Master… Master… It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s alive!

[Mad Scientist]

Master… Master… It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s alive!

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F6.jpg




http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/MKII1.jpg
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F7.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/MKII2-1.jpg
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F8.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/MKII3-2.jpg
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F9.jpg




The History of It’s Rebuilding

4-11-08

Last fall I finally began seriously working on the refurbishing of my MKII by towing it from is aging site (1/2 block away) to my garage. Gave it a quick bath and did an inventory of parts, found to my surprise a bunch of new 40 year old weather striping for the windows that I completely forgot I had purchased. Also had some of the trim around the grill and the door handles were re-chromed back then. They needed rebuffing and waxing but were basically in good shape. With winter approaching I removed all the chrome from around the door jams and the door panels and brought them inside to work on during the winter months.

Also removed the tail lights which first required removing the bumper which in turn required removing the mufflers. I have been finding that this car is like a giant jig saw puzzle, parts can only be removed and replaced in the correct sequence. In addition I then remove gas tank and front bumper.

The first real cleaning project was the gas tank. It came with about two gallons of vintage premium gas still in it plus a ton of crud covering the bottom. Bought a special kit of gas tank cleaner, conditioners and sealers. Well the super cleaner that came with the kit was no match for all the crud that was in the tank. But two gallons of acetone some pea gravel and a special gas tank cleaning device got the job done.

Motor driven gas tank cleaner
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/gastank1.jpg


By slowly rotating the tank with the pea gravel did a nice job of scouring the inside. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were no pin holes. Still I coated the inside with the sealer. Also disassembled and cleaned the fuel sending unit.
So I now have a gas tank ready to be reinstalled.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/gastank2.jpg

Yes it is yellow. That was the only two part epoxy paint that I had on hand.
Finally I cleaned and power coated the gas cap, the filler tube and it mounting bracket.

Next I proceeded to clean, buff and wax all the chrome from around the doors, while not in absolutely perfect condition still it is good enough that I will leave it as it is.
The leather door panels got a good saddle soaping. They didn’t look that bad but an amazing amount of dirt came off that made a noticeable difference in appearance.

Removed the radiator a disassembled what was left of the grill, sandblasted and powder coated all of the parts that would fit in my oven and painted the really big pieces. Took the horns apart cleaned, and adjusted them to make sure that they would “toot” and of course powder coated them.

The front and rear bumper while structurally sound did not respond will to my cleaning efforts. So reluctantly I broke down and decided to have them re-chromed. Because of the EPA there are very few places that do chrome plating, particularly short run automotive stuff. However I lucked out and found a small shop tucked into an industrial area about 10 miles away.

Before
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/RB1a.jpg

After
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/RB1b.jpg

Before
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/FB1a.jpg

After
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/FB1b.jpg

More money then I wanted to spend but;
Wow! What a difference, pictures don’t do them justice.

While waiting on the chrome plater I sandblasted and powder coated the front bumper mounting brackets, all 38 pounds of it! Also cleaned and powder coated the parking lights and then rewired them. When I was removing the bumper I grabbed the wires to disconnect them and the insulation literally crumbled in my hand.

Front bumper is now ready to be reinstalled.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/FB1c.jpg

Individually clean the 700 plus holes in the egg-crate grills. With the exception of some pitting inside the holes the outer surfaces of the grills were in good condition.
Thus all I needed to do was repaint the inside of the holes.

When I was removing the chrome from around the doors I noticed the star wheel latch on the driver’s door was a little loose. So I figured that as long as I have the door panels off I might as well go in and remove the latch and replace its bearing. First I need to remove the inside door handle and notice that the lever (pot metal) is mounted on a splined shaft and it was a worn and sloppy. Can’t have that, so stop and drill and pin it with a roll pin. It is now nice and solid no excess play in it. OK now back to the latch mechanism remove its mounting screws wiggle it around can’t get it out, it is trapped by the back guide for the window. So alright I will need to remove the guide, remove its mounting screws wiggle it around it won’t come out, it is held in place by the window. Remove almost impossible to get at spring retaining clips that hold window to the lift mechanism then remove window and all the other parts.

Now with the latch finally in hand I was able to disassemble it and remove the offending bearing.
Make new bearing and press it into place and reassemble. Hatch works great no play in the star wheel at all. In reality it will probably not make any difference in how well the door will open and close, but at least I know it is correct.

Of course with the windows rear track out it can be seen that the fuzzy lining is all frizzly and worn out and needs to be replaced. But with what? It is an odd size. I suppose I could find someone with the official replacement material who might be persuaded to part with some of it for gazillion dollars or so, but what is the fun in that? Instead I researched my McMaster-Carr catalog for different sticky backed tapes. Wound up with Velcro. The soft fuzzy lope side is the correct thickness and being nylon it is nice and slippery. Lined the inside of the track with and it works beautifully.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/WINTK.jpg


Due to a lack of anti-freeze one winter long ago the engine froze and something broke and the anti-freeze/water got into the oil and it has been sitting that way for about the last 40 years. Last fall I had removed the heads and found two cylinders that had at one time been obviously filled with water although now they were just filled with rust. Scooping out the rust reveled the cylinder walls to pitted beyond belief. Conclusion trying to salvage this engine would be an exercise in futilely. I need a new engine.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/ENG1.jpg

Yes that is rust. No I did not remove the valve lifers, but I think they are in there somewhere.

The choice was to stay with an original engine or go with a more modern one.
Considering that I am not trying to turn this into an all out original show car I have decided to go with a modern engine for all around drivability and reliability.
As a result I decide to go with one of Tim Meyer’s Inc. 400CI engines, upgraded with a roller cam and rocker arms, (to increase gas mileage of course) the cam grind will be to give maximum torque at low RPM. Best guess is about 350HP & over 400 ft lb of torque.

Well we have been starting to get fairly warm days so I have been slowly removing assorted bits and pieces from the engine. How ever before I completely remove it needed to perform one last duty, that being a mounting surface for an electric motor to run the power steering pump.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/f15.jpg

Figuring if there were any serious problems with it I would much rather work on it with the engine out rather then wait till everything is back together. Happily with the exception of a slightly leaky oil seal around its output shaft it everything appears to be working just fine.


I suppose it is worth mentioning that I obviously have a bunch of used engine parts lying around. So if someone is in need of something just PM me and I will tell you what I got and it’s condition. My goal here is to get just rid of the parts, not retire to the Bahamas from the proceeds.

Next step is to complete the removal of the engine and transmission. Followed by a good cleaning and painting of the engine compartment.

The project has just beginning but so far no unexpected problems.

Stay tuned there is more to come.

(continued)

[Mad Scientist]

7-6-08 progress report.

Well the engine has been removed from the car for some time now. I also removed everything else from the engine compartment. Removed cleaned and powder coated the blower motors, and pressure tested the heater cores. Yes there are two of them tucked into a back corner of each fender. Which makes them every difficult to get at, however with the engine out of the car it’s at least not imposable.

I then proceeded to clean, sand and repaint the engine compartment. Replacing the heater cores and the blowers was sort of a milestone event as these were the first refurbished parts that I put back on the car. Up to this point all I have been doing is taking parts off.

With the engine and transmission out of the car I started to work on cleaning the frame. This consisted of wearing out a number of rotary wire brushes while at the same time transferring 50 year old dirt, rust, and gunk from the car to myself. It was then that I started to find more rust then I had expected. I was able to poke holes with my finger into the end of a frame cross member under the driver seat. Part of the bottom of the side rail on the passenger’s side also needed patching.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mk1.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mk3.jpg

Directly under the rear lip of the trunk lid is a square sheet metal tube, that is part of the body, and its bottom and front side were rusted out along with the sheet metal under the tail lights. Had to cut off the good part of the back of the tube to get access to the rusted parts. Made new a front and bottom.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mka.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mkb.jpg

Added new back piece and replace rusted sheet metal under tail lights.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mkc.jpg


And there was more rust directly in front of both rear wheels. This is the joining point for three pieces of sheet metal body parts, these require considerable reinforcing and patching.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mkd.jpg

Meanwhile up at the front fenders still more rust to be found around the headlight mounting rings. They had the usual small looking little rust spots that when poked at turned into typical quarter sized holes. Also right behind the front wheels the inner fender wall had rust away from the outer wall and the lower fender body mounting bolts (next to the corner of the door) were also rusted off.

I have mention all these points so that those who have MK II’s can check them out, as these would not seen just by casually looking at the outside of the car.

On the plus side to all of this, was that the much of the patching was done on the inside of the car and thus it only needed to structurally strong and did not need to be exceptionally pretty.

I did notice one interesting thing when working on the front fenders, the inner and outer fender are one piece. Or more correctly I should say they are made up many multiple pieces that were all welded together to form one large assembly. However at this point there would have been visible seams on the outer surfaces. So Ford then had their body and fender guy come in with his torch and solder to individually fill in the cracks and then file and sand them to the correct contour. It is easy to see why it is said that Ford lost money on each of these cars. These fenders had to have been virtually hand made.

A problem that I see with this construction is that while it is quite strong to start with, unfortunately all these individual pieces form numerous cavities and pockets that trap dirt and water, which in turn causes the fender to rust out quicker then it should.

So after cleaning and repairing rust areas and to hopefully prevent, or at least retard, further rusting I have done the following. First I painted everything with “Eastwood’s” rust converter, followed by their rust encapsulator. Next I filled in all spots that could trap and hold water with expandable foam. Finally I painted everything with an industrial strength polyurethane paint. Also been thinking that when complete I might want to spray on an undercoating in the wheel wells to help protect from stone chipping.

Now as a result the bottom of the car is looking pretty good and I can now start on the outside. Although I did digress a bit and rebuilt the rear brakes. Put on new wheel cylinders, brake lines, and new oil seals for the axils. Also removed the differential cover to change the oil and inspect the gears for wear. That proved interesting.

It seems that after 40 years of sitting the additives apparently decanted out of the old oil. This produced a black goopy gunk in the bottom of the case. I carefully scoped and scraped out as much as I could. Aside from that the gears looked good and had decent backlash, so I didn’t really want to dissemble the differential. Instead I sprayed the inside with gas followed with a solvent to wash the remaining goop out. Then not sure how much of this crud I might have missed I put the cover back on and filled it with fresh oil removed the drive shaft and bolted a pulley to the pinion gear. Then with a “V” belt and a small motor ran the differential for a couple days. (The car is on jack stands) I figured with no real load on the gears and bearings if any goop was left in there this would work it loose and shouldn’t do any harm to the parts. Anyway when I drained the oil it was still nice and clean so I think I’m going to be OK here.

However when I removed the drive shaft I noted another problem. Seems the rubber holding the center drive shaft support bearing was rotted away. This though was not a real surprise as I was sort of half expecting that was going to be the case. But it does need to be replaced. Naturally the only thing to do is make a new one. Wanting something a little more durable I went to local plastic store and bought a piece of polyurethane machined it to fit the bearing and housing.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mke.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mkf.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mkg.jpg

Still digressing I wanted to figure out what to do with the radio, it seems that it lost its ability to speak. I was considering replacing it with a modern one but then I do not have a large collection of CD’s, and I don’t spend a lot of time listening to FM. But usually when I am driving and if I listen to the radio at all it is typically AM talk. So I really don’t need a new radio rather what I need to do is to try and make this radio work.

I don’t have a schematic for it but what the heck it was obviously working at one time so something must have broke. Well the first problem was to remove it from the dash. So first needed to figure out how to remove glove compartment, then removed glove compartment, then removed rotten cardboard cover over glove compartment, stop and make a new plastic cover for the glove compartment, proceed to dissemble most of dash and center council, (while not absolutely required to get the radio out I am going to want to work on the center council controls latter) and this did make it easier to get the radio out. Note you really do not want to remove the center council if you do not have to, it is not designed to come apart easily, however I did find a couple broken control cables that will need replacing.

OK eventually I get the radio out and take it to my workbench connect it to a power supply and turn it on. No sound but all its “glass transistors” are lighting up and the power supply seems to be working and the automatic station seeking appears to be working also. Next dig out old tube tester, clean dust off it, and check the tubes. They were all where good. Checked the electrolytic capacitors they were OK, which was surprising because I would have expected them to have died from old age. The circuit also used old style paper capacitors that were cover in “beeswax” for protection from the elements and they’re looking kind of sad. So did a blanket replacement of all of them with modern plastic covered ones. Turn it on, still don’t work.

Checked output transformer, it seems OK. Unplug speaker from its jack and connect directly to output transformer and there is SOUND! OK this tells me that the problem has something to do with the front/rear fader control. Removing the front of the radio to get at the fader control causes it fall into a gazillion pieces. Anyway trace speaker wires to one of the switches for auto-tuning it has a contact that is not making contact. Take switch apart clean contact and reassemble.

It would appear that this switch has two functions one it starts the auto-tuning and while it is searching for a new station it turns off the sound so you do not hear the static between stations, unfortunately it was not turning the sound back on. Problem solved!

Anyway carefully reassemble the gazillion pieces back into the front of the radio turned it on and I now have a working radio!

(continued)

[Mad Scientist]

By the way if the dial lamps in your MK II’s radio ever burn out just pretend that they were never there. Otherwise be prepared to spend the better part of a day maybe more to remove the radio from the dash, disassemble the front of it with is gazillion pieces just to get at the lamps to replace them and then put everything back together. :rolleyes:

So now with a working radio I would like to be sure I also have a working power antenna. Therefore I want to remove the antenna to clean and inspect it. Antenna is held in place with the fancy nut out top and a clamp at the bottom. Removing the fancy nut is no problem however removing the lower clamp that is a problem. Apparently the official way to gain access to the screw that is holding the clamp is to first causally remove the front fender!

I didn’t want to do that so instead I used a pencil size die grinder tie-wrapped it to a length of threaded rod and was able to reach in through an opening in the fender and grind the head off the mounting screw. Then wiggled the antenna out. It did need cleaning. Disassembled it, cleaned and oiled, made new top bushing to replace old dried out one. Also when it was apart I buffed the chrome antenna tubes however the portion that was always sticking out was pretty badly tarnished and I quickly removed what little chrome that was left on it. the base metal is brass so I buffed that to a nice shine and then used a “brush on copy chrome plating kit” that I have from ”Caswell Plating” to replate it. This is a nickel based coating, but it looks good, could not tell the difference from the original chrome. Will have to see how well it holds up.

Obviously working on this car thus far has been an “experience”. I truly like the car; Ford’s stylists in my opinion out did themselves and came up with a classic design that was elegant without being gaudy. Unfortunately Ford’s engineers were not up to the task. I have spent many years doing manufacturing engineering to get products ready for production. The goal was always to simplify the assemble process and to make a product that could be easily serviced. Ford’s engineers have clearly demonstrated that they were incapable of designing the packaging for a pack of gum much less trying to build a car! From what I have run across so far it is absolutely no wonder that Ford was only able to make the hand full of cars that it did.

Anyway the bottom of the car is pretty much finished and all rusted area’s have been repaired. So the next phase is the striping off the old paint and getting it ready for repainting. This should keep me busy for the next couple days or so while I am waiting for my new engine to arrive.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

My new engine has arrived!

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/m2.jpg

Obviously a few minor accessories still need to be added, but the heart of it is here.

Inside looks good.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/m4.jpg

Just a bit different then the old engine.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/ENG1.jpg

Its new home has been cleaned and painted all I have to do is figure out how to mount it

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/m3.jpg

However before I start on that there still is a little body work to be done.
Back end of cars has been striped and primed.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/m1.jpg


The trunk rain gutter is masked and read to be primed. Still have the hood, front fenders and door jams to go. I plan to finish the majority of the body work before starting on the engine.


************************************************** ***************************************


IT IS NOW 9-24-08
The back end of car is pretty much complete.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mk7.jpg

First I painted the roof and the door jams and lip of trunk.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mk5.jpg

Next I painted the doors and the trunk and then followed up doing the fenders.
Even though it required more masking, unmasking and remasking and is definitely more time consuming, I have only been painting small sections at a time. Obviously garage painting is not the ideal painting environment, but I have found that by only doing small areas at a time I am better able to control dust and over spray.

Also the loop of rope hanging over the car was an integral part of the painting setup. By making like a monkey and holding on to it with one hand, and while standing on a ladder, I was able to spray the roof without falling onto it.

So with the back end painted and buffed out it was time to start putting some of the chrome back on.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mk1-1.jpg

It actually is starting to look like a real car. However you don’t want to look at the front end just yet.
The color by the way is Eastwood’s “burnout Blue” a metallic blue with a clear coat.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mk2.jpg

The lights work and just to help avoid the possibility that someone might not see them I replaced the original lamps with Halogen’s, they are about 50% brighter.
Of course now days one also needs a center brake-light to be able to get some peoples attention. So I modified the trunk ornament.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mk3-1.jpg
Brake OFF

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mk6.jpg
Brake ON.
I now have six high brightness LED’s behind the original red dots.


Next I proceeded to clean up the inside of the trunk. The carpeting was in decent shape aside from needing a good cleaning. However the carpeting that was along the sides of the trunk was glued to cardboard backing to give it its shape. This cardboard was disintegrating and was no longer able to hold its shape every well. So I removed the carpeting from them and then used them as a template to make new pieces. But rather then cardboard I used plastic sheet. The corners are held together with pop-rivets and thin sheet metal angles.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/mk4.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/MK9.jpg

The trunk is all back together and is complete.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/MK10.jpg

Now with the doors being painted I was able to remount the door handles, and with the door handles on I reassemble the inner door panels and chrome trim. These parts I had previously cleaned and polished last winter.

So moving forward it’s now on to finishing the hood and front fenders.


************************************************** ***************************************


Well it is the New Year. So here is the latest update.

The hood is now painted and I have remounted the hood ornament, the name and a chrome trim strip. The body work on front fenders is complete and they are primed and ready for painting. But am going to hold off painting them until I get the engine back in. Figured touching up some possibly scratched primer is a lot easier then a scratched finish coat.

But to put the engine in I need a transmission as the original trans will not mate with my new engine. I have been considered using a Ford AOD overdrive transmission, I liked the idea of the overdrive, although with a 3:1 rear axle I’m not to sure it would have done all that much. But like the original trans the AOD cannot be bolted to my 400 engine without the help of a $1000 adaptor plate, plus drive shaft and shift linkage would need to be modified. It seems that the only transmission that will readily bolt up to this engine is the C6 and I would still need to modify the drive shaft and shift linkage.

However I have a next store neighbor who recently sold his transmission rebuilding shop and he has this neat little 12 ft. long tool box with every transmission rebuilding tool imaginable plus years of experience. He suggested using the original trans and doing a little parts swapping. He noted that Fords old FMX would bolt up to their big block but unlike the newer transmissions it had a bolt-on bell housing and that bell housing would also fit my old trans. After calling a couple dozen or so of his old parts sources he found one guy who still had one bell housing in stock.

Then we started to tear apart my old transmission, aside from obviously dried out 50 year old seals it was in surprisingly good condition. The second gear clutch were just starting to show the slightest bit of wear and the drive for the front oil pump gear had some wear which was apparently typical for these transmissions. Replaced the pump gear with a new and improved gear that now mates with a new and improved torque converter. The transmission is now back together and soon as the temperature gets out the single digits, I will paint it and then I will get to see how well it and the engine will fit in the car.

As a side note my neighbor informed me that because this transmission has a front and a rear oil pump I could push start the car if I wanted to. Anyone want to help push start a 5000 lb car?


(continued)

[Mad Scientist]

As the weather permitted I have been working on the inside of the car. To get more room and to repair a power seat motor I decided to remove the front seat. Removed the four mounting bolts and wires going to the motors but the seat did not want to move. Looked around to see what was holding it in place; did I miss any other mounting bolts or brackets, etc.? Finally I discovered what was holding it, gravity! Turns out the front seat weights in at about 150 lbs, and I simply wasn’t applying enough force to lift it.:eek:

Anyway with the seat out I then remove all the carpeting to clean it. Started out with air hose and blew off all the loose dirt and dust. The carpeting was in basically good shape but really dirty so got my power washer out and blasted it with high pressure water. OK this might be a little bit brutal treatment for a rug but then these were brutally dirty rugs. I wouldn’t recommend this as a routine cleaning method for rugs, although it worked quite well. I then noticed that there were a couple minor stains and some of the dye was starting to wear off of the driver’s side carpet. Knowing that this is real wool carpeting I went to local grocery store and bought a couple bottles of fabric dye, mixed then to get about the same color, and sprayed it on. After they had a chance to dry thoroughly I reinstalled them along with all the chrome door jam molding. They’re now looking good.


So with a nice clean carpet to lie on I started to work under the dash. First I reinstalled the radio that I had previously repaired. With the center council torn apart I noticed that because the defroster vent valves had become stuck thus when then control lever was moved it caused the actuating cables to bend and break. Freed up the stuck vents and repaired the cable ends so I should be ready for frosty weather driving.

The windshield wipers were originally vacuum operated. So I replaced the vacuum motor with an electric motor and by tweaking the length of the crank arm on my motor I was able to increase the amount of sweep for the wiper arms. No more tunnel vision in the rain. Next I built up a time delay circuit to provide a mist function for the wipers. With it I can vary from one swipe very 30 sec. to once every 5 sec. past that point they on continually with your normal high and low speeds. The original dash control is not changed but now operates the new circuitry.

In a similar manner the blower motors which are two speed, (yes plural, there are four of them, two for heat and two for AC.) now have their own pulse width modulated circuit to provide continually variable speed control. Here again I am using the original council controls to operate the new circuitry. However there is surprising little excess room under the dash so the control box is outside on the fire wall.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/ctrl2.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/ctrl1.jpg

This box also contains the thermostat circuitry for turning on&off the AC compressor.
If we can get past this minus 17 degree weather I might try heating the garage up and finish wiring them up. In the meantime I have a power seat motors that needs rebuilding.


************************************************** *******************

Winter update 2-21-09

On the MKII along the bottom edge on both sides is a 3” wide chrome strip and I am missing the two pieces that go between the wheels. Calling the usual suspects I found that a pair was available and that I did not have to worry about scratching them or denting them as they would come pre-scratched and dented. Plus he would reluctantly sell them to for only a mere $2500. I politely told him I would have to think about that and get back to him.

So immediately moving on to plan “B” I decided to make my own. I quickly rejected the idea of trying to make them out of metal because the slight curve they have would require making a die set to form them. Moving on to plan “C” I consider using plastic cause water would not effect it but your typical plastic starts to soften an around 150 degrees (F) and the exhaust pipes run directly behind this trim strip. The thought of a possible droopy trim strip was not appealing. So proceeding to plan “D” I decide to make them out of wood and carefully prime and paint them to protect them from the elements.

I started out with a piece of Popular because it machines and takes paint well. I then cut and plained it into three 8 ft. long strips. I then needed to route one face of these boards to the correct shape. However for some reason the local home improvement store did not carry a 3” long router bit with the correct profile for a MK II trim strip. So naturally I just made my own. It is about two inch in diameter and three inch long and figuring that this might be a little too much for my router to handle I made it to fit the milling machine.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkII1.jpg

Of course now I need some way to hold the wood strips so made a simple right angle fixture that’s bolted to the mill table and the wood strips are in turn clamped to it.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkII2.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkII3.jpg

It took five passes to do the length of the board but this gave me the outside contour.
Now because this bolts on to a curved surface I needed to cut the back to match that curve. Feeding the boards across table saw blade at right angle to a normal feed produced the radius that I needed for the back clearance.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkll4.jpg

This is what final profile looks like.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkll5.jpg

and the boards are now ready to be cut to length and have the correct angle cut on each end.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkll6.jpg


I then marked, drilled and counter bored holes for the mounting screws. These were carriage bolts with a nut on the back to hold them in place. Covered the heads with “Bondo” sanded and primed with multiple coats.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkll7.jpg

Next painted them with some gold paint that I had custom mixed to match the powder coat gold of the taillights.

Temporally placed them on car just to see what they will look like. Won’t bolt them in on until I finish painting the front fenders.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkll8.jpg

Well it‘s still too cold to be working outside so I reworked the power seat motors. Cleaned up the commutators and chiseled out the 50 year old grease cleaned and regreased the bearings and oiled all the seat’s moving parts.

Next for some reason the drivers seat was showing excessive wear compared to the other seats. Typical of old leather it had numerous small cracks.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkll9.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkll10.jpg

So found a company that sells leather restoration kits and send them samples of the two colors. They did custom mix for the leather dye (it was a perfect match) and supplied a kit with all the tools for restoration. Cleaner, sandpaper!, dye, brush, spray bottle, rubber gloves, and a leather conditioner.

Followed their instruction, multiple thin coats of dye, and wound up with this.
During the cleaning I had a number of spots were the old dye lifted off revealing the bare leather.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkll11.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkll10.jpg

http://www.leathermagic.com/index.html



Hubcaps:
I had only three of the original and two of them were dinged and scratched. So traded some old engine parts for a set of Mercury hubcaps. These are a wire wheel style and of course have the Mercury emblem in the center. Obviously the mercury emblem had to go but it is was easily removable.
Then proceeded to cut some cardboard into different shapes to experiment with what might look good. Wound up with a simple flat aluminum disc with a bunch of concentric groves cut into it. Buffed it to a nice shine and then powder coated it with a translucent gold.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkll12.jpg

Well we finally had one warm day a while back so I used to opportunity to mount the transmission into its whole and then temporally bolted the engine to it. I was then able to figure out what I needed for engine mounts. Made some thin sheet metal mockups to get a rough shape. Packed modeling clay into the space to help determine what the size and shape should be. Measured the clay and made some aluminum blocks that would hold polyurethane mounting pads. Lost count of the number of times that I lifted the engine a couple of inches to check the fit and make modifications.

(continued)

[Mad Scientist]

Anyway this is what I wound up with. ¼” steel back plate with a sculptured aluminum block bolted on. The aluminum has a recessed pocket milled into it to prevent the polyurethane pads form “walking” around.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/wmkII13.jpg

As you can see in Ford’s infinite wisdom they require that each side have different dimensions. Anyway they are all powder coated and read to go back in, but first I still need to put on the flex plate and install the torque converter.

Hopefully we start seeing some spring like weather shortly.





Will the weather is starting to break so it seamed like a good time to work on the brakes. I’ve been wanting to replace the front drums with discs. So last year I called Jack Rosen to see what he had to offer. Turned out not much. Seems that his machinist is reluctant to do the conversions because they take too much time. As a result he is not pushing the conversion kit any more.

Next I found in some car magazines ads for disc brake conversions for “early Fords” called this one place and talked to their sales guy he explained what they did, but that they really didn’t have anything for the MKII (can you imagine that?!!) however they did do one for a Lincoln of that year and he would send out their catalog. After a couple months and not receiving the catalog I called back. Asked a few more questions, which he didn’t seem to be able to answer, but he said he get back to me of course he never did bother to ask for my phone number.  He never did call back.

Obviously this was not going well however my now I had a pretty good idea of just what their kits consisted of, that is if they would be willing to sell me one so I said to myself, “self I don’t need them I CAN MAKE MY OWN.”

Here is the problem with many of the “kits” that are available they use a stock Ford rotor that apparently just happens to fit many of the old Ford axles. To this they add GM calipers and a bracket to mount them. But the problem with the MKII and Lincolns of its era is that their axles were slightly larger in diameter thus no modern rotor will fit them. Latter I found that the only cars that use this size of wheel bearings are some old Packard’s, Nash’s and a Ferrari. Thus trying to find a ready made rotor was out of the question.

The solution for this is to use the hub from the original brake drum. By removing the wheel studs the hub falls out of the drum. Then with a slight amount of “precision” machining a Ford 4WD truck rotor can be attached using longer wheel studs.

I started out by spending a lot of time carefully measuring the old drum, its hub, the axle and the inside of the wheel rim, etc. Using a CAD program I drew a composite of the wheel assembly. To this I then added the calipers to see if they would fit, they did. Next I designed the mounting brackets for them. The calipers are a GM unit for a 78 Suburban. Yes Yes I know there are some that would consider this as sacrilegious using GM parts on a Ford. But these are decent calipers with a very large diameter piston, plus their use of two round pins for mounting makes it easy to design a mounting bracket. Conversely trying to design a simple mounting bracket for Ford’s calipers with their square pins, well like forget it.

For ease of machining and to test of my dimensions I made the first mounting brackets out plastic. Tweaked a few dimensions and the made the real ones out 3/8” thick steel plate. From what I’ve read I probably could have used thinner material as this is undoubtedly overkill, but it is strong and I certainly don’t want my brakes to break.


First I removed the old drum and backing plate, but saved the grease catcher ring.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B1.jpg

Removed hub from drum by simply pressing out the wheel studs.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B2.jpg

To be able machine the hub to fit the rotor I first made a precision mandrel to mount it on. This is the only way to insured that I would be spinning it absolutely concentric with its original axis. Don’t what a wobbly rotor.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B3.jpg

Hub mounted on mandrel. Diameter of the inner ridge needed to be cut down about a ¼”.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B4.jpg

Ridge cut down to fit center hole in 4WD rotor and a very light face cut to insure a flat mounting surface.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B5.jpg

Hub mounted to rotor with new slightly longer studs.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B6.jpg

Next drilled holes in what will be the new backing plates.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B7.jpg

Then made the caliper mount brackets. They took a little bit of time.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B8.jpg

Finally made a bunch of spacers a couple torque arms and then powder coated all the parts.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B9.jpg

And this is what the assembly looks like.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B10.jpg

The nuts and bolts are all grade 8 hardware.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B11.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B12A.jpg


Rotor and caliper mounted! And yes the stock wheels can be used with no changes required.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B13.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B14.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B15.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B16.jpg



Next I wanted to go with a dual master cylinder however the original cylinder is part of the power assist. So I wound up getting a new master cylinder and power assist that would have normally been used in a pickup. Naturally a few modifications were required.

First I could not mount it flush on the firewall. Seems that it “nose” stuck out further the original and it hit the arm of the brake peddle. So I had to make a mounting plate and some spacers to provide the necessary clearance.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B17.jpg


Of course the actuating rod was way too short so that called for making an extension. Taped up the end to keep from getting chips into the housing. Then cut and threaded the actuating rod.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B18.jpg

Made appropriate length extension and used original eye bolt.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B19.jpg

Everything mounted and the hood closes with about ¾” to spare.
A new disc brake hold off valve is mounted to the frame under the steering gear box, if need I can add a adjustable pressure valve for the rear brakes.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20brakes/B20.jpg


So now I should be able to stop, next I need to get the engine in so I can make it go.

For anyone that would like to add disc brakes to their MKII I have posted a similar thread on in the Lincoln Chassis, Suspension, Steering & Brakes forum under How to add DISC BRAKES to a MKII.
It includes all my dimensioned drawings plus a parts list.





6-3-09
OK it is now time to start thinking about putting the engine into the car. However I got a little sidetracked as one thing lead to another. The first thing I needed to do was connect the speedometer cable. It’s connector way back on the transmission and is only easily accessible when the engine is out. So naturally it wants to go in first, but the cable was originally covered with a rubber tubing which was half rotted away and falling off. As a result I decided to strip it all off and recover it with a couple layers of plastic electrical tape. However to do this I needed to disconnect it from the speedometer. This of course meant pulling out the instrument cluster to get at it.

Once out I was able to easily clean and recover it. I also pulled out the drive cable and cleaned and re-oiled it. Don’t want any undue friction here affecting my fuel economy.

Of course with instrument cluster out it seemed like a good idea to check the gages and make sure they still worked. Hooked up the sensors to what I believed to be the correct wires and was able to make them wiggle. The only thing that didn’t work was the electric clock which was not to surprising as typically automotive clocks of this era were notorious for not working and if they did work they usually did a poor job of keeping track of time. Still it would be nice to see it actually work.

(continued)

[Mad Scientist]

Knowing that these were just spring wound clocks that used an electric solenoid to rewind the spring every 3-4 minutes I figured that its electrical contacts were dirty and needed a cleaning. So I removed and disassembled the clock. However this one was a little different. Instead of a spring it had a small flea power electric motor. This motor was running under a stall condition and was only allowed to turn by the action of the balance wheel and the escapement.

But because of a dirty commutator the motor did not run, I carefully cleaned the commutator powered it up and watching the second hand it was off and running. Hooray!
But wait a minute it seems to be running a little too fast. I check it with a known good stopwatch and the second hand did a one minute sweep in only 25 seconds. 
Adjusted the fast/slow control, it had no effect. Tweeted with the spring on the balance wheel, still no effect, yet mechanically everything was working just the way it should.

I notice on the case there was a faded label indicting the clock had been repaired. This triggered a memory and I seem to recall that my father had taken the car in to have the clock fixed and the repair guy found a broken spring on the balance wheel. He was unable to get the correct one so substituted what he had on hand, and this made the clock ran fast.

I suppose I could have left it that way. But looking at the clock I could see that the motor was directly driving the second hand while its speed was controlled by the escapement mechanism. What I needed was a new motor, one that would turn at one RPM. Ran over to local Wal-Mart and looked at battery powered wall clocks. Found one that was missing the box that it came in and the clerk said I could have it for a $1, that seemed reasonable.

Brought it home and proceeded to tear it apart. Removed the motor from the case, and then disassembled the motor. Threw away the gearing for its minute and hour hands, cut off the battery holder, cut off all excess plastic leaving just the motor its drive circuitry plus the gearing to run the second hand. This got it down to a size were it could fit in the space of the old motor.

The MKII’s clock was assembled in layers thus removing the motor was simply a matter of removing its mounting screws. I then removed the escapement mechanism as it would not be needed. I used and existing hole and a spacer to mount the new motor. To connect the motors second hand shaft to the clocks second hand shaft I heeded a flexible connector (“U” joint) striped a short length of insulation off a piece of thin wire. The insulation was just the right size “tubing” to couple the two shafts together.

Finally seeing as how this motor was meant to run on a single 1.5V battery I made up a simple voltage regulator circuit to drop the cars 12V to 1.5V.

I now have a working clock with a quartz drive circuitry, that should even give reasonably accurate time.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/CLK1.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/CLK7.jpg

Well now with the clock back in the instrument cluster and the instrument cluster back in the dash and all the required wires and hoses running out into the engine compartment I figured I could put the glove box back in and close up the rest of the dash. Oh also added a switch to provide 4-way flashers.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/INT1.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/INT2.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/INT3.jpg


Of course at this point might as well put the front seat back in as well.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/INT4.jpg



So let’s see where was I? Oh yes I was getting ready to drop the engine in.





7-7-09

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/eng-in.jpg

Well the engine is now officially in and bolted down. Had a little problem with getting sufficient end play on the torque converter but with the help of my next-door neighbor and transmission expert we got that resolved. Of course at this point the engine still needs to have a few accessories added to it. So I started by mounting a new water pump along with the original power steering pump. With some slight modification I was able to use its original mounting brackets and the original water pump pulley.

A fellow that I have done some design work for his aftermarket automotive parts business provide me with a nice little gear reduction starter and a one wire 100 amp alternator.
The AC compressor is a unit that I had left over from a previous project.

After deciding on the location for the AC compressor and alternator I needed to make some mounting brackets.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/AC1.jpg

Started out with some 1/4” thick plywood and made some support arms. While these proved to be a little bit flimsily they did provide the dimensions needed to make steel ones. Every kid should have an erector set when growing up, never know when what is learned playing with it can be put to practical use.

Trial fitting of the mounting brackets

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/AC2.jpg

Of course the pulleys on the alternator and AC need to line up with the pulley on the harmonic balancer. This was not much of a problem because I did not have a pulley for the harmonic balancer. So naturally the only thing to do was make one of the size and shape that would work the way I wanted.

Powder coated the brackets and pulley

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/AC3.jpg

The engine came with an adaptor to allow remote mounting of the oil filter and I just happened to have the oil filter end but not the engine end so I figured I might as well use it. By being able to mount the filer vertical should make for slightly less messy oil changes.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/OILFIL.jpg

So having mounted all the easy to mount parts it’s time to move on to the exhaust.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/AXH1A.jpg


Well its like “Ah Huston we have a problem here!”


It would seem that the number 5 cylinder is aimed straight at a corner of the steering gear box. A stock exhaust manifold will not fit and even if it could it would be facing down at the frame of the chassis. If one were to take a stock exhaust manifold and mount it upside down, yes that can be done, however in this case there is still not enough room for it.

That only leaves making a custom header exhaust system. Now I did kind of want to go with a header exhaust system because of its added performance and economy but in this case there is no other option.

So I did some research on headers and found that bigger is not always better, even though most commercial system are running 2 to 2 1/2” and even 3” diameter pipes. Unless an engine has mega-cubic inch displacement and is running at a gazillion RPM and producing untold HP a large diameter exhaust is not needed and will actually limit low end power. The use of a relatively small diameter tube off of each cylinder will ensure that the gases are moving at a high enough velocity when entering the “collector” to produce a vacuum so that when the next cylinder exhausts it is being pulled into the vacuum. On the other hand if the pipes are too small then at high RPM the engine choked and high end power will suffer. So it becomes a balancing act to get the best of both high and low speed.

However in my case high end power is not a concern. A 5500 lb car is a poor starting platform for building a dragster. I am after a smooth running engine with as much low end torque as possible and with the best fuel economy. To that end it means that I want a tri-y header using relatively small diameter tubes.

I choose a 1 ½” I.D. by 1 5/8” I’D. tube. This also allows a tighter bend radius so that I can avoid my steering box. To start with I bought a bunch of pipes, a generic header kit and some “J” bends.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/AXH3.jpg

I did not get the header flange that bolts to the heads. As the commercial ones exit straight from the head or in my case straight into my steering box. So I bought a couple steel plates and bored the exhaust holes at an angle. It worked out that a 55 degree angle and my 1 ½” tubing produced and oval that is a very good approximation of the exhaust ports in the heads. Also that angle has the pipe coming out essentially horizontal to the engine.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/AXH2.jpg

Before cutting and welding tubing I needed to cut a large ugly opening in the inner fenders to make room.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/uglyhole.jpg

(continued)

[Mad Scientist]

It took a couple tries to make the drivers side work but it actually fit without hitting the steering box. I wound up with maybe a ¼” of clearance between the pipe and the head of a bolt. So to provide just a bit more room I removed the cap head bolt and replaced it with a flat head bolt then heated up and slightly hammered in one side of the pipe. I then made up a stainless steel heat shield to go over the steering box, not sure if that is needed but don’t want to chance cooking it.


This is the beginning of the passenger side header. It’s essentially a mirror image of the driver side. Getting the shape of the first pipe is the tricky part after that the rest just fell into place. Well almost.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/AXH4.jpg
So here they are ready for sand blasting.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/AXH5.jpg

At this point I it would have been nice to Berry’s sand blasting cabinet as mine is way too small. So I improvised a bit with two garbage cans and a plastic drop cloth.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/sand.jpg

So after sand blasting and painting with a couple coats of high temp paint, to cover up some of my less then pretty welds, this is it looks like.



http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/dsh1.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/dsh2.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/dsh3.jpg


Well the fun part is done but I still have to run the pipes back to the mufflers.
I will say that this was a bit of a challenge. Probably would not recommend it to someone as a first time project.


************************************************** ***********************

8-7-09

Well the exhaust system is now complete from the header to the back of the car. I ran slightly larger diameter pipes through the rocker panels but used by original mufflers and cross over pipe as these were only on the car for about 40 years and appeared to be in good condition.

So with that exhausting project out of the way I went back to working on the engine compartment. Installed the mounting frame for the radiator and its support brackets. Bolted the horns on, these I had previously disassembled cleaned and powder coated and made sure they worked. Of course once I had then all nicely bolted on I forgot that there is no way to get to their terminals to attach the horn wires without first removing them.  It’s little stuff like this that makes working on the MKII challenge.

Installed the radiator and the AC condenser. Connected all the hoses for the AC.

Next I tried to figure out what to do with the battery; I didn’t like its original position. It is on the middle of the firewall directly behind the engine. This obviously is not the most convenient location. But unless I were willing to but it in the trunk there is no other place for it, so I am stuck with it original location.

The next problem is the original battery is a rather weird size that is not readily available. Thus I decided to go with a “group 65” which is a size that everyone has in stock plus they are freshly made. The one I got was made in May of this year.

Now naturally it will not fit the old battery tray so I welded up a new battery holder.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p1.jpg

For the heater I needed a valve to control the flow of anti-freeze. Here again as you would expect the “only” thing to do it make one. 

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p2a.jpg

In this case it is actually a combination valve and “T” fitting to control and direct the anti-freeze out to both heater cores.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p3.jpg

Bolted to the bottom is another “T” fitting for the return lines from the heater cores.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p4.jpg

All this mounts to a tab sticking off the side of the battery tray.


http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p5.jpg

Also got a kill switch mounted to the top of it and then taped all the new wiring going to the front of the car into a single bundle.

For engine cooling I got an electric fan and to turn the fan on & off I made a two speed controller. As engine warms up it will first kick in at a “quite” low speed, if that’s not enough to cool the engine it will switch to its high speed.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p6.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p7.jpg


The engine compartment is now starting to get filled up with stuff and is beginning to look like an engine compartment.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p8.jpg



Now even though my 40 year old tires still had plenty of tread left I decided it might be a good idea to replace them. I got some 225 radials which are noticeably wider the originals.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p9.jpg

Unfortunately being wider meant they hit a support bracket for the trunk latch and the trunk could not be closed.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p10.jpg


Solution remove the offending bracket. Leaving just a tab to bend over to provide support for the latch.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p11.jpg

Tire is now able to lean back enough to allow the trunk to close.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/p12.jpg


Well I’m not quite there yet but the end appears to be getting near.
Never the less someone is getting impatient to go for a ride.


http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/watchdog.jpg


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


9-21-09

So I have now moved into the final phases and finally painted the front fenders then mounted the front bumper and then went back and touched up fender were bumper managed to scratch front fender. All the basic wiring is done. Next I wanted to make the mechanical tach. work.

This would normally be driven off a special fitting at the bottom of the distributor however the original distributor will not fit this engine and the distributors that do fit don’t have the required fitting.

Naturally the only thing to do is make a special drive for it. Decided I would come off the power steering pump’s pulley with a small cogged pulley and timing belt. This runs down to a larger pulley that provides the correct speed the tach but its shaft is pointing directly at the radiator. So I then made a housing with a couple bevel gears to get it to point towards the fender where it connect to the flexible cable from the tach. Which started out life as a speedometer cable for a VW bus. The whole thing mounts on an arm that can swing back and forth to tighten the belt.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F1.jpg

(continued)

[Mad Scientist]

Next I needed a someway to dribble fuel into the engine. I was originally thinking about Holley’s fuel injection system. It looked like it would do everything I would want. So I down loaded their instruction manual, it appeared to be quite complete and well done, but having to learn a hundred plus pages of information on how to program the system was a bit unnerving. Particularly for something that you would probably only do once.

However as I was looking for the distributor I inadvertently ran across a relatively new and different system. This one is “self tuning”. You provide it with basic information, engine size, number of cylinders, idle speed, as it walks you through a series of question and then it takes over. It was a little more expensive the Holley system but I figure if I don’t need to spend the next six months learning how to set it up its probably worth it.

This is it. It is Fuel Air Spark Technology”s EZ-EFI system.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F2.jpg

It is a throttle body system for any standard square flange manifold.
The deluxe kit contains all the necessary pieces. Fuel pump, throttle body, ECU, hand held monitor (in place of needing a laptop computer) etc.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F3.jpg

The throttle body was very nicely machined, no rough casting or flashing on it.
Also with the exception of a temapture sensor and a wide band oxygen sensor all other sensors come pre-mounted on the throttle body.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F4.jpg

With some slight modifications used the original throttle and kick down linkage.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F5.jpg

Engine fired up first try, well first try after I got all the spark plug wire going to the right plugs.

It took about two years but like Rip Van Winkle after a 40 year nap it is now back among the living.

Of course I then needed to de-rattle a muffler and a couple exhaust pipes. Then I noticed I had an oil leak. Seems there was a small leak at the front of the oil pan as where it goes around the front bearing.

OK so drop the pan and re-goup up the front seal. That stopped the leak, but now I created two new leaks up at the front corners.

OK drop the pan and re-goup the corners and re-due the sides. This appears to have stopped the leaks in front but now a bunch of the pan bolts that are leaking. Ahhhh

OK drop the pan again get all new gaskets super clean all the surfaces, at least as best I can cause the pan only drops down about 1 ½” before hitting a cross member. Goup the hell out of the gaskets, the flanges and myself and anything else close by then bolt the pan back up. This time it appears to be holding but I notice that pipe fittings on the remote oil filter are leaking.

OK remove the mounting for the oil filter, which by now is next to imposable to get because of all the other stuff around it. Remove the hose barb fitting clean and retape the threads. Put it all back together, much better but there is still a slight seepage.

OK take it out again and re-clean and re-tape and this time tighten the s**t out of the fittings. Put it all back together again start engine, seems to be holding, but wait a minute I now have leaking oil all over the place. What the ……

Upon inspection I see that when I put it back together I rerouted one of the rubber oil lines from the filter to the engine and it’s now rubbing on the power steering pumps pulley.

Cut out worn section of hose and splice it back together this time making sure it stays well away from the pulley.

This seems to be working although I’m not too sure about the valve covers. I’m thinking I may want to get some new ones.

I still have some things to do and check out but its time to put the rest of the wheels on, get it off the jack stands, AND TAKE IT FOR A RIDE.




So far I’ve only taken three short trips around the neighborhood just verify that there no major problems. As I gain confidence that everything is working correctly I gradually start taking longer trips.


http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F10.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F11.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F12.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F13.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/F14.jpg

[Matthew]

Hey Mad-
I really enjoyed reading your 'diary of a Mad Scientist'. Excellent work, and excellent results...congratulations.

[Don Henschel]

Totally amazing to say the least! I like the part about the rocker moldings:)
"Calling the usual suspects I found that a pair was available and that I did not have to worry about scratching them or denting them as they would come pre-scratched and dented. Plus he would reluctantly sell them to for only a mere $2500. I politely told him I would have to think about that and get back to him"
Why am I not surprised;)
The part about the clock was intresting! A flea power motor stalled out all the time! I thought they were the typical solonoid setup. That would be too easy, touchup the points with a point file, clean the mechanism and away you go! Like everything else it's got to be different and unique, and of course my clock doesnt work along with the knob missing! I wonder where I will get just the knob, not to mention what I will find wrong with the beast. I might as well buy a complete spare if I can find one, and hopefully not for $2500.
I was not surprised about the transmission. The FMX I had in my 69 LTD and 77 T-bird (with the 351M like the 400) had a removable bell housing and (it's been a while) I believe you could pull the transmission and leave the torque converter and bell housing on the motor if it made removal easier. I also heard a rumor that these transmissions could be converted to a full time 3 speed by upgrading the guts but still using the case so it looks authentic. ( an extra clutch and a updated valve body)Would your neighbor be able to varify this and would it be more trouble than it's worth? As it is parts were not a problem and I was told when I bought mine that they fit in newer transmissions.

[Mad Scientist]

If you clock doesn’t work I would suspect that the motor’s comuntator just needs cleaning. That is not that hard to do once you get the clock out. Aside from that you can always replace the motor.:)

It is a three speed transmission, but only if you are willing to floor the accelerator. :D
From past discussion with my neighbor I don’t believe that there is any simple way to make this into a full time three speed as I don’t believe it has a valve body in the modern sense.

[Shelly Harris]

This restoration is beyond awesome.... truly amazing!

[depmike38]

What you've done with your car is impressive, particularly all of the fabrication and modification work.

[Nick DeSpirito]

Mad Man, you are a genius! :D

[Barry Wolk]

Mad Man, you are a genius! :D

There's a fine line................................

Actually, reminds me of a Steven Wright saying:

"There's a fine line between fishing, and standing on the shore, looking like an idiot.":D

[Shelly Harris]

Totally amazing to say the least! I like the part about the rocker moldings:)
"Calling the usual suspects I found that a pair was available and that I did not have to worry about scratching them or denting them as they would come pre-scratched and dented. Plus he would reluctantly sell them to for only a mere $2500. I politely told him I would have to think about that and get back to him"
Why am I not surprised;)

Please follow forum rules. Our rules can be found in the FAQ section.
We have the following rule:

"When talking about a company use the real name. We follow the principle that respect must go both ways."

This rule exists so that there is no confusion or misunderstanding as to who is being praised or criticized.

[vancec]

Wow, beautiful car. You deserve it! Well done.

[Mad Scientist]

It has been a couple of months since I had the MKII out for it first drive so here is brief update. All the usual troublesome areas, windows, radio, etc. seem to be working as intended. However I have found a few problems. The minor ones are my temperature gauge quite working, :mad: it started out working intermittently and progressed to just sitting on cold. This has to be nothing more then the sender died. Then the tachometer, which I went to a special effort to provide it with mechanical drive, started to make a noise. It sounded like a noisy cable. But then I noticed it started to progressively read higher then actual engine speed?? And now the needle is stuck a 2000rpm. Going to have to tear it apart and see what wore out.

More of a major concern is the original radiator is not “quite” big enough. It tends to over heat when idling for long periods. I had taken it for a rather long drive (about 22 miles :D ) to show it to one of the clients that I do work for. This was mostly expressway driving and was running around 195*. Unfortunately there was a road crew repaving the exit I needed to get off at. So while watching the temperature slowly climb to 225 it seemed like it took an eternity to get through this intersection. But once moving the temperature came back down.

The other annoying problem is my gas tank. I went to great pains to clean out all of the old gunk that was in it, but apparently I didn’t get it all out.:o Even though from what I could see into the tank it was clean. However there are baffles in it to keep the gas from sloshing around and obviously there must be some crud left on the hidden sides. As a result my pre-filter becomes clogged after about 50 – 75 miles, the fuel pump starts screaming due to lack of fuel and obviously engine performance falls off.

Now seeing as how I don’t believe at I can get the tank any cleaner then what I already did the only other course is to get a new tank. So I went to my local gas tank store and bought their basic universal model.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/gastank.jpg

Although with this model some assembly is required.:)

So aside from that the car has proved to be very interesting to drive. The engine runs quite well, as Ford’s old advertising stated the performance is adequate. Well it still is, plus a little bit more. It will chirp the tires in first gear but then it just accelerates without any further fanfare, no loud exhaust or engine screaming at 6-8000rpm, but in very short order your doing 60 mph.
The disc brakes have a good solid feel and seem to be working quite well although I have yet to try an all out panic stop. They have no tendency to pull to the right or left.


Now I am used to getting attention from driving my MG, but this is different. At a stop light I had a guy roll down his window and ask what is it? People look and nod as you go by. As I was coming out my local Ace hardware and was going to get in the car I wound up spending about 15 minutes talking to some woman who was totally blown away with the styling.;) And there was the time we went out for dinner. While stopped at a stop light the guy behind me gets out of his car and comes up and asks if I want to sell it. Or would I like to trade it for a Land Rover?:eek: Ah no, but maybe when the newest wears off cause I have only had it for 50 years. Then follows the two blocks to the restaurant and asks if I would use his cell phone to take his picture standing next to it.

[Shelly Harris]

The attention our cars draw is awesome!

[Barry Wolk]

Really? I hadn't noticed.;)

[Mad Scientist]

Well I haven’t updated this for a while so here is what I’ve been doing.
Completed work on my new gas tank, bent the sheet metal into the basic shape and started welding.

Not quite square yet.
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/agt1.jpg

But adding one of the ends straightened that out.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/agt4.jpg

On top of tank installed a pocket for fuel sender to sit in as the tank is mounted flush to the bottom of the trunk floor.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/agt7.jpg

For those who have ever wondered what a sender looks like inside the tank this is it.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/agt8.jpg

And this is the final result

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/agt13.jpg


It is slightly bigger then the original.
I did not make the large radius corners or have the stiffing channels like the original as there was no way I could conveniently bend them. While that type of construction is required to get a reasonable amount of strength, when stamping out a tank using very thin sheet metal I got around that problem my simply using 1/16” thick metal.


My sticking tachometer turned out to be a fairly simple fix. Once got the tach out of the car I noticed that if I were to push the input drive coupling all the way in it would bind the needle’s drive. It is hard to see in this picture but the end of the threaded bushing was worn and there is about .030” end play in the drive couplings shaft.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/tach.jpg

Basically it needed a washer to hold it back in the correct position. Unfortunately to do this have would require a major dis-assembly, drilling out rivets, grinding off staked on parts. So instead I went to my drawer of snap rings found one the right thickness and would snap over the shaft. This seems like it is going to work so now we’ll have to see how it holds up.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/tach2.jpg


I was having an over heating problem when idling for long periods thus I considered the possibility of getting a larger radiator. But first I added a second fan in front of the radiator to help push air through and that helped a bit, particularly once I got both of them pushing in the same direction rather then opposing each other. :o Next I thought I would try adding a shroud around the fan and see if that would help. So armed with some old cardboard boxes and the ever indispensable duck tape I cobbled up a rather crude shroud.

Started engine and watched the temperature climb. At the moment I have a 185 thermostat and the computers set to turn on the fan at 205. Hit 205 the fan starts and this time the temperature starts to drop, instead of just slowing its rate of climb. I turned the engine off when the temp got down to 195, now the ambient temperature that day was only 40 degrees, but that was encouraging, considering I have two fans on the radiator and the second had not turned on. A fan shroud definitely makes for a significant increase in cooling efficiency so then I made a little more professional looking shroud.

But when springtime temperatures started getting into the mid 70’s this still wasn’t enough. So I broke down and bought a bigger radiator. In this one the water flow across the top half to the other side then drops down and does a second pass back through the bottom half of the radiator for additional cooling. This helped but it still was running a little warmer then I wanted. However I noticed that the flow through the radiator was not very strong so I bought a high flow water pump (really didn’t see a whole lot of difference between it and the stock one) and went to a smaller drive pulley on so it would run faster. Naturally to get the diameter pulley I wanted and have the belt groves line up with all the other pulleys I just bought a piece of aluminum and machined one.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/apulley1.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/apulley2.jpg


This helped considerably but it still was not quite there. The outlet temperature was around 30* cooler then the inlet temperature but the engine was still tending to run warm?? The only thing left was the thermostat. Removed it threw it into a pot of water on the stove with a thermometer and heated it. It did open at the right temperature but I noticed that it did not open all that much and the path the water had to follow was quite restrictive. Solution seeing as how I don’t plan on doing a lot of winter driving is to go “old school” and run the engine without a thermostat. This now appears to be working, it was 90* today and was running 195 to 200* in traffic. When I put the car back in the garage with poor air circulation I let it idle for awhile and watched the temperature rise, at about 208 the fan kicked onto its high speed and the temperature started to drop back down. It looks like this problem might be finally solved.

New radiator and new fan shroud
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i17/mscientist/MKII%20rebuild/arad.jpg


About a couple weeks age I had another interesting problem.
I was thinking about taking the mark to its first real car show on that weekend (it got rained out) anyway it was way farther from home then I had previously driven so I figured an extended test run was in order. I needed to pickup a piece of steel tubing for a different project, then pickup some metal spacers I was have made and deliver them to the guy that wanted them and finally run out to one of my clients and deliver some assembly tooling, all told about 50 miles.
Well I stopped at my local metal supermarket to pick up the tubing and of course everyone there was impressed with the MKII.
Then while heading over to the guy making the spacers I start to hear a knocking sound. At first thought it might be a flat tire but I have new tires so that shouldn’t and wasn’t the problem but it was definitely related to wheel speed. By now I was only three blocks from this guys shop so I continued on - slowly. Once there I tried shaking the car to see if I that would produce the clunking sound, that did nothing. I then asked the guy to bring out his fork lift and he lifted up the back end while I inspected the universal joints, they looked fine. OK so then I decided to try driving back home but by now the clunk is getting worse and I’m only doing 10 maybe 15 MPH. Then it occurs to me that I’m only about a half mile from my next-door-neighbors new transmission shop. So I head over there. He is still in the process of moving into a new building and his car hosts haven’t been set up yet but with a floor jack he lifts it up shakes a tire to see if it is loose then looks at the universal joints but the sound seems to be coming from the differential. Could I have broken a tooth???

At that point we decided to leave the car there and wait till he got his hosts installed then he would pull the differential cover and see what might be going on in there. So a few days latter he is home for lunch and stops over and says “it’s fixed, and you’re not going to believe this”. There was nothing wrong with the differential other then the oil was a little dirty from washing out the remaining 50 year old fluid. This meant it had to be something with the wheel. Pulling the hub cap revealed only one lug nut was holding the wheel on; the others had unscrewed from an 1/8 to a ¼”. He then checked the other wheels and they all had some loose nuts.

When I tried shaking the tire I was shaking the wrong wheel. When he first tried shaking the wheel from his hand print on the whitewall he by chance grabbed directly adjacent to the one lug nut that was still holding.

I have no idea way they came loose because I know that I tightened them.
So I guess the moral to this story is occasionally it might be a good idea to check and see if your lug nuts are still tight. Since then I have been wondering if this might also have something to do with having radial tires on wheels designed for bias tires? We know that is a recipe for losing hub caps but could the extra flexing also cause the lug nuts to work loose?:confused: Regardless getting new wheels is already on my things to do list.

Another thing that is going to need replacing is the seat upholstery. Even though I had cleaned then and re-dyed them and they look really nice it turned out the leather is really dried out to the point that it has no longer has any strength. I had wanted to get something out of the trunk and the keys were in the ignition so opened the door, placed left hand on corner of seat for support as I reached in for the keys where upon I feel and hear a “pop” under my hand and I had a 3” split. :( I know that there were no previous tears in this area and I was not putting all that much weight on so I can only conclude that the leather being 50 years old is totally dried out and needs to be replaced.

Anyway now that I am gaining confidence that everything appears to be working correctly I will start driving it for longer distances.:)

[newmexicomatt]

WOW, I'm exhausted after reading that! Congrats on an incredible journey! I have friends in Schaumburg....going to have to see your car next time I visit!

[Sean Rollins]

I thought that I could work a bit of magic, but what you have accomplished with your mark ll is beyond any words I have. The results are incredible. Have you ever tested those discs for a panic stop yet? I ask because the only thing that takes my goofy grin off my face while driving my mk is a 50lb car with abs cutting in front of me to test my heart so I have been considering this change up as well.

[Barry Wolk]

Consider rebuilding your brakes instead of going to disc. When they are fully functional they work extremely well. The biggest mistake people make is in not spending a few bucks and have the new shoes arced to the drum they are going into. Shoes are built to fit new drums that have a smaller ID than worn drums. If you brake with shoes that only give you a small contact patch on either end of the shoe your braking will be minimized. These small contact patches glaze and lose their ability to provide good friction.

Arcing the shoes give maximum contact with no glazing. My bakes have 14,000 miles on them and the car stops as good as my '77 Town Car with front discs

Worn brakes can be made much better by shaving off the glazed layer. The shoes will already be properly arced through use.

[Mad Scientist]

Not to worry the 50lb car will only appear as a slight speed bump in the road. :D
So far I haven’t done and all out tire screeching panic stop. But have made some relatively quick stops without any problems. (Now I have screeched the tires in 1st gear starts but that not quite the same thing.)

If your car has original brake shoes they undoubtedly have asbestos lining. At the very least I would upgrade to metallic linings.
Then following Barry’s suggestion of having them arced so as to perfectly fit the drums is a good idea.

Finally if absolute authenticity is not your goal for added safety I would consider replacing the power booster and master cylinder with a more modern unit with a dual master cylinder.