Awesome!:tu:tu:tu

Don

 

Looking good! That's some motor you have there - looks sweet! :tu

 

Thanks Dennis, that motor has been a real labor of love for me over the past 28 years, no one other than my son (who just turned 18) has ever laid a wrench on it. I've been through it 4 times now in that time frame. Being a poor boy, one thing i did that may help other Rat Rodders was the method I used to balance the engine. When I lived in OKC 20 years ago, a friend of mine knew a guy who worked at a jet engine turbine shop. I tore the motor down and took the crank, harmonic balancer and flywheel, (same ones still in the motor to this day) down to him and he balanced everything on his turbine balancing machine. Not sure what it would cost today, but I gave him $100 bucks back then. I also found a real sinsitive scale and we balaced all the connecting rods to within a 1/2 gram. Balancing those components is really all that's important to the street rod guy (blueprinting is only for the guy on the circuit) and not necessary for a street car (not like we're going to be tearing it down everyother day ya know). I can tell you I know it's balanced well, back in the 90's when I was running Nitrous threw this engine, I had a muncie 4spd with a sloppy shifter and occassionally missed 2nd as I was power shifting with my finger on the Nitrous button....(yikes) and when you see that Tachometer needle dancing off the high limit peg for a few seconds, you know you've had one serious over-rev, but it was only because of this BB being balanced, it never came apart, And when I finally got my lead foot off the accelerator, it would come back down and idle like a kitten, (ye-ha) yep sure thought I was going to be picking up pieces more than a couple times, but this was actually R&D testing I was doing back then (I just didn't know it - ha) I proved the "poor boy" balancing method does work... okay, enough of that, but thanks for the compliment, i appreciate it. later on

 

beautiful eng. :tu. what wiring kit do you have

 

20 circuit kit from "Hot Rod Wires", first wiring kit I've purchased, so nothing to campare it to. However, some drawbacks i've dealt with are the wires are only paper tagged (which will come off) and not labled along the lenght of the wire on the insulation like other kits I've seen since. That's been frustrating at times but I've been able to keep everything sorted out. Also, the harness is a real mess up around the fuse box where everything comes together, jumper wires and all kinds of stuff that took a while to untangle and allow the wires to lay down nice under the dash. However, the kit does have good instructions and therefore, this past weekend, when I wired the steering column and light switch, turned on the key, all the lights, brake lights and signals worked perfectly, so the end result is good and that's what counts. this kit may not be for the beginner though.

 

I helped my son with his 71 Malibu and this is one thing that the will remember the rest of their lives, I wish their was more fathers out their doing the same with their sons.

Keep up the good work and have fun with your son on this project
:tu

 

Very Nice, Do you need another son who is much older.LOL.

 

FAN-tastic. Father & son projects are great. I have great memories of sharing my limited "know how" with my son & daughter.
I remember one time.....Bought my daughter a Vega for her first car, I came home from work one day and saw that she had the steering column and dash in her lap and windex and towls in her hand. "Its dirty Dad" was her reasoning. I told my wife that I would never be able to get that car back together. About 30 or 40 minutes later she came and and happily announced, "its all done and now its CLEAN." Sure enough, she had it all back and it worked great. Memories....they are great.

 

Thanks Mickey, good story, my 2 daughters (now 20 and 22) don't have that kind of ambition... they come to me and say stuff like "huh - dad, I've been meaning to tell you but my car has been making this funny noise for a long.." to which I reply, 'how long is a long time...' and they say, i donno daddy, couple months.... And my son (18) he's real good at tearin'em apart, but real slow gettin'em back together, he's got his brain set on puttin' headers and dual exhaust on his Camaro and it's a V6. and I keep tellin' him that's a "Point A to Point B" car, designed to get him through college, not to turn into a Hot Rod, but you know how they are when they get their mind set to something - they only hear what they want to hear... gotta luv'em though. thanks for sharing the story, and by the way, that's one nice 55 H/T you got there yourself, love that two tone color combination, looks real sharp. you got something other than a 265 or 283 in it??

 

And Wow, i just noted when i took a closer look at your profile picture, you shaved the deck lid and used a station wagon bumper.... I did the exact same thing to mine back in 1980 when i was prepping it for it's first paint job after I purchased it. that really cleans'em up in the rear, lookin' good!!!! post more pictures, i'd like to take a closer look at what you

 

Very nice looking stout ride.

 

Father/son projects ARE great. My youngest son (17)and I are both working on projects. For some reason he has been a Mopar fan since the age of 4, and last year he bought his first car-1966 Dodge Dart 2dr hardtop. We are both working on our projects in the same shop , so are both available to help each other as needed. Now he just needs to spend a little more consistant time out there! My older son (19) is in his first year of Auto Body, and the two of them plan on having the Dart painted by the end of summer! So he is learning to work independantly with the benefit of having guidance as needed. Gotta cherish this time together-time flies way too fast!!!

 

Mike, nice story, you are so right, the years pass way to fast and quality time with our kids is really something to cherish, especially at my age, they won't be around much longer. and hey, before i found my 55, i was a mopar man myself, had a 68 roadrunner with the aluminum front end, 440 mag dual quads, 727 torque flight with shift kit, sold it for $2500 to my nephew so i could get my 55 for $1300 and have some spending money, that was 1979.... unfortunately, he wrapped that priceless thing around a telephone pole about two weeks later, lucky he walked away. anyway, thanks for sharing the story, you take care and....

 

Looks great:tu I like the tunnel ram:tu

 

It's an old Offenhauser dual quad tunnel ram, 60's vintage, I powder coated rather than polished it, should be easier to keep clean, so far so good. preciate it ! take care