65 FB Scratch Build

[Grabber70Mach]

Re: 65 FB Scratch Build

Looks like a really nice pair, ah I mean driveshaft. Nothing wrong with the logo either, if you got any extras your not gonna use I have a cabinet it would look good on.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

 

[Jonk67]

I'm considering a beefed alum. driveshaft, mind if I ask what they charge? I don't see it on their website.
Jon

 

[RyanG85]

:stu

 

[65-408]

$345 shipped, balanced with my slip yoke...

 

[Jonk67]

Thanks, that's comparatively reasonalbe, I've seen some for $300 and some for $550>. I'll have to contact them and get a quote. I've got to figure out what joint my 9" yoke takes.
Jon

 

[65-408]

Got the radiator in last night. It is a 20" Aluminum from Engineered Cooling Products (ebay), presumably made in China. Looks to be of good quality, hopefully it holds pressure. It is a 2 row with full 1" tubes for both rows, I included a section shot from one of thier ads. They have alot of good info in thier ads on different configs and even though they call tube width cooling area, it is still useful for comparison of different constructions. It is thier PN 339 with a drivers side outlet, I think it was $230 shipped last year. A 67 fan shoud fits nice on it and the fan is a steel flex-a-lite 1617P (not so light)... everything lines up great with no spacer on the fan. Decided to direct mount the fan (no clutch) and yes I know that this will cost me a few HP...

I cut out about a 1" strip on each side of the opening and pounded it flat and bent what was left in to be parallel (with a few relief cuts) to the core support (this area is an angled transition normally to the flat spot that I cut off). Then welded on a 3/4" strip of angle on each side to mount the radiator flanges to. I couldn't go directly to the radiator support due to the radiator tank hitting on the bottom.

 

[65-408]

Got hoses installed. I went to NAPA and got upper and lower hoses from a 70 with a 351W and was able to cut them up and make then fit. I went with the 70 because it has the rad lower hose on the drivers side like my radiator. NAPA part numbers 8643 (upper) and 7370 (lower). They are not perfect, but fit pretty good...

 

[copasspupil]

Great build, impressive and gold star here. I take it that this is not your first rodeo...

 

[65-408]

Been working on the exhaust system for the past few weeks. It is a full 3" side exit system, made from 304 stainless steel tubing, so it should never rust... I wanted a side exit system since I figured it would be easier to build and I like the look... After extensive internet searches and you tube sound bites, I couldn't find mufflers that really fit the bill for material, sound and price. I considered spintech splitcase, Borla XR1, moroso spiral flow, race bullets, etc... but nothing seemed to really fit the bill, so I decided to make my own. Anyways, here are the details on the exhaust system/muffler build, it was a fun project...

I started by mocking up the tubes in PVC pipe and fittings, best part about this is that you can return most of it to Home Depot when you are done...

Then I measured and modeled it in SolidWorks.

Once Modeled, I made some drawings of the bent pipes and sent them to Accelerated tube in CA. I was going to fab it up from bends, but then I saw on thier website that they will make custom parts. I decided to get a quote and surprisingly, they only charge you for the bends and the tube, so buying my tail pipe, for example, with 2 bends (90 and 45) only cost slightly more than buying the individual bends (but saves tons of labor and come out better). Here is thier site:

http://www.acceltube.com/

In my muffler search I came across this thread where a bunch of cobra guys got a muffler built to replace thier rusting out side pipe cores:

http://www.clubcobra.com/forums/all-cob ... ase-i.html

Stainless specialties will build you whatever you want for inner diameter and core/case length, but they are kinda pricey at $180 each. I like this design, I think the expansion chambers at the front and back have alot to do with why these sound good. So I decided to copy it. The cobra guys really like them, but said they are pretty loud, I decided to quiet it down a bit by going to a 2.5" thru diameter with an 18" core length. I also am using stainless steel wool for the packing because I have heard that the certamic stuff breaks down over time from the vibration. Some research showed that SS wool is great for muffler packing, but it is expensive, so manufacturers don't use it. I found this chart on SS wool noise absorbtion, looks good, should only let out the nice low frequency rumble...

I got my SS wool from this place, went with the medium. I only used about 2 lbs in my (2) mufflers:

http://www.briwax-online.com/sswool.html

Here is the muffler build:

End caps and core ends made on the little mill, this sucked (hole saw+SS=lots of noise):

Perforated SS sheet (1.8" dia holes on 3/16" centers), rolled up to make the cores:

I welded everything with the mig with 308L wire and He90/Ar7.5/CO22.5 gas, it works well, but is not as good as tig...

The muffler OD is 4", with the 2.5" core, leaves 3/4" for SS wool, I did 2 layers:

Here is how the tubing came from accelerated, it took a few weeks, but they did a great job. It is all .060 wall. The 4" OD pieces in the middle are the muffler cans:

The flanges were made by Vibrant and came from Amazon.com. They are nice pieces, 3/8" thick SS.

I cut everthing on my abrasive saw, be sure to put in a new blade and all new sanding discs when working with stainless, as an old blade will embed regular steel into the SS and it will rust...

I put a giant angle onto the disc sander for truing up the cuts:

Stuffing the cans:

Borrowed some V blocks to make sure the inlet/outlet stubs were co-axial:

The welds are not perfect, but functional. The SS was fussy, was great one second, then would suddenly go bad...

The CNC pipe bender needs 6" between bends, so I had to make the drive's side pipe off the header from bends, everthing else just had to be trimmed and installed:

O2 Bungs and an 2" cross over for an H Pipe:

And it is done, I used lap type SS band clamps at the joints...

I wonder what it will sound like?

and no, I don't want a fancy angle cut at the tips, I like the brute force look...

 

[70_Fastback]

Dude, that is NICE!

 

[65-408]

It has been cold out in the garage, so I figured I would redo the seats cause I can do it in the nice warm basement. Here is the nasty, smelly starting point. On the upside, there was only one dead mouse in them

The source of the stink (besides the nasty foam)

Frame wire brushed and painted

I replaced the burlap with duc cloth from Jo-Ann Fabrics and I found this vinyl backed heavy felt stuff to go around the edge of the frame to replace the sisal stuff

New Foam

I made relief cuts on the cover to get the listing wire thru couldnt get it thru without them

Cover hog ringed into the groove (inside out)

Right side out

More hog rings

Put on the back

Bottom is done the same way but is much harder to stretch over used a hair dryer to heat the cover

Made new Stainless Steel adjuster plates

Done

Like most things, it was not as hard as expected. Get good hog ring pliers and lots of hog rings. I bought 100 (as suggested by mustangs unlimited in their hog ring kit) originally and ran out after the second top, I would guess you will need 300ish to do front and rear seats. I got lucky and Fast68Back sent me the leftovers from what Dave sent him. It was a huge bag, I may even have some left after the backs if anyone needs them.

Back seat next

 

[70_Fastback]

Those look great! Good job.

 

[AzPete]

They look good. You will like that new foam.

 

[65-408]

Finally got the rear seat done, had to do it twice since it wasn't pulling down tight around the hump. Eneded up welding 2 more wires to the frame a little lower than the original position to pull it down better. But it came out good in the end. I got replacement foam for a 67-68, since no one lists it for a 65, but it seems to be the same... Also, it came with the foam for the fixed piece also, which no one seemed to know either. This is the dyncorn foam, it fit perfect...

 

[65-408]

I am going to wire the car next. I pulled out the old harness and what a mess... Cut up, electrical tape everywhere, dry cracking rubber and wire insulation, corroded connectors. The plan is to change it quite a bit to include a mini starter, an alternator mounted solid state voltage regulator (from falconparts.com), an MSD box and distributor, some aftermarket gauges, hidden routing in the engine compartment, etc...

So I bought a 21 circuit universal harness from EZWiring. I got the all black one, but each wire is labeled. It was $160 shipped. These come set up for a GM, with some extra circuits for my application, but I figured they would be there for the future if I decide to change anything. It is a nice harness for the money.

The directions that they give you are awful, so I spent a weeks worth of lunch times coming up with my own schematic. I used the factory diagrams quite a bit:

http://averagejoerestoration.com/resour ... -diagrams/

Here is my schematic, If anyone wants a copy, shoot me a PM with an e-mail address and I will send a big .pdf (be warned that this will not be 100% until after I finish the wiring)...

This is what I am keeping from the old harness:

I will replace the terminals inside the plastic connector bodies where possible, they are easily removed with a small screwdriver or pick:

Made this bracket to mount the fuse panel behind the glovebox door, I think I will put the MSD box next to it.

 

[Fast68back]

Very nice. How far back is that panel? Will you have any usable glove box space?

 

[65-408]

It's a few inches back, I suppose I will be able to fit a pen and an envelope with the registration in it, which is about all I carry in my cars anyways...

 

[Horseplay]

I know others have done it but I'm apprehensive about putting something like your MSD box in there. Electronics and heat (self generated in this case) don't make good partners. You won't have much room at all to allow for air flow. I had thought of maybe routing a portion of the volume of one of the fresh air ducts through the area to make it more liveable.

 

[65-408]

For anyone else that is interested, I found replacement push in terminals (with the correct locking tab) thru Mouser (Mouser PN's 571-60249-1 for 12-16 AWG and 571-42238-2 for 14-18 AWG), they have no minimum purchase.

Next step was to find a decent open barren crimper, I went with this set from Tool aid (18960) and couldn't be happier, it has jaws for just about everything you could ever need including spark plugs and co-ax. very nice, with the case for $80 shipped.

I think I am going to keep the battery up front. I had to cut off the extra stuff on each side of the battery tray to get it to fit. I think I might modify the tray to add a bottom battery clamp.

Then I went battery shopping and found a group 34 that seemed like a good size (available with up tp 800 CCA), so I made a wood version for mock-up (didn't want to buy a battery just to have it sit for 3 years while I finish this thing). It is 6.63W x 7H x 10L if anyone is interested...

 

[65-408]

Got the battery cables mocked up. I welded in a SS 3/8 bolt under the tray to the inner apron, the negative goes to that for the chassis ground. I will also run a cable from that stud over to the block (there is a tapped hole on the block right behind the alternator).

These are preterminated cables from Autozone, 2 gauge, they seem to be well made and are pretty cheap...