First Start – Part II – A Year Later
Posted by: kdavisThis was an awesome weekend, and made some pretty monumental progress, all things considered. Not that I really accomplished that much, but the actual things that did get done were pretty huge in the life of the project.
The weekend was spent preparing for, and executing the first start of the engine…the second time around. I actually did a test fire in the frame about a year ago, with temporary wiring and setup, etc. This time around, though, the engine is in and should stay in now. I managed to get the whole drive train in, engine, transmission, drive shaft (with safety loop), and all of the wiring connected from the chassis to the engine.
First “Real” Start
Most of the weekend work went towards the first start of the engine from it’s permanently installed position. I managed to get the engine dropped in, by myself with the help of my engine hoist, lift, ratcheting tie downs, and a lot of patience.
The length of the engine with transmission on it, combined with the relatively small engine bay made dropping the engine in by myself a bit of a challenge, but after a few hours, I managed to get it in place and mounted down. I was also able to get the transmission mount secured. After it was in place, then came hooking up the miscellaneous wiring (tach, coil, alternator, starter, etc.), and then getting all of the various tubing and lines hooked up (heater hoses, vacuum lines, etc.)
I was so excited to get the headers installed again and then the newly coated side pipes mated up to them. I was amazed at how well the ceramic from NitroPlate matched up, it looks like they were coated at the same time, and they look awesome! I elected to not get all of the high temp rtv on the header to side pipes for now, just in case I need to take things back apart to get everything aligned.
A bit of a surprise to me actually, not only did the motor fire on the first try after the fuel got pulled in, but the tach works, gauges all work right, and it worked pretty nicely.
Still a bit of work to be done with the engine, including the throttle cable, cleaning up the wire and hose routing, and then getting the timing set and carb adjusted to maximize power and throttle response.
Video:
Dropping in the Engine – as you can see in the video, I had forgotten that you can’t get the engine in from the front, it’s better on the side. I also needed to take the right front tire off so I could get closer to the chassis. The one issue I had was that I never adjusted my engine hoist so that I could maximize the angle of insertion. I ended up needing to use some ratcheting tie downs to get things where they needed to be. It worked out just fine, a couple of paint nicks in the firewall aluminum, but nothing a little touch up paint can’t handle. This is about 45 minutes worth of video condensed to 3 minutes. As you can see, lots and lots of fine tuning. I love the parts where I’m standing on the lift and using my foot to lower it. ;->
First Start Video:
Throttle isn’t hooked up, so I’m doing that by hand, and the clutch safety switch as well.
Pics:
Forte’s Drive Shaft Safety Loop:
This doesn’t seem to be a hugely popular option for these cars, but given that you’re right arm is resting directly above the drive shaft, and having seen pictures of the drive shaft coming up through that area, probably not a bad idea.
I had planned on drilling and tapping the holes for mounting the loop, but as I was looking a bit at my hardware drawers, I remembered that I had some self-drilling metal screws. I figured with 8 of them, considering that the loop is fairly light, these should be great.
I ended up drilling out 1/8″ holes on both sides (4 holes each side), then used the screw gun to get the screws drilled and screwed all the way in. I was impressed with how secure it all feels, and the process took about a 10th of the time drilling, tapping, and bolting them down would have.
The screws are normally aluminum colored, as you see in the pics, but I shot them with some black spray paint so they are less obvious.
This is the type of screw I used, but I’m not sure where they came from, probably Lowes.
Pics:
Clutch Pedal and Cable:
The routing and securing of the clutch cable is a bit of a challenge on these cars. I still haven’t addressed all of the issues (the cable is rubbing the adjustable quadrant), but I did manage to get the cable installed and also fabbed up some brackets.
One of the issues with the cable is keeping it away from the headers, and making it work smoothly. There are lots of options on where to mount the bracket in the engine bay. Many people simply mount it to the driver’s side F panel, which seems to work. Because where I mounted my brake fluid reservoirs, this wasn’t an option. I decided to use one of the accessory mounting holes in the driver’s side head instead. This worked well, and allowed for a nice and straight cable, between the fuel pump and oil filter, then straight under the motor mounts to the clutch fork. A little massaging was necessary to get it all lined out and not rubbing, as well as keeping it off of the oil filter itself. I’m still not 100% satisfied with how it’s riding against the fuel line, so I’ll probably fabricate an additional bracket to use the 2nd accessory hole in that head.
Another issue with the clutch cable is getting the clutch pedal aligned correctly when the clutch cable is in it’s “rest” position. With most adjustable quadrants, the clutch pedal will sit 3-4″ in front of the brake pedal (towards the driver), which would not only look funny, but would be annoying and potentially dangerous as you switch between the pedals.
The solution for this issue is to fabricate a “stop” so that when the clutch cable is adjusted, the pedal won’t go all the way forward. On the fox body pedal box, there are 2 holes (at least in mine) that sit under part of the pedal assembly near where the quadrant goes. I took a fairly low-tech approach, and made a “stop” out of 1/2 of an L bracket I had. I drilled 2 holes to attach the bracket, positioned the pedal where I wanted it to stop, and measured and cut the bracket to length to hold it in that position. My clutch pedal cover and the brake pedal cover aren’t quite aligned, so need to still fix that angle, but that’s pretty easy.
Pics:
Next steps in getting the car moving under it’s own power is getting the transmission filled back with fluid. Unfortunately, the upper fill “bolt” is frozen, and rather than risk breaking it off, I found out you can fill the transmission through the shifter hole, so I’ll give that a shot.
Attaching the throttle cable from the pedal to the carb is a bit of a challenge on these cars as well, so I’ll need to come up with a solution for that. I’m trying to avoid dropping $100 on a Holley throttle cable bracket. It’s possible to turn the carb around backwards as well, but I’m also trying to avoid that.
I’d love to get the wiring all buttoned up, zip tied, and taped, but I need to shake the car down a little bit first, just in case something shows up with the wiring. That way I can access everything without having to cut zip ties.
Moving right along!