Projects Plan II - 62 Chevy II Drag Car

Looks like a good well driven race car to me lol glad you got it back together I need someone to root for on drag week and live vicariously through them but if you need a co pilot give me a shout I’d definitely make the trip lol

 

Dan is planning to go with me again this year...bu thanks for the offer

 

Always look forward to your post. Jim

 

Wow, rain... I've heard that word before somewhere....

 

Hi Jim,
I met you at US131 last summer as a spectator at Drag Week, having read about this car in the aforementioned Hot Rod article (that has a broken link; I think I found it here: https://www.motortrend.com/news/9-second-altered-wheelbase-chevy-ii/ )

The aside from your awesome car, the last line in the article gave me some inspiration way back in 2016. "A 390-powered Rambler or an FE-powered Falcon, perhaps?" I finally found a Rambler that I am now planning to build in a similar fashion, though probably not quite as faithfully to the era as you have, but in a similar spirit in the small amount of time, with the small amount of money that I have available to spend. I hope you're still driving this thing all over the country when I get mine moving. I'd love to line up next to you.

I just wanted to say thank you for providing inspiration.

Phill

 

A late "You're welcome!"

Back to work on this car. I signed up for Death Week, which is a 2000 mile drag-n-drive event (like Drag Week) from Phoenix to San Diego, up the coast and around to Bakersfield, then Vegas, and back to the start. It happens the last week of October. So not much time.

I've been working on the car a bit all year, getting it ready for Drag Week, which I took another car to. So it's mostly ready to go. I made a few passes at a test and tune session last month, and 10 more last weekend at the Duct Tape Drags. It seems to be working ok, although running a bit slow.

I need to catch up on some maintenance. The car has close to 31,000 miles on the odometer now. I worked on the engine and transmission last year. I'm a little concerned about the rear end, I haven't done anything to it besides change oil since I installed the 3.89 gears (and Gear Vendors ovedrive) in 2016. I think it's time to pull it apart and inspect bearings and gears, and also lubricate the front spring pivots, which are part of my home made CalTracs bars. I also wanted to measure pinion angle, and maybe reset the perches.

So I got it up in the air, and set the engine level to the ground. Looks like the pinion angle is about 1.4 degrees down, according to the level widget on my phone. Sort of verified with another level. I guess that's ok...the recommendation for caltracs is 2 to 4 degrees, but I think there are a few factors which let me get away with a bit less.

This is what the suspension looks like from underneath.

 

so the last trip made you sort of wary on axle seals

 

Yea. DEATH WEEK will be a brutal test in any class. Good luck, I think you will make out fine . All your experience with drag weeks and driving this car should be a huge ➕. However, as I and you definitely know, any thing can happen. GO JIM GO!

 

Just checking....

One side has some end play, the other seems OK. I might change them both just because. Or maybe not, depends what kind of bearings I can find. They take the 514003 which is relatively common.

Also, I notice the brake shoes have very little wear. The car slows down OK from 130 mph, but I wouldn't describe the brakes as "fantastic", more like "sufficient". Fronts are 11" vented wilwood disc, rear are Chevy 11x2 drums. The car has a 50-50 weight bias empty, and it's kind of tail heavy when it's loaded for a road trip. I wonder if I should look for some larger rear wheel cylinders? to apply a bit more force to those shoes.

This is what 57 Ford rear end gear ratio tags look like, btw.

 

My mistake with my axle seals was not using a seal driver to install them. One side went in nice, the other I buggered a bit and it failed in 10,000 miles. Harbor Fright to the rescue with a nice driver kit.

The biggest hurdle was trying to source an E-brake shoe clip on a Friday evening. Like I speaking Swahili... Off to an old parts store on Saturday, had one in 10 seconds.

 

On a quick side note, I noticed on post #1079 you're not running a pressure relief valve on the 6-71 front cover. Just wondered what your take on this was.

 

I’m surprised your rear brakes aren’t doing much with that single master cylinder. Have you got a brake bias valve?

 

It seems to work that way....

No, both ends of the car get the same pressure from the master cylinder.

 

I wonder if your m/c isn’t big enough. Could you be running out of pedal travel before the brakes lock up?

 

Wouldn’t smaller rear brake cylinders give you more pressure, while larger ones give you more volume with an easier pedal? Or do I have that backwards?

 

The pedal doesn't travel very far. I could use a smaller bore and get more pressure.

Yeah, backwards. Smaller MC bore generates more pressure with a given pedal force. Smaller wheel cylinders generate less force on the shoes for the same line pressure.

 

Will it lock any of the wheels up?

 

I think I have locked up the front(s?) on a panic stop once...but I haven't tried specifically to do so. I probably should do some testing.

 

I knew it was one way or the other. Thanks for setting me straight!

 

Anyways...I took the rear end apart, and inspected everything. I only replaced seals and one wheel bearing. The rest of it looked ok. On the brakes, the wheel cylinders are 1" diameter, and that seems to be about the largest that is used with that type of brake. But they were stuck, not completely, but mostly. So I put some new ones in. They might be 25 years old, I built the rear in 1998 to put in my 57 Suburban, and could be I never rebuilt or replaced them since then. The rear is all back together, and it all seems to work like it did before.

I had the car in the air again and was inspecting stuff, and found a small issue with one header.



So I took it off and welded it up.

 

I’m enjoying this thread.

 

It's good to see this behind the scenes maintenance on a hot rod. We always focus on the building of these things, but if they're out there in the real world getting used as intended, they eventually will need some attention, like everything else.

 

Thanks.

It's amazing that I'm coming up on 10 years of having this car. Time flies when you're having fun!

 

My little drag coupe craves constant attention.

 

The rear brakes being drums should lock way before the front discs, that's why proportioning valves are used. Technically even with a single pot you should find that you need one, I'm surprised that you haven't had a rear wheel lock up issue.

 

The car has a lot of weight on the rear end...

 

Another event finished...Death Week....the car has more miles on it now.



And I updated the list of runs. Fills two printed pages now.

http://selectric.org/62nova/62racing.pdf

 

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tech-week-57-fargos-brakes-101.1229211/
Very good read. You will get to what I am referring to in post #2.

 

Time for a little maintenance. The transmission pan doesn't look too bad, for 3500 miles and over 20 passes down various drag strips. It does not smell burnt, which is a welcome change from the last couple times I pulled it off and ended up going through it to replace burned clutches.

I guess I'll just put it back on for now and keep driving.

 

I shouldn't look at stuff like this until after I've had a cup of coffee. Trying to decipher the stamping on the pan, I thought I was looking at a foreign knock off.