'57 Ford Custom 300 Tudor Sedan

[Vic1947]

While we're on the subject of bug fixes, I spent most of today fixing a mystery failure. I took Maybelline to have the front end aligned yesterday and on the way home tried to run the power windows up. Neither side worked.
Earlier on the way to the shop, I'd closed the passenger side but left the driver side window open, so I know the passenger side was working. When I picked the car up, both sides were down. I was a bit puzzled, but assumed it must be a fuse. However, at home the fuse checked out so now I was really flummoxed. This morning I started tracing the wires and found I had 12V into both doors as should be the case. Plus I could hear the relays click when I pressed the up and down switches. That meant the problem had to be in the PW motors. To go any further, I had to pull the window frames, the armrests, the door handle and the upholstered door panel.

My upholsterer told me when I picked it up that he hoped I'd never have to take the doors apart as it took a lot of tweaking to make the panels and trim fit correctly. So now here I was, doing that very thing. When I laid open the interior of the door, nothing seemed amiss and the relays were putting power to the motors. As a last resort, I removed the motor / gear drive from the rest of the assembly and voila! it actuated. I carefully reassembled it and the window worked perfectly. The rubber cushions that acted as the bottom stops were totally squished out. It appears as if the window channels crashed into the stops and destroyed them. I replaced them with firm plastic stops that will prevent the windows from overextending in the down direction. Now all that's left is to reassemble everything. Oh, and I also need to readjust my tie rod ends to center the steering wheel properly and re-do the shim packs so they're all the same style shim.

My buddy Steve passed along a couple of man cave items he got from his son, Charlie. For the last couple of years, Charlie's been working with the Hatfield and McCoy bunch to launch their whiskey and more recently, with Richard and Aaron to get Gas Monkey Cinnamon Tequila out into the stores. Below is a picture Charlie took of Richard with an LED backlit sign Steve made for them. Pretty cool!

[Low Elco]

Nice stuff! Now if he'd go to work for Tito's Vodka, we'd be in bidness!

[Vic1947]

Winter Update:

It's been awhile since I last posted, so I thought I'd catch up on a few things. We've been to a few shows this fall but the car cover is now on Maybelline for the winter. We were invited to the KCI All Speed Expo a couple of weeks ago and had the car on display there. They only awarded one trophy per class but we were edged out by Ray Worth who owns a Harley dealership here in KC. Oddly enough, his car was a '57 Ford Custom with a fuel injected Boss 521 Jon Kaase engine. I felt like we had a more detailed car than his, but there was no getting around the impact of that powerplant. We had a great time anyway and bumped into a number of folks we know.

The hydroboost brakes work like gangbusters, but the increased line pressure found one more small leak that was easily fixed by tightening a bleeder valve a little more. Not sure if I mentioned that the trans leak turned out to be a missing o-ring on the downshift lever. With that fixed, the only leak that remains is a very tiny one from the rear main seal. After the car sits for a week or two, there will be a spot about the size of a half dollar under the bell housing lip. Not too bad after all is said and done.

I've been mulling over what to do next and have arrived at a difficult decision. I'm completely out of space to work on anything. I could store one or two vehicles at Subtropolis to free up the necessary room, but still, my present cash flow would hinder progress on CRLS. So I'm testing the market at the moment. We listed Maybelline on Hemming's website a few days ago and the print ad should go out the first of January. If it sells, I'll have both the room and the money to proceed with the truck. I'll let you know how it goes. Till then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!

P.S. Speaking of Christmas, my (early) present from Kathy was a new set of hoops for the Mopar. Added some needed sparkle.

[sduckworth13]

Originally Posted by Vic1947

Winter Update:

It's been awhile since I last posted, so I thought I'd catch up on a few things. We've been to a few shows this fall but the car cover is now on Maybelline for the winter. We were invited to the KCI All Speed Expo a couple of weeks ago and had the car on display there. They only awarded one trophy per class but we were edged out by Ray Worth who owns a Harley dealership here in KC. Oddly enough, his car was a '57 Ford Custom with a fuel injected Boss 521 Jon Kaase engine. I felt like we had a more detailed car than his, but there was no getting around the impact of that powerplant. We had a great time anyway and bumped into a number of folks we know.

The hydroboost brakes work like gangbusters, but the increased line pressure found one more small leak that was easily fixed by tightening a bleeder valve a little more. Not sure if I mentioned that the trans leak turned out to be a missing o-ring on the downshift lever. With that fixed, the only leak that remains is a very tiny one from the rear main seal. After the car sits for a week or two, there will be a spot about the size of a half dollar under the bell housing lip. Not too bad after all is said and done.

I've been mulling over what to do next and have arrived at a difficult decision. I'm completely out of space to work on anything. I could store one or two vehicles at Subtropolis to free up the necessary room, but still, my present cash flow would hinder progress on CRLS. So I'm testing the market at the moment. We listed Maybelline on Hemming's website a few days ago and the print ad should go out the first of January. If it sells, I'll have both the room and the money to proceed with the truck. I'll let you know how it goes. Till then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!

P.S. Speaking of Christmas, my (early) present from Kathy was a new set of hoops for the Mopar. Added some needed sparkle.

I agree Vic I think your car was a lot cleaner than the black 57 Ford. You'll get my vote everytime though . Good luck with getting the car sold. The wheels look nice on the Charger.

[Vic1947]

Well by now, you may know that Maybelline sold at Mecum yesterday. Hammered down at $37K, but I was able to negotiate a $35K payout. The crowd had thinned considerably by the time we ran across the block. Our number was S194, but they inserted 55 ".1" cars in the queue ahead of us. We should have gone across about 4:00 pm, but it was past 5:30 when we hit the carpet thanks to all these stragglers they stuck in front of our '57. I felt like if it had gone thru at 4, we might have gone over $40K, but that's just my opinion.

Mecum staff told us this morning they thought the reason the crowd evaporated was because Trump was holding a rally at The Midland, a few blocks away. Cops were lined up blocking the streets and using pepper spray on some of the protesters. I reckon the car folks wanted to get as far away from all that mess as they could, as fast as they could.

Anyway, she's gone to a new home somewhere. Now it's time to make some progress on CRLS. Parting shot...

[SamsAutoParts73-87]

Congrats on the sale, looking forward to more on CRLS

I really enjoyed following along for Maybelline, and really appreciate you taking the time to share it with us.

-Sam

[swamp rat]

Thanks for the update Vic! Merry Christmas to you and family!

[jlsanborn]

Good luck with the sale Vic. Somebody will be getting one sweet ride! What's up with the 305 I saw on the tube?

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by jlsanborn

Good luck with the sale Vic. Somebody will be getting one sweet ride! What's up with the 305 I saw on the tube?

Thanks, John, I hope I can find someone to give it a good home.

About seven years ago, I collaborated with G&G Performance and a good friend in Houston to build that engine for my buddy Smith. He was running in the 305 sprint car class up in central MO and wanted a good bullet, but no one in his immediate neighborhood was into that kind of build. I picked up the engine and took it home with me and proceeded to tear it down and build it back up using forged lightweight parts, a solid lifter cam, low tension Total Seal rings and the best set of stock steel heads allowed by the rules. G&G did the machine work and my buddy Wilson rubbed on the heads (maybe just a smidge more than was allowed back then.) We also accidentally slipped some titanium parts in them and a set of Comp beehive springs. His driver won the local track championship with it the following year. Last I heard some guy from Knoxville bought the complete car for his son to drive.

One interesting thing that we did after dyno testing was to build our own velocity stacks for the Hillborn injection. We used larger tubing with Formula style inserts that slip fit into the tubing. I did all the CAD work on the inserts and the flanges that bolted to the manifold base and my buds in Houston at Cryotech did the machine work on their CNCs. Turned out very nice, but I always wished we had made another trip to Ostrich to do a back to back dyno test. By the time we had the velocity tubes in place, it was time to go racing! I still have one of the leftover stack inserts that sits on my toolbox.

[Elliot949]

Merry Christmas Vic and Kathy... I understand the funds part... After paying the Paterson Racing Bill on "Raymond" and having just a couple of small thing done to it at Chris Carlson's Hot Rods I am pretty much out of Mula And the fact we are starting to Build our house next Year it is unlikely that much will get done on it for 2016...

If you ever decide you want to make a road trip come see us... We have a spare room and a few bottles of Wine and a pretty full stock of liquor and about 10 kinds of Brewskies...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by Elliot949

Merry Christmas Vic and Kathy... I understand the funds part... After paying the Paterson Racing Bill on "Raymond" and having just a couple of small thing done to it at Chris Carlson's Hot Rods I am pretty much out of Mula And the fact we are starting to Build our house next Year it is unlikely that much will get done on it for 2016...

If you ever decide you want to make a road trip come see us... We have a spare room and a few bottles of Wine and a pretty full stock of liquor and about 10 kinds of Brewskies...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Thanks for the invite, Dan. We'd love to make a road trip in the new Dodge, so maybe we can find a few good days after the holidays are over. We'll stay in touch. Later!

[jlsanborn]

TRICK! Are those inserts siamesed? I could see that it was a Hillborn setup and wondered why an iron head 305??? All makes sense now and it's cool!

[Vic1947]

Originally Posted by jlsanborn

TRICK! Are those inserts siamesed? I could see that it was a Hillborn setup and wondered why an iron head 305??? All makes sense now and it's cool!

Good catch, John. During the construction of the stacks, we were forced to siamese the inserts - mainly for packaging.

[sduckworth13]

Glad to see you got Mabelline sold. Sorry to hear that it didn't bring more for you though, somebody got a wonderful car they will enjoy for many years. Let me know if I can help you out with CRLS.

[knomadd]

Congrats on the sale. Looking forward to what you do with CRLS.

[swamp rat]

That was quite the journey Vic! Congrats on the sale!

[Vic1947]

Thanks, everyone. It's weird to walk into the workshop and see thin air where the car used to sit. My next move is to get a wrecker over to the house and transfer CRLS to the workshop downstairs. Then I'll begin disassembling everything. I'll report progress on Crusty's thread. Later!

[Elliot949]

glad it all worked out for you Vic... I will look forward to the progress on CRLS...

[Low Elco]

Hope it all worked out, Vic. AS always, holler if you need extra hands. Looking forward to the 2.0 on this.

[jeh]

Glad everything worked out for you, can't wait to see more amazing work on the ole truck

[flashed]

Can someone post the thread on his truck ,I have followed the 57 Ford build and would like to follow the truck build ?

[jwilson645]

Originally Posted by flashed

Can someone post the thread on his truck ,I have followed the 57 Ford build and would like to follow the truck build ?

The link is in his signature.