Engine and Transmission Tech

I almost have to laugh at myself sometimes. I just killed entirely too much time making a very pretty little throttle linkage, only to discover it's backwards. It mounts to the throttle body 180 degrees wrong. Result: the pedal would be "floored" at idle. To accelerate, you'd have to lift the pedal off the floor. Looks like I'll have to remake the links and add a bellcrank mechanism on a bracket somewhere in the middle. What a pain!



So, here's my question:

Have you guys experienced any interesting setbacks with your BritishV8 projects lately? Fess up!

Curtis and clan, first your temporary problem, put a gas pedal "safety strap", over the pedal. Leave the linkage, as-is. Great theft deturrent, and works seldom used muscles !, no, not the one between the ears.My set-backs,(many), are me! I shall blame this on Gemini, ie. 2 heads that never stick to a finite/workable plan. My build a hot rod life, seems to be a not-so-merry- go-round of scope migration.To better support this trend, I bought a "track day" Z28. I consider this a diversion, in the right direction. Time will tell. FWIW, motor set-backs are good. Poor poor pitful me, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzroverman.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2013 02:06PM by roverman.

Oooh setbacks... Well there's the Blackwood Corollary to Murphy's Law: If it's worth doing it's worth doing twice. Betcha can't guess the origin of that one. ;-)

Jim

I'm with Jim. If I hadn't needed to redo things several times over, I'd be driving the damned thing already. The only recent set back I've had is the weather...which is not of my making. Been snowing or in the 30s and lower since mid-January (except for a one weekend of high 40s) — too cold for an old like me to be laying about on the garage floor.

Hello the funniest setback that I had with my car was maybe not a setback but just one more obstacle I had my brand-new 347 all built sitting on a stand in the garage next to my TR six still running car driving it every day my wife and I were sitting in the garage talking and she looked at me and said you're crazy it's not going to fit look at it it's taller than the whole car at that time it had a 9 inch tall Parker funle manifold and carb spacer and air cleaner and it didn't look that tall we got the tape measure out and sure enough oil and flat on the ground it was a half-inch taller than the top of the hood we laughed my wife went back in the house and said it's okay honey I know you'll squeeze it in there somehow a little oil pan modification different intake a couple other changes 3 inch cowle on hood now it fits but after all that I still have one thing on that problem to fix how I overlooked it I just don't know my car sits very low I'm very proud I have nothing sticking below the frime except one thing to days of welding building an oil and I forgot to move the drain plug to the side to this day the only thing that sticks down to low maybe I'll take a picture tomorrow and post it on here you'll all laugh

My biggest setback is getting diverted to a basement renovation or other house hold and life diversions.

What was I in the middle of when I pu my tools down?

The last entry on the long list was making the arms for limiting the rotation of the hood hinge. I cut them out of 1/4" aluminum then sandwiched them together so they could be sanded and finished on the edges and would be identical. Then I had to bend the ends 90* to form the stop - I bent two left side arms instead of mirror image parts. That has been a recurring theme throughout the project.

Here's one that really sucks. I have the intake, radiator and all the engine wiring off my Hillman to fix a fuel leak and to repair and tidy up the wiring. I decided that I hate dirty black engine bays and spent last weekend cleaning everything and painting the engine bay gloss gray. Looks nice, but unfortunately I managed to put a dime sized chip on the edge of one of the fenders. Now I have to try to fix it and it's going to be hard to make it disappear. You shoulda heard the obscenities going through my mind.

I made a few parts backwards and you guys may remember the minor set-back I had on my first test drive. Started over heating within the first few minutes of driving... got home and realized I had my fan in backwards so it was trying to push hot engine bay air out thru the radiator!

Trying to get the parking lamps to work and not being able to get out on the highway for a real test drive yet even though it' running and capable of going. No time.

No time or real useable space....soon to be corrected!

Remembered another one while responding to someone over on the MGE board... I had to redo about every third or fourth brake line flare because I'd forget to put the nut on before making the flare. Sometimes that meant having to reshape a new line because they'd be too short after cutting the end to re-do the flare.

That's the classic one Rob. Cut it off twice and it's still too short.

I always say @#$%& was a carpenter. I just build stuff!

So here's what the bellcrank looks like:



Lisa says this isn't a proper Rube Goldberg machine because it's missing a canary and an elephant.

The good news is that the motion is smooth and the pedal travel is correct...

Note: the throttle-return spring isn't installed, so you're viewing the wide-open-throttle position. There are a couple other little cosmetic improvements to be made. Chief among them, when a second pair of male Heim joints arrive I'll redo the top link.

Quality workmanship Curtis......
Guaranteed to function properly with engine torque?

I'd venture to say the major setbacks for my project were keeping a daily driver going for the wife to haul the kids around due to the Tahoe getting Tboned and getting it repaired and repainted back to roadworthy condition. That and the beer factor of course.

I think I've got you all beat so far.

My engine is a Ford 289 which I acquired as a core years ago. I rebuilt the engine myself and spared no time or expense in getting it as perfect as I know how. I measured, checked and double checked every tolerance and clearance. When the day came to finally start the engine for the first time, I spun the oil pump with a drill to prime it and noticed immediately that I had no oil pressure on my brand new oil pressure gauge. Because I was having other problems at the time with my newly installed Automer Nexus gauges, I assumed the no oil pressure was due to the Nexus network module malfunctioning and decided to fire the engine anyway. It fired up and ran strong for about 4 minutes while breaking in the cam, then died suddenly and would not restart- the engine was locked. As it turned out, the problem was due to my remote oil filter being plumbed backwards. The oil made it to the filter, and that was it. It destroyed the pistons, the block and the crank. So back to the drawing board.... I found another 289 on Craigslist for $200 and built it exactly the same way as the first, with one glaring exception of course. Moral: Don't fire a new engine without first priming until there is oil at all rocker arms, period.
As for the Autometer Nexus gauges: All had to be removed, including harnesses, senders, etc and returned to Autometer to have all replaced with equivalent replacements. (They could no longer get parts for that series, and then they discontinued them shortly after I had installed them...grrr) The gauge replacement alone has set me back a month and the engine replacement took the better part of 3 months to complete.

A How-It-Was-Done coming soon...

Cheers

Scott

Oh Scott, that truly sucks

Ok similar, Autometer electrical oil pressure gage,fast idles at approx. 85 psi, and as soon as it's reved, drops to 70 psi ! I shall first try a different/verified-correct sender.I know this sounds like oil pick-up is too close to bottom of pan-But first things first. Cheerrs, roverman.