Really nice looking rod you've got going
Really nice looking rod you've got going
Nice! I never knew they made such a critter.
You could get the power to weight in a more favorable position by adding boost. What does the combustion chamber look like?
I think some AMC 6's were used at Indy?
If you're going to hot dog it you might consider lowering the rear roll center.
Nice work!
In reply to bentwrench :
Thanks for the comment, I've got to ask though why you think I should lower the rear roll center? My reasoning behind having it up there is based on a few things. First and foremost is space, I shortened the rear of the car improving mass centralization by being able to package the Watts above the differential instead of behind it. Second was the resulting passive rear steering caused by it, as the car rolls under a side load while turning it applies a little counter steering to the rear end which should decrease understeer. Third is that with the seat where it is the rear vertical center of gravity is quite high while there is no anti roll bar and I didn't have the room to tilt the rear shocks/springs in the fashion I wanted to provide anti roll characteristics the way I could in the front suspension.
Suspension balance is a funny thing, I'm not actually a chassis engineer or suspension expert. I'm hoping for tail happy fun and it's possible I'm creating a tail happy nightmare. It's possible I've made something that will plow more than the tractor the engine was originally for. So if this has come off as preachy I apologize and I genuinely am curious your reasoning for altering the rear end (which isn't going to happen at this point anyway to be honest).
Moving on, I'm not sure one way or the other about the AMC inline six at Indy though I know they ran a Cummins there one year. Internet search says yes a guy showed up with a Rambler 199ci six with a turbo on it. The Tornado engine has a hemispherical combustion chamber with a side mounted spark plug rather than between the valves. I've got the supercharger there so it will have a bit of boost.
Side note in the middle here, I really do appreciate compliments but seeing this called high end fabrication leaves me slightly bemused when I see things like the C5-R and V12 Ferrari 308 builds just on this site. I'm nowhere close to that league and grudgingly accepting of the fact that I never will be. It's cool though, I just do what I can and it's been fun along the way.
So things that have gotten done: I got the breather catch can and lines from the crank case and valve cover run to it. Also have the oil cooler and remote filter plumbed in and topped the oil back up. I ordered replacements for the axle bearing and seal and the wheel cylinder I rendered useless a couple weeks ago.
Something I've needed done since before I had to move the car was the mounting tabs welded to the radiator. It's been at least 2 years since I've had a reason to weld aluminum and wasn't looking to screw up a brand new radiator so when a couple different guys who are better welders than I offered to weld the tabs on for me I tried to take them up on the offer. As of this morning though the radiator was still tabless and it didn't look like anyone else was going to actually do it for me any time soon. It's down to getting the intake made and little things left to do before I want to start doing the body so getting the radiator mounted is high on the list which led to me having to practice my aluminum welding this morning.
That was after an hour and I went ahead and said that was good enough for me so I welded the tabs on and got the radiator mounted. That ended up being all I got done today due to circumstances. Hopefully fan shroud tomorrow.
And a fan shroud made today
In reply to NashGTI :
Those are just two threads of many, give yourself some credit. This build kicks ass!
johndej said:Those are just two threads of many, give yourself some credit. This build kicks ass!
It was just two threads, but it was two threads on the front page of this part of the message board system on this website. So I'm going to hijack my own thread for a minute here. This was actually one of the parts of the long conversation I had with my boss Saturday. I feel like I have probably a slightly inflated opinion of my own skill set, what brought it up then was talking about some former coworkers who have very inflated opinions of their own skillsets. I'm actually employed as a mechanic at a custom/restoration shop and feel like I'm a pretty darn good mechanic. Before that I was employed as a technician (is that really anything more than a semantics arguement?) at a new car dealer and I know I was a darn good one of those. Combine that diagnostic and repair aptitude with my fabrication ability, plus some passable upholstery ability, and I'd say I have a pretty rare skill set.
What that probably means though is there are probably a few dozen people in the greater Nashville area that meet or exceed my skills. Few thousand at least in the United States. Tens of thousands world wide. So that would roughly be equivalent to the top 1% of people involved in this type of work yet still topped by tens of thousands of people.
And again that's not talking as a fabricator, that's total automotive skills. Stuff I see on this website, stuff I see on Istagram, people I've seen through work even....it humbles me. Again though, the compliments are great and it keeps this stuff worth while to see that others appreciate it.
Borrowed some corner scales last night to check some numbers and ordered springs and some other bits. Not shockingly they didn't actually have the set of springs I need for this application so stuff is backordered til who knows when. Somewhat frustrating in that my plan was to be able to actually move the car around under its own power shortly but that isn't happening without actual springs. I don't trust the spacers at anything more than walking pace for obvious reasons. The corner weight function was fun, with me in the seat the weight balance right now is really centered.
Moving forward I finally got my wheel cylinder and axle bearing so plan is to get those on tomorrow after work. This weekend I'll do some sheet metal work around the radiator and I'm told there might be a file made for supercharger/intake manifold flanges. Outside that I should have a throttle cable and air filter to work with soon.
For a proper bit of update, I got the rear axle bits installed without any issues this time. The day after that I made a pedal side bracket and put the cable on. I got the couple fittings I needed to hook the fuel pump up to the original Jeep carburetor as well, so with an actual fuel feed working brakes and throttle control I was able to move the car forward about a foot and a half under it's own power for the first time. Having the ability to rev the engine from the seat allowed me to see a couple problems though.
Firstly I noticed that the intake manifold pressure gauge was stuck and didn't respond to the engine revving. It's been more than a year since it was purchased though so I took it apart (messing up the ring obviously) and was able to fix it. Secondly I saw when the engine hits about a thousand RPM the voltage gauge started going bananas bouncing back and fourth between 14 and 17 volts. The reading was verified with a separate volt meter so it isn't the gauge it's the charging system. Weirdly it does it whether the alternator is turned on or off, it even does it with the 2 wire connector to the alternator unplugged. I don't recall any weird charging system issues when the engine was still in the truck but it only had an idiot light. So I guess I'm buying a rebuild kit, or I've even thought of just buying a new alternator and just swapping front covers since I have the front modified on mine to fit the Tornado engine.
Following that stuff I closed all the gaps around the radiator (pictured above obviously) and ordered an upper radiator hose. Yesterday I got a notice that the estimated shipping date of the front springs had been moved all the way out to January 7. That isn't really what I'm looking for so today at lunch I put a cancel request in for them and ordered different sets that showed to be in stock. They're 25 pounds per inch lighter front and rear but at least they are supposedly available. Tonight I started doing the arch panel atop the radiator support. I also tried filling the cooling system but one of the brackets I welded to the radiator leaks water under pressure. I believe I know why it's leaking and can fix it so fingers crossed there.
Drove over to the lift. Got the radiator and cooling system to hold water so I was able to let it run for a while. Worked on the arch piece above the radiator for a while and now this afternoon I need to get the transmission to tailshaft adapter piece sealed so I can add gear oil to the trans. The springs are supposedly out for delivery today so if that and the weather work out I could drive out of the parking lot tomorrow.
Exciting progress .
I hope the first drive goes well.
Nice car and I like the Jeep 6.
As an FSJ owner and connoisseur of oddball one-offs, this pushes a lot of buttons for me. Thanks for sharing.
So driving videos, which aren't great as far as videos go. And there is a stupid watermark because I don't know any free video editing stuff. Impression from the video is I don't know why the blower whine is so incredibly loud on the video even drowning out the exhaust noise.
The actual driving of the car cropped up some issues which obviously isn't the least bit surprising. The brakes are spongy which isn't a huge surprise considering all that's every really been done is a gravity bleed in the front. The car stops OK and it never felt like it wasn't going to but I need to get a hand at some point and do a better bleed. I just went a few hundred yards and didn't get past second gear, the car ran progressively worse as things went. I stopped across the street to see who was over there and shut the car off to be able to chat and it didn't want to fire back up which is a first. It acted like it was flooded and had started to cut out under throttle before I turned in there. It was Jeff who was there and he pointed out while I was getting out of the car that the carburetor was leaking, so I'm betting that the carburetor from the Jeep that I haven't done anything with may have given up. Or alternatively this was the first time the car had run any length of time with the charging system working and I haven't actually checked the fuel pressure so maybe with the extra voltage now the pump is overwhelming the float? I pulled the spark plugs once I pulled it back in the shop, the plugs which I've never changed, and they're half rich fouled.
Other things I haven't actually done yet, look at the valve lash or ignition timing. So these things should probably get done. Nothing seems to have fallen off the car and I survived the drive though and teething issues aren't a shock with something hand built making it's first run so I'm not super worried yet. Oil pressure looked fine the whole time and the coolant temperature never even topped 150 so I know it didn't get hot enough to mess anything up. I did notice when it was misfiring the AFR went down to 11 so more evidence it's too rich for one reason or another.
The positive thing is I think it sounds good inside the car going but the dominant thing is the thing feels like it's a roller coaster car. It's not like I was going fast, MAYBE 30 but every slight input in the steering wheel was felt as a direction change in the car. I was expecting the tall soft sidewall tires to blunt steering input and was really pleasantly surprised. At the same time I've been expecting to have noticeable body roll given the lack of any anti roll bars and again the soft tires but it was completely unnoticeable. Obviously it's a cliche, but go kart like feels accurate. Even having several custom cars with full aftermarket suspensions and tiny sidewall tires the steering is way more direct, again given the extremely small sample size.
I love this build!
where did you find the steering gear reverser?
In reply to warpedredneck :
I can go back and look through receipts and find the specific location after a bit, it was just a Google search for steering reverser gear and took me to a site that was like a circle track warehouse.
edit: The receipt says Coleman Racing Products
In reply to NashGTI :
thank you, i was on Colemans site and must have overlooked it
https://www.colemanracing.com/Steering/Reverse-Drive-Gear-Box
actually had the link saved in the main build thread I do hosted on another site, suppose I could've just done that earlier......didn't think of it at the time.
Pulled that from the fuel cell last night so I do believe I have discovered the cause of it suddenly running poorly. I had stopped and got a gallon of gas on the way in to the shop Sunday and put that gallon in right before taking the car out. then of course just a handful of minutes into driving it started running worse than it had just the previous day.
Gummed up carb? Stuck valve due to varnishy gas?
Just E36 M3 gas, I had check it out last night draining the carb and filling it with a squirt bottle then starting the car with the fuel pump turned off. Doing that it chugged for a couple seconds and then idled smoothly for another 10 before the float bowl went dry again. I went through my list tonight though plugs, valves, fuel pressure, ignition timing, drain the tank. Having done that I started it up and it runs great, probably a little better than it did before which wouldn't be surprising.
edit: The profanity filter is weird....
Made a bump bar to provide a modicum of rear crash protection to the fuel cell, then took it outside and took a funny picture.
NashGTI said:And a fan shroud made today
That's high end fabrication to me. When I made a radiator shroud, it looked like I had been banging on a cookie sheet with a hammer. Because I had. That looks like something people would pay for
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
I won't say that's not nice, but with the tooling I have available those are easy to make nice looking
Any picture with that valve cover and those side exit head pipes is a good picture I think. There is my airbox progress so far and how the filter will sit.
First on car video and it isn't great. I didn't use the external mic and the camera mount sucks and the camera ended up pointed at the sky. Also it didn't end the video when I wanted to end the video so there is pointless footage at the end. The camera came with a remote trigger but I'm not sure how to use it yet. At least it's something though right?
More importantly I actually pushed the car through the downhill left hand turn coming back hard enough to feel the rear tires begin to JUST start to slide a little and it felt glorious. I was really hoping that having the air filter hooked up would richen the engine up but in hindsight there is so much available airflow compared to carb size with that filter and the little one barrel Holley on the engine right now there was no hope of it. So the car is still borderline catastrophically lean under throttle. Also you can hear me grind the hell out of the non-syncro first gear, I'm not a proficient double clutch artist yet.
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