Progress on the F-1

[av8]

The F-1 is a 12-volt modern wonder! Terry Griffith, who drives the shiny white '27 T RPU that tends the TarMac roadster at Bonneville, did the entire truck in under than 20 hours, including making all the looms that mimicked Ford's own -- except for the vinyl-coated wire. The one-wire GM alternator greatly simplifies the system overall and the wiring in particular. The old wiring is in the trash bin where it can't hurt any old Fords (although I had no problems -- yet).

In addition to an 80-amp alternator, I now have two tail/stoplamps with directionals front and rear (thanks for the neat little flasher unit, Jay), halogen headlamps, parking lamps, and a very non-traditional HEI.

The motor ran quite well before and is even better now. Previously there was a bit of detonation under low-speed load but that's gone, although this is likely to be the result of the timing of the HEI compared to the point ignition; Terry's old timing light didn't want to work so the distributor is ear-tuned for now.

All of the gauges work as intended, including the fuel gauge which previously pegged on FULL. Electrically challenged as I am, I was unable to find the problem. As it turned out, someone had put a new wire and terminal on the tank and routed it under the floormat -- where the wire remained in a neat little coil, not connected to the wire that ran from the gauge to the floor, also under the mat. Sounds like someone got called in for lunch.

I hope to finish my crank this weekend and start on the block next week. I'm budgeting about 30 hours for the mods and the port and relief work. When the block comes back from the machine shop (decking, align boring) I plan on spending another 3-4 hours painting the lifter valley, crank chamber, and timing case with Glyptol or a similar coating. Lots of overkill, but what the hell . . .

So, here it is at the end of two days of wire work (plus new hoses and belts that would not have made it all the way to the new motor install). The Optima gets a proper holddown tomorrow, so no smart remarks about the bungees. I'll also carve a larger opening in the firewall pass-through grommet tomorrow and install it to tidy up the loom installation. Gonna wait for the motor change to clean up the rest of the engine compartment.

[Pope Downunder]

The F-1 is a 12-volt modern wonder! ... snip ...and a very non-traditional HEI.

Looks great!  
BTW; and please excuse my 'flathead' ignorance, but what is the HEI from? Is it usefull on a flathead (like a SBC) to run the vacuum advance?

[av8]

The F-1 is a 12-volt modern wonder! ... snip ...and a very non-traditional HEI.

Looks great!  
BTW; and please excuse my 'flathead' ignorance, but what is the HEI from? Is it usefull on a flathead (like a SBC) to run the vacuum advance?

The HEI is a Chevy unit that has been modified to fit the 8BA Ford. The Ford-blue cap is a ploy to draw attention away from the distrubutor's roots.  

We ran out of fitments today so simply plugged the vacuum advance port on the carburetor. I'll finish plumbing it tomorrow and expect even better driveability with the distributor fully functional.

[av8]

Looks good.


A bungee on the battery

I am glad you can post photos here now , with good progress on the ol F-1

Gosh, Tony, I asked for folks to give me a pass on the bungee for now. It got me home and it will get me to the shop in the morning. :oops:

I'll try for some pictures of the new holddown by the weekend. I also have to trim the mounts on the alternator to move it back about 3/8-inch into the bracket to align the belt with the sheaves on  the waterpumps. Not a biggy, just part of what we've all come to expect over the years with all the wonderful fitzall stuff from the aftermarket.  Had we done the work in Vern's shop which has everything needed for all eventualities, instead of Terry's which is essentially an electrical shop, I could have trimmed the alternator before it was installed the first time.

That 80-amp alternator will be welcome when I fit an evaporative cooler to the cab for travelling in your area.  Rather than buy an overpriced, rusty vintage unit the size of a small stock-tank, I'm going to build one in stainless with a pump that will draw water from a 7-10 gallon reservoir in the bed, fitted with a small blower in the body of the cooler to keep air moving at low vehicle speed and when stopped. The area of NorCal where I live and do 90 percent of my driving has a very moderate climate, so I ruled out a refrig AC unit some time ago.

Progress stories and pics to come . . .

[C9]

Lookin good Mike.

Nothing like a good wiring job to take the worry out of the first few miles . . . and the next 100,000....


Did you see the flathead headers my friend made for a 53 F100 flatmotor?

I want to say they were made from schedule C pipe, but that doesn't sound quite right.
The tubing and 90 degree pieces are heavy wall stuff - .125 minimum I think.
Welded with a stick and a lot of grinding.
The headers are about 45 years old and still going strong.

Here's a pic of one side.

[av8]

Lookin good Mike.

Nothing like a good wiring job to take the worry out of the first few miles . . . and the next 100,000....


Did you see the flathead headers my friend made for a 53 F100 flatmotor?
. . . Here's a pic of one side.

Terry's wire work is some of the best to be found anywhere. He does mostly traditional hot rods and "tour-car" restorations -- not keen on doing absolutely correct systems with their absolutely correct faults. Gather together 100 hot rods and customs from North Bay communities and at least 50 of them will have Terry Griffith wiring. Terry is wiring a high-end speedboat restoration today.

Great-looking header!  Not only do I envy the work, I also envy the juxtaposition of the motor and steering in the F-100. I'd love to use Red's "W" headers on my new motor but there isn't enough clearance. I'll use his conventional rear-dump headers and it will be just fine.

BTW, it appears that your pal has the same misalignment of the alternator pulley vs. the waterpump pullies as I do. The alternator sits about 3/8 inch too far forward, and while the deep, wide sheaves will probably not spit the belt, it's still annoying that the pullies are not aligned. (Mine is particularly annoying right now, with new belts, the misaligned one of which chirps at idle! Yeah, the chirp will probably go away in a week or two, but the misalignment offends my sensibilities!)

The remedy is easy enough; I'll remove 3/8 inch from the rear of the left mounting lug on the alternator body and a like amount from the spacer used on the right side, and thus move the alternator 3/8 inch back in the mount. Ta-da! Tell your pal -- if he hasn't already corrected his.

[av8]

While I was hangin' out at Terry's yesterday, Ed "Bing" Binggeli, Nor-Cal's flathead professor emeritus, was boring my 8CM Mercury block at Tardel's Prune Orchard Garage. The primo Canuk casting cleaned up at .030 over standard and looks too sweet for words!

I'll finish carving my crank tomorrow and Saturday and then pounce on the block Tuesday to perform the mods and extra-special port work. I'm looking at the better part of a week for what I have in mind.

I'm going to document all the work on the motor for a paid-for how-to I'll be doing, but I'll share enough of the work here to give RRTers the sense of what I'm up to.

[C9]

"BTW, it appears that your pal has the same misalignment of the alternator pulley vs. the waterpump pullies as I do. The alternator sits about 3/8 inch too far forward, and while the deep, wide sheaves will probably not spit the belt, it's still annoying that the pullies are not aligned. (Mine is particularly annoying right now, with new belts, the misaligned one of which chirps at idle! Yeah, the chirp will probably go away in a week or two, but the misalignment offends my sensibilities!) "


Never noticed the misalignment before.
Thought it may have been camera angle and was going to show the other side, but you can't really tell here.

Neither the preceding pic or this one really show the nice shape of the headers.
They're made from thick-walled pipe as mentioned and 90 degree pieces were what was used - and I think all that's available, maybe a 45, not sure - and the join to the middle pipe was made with a cut down 90.
This same cut down 90 was shortened and the straight end welded to the straight run of the fore and aft pipes then ground smooth.

Here's a pic of the right side headers.



The F100 they're on was purchased new and it's been his son's truck for a long time.  Very low mileage and it is amazingly clean and rust-free.
The dad - who's my friend - drives the black F1 I posted some time back.



If this works, here's the dad's latest acquisition.
Dragged out of a garage after a 45 year repose.
Past history includes being one of the fastest cars in high school and around town in the late 40's.
It is as it was.
The only thing changed on it recently is some cleaning up, making sure things are gonna run ok and a set of Coker's BFG Silvertown radials on black powdered steelies.
Aside from wiring and inspecting and the always required new battery this is about all that will be done to this genuine piece of rolling history.



Just another simple little Valley hot rod....

[C9]

Well . . . the pics came out upside down, but I'm sure y'all can figure it out.... :?

[av8]

Well . . . the pics came out upside down, but I'm sure y'all can figure it out.... :?

They're right-side-up on my computer screen. Maybe routed through Oz?



The four-banger is a treasure, for sure.

[av8]

Excellent progress today (Friday), thanks to my new crankshaft fixture. After carving and polishing a crank for Digger Dave of the North of 49 gang, I vowed never again except for a race motor. 'Not even my own,' I vowed.

That new fixture just spoiled all my resolve by making the work much easier than it was before, so I spent today taking the carving on my own crank to another level that I had not planned on.

The short version of this tale is that I'll continue to do some serious carving on the crank for my F-1, whittling away a few pounds and making it shaplier and slicker to speed it through the oil atmosphere in the crankcase.

Pics tomorrow evening, I promise.

[av8]

. . . Pics tomorrow evening, I promise.

The battery is secured with a steel bar and the original fixed stud at the rear and a new L-bar at the front. Split hose makes good insulation and protects the battery top.




Now on to more exciting stuff . . .

I finished carving the crankshaft today. Got rid of virtually all the stress risers, removed a couple of pounds of rotating mass, and made it more slippery. The crank, rods, pistons, flywheel, and clutch go to the balance shop next week.




I start work on the block on Tuesday. Got lots of special plans for it, get to try some of those ideas that have been developing and spinning around in my head while doing mainstream -- requested -- porting on countless customers' blocks.  I'm going for a "torque-farm" configuration that will humble similarly displaced SBCs and SBFs out of the hole. With a 3.78:1 final drive and the T-5 transmission, the F-1 will move out smartly from a dead stop without a lot of drama, thanks in great part to its decidedly under-square bore/stroke ratio.

Progress pics of the block work next week . . .

[enjenjo]

Looks like you are making good progress mike, we should see this at Bonneville huh?

[av8]

Looks like you are making good progress mike, we should see this at Bonneville huh?

The truck will be at Bonneville for sure, tending the Tardel/McKenzie XF/BFMR, maybe even pushing it up to about 60-70 mph to ease the strain on the racemotor. We're still talking about that; it's comforting to know that we have a flathead-powered truck that will do the job.