Holiday weekend...

We made some good progress on the shop over the holiday weekend.  Luckily the weather was fairly decent except for the snow storm that we were framing the walls in.

Setting the walls with a Gradall felt like we were cheating, but did it ever make it nice.  It took longer to get the machine to the site then it did to actually erect the building...

Next step...the trusses...

Venting....

I was able to finish up the smoker grill.  Originally, the customer wanted two vents installed but changed his mind to having only one.  There is even a handle to he won't burn himself...

Now, if I can only get him to smoke me some large chunks of meat.....mmmmmmm

Hudsons and 5 Speeds...

I had a customer drop off a 262 Hudson motor for me to start designing an adapter for a T5 5 speed.  He's got a '37 Hudson coupe that he wants to drop this in and insists on having a manual.  Pretty cool in my book...

Hudson has some fairly innovative designs back in the day.  The used a wet clutch instead of the more common dry version.  A stamped steel housing covered the clutch and pressure plate and sealed around the throw out bearing.  The clutch sat in about 6 oz. of fluid.  The one thing that strikes me as humorous is that the flywheel actually has drain plugs.

Building progress...

We made some decent progress on the the new shop over the weekend.  It's all back filled and ready for concrete...which is suppose to happen Tuesday.  I can not begin to express how much I am looking forward to start working out of here.  This space has been direly needed for some time.

Smoker Grill Fix...

I had a customer drop off a smoker grill that he wanted some adjustable vents installed.  The issue was that the vents needed to have some shape to them so that they could seal and keep the heat in when fully closed.  A little bit of time in the e-wheel, and they seemed to match fairly closely.  Once done, there will be four holes in each and they will be able to rotate to line up with similar hole in the lid.

'49-'54 Chevy Car T5 Adapter Assembly...

Those of you that have a '49 to '54 car and want a T5 no longer have to search for a truck bell housing and modify the clutch linkage.  The new adapter worked perfect.  Everything simple bolted up with no modification.

However, before they are ready to hit the market, I still need to bolt a clutch to the set-up engine just to double check that there are no issues and that everything releases like it should.

More to come...

New shop progress...

We had a busy weekend.  The foundation is done and we are waiting on an inspection.  It is amazing how fast 500 block can go down when in the hands of the skilled block layer at Bonecutter construction.

Next up is the floor...

'49-'54 Passenger Car T5 Adapter...

Good news for you '49-'54 Chevy car fans...We are getting close on our adapter to install an S-10 T5 5-speed behind your original 216-235.   This adapter uses the original passenger car bellhousing with the small bolt pattern.

If you have any questions feel free to email or give us a call.

We are also looking for a potential car to do a swap on.  If you are interested, please contact us.

Another auction....

We went to another auction over the weekend....

F100 Brakes...wrap-up...

One other issue that we ran into was the radii on the spindles were quite a bit larger that the radii on the bearings.  The bearings came from Speedway in a kit that they put together just for this conversion.  Apparently, the outer bearing is the same as the original '40 ford but the inner bearing has a larger O.D.  After a bit of grinding on the radius of the inner bearings, everything was ready for a good cleaning and then assembly.

All of the parts that I used where as follows:

Backing plates, hubs and drums: '53-56 Ford F100
Shoes: Napa, TS TS10A  Listed for '53-'56  Ford F100 as well as '65 F100
Wheel Cylinders: Napa, Left front UP 9090, Right front UP 9091
Self Adjuster Kit: Napa, Left front UP 80691, Right front UP 80692
Hardware Kit: Napa UP2247
Bearings: Speedway Motors #91631934