Club coffee car project.

[Mattml430]

New timing chain is in and it’s a much better fit even though it’s a bit skinnier. The chain has about 1/2” free play between the sprockets which is nice. 
All bolted together and taped up it’s of to get painted. 

Undercoated in 2 pak hibuild I’ll give it a top coat tomorrow after a good sand down. 
I also got a coat on the fuel tank. 

[Ian_Greenlaw]

Great work Matt, she's getting there !

[Mattml430]

Thanks Ian. It’s a much slower process doing this one because I’m doing it between other jobs. 

[Mattml430]

I had a chance to blast a bit of colour on this morning. 
This is about as close as I could get it to the original colour. 

Colour does look a bit dirtier in real life  Fitted a remote oil filter for ease of changing as this car is being built for ease of use and servicing. 
I opened up the old canister filter and I don’t think oil’s been travelling through it for a while. 

[Mattml430]

Engine bits and pieces are coming together. 
All the wire turned up today from the UK 🇬🇧 after Rich got onto them with his pommy accent and gave them the hurry up. Got enough wire to do the full loom for the car. We have a 2 year wait here apparently for wiring looms if you can actually get hold of the people. 
I’ll leave the carbi off until it’s in the chassis. 

[30DodgePanel]

What was the choice on manifold?

 

Stunning as usual!

[Mattml430]

1 hour ago, 30DodgePanel said:

What was the choice on manifold?

 

Stunning as usual!

It was heat engine paint in the colour, cast iron. Hopefully it stays like that. We gave it a few coats and then stuck a heat gun up its ass for about 2 hours to bake it on. 

[Mattml430]

Did a bit of work on the radiator over the last couple of days. Gave it a good flush out the best I could and the tested it for leaks. I found the bottom hose inlet was leaking so I sweated it out and sand blasted it clean. Once I had it off I found some more junk in there that couldn’t get out without the bottom inlet removed. I’ve soldered it all back together and fixed a couple of other leaks. I pressurised it to about 3psi and saw another couple of tiny leaks in the fins, It’s full of water tonight and hasn’t leaked any water yet so I’ll see how it goes overnight. If no leaks I’ll give it a coat of satin black after I make a new base for it. 

[Scott Bonesteel]

Despite having banged on a bunch of 'old cars' in my day, I am somewhat loathe to offer advice to any of y'all down under with the incredible level of skills and expertise that has been exhibited on this project.  I did note, however, the comment that the radiator would be receiving a 'coat of satin black' paint.  I have always been told that for proper heat exchange a radiator should be painted with 'radiator paint', with regular paint, satin black or otherwise, actually serving as a detrimental insulator.  Y'all probably knew to paint it with 'satin black radiator paint.'

Again, no insult intended and keep up the great work! 

[Mattml430]

3 hours ago, Scott Bonesteel said:

Despite having banged on a bunch of 'old cars' in my day, I am somewhat loathe to offer advice to any of y'all down under with the incredible level of skills and expertise that has been exhibited on this project.  I did note, however, the comment that the radiator would be receiving a 'coat of satin black' paint.  I have always been told that for proper heat exchange a radiator should be painted with 'radiator paint', with regular paint, satin black or otherwise, actually serving as a detrimental insulator.  Y'all probably knew to paint it with 'satin black radiator paint.'

Again, no insult intended and keep up the great work! 

Thanks Scott, I have heard exactly the same thing too before. but in saying that I have painted all my radiators in satin black 2 pak paint with no real ill affects so I’ll do the same on this one. 
Thanks for your input though I always take everything onboard and appreciate you taking the time to comment. 

[Mattml430]

We had a great day today with the working Bee getting quite a few jobs done. We got straight into putting the engine in. 
All went in without to much trouble and then we got all the flywheel and pressure plate bolted on before fitting the gearbox. 
Rich and Terry got started on the brake lines from the back. We were soon in their way though getting the hurry up. 

Frank , Kev and a few of the guys got stuck into pulling apart all the shock absorbers. 
Frank was looking like he was about to get up to something with those vice grips. 
Kirk and Collin cleaning all the shocky parts getting them ready to put back together. 
All the boys getting the shocks done, they turned out to be a pretty big job getting them apart and cleaned up. They got them all back together ready for filling with oil. With the gearbox and overdrive all bolted in it was onto the front brake lines. 
After we remembered how the bleeders worked and Rich fashioned up a nice little copper insert to bleed them the brakes were bled and we had a real good pedal. We still need to adjust all the shoes 100% but they are all working really well. 
With that all done we ran all the new wires from the back up to the front. 

Cross member was also made but just needs notching out to support the overdrive  
My beautiful wife and Lyne spent the day yesterday baking all day making cakes and slices 
Jude, Lyne and Maureen did a wonderful job once again keeping everyone fed and topped up with coffee and tea. They also did a great sausage sizzle for lunch. So thank you very much Ladies for making such a huge effort feeding us all. 
And thank you to everyone that turned up and got their hands dirty giving a hand. We all had a good day with plenty of laughter and banter in the shed. It’s incredible how much gets done in a day when everyone gets stuck into helping out. Well done everyone. 

[RichBad]

Great pics Mat and great job with all the organisation - loads of progress!

[Mattml430]

5 hours ago, RichBad said:

Great pics Mat and great job with all the organisation - loads of progress!

Thanks Rich. A great team effort mate and especially you and grant helping getting it all ready with me. 

[Mattml430]

I got the electronic ignition fitted into the distributor, it’s a nice and neat simple conversion to do. This part goes up under the dash somewhere. It also has a red led for doing a static time to get it close to where you need it. 
I sprayed a bit of fuel up the manifold to see it would fire and she started straight up and ran for about 2 seconds. 
I fitted up the carbi we have but found it leaked out the pot metal as quickly as it was going in. That was a bit of a bummer so I found another carbi base that wasn’t too bad and gave it a good clean up and heated it up and coated the outside in epoxy. I’ll know today if this has worked when I fit it up. I have a feeling we’ll be on the hunt for a good stromberg U2 carbi. That old pot metal can be a bit of a bugger. 

[Mattml430]

After fitting another carbi this morning the old girl fired right back up. 

I think she sounds beautiful. Couldn’t run it for long as there is no radiator fitted yet. I did run it long enough to test the gearbox, clutch and overdrive and all seemed to be working fine. Going to try get another new carbi base off classic restorations.