cable! I found cable, sheathing, and ferrels that can be modified to fit, but no eyelets! My contact is still working with some old prints.... we'll see what happens..... May just end up brazing my old ends back on.....

Something completely different: rear disc brake kits for old Ford 8 & 9" rear ends....trying to reorder parts, but now instead of costing about $3 each, they want $6! Even when the quantity is for 400! I thought we were in a recession where shops were hungry for work?????

When my car was repaired, the work that was done looked fantastic! However, upon closer examination, and when I started bolting up the other parts that all reside in this "one ton of crap in a half ton truck" area of the frame, I ran into problems with things fitting.

A hole for the sway bar mounting clamp was drilled in the wrong location and needed to be relocated. Also, the upper shock mount portion of the repair looked fantastic, but it must have slipped position before it was welded into place, because in the end, it was crowding the other parts such that bolts would not fit properly into the other mounts, or wrenches no longer fit, or the bolts rubbed the sway bar worse than before.....and being the picky SOB that I tend to be sometimes, I just couldn't see slapping it together....cuz I know it would just bother me knowing it was there!!!

I think these cars are special, and deserve proper care and repair! So, I'm taking a little time and redoing it properly. I hope.

First, I carefully removed the repaired mount, using a thin Dremel wheel where possible, and thin hacksaw blades in the odd corners and finally got it off, preserving as much metal as I could.

I then cut off a bolt, and recessed it into the maligned hole, and tonite, welded it in place, filed it down flush, and drilled and tapped it. Came out very nice, and the sway bar clamp now sits where it should!

 

I still may have some interference with the sway bar and the bolt heads of the top ZF mount. I had this before....and I am thinking that I may make up some 1/2" spacers to put underneath these sway bar mounts, to lift the clamps up above the bolt heads. Would only require 1/2" longer bolts.....not a big deal. Will see when I put everything back in place......whether they will be needed or not.

I finally used my new bushing tools and pushed out the old upper ZF mount ends, and cleaned up any protruding welds with a file, cleaned and greased the holes, and pushed in the new bushings! Other than some resistance getting the old rusted ones out, a little PB Blaster helped loosen one stuck one up(!), the job went quite well and the custom tools worked as they should!

I used a 6ton bench top press to get the old bushings out. I used the same to push the bushing back in on one side, but on the other side I experimented with a large c-clamp and it installed the new bushing just fine! I was able to fine tune the fore-aft position of the bushing with the c-clamp very nicely!

Here is a shot of one new bushing in place. If the center looks off center, it is. I used these briefly in a set of factory shocks, found the shocks were bad, and pulled the shocks, took the bushings out and saved them for this job! They will settle back to center when weight is put on them.

 


Another project I've been toying with, is a means to support the upper frame sections, from side to side, to eliminate the flex that is allowed by the bushings in the ends of the upper ZF mount. As Dick Ruzzin pointed this out, and went on to re-engineer the entire mounting and ZF support system of his car with a very involved repair or implementation, it got me thinking. Here is my very simple solution to at least part of the problem.

This is a solid bar, that with longer bolts, should be a simple affair that will strengthen the top of the frame sections by tying them together and will limit their ability to move.

 

While it does nothing to strengthen the area where the upper a-arms attach to the bottoms of the top frame rails, it is a start. And it only weighs in at one pound!

I measured the ZF cross mount center to center hole dimension and drilled the same dimension into this bar. Your car may vary slightly from what is shown!!!! I had to put some weight on the wheels to get the bolts back in, as having them unloaded (wheels hanging) pulled the top of the frame outwards slightly making it impossible to put the bolts in.

I have some spacers to make yet so that this bar doesn't interfere with the two ZF bolts, and I will need slightly longer bolts at the ends to snug it in place. I will also contour the ends to remove the square ends... Most of this will never be seen if you carry a spare tire....

Next? Getting that upper shock mount tower put back onto the chassis! Stay tuned!