WIP 1967 Fairlane Wagon.

[turbohunter]

Great pics.
How's your front end holding up

[Cobrajet2]

Yeah, ha! Front end is taking some hits. So far, so good. I will get the alignment rechecked in the Spring, and give the front suspension a good, hard look then.  When we shaved the shock towers, I took the extra time to weld up a lot of the overlapping seams that were just spot welded.

I see you are neck deep in your Mustang. If you happen to show your Fairlane some love, be sure to post your progress.

Mike

[turbohunter]

I will. I'm kinda horny to get back at it but as you see I'm knee deep.
But congrats again on a great car.

[Cobrajet2]

Thanks, Marc. Have a good 2018. I will look forward to your posts.

Since I am in a posting mood, and this is back-tracking a little bit, but, here are some pictures of that nasty blown head gasket.  At the time, John and I were pretty focused on getting the car back up and running, and I had no time to post. But, since I am here, sitting on the couch on New Year's Day, here ya go.

This was after only 11 passes. I have about 30 on the car now!





Sucked! But it is fixed now.

Mike

[turbohunter]

Well when you blow a gasket you do it well.

[machoneman]

   Wow, that is a major torch job on the gasket! What do you attribute it too? 

[Cobrajet2]

Bob,
Not really sure why it did not seal between 5 and 6 holes. We have some theories, but not positive.  All the other thin sections of the gaskets were holding pressure, however, a few were starting to look questionable with blackness around the sealing rings.  We replaced the Fel Pro gaskets with Cometics, and hopefully they will hold up. I hear they can seep a little when the motor sits, so I have my block drained over the Winter storage.

Open to any ideas why it blew so bad.

Thanks,
Mike

[machoneman]

On a hunch and w/o any apparent piston/wall damage, it looks like the head bolts backed out, which is unlikely. That or your torque wrench oddly supplied a way too low reading, odd too that it didn't affect ALL the bolts on that head, let alone the other side. Can't be a lean issue (pistons look way too good) and unless you run laughing gas (!) can't be that either. Perhaps still a mystery.

Fell a sleep once long ago while bolting on a pan. Next a.m. got the willies as to whether I had torqued correctly all the rod,main, pump bolts! Off with the pan but all was good. Learned to record all the steps with paper and pen!
 

[Barry_R]

That one piston has some pepper looking stuff on the top.  Possible that it went lean for a minute - a bit of garbage catching a jet or bleed - an air bubble in the fuel line even could've done it though less likely - that runner is the far from center and it won't share from the plenum as much as others might if something happens.

[machoneman]

I think Barry nailed it.

I had not clicked on the pic for a larger image but now that piston top does look pebbley (?) for lack of a better word. Lean would do it. Now I wonder if a ring land/ring also caught some damage.

[Barry_R]

Its faster than before so it aint hurtin'

Its not that wild of a build - car is working well

[turbohunter]

I very much enjoy when you guys that do this for a living see things that us hobbyists just gloss over and miss. For instance the "peppering" on top of that piston. Easy to see once you know it's there, but totally missed it when I first looked at it as my attention went to the gasket area.
Thanks for pointing that out Barry, it helps us guys be just a little smarter.

[My427stang]

What a cool ride, I love the look and the big wheelstand

I'd expect with the looks of the picture that you either are running it a little lean, a little too much timing or had some gas that wasn't what you thought it was.  I doubt it was the gasket's fault as Barry said, looks like it was hammering a little.  If you pulled a couple degrees of total out, think it would slow way down?  Might give you a little insurance

[Cobrajet2]

Ross,
Yes, I think we will look at both things for next year. Plan to test the car before the FE Race in April. Probably throw a little jet at it and see what it does. The timing is not crazy. Pretty sure Barry set it at 34, as that is where the dyno said the motor was happiest.

Possibly the hard wheelstands are interfering with the fuel in the bowls. We will check that, also. Thing never seems to miss a beat on a pass, though. Like Barry said, possibly lean for just a split second or two.

I am all about finding a little insurance, though! Have way more fun racing it, than fixing it.  But like my friend John says, "Its a race car, fixing it is part of the deal."

Mike

[Cobrajet2]

So, now that the Holidays are over, one of the things I need to do with the Wagon is a gear change.  Car rpm's a little high through the lights, so we are going to tinker with it. Ordered some parts and I am starting to get things together to build another whole center section. One of the parts I did have already was the gear set. The gears came out of a center section that was in my '70 Mustang that we raced in a Factory Appearing class.



This past Sunday, I pulled the carrier out of the old pumpkin and figured I would knock off the ring gear real quick and get something accomplished.  Well, what should have taken two minutes turned into two hours. Being how we raced the Mustang on reproduction biased ply tires, I only ever had a mini-spool in the that diff. When the ring gear refused to come off the carrier, I realized the pin had broken in two places and the pieces had wedged themselves between the ring gear and the mini-spool. Had to cut it all apart to save the ring gear.  Lesson learned, back on track.