Lavron's '64 Build Thread

The Era of The Square Body Racing Comets
lavron
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by lavron »

SASSY wrote:
Thu May 21, 2020 12:19 am
Careful, all those machine shop tools,, thats a slippery slope for someone who has mastered a hacksaw!!
My little drill press hardly qualifies as a machine shop tool :roll: :lol: Probably won't see another piece of equipment for a while even though HF does have a tiny little lathe and mill :P
popscomet wrote:
Thu May 21, 2020 12:41 am
on a 289 there is a small alumn spacer that goes on the bolt between alt and head
I seem to remember a sorta pipe spacer on something I have or dismantled around here not really pipe because the seam is not welded, will have to check the toolbox I had the day before I pulled the motor in the junkyard I may have thrown that piece in there, That is the bracket I almost lost to the crusher because I nearly gave myself heat stroke and left it in the cab of an S-10 I had sat down in to take a rest (you know I was not right in the head to sit in that :roll: ) and the cab was gone from the spot when I returned a few days later, it had been pushed a little closer to the crusher, but I retrieved the bracket :P . I may have enough leftover from the exhaust spacers to make some aluminum ones.

I got a notification from HF that my 6-ton jack stands had been recalled, the pawl can come dislodged and crush you to death if you are under your car, ok they may have left getting crushed to death out but it was implied :? supposed to return them and they will give me credit to buy new ones and 20% off. Kinda need those two jack stands because I am going to put the Comet up on them like Pops did with the Cobra to break in everything.

See Ya,
Mike
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lavron
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by lavron »

Ok, don't be too critical of my square holes for my header spacers, remember I did this by hand :roll: and just a reminder, that is 3/4" thick aluminum.
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If I was to do it again I could make them neater now that I know how to do it but I think these will be fine and probably will never make any more.

Now I have to figure out how I am going to cut them out you can see where I scribed the cut lines on them. I think before I cut them out I will smooth them out a little on the faces to try and get rid of some of those mill lines.

Getting close to having those done.

See Ya,
Mike
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lavron
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

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lavron wrote:
Thu May 21, 2020 2:39 am
I seem to remember a sorta pipe spacer on something I have or dismantled around here not really pipe because the seam is not welded, will have to check the toolbox I had the day before I pulled the motor in the junkyard I may have thrown that piece in there,
So I couldn't find the spacer that came with the motor but I was digging through my junk drawer looking for something else and found this.
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Not sure what it was off of but it was almost exactly the right length, I touched each end with a flap wheel in the grinder and slipped it in.
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That was just a little thing I did today (I found it yesterday) my main focus was getting the header spacers finished, which I did.
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I installed the long set of studs I had bought, stacked some gaskets on there and bolted the header on, everything appears to have worked out ok.
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The gasket behind the spacer is a stock one for a regular manifold that I cut into individual ports, I think I will switch it out to the one that came with the header because the two center ports on the stock one have tall holes, I think the header one will seal better.

this is just a close up of the front port bolted on, I may have to grind the header flange smoother now, I am making it look bad with my fine spacer :roll: :P :lol:
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The only nut that has to be started on before the header is tightly mounted in the top one on cylinder 3, it will almost go on but not quite, if they weren't those long brass nuts it would probably slip on there.

Pretty happy with them considering I made them in my shed.

EDIT: BTW #2 & most of #6 are done and off my list, 8 more to go;
#2 - Install oil pump with gasket, and install the oil pan, finishing up the short block.
#6 - Fabricate the exhaust spacers and install them along with the header, hook up the exhaust pipes.


See Ya,
Mike
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Jims65cyclone
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by Jims65cyclone »

It's looking really good, Mike! 8)

Jim
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poboyjo65
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by poboyjo65 »

Jims65cyclone wrote:
Mon May 25, 2020 9:52 pm
It's looking really good, Mike! 8)

Jim
I agree! :D

Is the header adapter going to help or hinder spark plug access?

on the spacer,,,I have a bottle jack handle that's getting bad short because it makes good spacers! :lol: I saw one of them the other day I was under my car,I had left most of the paint on it thinking it wouldn't show but saw it looking thru a hole in the frame. I was thinking Fred would be proud of me when I put it in there,& he came to mind again when I saw it thru the frame hole. :roll:
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Johno

lavron
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by lavron »

Jims65cyclone wrote:
Mon May 25, 2020 9:52 pm
It's looking really good, Mike!
Thanks Jim and JohnO.
poboyjo65 wrote:
Mon May 25, 2020 10:38 pm
Is the header adapter going to help or hinder spark plug access?
No, the spark plugs are on the other side of the head, stop thinking about those inconvenient V8s :P

The spacer was just a lucky find while digging for something else in the junk drawer, which I don't think I ever found :roll: I am pretty sure that is probably an alternator spacer off one of the other 6s or off of the 302 that was in the '62 F100 because I am not sure when I threw it in there.

I ordered something a couple of days ago that is the type of thing I usually don't spend money on, I bought a mock-up A/C GenIV in-dash unit from Vintage Air, it was like $65, I am hoping when I am done with it I can put it up for $40-$50 and recoup some of it and give someone else a good deal that is wanting to mock up an A/C system from V.A. I am really doing too much stuff under there that I don't want to have to redo anything when it comes time to add A/C, right now I could do so fairly easily.

Currently I have my spark plugs, wires, coil wire kit and hopefully a new black distributor cap on the way as well, I should be able to start building the ignition system when all that comes in.

I am going to ask here in case someone in this great brain-trust of Ford/Car guys has experienced something similar, I have mentioned (I think) about the A/C compressor and it needs to scoot out a bit to clear the header, just moving it out 1/2" or so will probably do it, I will know when I finally get the compressor. I was wondering if I might need an idler pulley to make the belts wrap more around the pulley, I guess I don't know how much contact the belts need with the pulleys is there a rule of thumb like wrap at least halfway around?

One thing I have thought about is getting a flat pulley for the alternator and spinning it backwards below the A/C compressor and tighten the belts by pushing it in instead of out, still don't know if that would work and I am not sure where to find the proper pulley to do a flat double v-belt and would fit the alt.

See Ya,
Mike
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SASSY
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by SASSY »

Looking forward to seeing the mockup AC thing.
I'm leaning towards dropping the stock underdash unit that
I've been saving since the early 80s. I think Im gonna lose the stock console and build a custom one that goes up to dash like yours.
Fred
I'd rather do it myself if it's done right or not,,,isn't that what hotrodding is all about

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lavron
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

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SASSY wrote:
Tue May 26, 2020 11:19 am
Looking forward to seeing the mockup AC thing.
The way I understand it it is just the case and brackets without the guts in it, I think the only thing different (I have read) is the ducting in the kits depending on what car it goes on, Vintage Air makes a '64-'65 Falcon/Ranchero kit.

I will post up a picture of the thing when I get it.

See Ya,
Mike
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lavron
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

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Some days are good some are bad and some are somewhere in between, I guess today was in between but a little toward the good.

I was out in the shed this morning and decided I would put some more stuff on the engine, this is usually to keep from losing things or getting them damaged and it is always nice to clear up a little space :roll: I thought I would go ahead and put the lifters in because I shouldn't need to turn the motor upside down again, I wasn't sure how I was going to get them way down in the bores with those little holes that lifters barely fit through but figured I would cross that bridge when I got to it, I had just finished pulling the nuts oof the head studs (the head is not installed but I keep it bolted down finger tight) when the postman pulled up with a delivery, I really wasn't expecting anything but he had two packages for me, one was my paint respirator I ordered on March 15th, funny thing, sort of, the end of last week I sent a message to the seller on Amazon and told them to refund my money because it wasn't comming, and they did :oops: seems like that always happens to me, I could have waited a few more days, I sent them a message back telling them it arrived and I needed to re-pay them, I am waiting for a response.

The other package was from Summit, not much in the box but some spark plug wire separators and a lifter tool I had ordered, looks like a good day and it arrived just in time.

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I paid like $2.50 for it and it worked pretty good, not sure how I would have done the job without it those lifters are not the easiest thing to get in place.

With that little job done I decided to get the engine in time and install the distributor at least temporarily, this is where my luck took a turn, I was having problems getting the oil pump rod aligned, it needed to stick in the distributor and the hex alined and get it near TDC pointing at #1, after struggling with it a bit I decided I would turn the oil pump a little and get the flats in a better position, a 200 pump shaft is longer than a 250 shaft and I had one so I put it in there and used a socket and ratchet to spin the oil pump, pulled it back out tried to fit the distributor again, the pump shaft slid out of the distributor into the pump again so I was using a magnet to get the rod back out for another try and partway up I dropped the rod and it fell into the oil pan :oops: :evil: the only way to get it back out was to take the oil pan back off, which meant flipping the motor over, half of the lifters coming out of their bores (none fell on the floor, not enough space for them to get out) then removing the 100 oil pan bolts and unsticking the RTV while not dammaging the gasket to get the rod and then reverse the process, reinsert the dislodged lifters and finally getting the distributor in the right place.
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When I finally got that done I installed the port for the water temp gauge, oil pressure switch, and a heater hose nipple. The thermostat is in there too but I haven't really installed it yet because I want to check on some longer bolts the ones in there look too short to me (they reach through but only about 4 threads sticking out.

Obviously I stuck my spark plugs, wires, and the new distributor cap on there.

Getting it closer every day.

See Ya,
Mike
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popscomet
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by popscomet »

glue the rod in the dist wih some yellow glue,,,it won't fall out,,,,pop
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pop/glenda

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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

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popscomet wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 12:06 am
glue the rod in the dist wih some yellow glue,,,it won't fall out,,,,pop
That might happen because I have the 200 shaft to pre-lube the engine with.

Also I picked up a couple of Motorcraft oil filters yesterday so you don't have to worry about the Fram ones being on there very long :P

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Mike
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by popscomet »

why take the time to set the timing now ?? if you havn't even primed the engine with oil,,dist will be out for that to spin oil pump !! sounds to me your just making double work for yourself,,,jmo….remove plugs to bar engine over,,make it easy on you....
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by lavron »

popscomet wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 12:23 am
why take the time to set the timing now
I was putting it in there decided I would put it in the right place :P

Hopefully I did it right anyway, I know it isn't supposed to be right on #1 at TDC of compression stroke but that is how I set it, not sure there is a way to get it right on without waiting to time it after it is running.

Now if I can just get busy on that intake I might have a running motor soon :roll:

See Ya,
Mike
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by lavron »

I got the Vintage Air mock-up unit today, I guess I misspoke about it, it is a plastic blow-molded piece (I don't know it could be the actual case without the holes cut in it) it includes the regular brackets like comes with the actual unit (not shown).

I didn't have time to do much with it except pull it out of the box and compare it to the stock heater.
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I am missing my duct connections off of my heater, they just fell apart from being wet or maybe because they were 50+-year-old cardboard, I think if they were still on there it would end up being about the same length plus the motor no longer sticks through the firewall front to back.

When I get a chance I will mount it up under the dash, I know in the kit it comes with a new glovebox liner made of plastic and a reduced size.

It should help see if I need to move my air line running to the passenger side and the like, I want to start putting the ignition system together and it is going behind the center console so now I can see if it will clear ok.

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Mike
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SASSY
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Re: Lavron's '64 Build Thread

Post by SASSY »

Need some 3/4 shots to get depth, I can't make out the unit in the pics cause of shadows.
Fred
I'd rather do it myself if it's done right or not,,,isn't that what hotrodding is all about

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