Working on 34

[Fladiver64]

I have been spending my time trying to get my 34 Ford road worthy, I inherited this from my father last year and it had been sitting for quite some time. I replaced the fuel pump, filter, fuel lines and had to clean the injectors to get it to start. Then we developed some ignition issues, so in went plugs wires and a new coil, hoping that I did not have the dreaded problem. When we built the car the 92 corvette LT1 was the new engine to have now not so much. Well that solve the problem until this last weekend, I had replaced all of the bushings in the rear suspension and went out for a drive, car drove great, engine ran terrible. So now the front of the car is apart, on the list is new water pump, optispark with MSD vented cap, re coring radiator, fixing a couple of oil leaks up front, looks like a TB clean is in order, and I am sure a few more things will be on the while I am here list.

[carls 56 (RIP 11/24/2021)]

sounds good. any pics of complete car?

[Fladiver64]

[chevynut]

Looks like a really nice car!

[Rick_L]

Nice looking car.

Those Optispark things are a PITA!

[Fladiver64]

Thanks, and yes they are a real PITA! but this is making me take care of a lot of deferred maintenance as the car has been sitting for the last 4 or 5 years. Also saw today that the front coil over bushings are gone so I guess that is going on the list too. I want to be working on my 57 but I dont like having cars that cant be driven so this got moved to the top of the list.

[carls 56 (RIP 11/24/2021)]

nice! thanks for pics.

[Fladiver64]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]P_20160211_163340.jpg5699[/ATTACH]

Made some progress, got most everything torn down and cleaned up. Need to spend some more time polishing aluminum. Found out I got the wrong water pump so that went back today. I was able to get the water pump seal installed after destroying the first one. Off to a Boy Scout lock in tonight so ill see how much sleep I get, and if I can work some more tomorrow.

[Fladiver64]

Got the 34 put back together today, first test drive didn't go so well, have the #2 and #4 wires swapped on the distributor. Fix that and it runs great! new water pump and it is running 10 degrees cooler! Nice to have that work pay off. Now the task of putting the hood back on and aligning the hood and side panels.

[Fladiver64]

Well after driving the car for a few months I decided that some further updates were needed to make a reliable driver. One of the issues was that I was only getting about 15 mpg on the highway so there was some issues with the fueling side of things. I put in a new set of fuel injectors given that the stock ones are not known for there longevity, didn't change the fuel mileage at all. After some data logging I discovered that the ecu was retarding timing due to high knock counts. trouble shooting turned up the problem was the ecu, the 93 ecu has the knock modules integrated so they are not replaceable. All of this resulted in a semi major tear down trying to keep control of the "while you are here syndrome"

1. New Fuel injection system. I am converting to a megasquirt, rather that a 23 year old used ecu. Biggest advantage to this is modern software to program with. The stock ecu requires burning new chips to change the tune.
2. I wanted a bit more power as the car just does not perform as well as I think it should. I decided to go with a Lloyd Elliot head porting and cam package that should put out about 340 to 360 rwhp. Stock is 300 crank hp so this should be about 100 more rwhp.
3. Replace the Vintage ac unit, yes its a roadster, but in Florida this still makes a big difference in the comfort of the driver and passenger. The current R12 system would cost almost as much as a new system and I would end up with a 25 year old ac system.
4. I had some issues with heat intrusion from the engine compartment making hte cabin too hot. So I am going to address this with some better insulation and plugging up some air leaks.
5. The wood dash has some significant finish cracking and the gold trim gauges are not my style so I will be making a new dash with a Bubinga burl veneer and Wenge accents. Gauges will get replaced with the Auto meter Antique beige gauge set.

This was supposed to be the scope of the project but as happens with these projects tear down reveled more problems.

1. Front floor board/firewall was rotted. The floor is wood and was coated with a polyurethane but that has broken down over the past 20 plus years. I am rebuilding the floor out of marine plywood and the covering with 2 layers of fiberglass to tie the floor and the firewall together and sealed better.

2. The wire harness has many patches over the years and was worn where is passes through the firewall so I decided that replacing the harness would be a better choice than repairing the old one.

3. I pulled the engine and transmission out of the car to make the head cam swap easier, and to make some of the other repairs easier. After tearing the top of the engine apart I decided to check the main and rod bearings, bad news the back two main bearings had significant grooves in both of them, rod bearings looked good at the front and progressively got worse toward the back. So added to the list was a trip to the machine shop and a rebuild of the bottom end, the crank measures straight and round so no grinding needed, but the cylinders needed a .20 bore to get straight. Finally have all of the parts back but still un assembled.