1950 shoebox ford Kustom. Y not?

*n

spider caps!!!!

Looking good and the engine swap to a common (Dez) engine is a great idea.

and its not over yet!

yesterday saw me get the last big bit, which had been proving rather elusive.

to make use of any engine swap that uses the stock 3 speed manual box, you need to change the rear axle ratio, so its not revving its knackers off at 'freeway' speeds. shoeboxes only ever came with 3.7s or 4.11s, but to get sensible crusing RPMs you need 3.00:1s, which means an axle swap. the tricky bit is trying to keep everything else the same- same wheel PCD, width, and drum braked. i first tried to get an explorer 8.8" axle, they have an offset diff and you use 2x short shafts and only narrow one side of the casing to centre it, and its the perfect width. but i simply couldnt find one. i 'bought' a couple of 8" and 9" casings on ebay to build an axle, and got messed around on both.

then, in a chance conversation with someone i know who wanted to buy something else off me, i asked him if he had anything laying round, and bingo! hes got an 8" under his ranchero thats about the right width, that hes pulling off to fit a narrowed 9"

so a quick trip to romford, and i have this-


some investigation ascertains its can only be from a 65-66 mustang- the stepped tubes are a bit of a giveaway, as is it having a fill plug in the back of the casing- this was discontinued in '67 and moved to the third member. coupled with the width (57.25" face to face) narrows down its original application to only one thing.


so, a quick bit of this-


to find out what going on with the diff ratio. the diff is later, probably from a fox body mustang, but just happens to have 3:1 gears i need.

the drums are 10"x2", which is the size i wanted (small), and they're in good nick.

the only bad thing about the axle is its 3/4" wider than i need it to be. but, you can narrow one of these 3/4" (3/8" a side without having to touch the splines, or buy new shafts. perfect! you literally take 3/8" out the casing each side and chop a bit off the ends of each splined section, as they have enough length on them to do that.

It's started Dez, Already , re-plumbed,re-wired, dropped , new wheels and white walls fitted sorted overheating and on the road
If I'm not happy with the flathead I have a 5lt injected sbf sat in the garage

good stuff. you gunna do a build thread?

i'll send you round a roll of masking tape to lay out the chop next then

" ... although from my limited knowledge of valve radios, they're not too hard to fix as long as you can still get the correct valves..."

If I can add a limited amount of knowledge to the pot, you can substitute transistors for the hard to get valves ...

onto the more interesting stuff....

it was obvious right from the start this car was going to be on air. i wanted it to lay frame. thing was, i wasnt going to be content with just a normal 1/4" system with a cr@ppy noisy unreliable electric compressor that relies on tank size for the system to work. been there, done that, a couple of times. although they 'work', they're not all that. i want something a bit nuts, but also 100% reliable.

so i started looking at some of the yank fast air systems, and what they do to supply that much air that quickly. compressed air bottles are one way, but expensive to keep replacing/refilling them. and unless you carry a spare, youre f-ked if you run out anywhere.
so then i started looking at on-board air systems like some rock crawlers and off roaders use. these use a modified air conditioning compressors to act as an air compressor instead, and are pretty nuts. they put out 10CFM! more than a lot of workshop compressors. i was sold, so started gathering parts.

this is one of the mentioned air compressors. they are known as the 'york' type, but they were made by a couple of different manufacturers over the years, this one being made by tecumseh, and badged ford. its all cast iron, but i do have a alloy york one coming my way soon too.


the design of them is pretty overkill, they have more in common with a stationary engine than a modern A/C compressor. they're 2 cylinder, with a reed valve head, multi-ring pistons, ally H-beam conrods, a crankshaft, and their own self contained crankcase/sump oil. as they splash oil, they can be mounted at any angle as well.
as mentioned when they running, they put out 8-10cfm depending on engine RPM, as they are belt driven. they are turned on/off by an electromagnetic clutch in the pulley.

i like this one as it came off a lincoln so is FoMoCo branded-


theres a few things you have to do to adapt them, and a few safety considerations given the amount of air they shift, but i'll cover that later.

next, i started buying the rest of the system. as I'm moving a lot of air, i need big ports. the largest port size available on most bags in 1/2"NPT, so thats kinda what i'm limited by. same with the max working pressure. there is no bag capable of handling more than 200psi. so the whole system is based around 200psi and 1/2" ports.

as youre moving a lot of air, you don't actually need much of a tank at all, as supply can always outreach demand. ive got a 5 gal, but just because it was the easiest one to get with 1/2" ports. it has 7x 1/2" ports, 4 of which are face mount, which makes plumbing my 'management' a lot easier.
as for the management, its pretty simple. 8x 1/2" electromagnetic valves, arranged in pairs with the first set of 4 straight off the tank for supply, with the other 4 T-pieced off those to act as dump and exhaust. the valves are super cheap, about 8 quid each, in fact the whole setup of adapters, valves and tees came to under £80.
here they are all assembled on the tank-

you may notice the PCL connecter on the left there as well, with 10cfm id be daft not to set it up for air tools too!

and a close up of the valve specs-


overall they're pretty simple things, easy and cheap to fault-find and replace if they're any issues with them.

you may notice that a 1/2" valve has an 'orifice' of 16mm, which means a 16mm pipe fits into it. confusing i know, but basically you can blame the victorians. the system was originally devised for threading cast iron pipes, but based on internal dimensions. as times and material technologies have moved on, the dimensions used to classify them bear no resemblance to the actual fittings or pipes. but i digress....

what it does mean though, is that by happy coincidence, a 1/2" BSPP and a 1/2"NPT are the same diameter and pitch. they do have a slightly different thread form, but if generally accepted that for 'low pressure' applications, they are interchangeable. happy days.

but what it means is i can plumb the whole thing in 16mm(5/8") ID pipe and fittings, making it a rather quick system.

the other parts of the system are thus-


bags, plates, and more lorry twin needle air gauges to monitor bag pressure. there will be more to come later, a coalescing filter to remove any compressor oil from the system with a drainback to the compressor sump, a check valve and a small manifold with a pressure switch to control the compressor and a safely blow off valve in case the clutch ever sticks on. but first, i need to get the compressor mounted to the engine.

the system is going to run at 200psi at all times with a 250psi safety blowoff, which should give a fill time from empty of about 20-25 seconds. given the amount of air on demand and the speed at which it will be able to move, it should be in the parlance of our times, 'a bit of a banger'.

A Propper air system.
Looking forward to this.
Dan

*watches with interest*