While I was at work today my son picked up my Holley carb & bolted on my Edelbrock water pump, I got these on my phone at work!
I see you replaced the rear floorpan. I have a couple of quarter-sized holes right about where the slide on your dent puller is sitting. I wonder where you got the sheetmetal and if it's repop, how was the fit?
photobucket Got my distributor & spark plug wires, alternator & carb spacer, all that's left is pulleys!
Had a setback, the driver door & fender are blocked & near perfect but still had alignment issues where the back of the fender meets the front of the door. On a whim I pulled the fender off my parts car & bolted it up & problem solved, only thing, this fender is rough! After a day of sanding, quite a bit of pounding & metal work & a whole weekend of blocking its in primer! A little more blocking & metal glaze it will be amazing!
Taking out dents is a mix of stretching and shrinking metal. If a dent comes out by stretching, the fender gets longer, if by shrinking, it gets shorter. You can stretch or shrink flat metal, so getting the gaps correct is doable. The bad news is that you need to be at bare metal to do it properly. If it needs shrinking, a slapping file can work with primed metal, but stretching is easiest done with heat.
Is that a rust spot at the bottom corner of the window? If it is, you will probably want to take out the dash, and fix the cowl area. Does your car have AC?
Yeah, there's one on both sides. Working on the rust on the rear of the quarter then this area is next, haven't taken the dash out yet to see how bad it is.
I see you're also a member of the House of Windsor. And I'm envious of the valve covers. With the 3.73 gears, are you planning an AOD?
Not entirely sure but I think the valve covers came from Auto Krafters. Not planning on AOD, at this time I plan on building the C4 and adding a stall converter. The 351W has been interesting to build, many 289/302 parts fit but not all, there are a few differences I have run into!
Yup. Too bad Ford drivetrain engineers couldn't do what Kettering did with his V8 design, which went into the Chevy smallblock V8, which was to fit all displacements inside one basic block. Then it only comes down to the crank, rods and pistons.
I don't know about that. Ford coming up with a "mid block" was, in my opinion, a good idea. it was just poorly executed on its first try. The 302 block couldn't reach its potential, even with stroker kits. A raised deck 302 (the 351) allowed the full strength of the block to be utilized. Chevy NEVER had to contend with a bottom end so strong that a lot of potential was left on the table. The Ford 385 block also benefits from a taller deck, that is why they can be had in the aftermarket. See Chevy 454 aftermarket blocks with taller decks? They exist, but they are rare and the blocks have been extensively reworked, not just having the deck raised.
Change of plans, I scored a T5 5 speed & bell housing, already have a shifter from my Mustang & pedals from my parts car, have a line out for a flywheel & clutch quadrant, going to use the same clutch that's in my 98 Mustang GT
Huzzah! That'll give you the lower RPM highway performance your rig will need with the 3.73s. I'd like to see someone come up with a pedal setup for intermediate cars, for either cable or hydro, unless someone already has....
Well, life, family, work, holidays & weather have taken their toll on my Ranchero shop time! I ordered quarter panel patches that stated "some fabrication required" & they weren't joking! Basically what I got was several feet of sheet metal stamped with various bends & angles that I could cut up & make my own patches with. I cut out the rust & pieced on my patches & my son welded them on. After a cut off wheel exploded & tried to take out my whole shoulder I finally got all the welds ground smooth & started laying in filler & long board hand sanding. Today I got the hardest part sanded to a point I needed to see it before going any farther so I sprayed it with primer. It looks much better than I thought, still a lot to perfect but so far so good!!
