Edz 66 Convertible

[ozbilt]

Only one is supposed to be there and a lot smaller too. Top bolt hole for the rear inner splash guard

[Edz66Vert]

Thanks Kerry, I'll have a look in the daytime and check it out under there. Looks like more holes I can weld up when I redo my paint job.

[Edz66Vert]

So I've been busy over the last 2 months sorting out all my wiring, on the home stretch now.

In December, I got the new motor in with the AODE and it's all wired up with the fully programmable Quickshift 4 controlling it. I'll have to keep an eye on the Ice ignition, you'd think for $1450 you'd be buying a top quality product but one of the guys in my club had one and got rid of it when his timing would go out because the rotor button would melt? He said it also happened to a mate of his who dragged a Torana, and he used to drive the car to Sydney and then have to replace the cap before he raced as his also melted on the drive down. He contacted Michael at ICE but he had no comment. My mate said he swapped to an MSD distributor and the interesting thing is when he sat them together they were identical, just ICE is black and MSD is red.



Still working on tidying up all the dash wiring as it's a mess, took me a week just to trace all the wiring in the engine bay and dash to work out where it all went as I lost my notes. Don't flame me for the double din going into the dash, I like my music and it also means I can hook-up the reverse camera and reversing sensors. And since I intend on keeping this car until I can't drive, I don't care if it upsets resale for someone looking for an unmolested car. The original radio hole had already been butchered and I can fix it pretty easily with a welder if I need to.



Modified the gearbox mount for the 2nd time (for me) - C4 to C6 to AOD to AODE. They are all different, the AOD and AODE are the same length so the tail-shaft fits but the trans mount is 30 mm further back. When I get bored one day I'll make a brand new gearbox mount to get rid of this butchered one.



The headers now fit. i bought Hedman headers that they guarantee will fit a 351 into a 66 Mustang and they don't of course. First time around I hit them with a hammer but they still were too close, I needed 10 mm clearance for rego/engineering. This time I made some jigs out of timber and put them in a press, much neater and only squashed the outside; I should have done that first time. You can't see the new clearance in the 3rd pic as it's forward of the shot but that's where the new aluminium wash bottle I'm making is going near the wiper motor on the inner guard to make the engine bay tidier.

[Edz66Vert]

I've been working on it all this week since I got back from holidays. Takes me 3 hours to get the headers bolted on (2 to remove them, even with the special 3/8 spanners I've welded up with bits of fishing wire to attach them to my wrist). If only Hedman knew how to make headers that gave you clearance for the bolts. All they had to do was put a bit more curvature into them. I have to put a stud in on no 1 on the driver’s side to hang the header off then pre-fit no's 5 and 7 and slowly tighten them while balancing the header.
I now do it with two people as one has to hold the header out while the other slowly works the bolts in.

Every time I bolt them on or remove them I think I should have listened to Nuts and gone with a 347, so much more room!

It took me a day to run the 10 mm aluminium fuel line and redo it all from the fuel pump to the carby. The exhaust guy had the fuel line resting on the exhaust and his answer was to wrap heat wrap around the pipe. I'm not sure why people do this the hard way. I remember reading on a forum that people were saying the best way is to run it down your sills and drill holes in the torque box to run it to the front. I did that last time re-using the old steel 5/16 line but it had so many kinks and turns I reckon it must have halved the fuel flow.

I love working with 10 mm aluminium fuel line. I straightened it out by hand and then ran it as straight as possible, over the diff and down the centre of the tunnel and up the back of the motor. I screwed it in place with P clips and added some sections of heater hose along it's length against the floor to protect it and where it sat on the back of the motor as it's fairly soft. I have a 100 micron filter between the tank and pump and then another standard filter before the carby.







This week I finished fitting more things like transmission lines and cutting and fitting new 9 mm ignition leads.



Spent yesterday wiring up my new gauges. I’ve gone with the 6 gauge Hypo Instrument panel from the states and bought some cheap gauges off fleebay as I couldn’t justify spending $1200 on gauges. I’m still running secondary name brand gauges up top for oil, water and O2 to double check. Hopefully the new motor will finally cure my 3 year overheating problem. Next job is to wire it in.




This is the start of the new washer bottle for the inner guard near the wiper motor that I’m making one out of aluminium.

[Ausjacko]

Good progress, nice work

[ozbilt]

Regarding the header bolts. Use bolts with longer threads and have one (or two) nuts under the head of the bolt. That allows a spanner to fit it.

[hybrid]

It wouldn't have been just nuts advising you to avoid the 351 platform in the early cars. There'd be a chorus of us here
If I had my time over again I would have tried to get rid of my towers even with the 289/302 platform just for that extra work space.

I don't envy you trying to change plugs in that thing!

[Edz66Vert]

It wouldn't have been just nuts advising you to avoid the 351 platform in the early cars. There'd be a chorus of us here
If I had my time over again I would have tried to get rid of my towers even with the 289/302 platform just for that extra work space.

I don't envy you trying to change plugs in that thing!

Yes, and I have big hands! Lucky my best mate has long thin hands and is a car nut. He helped me.

BTW, plugs are quite easy, it's all the scratches I get when trying to fit the leads that hurts!

Kerry, I don't think longer bolts will help. I can only just angle the standard bolts I have to get them in before the header is moved into place. The headers they made turn a 90 degree angle very tightly backwards at bolt 6 so they clear the shock tower then shoot up over the last pipe. Bolt 8 is a fairly tight 90, not as bad as 6, but to get the bolt started, I have to bend a bit of stiff wire and use it and the shock tower to hold the bolt in while my mate slowly tightens it while I also hold the header steady. You can't get onto No 8 bolt the end as the pipe is in the way. You have to hold the header out and do one turn at a time on bolts 6 and 8 with two 3/8 open end spanners I have welded at an odd angle as you can only turn the bolts less than 1/6th of a turn at a time, constantly swapping between the spanners. You cannot get a ring spanner or socket on them. We use fishing wire tied to the wrist on each one because you tend to drop them a lot as it takes so long.

You can see how tight it is in these pics, you can see that No 6 has basically zero clearance against the pipe, it's ridiculous.

[Edz66Vert]

BTW, I nearly did go the 347 route. I had a 302 roller to use but when I went to the engine builder to talk about it he just said "No way! Your motor will make heaps more torque and hp in a very lazy low-stressed way than a hard working 347!" so I stuck with it.

[Edz66Vert]

Had a mate help me today fitting my $30 reverse camera and dual sensors while I was doing exhaust and working out how to fit the gearshift and cable. Took him 3 hours (he's fussy) but he made a nice bracket mounted under the number plate light. Saved me 3 hours which was nice. Tested it out, picks you up from behind or the sides from about 1.5 m away.

[ozbilt]

It wouldn't have been just nuts advising you to avoid the 351 platform in the early cars. There'd be a chorus of us here
If I had my time over again I would have tried to get rid of my towers even with the 289/302 platform just for that extra work space.

I don't envy you trying to change plugs in that thing!

I have changed a few 65/6 to the 67/70 towers over the years. Rails are in the same dimension and it then allows the later suspension. However it does give the car a wider front track so changing the diff to match helps. Then, of course, altering the 4 wheel arches for the wider stance.

[Edz66Vert]

It wouldn't have been just nuts advising you to avoid the 351 platform in the early cars. There'd be a chorus of us here
If I had my time over again I would have tried to get rid of my towers even with the 289/302 platform just for that extra work space.

I don't envy you trying to change plugs in that thing!

I have changed a few 65/6 to the 67/70 towers over the years. Rails are in the same dimension and it then allows the later suspension. However it does give the car a wider front track so changing the diff to match helps. Then, of course, altering the 4 wheel arches for the wider stance.

Sorry Kerry, I have to get it engineered to be +25 mm over standard. I sold the wheels it came with because it was way over front and rear, then cut the diff down and bought custom offset wheels to keep the track inside the +25 mm national rules. I wish I had taken 10 mm more off the diff because if I decide to fit ED disc brakes to the rear, I've been told they add 10 mm and I'm only 2 mm under the max.

[hybrid]

It wouldn't have been just nuts advising you to avoid the 351 platform in the early cars. There'd be a chorus of us here
If I had my time over again I would have tried to get rid of my towers even with the 289/302 platform just for that extra work space.

I don't envy you trying to change plugs in that thing!

I have changed a few 65/6 to the 67/70 towers over the years. Rails are in the same dimension and it then allows the later suspension. However it does give the car a wider front track so changing the diff to match helps. Then, of course, altering the 4 wheel arches for the wider stance.

Yeah I remember your threads on it. I think I sometimes forget how much I learned building my car from you and others. In the early period of building it there's no way I would have considered going to that degree, but when I look back at what I ended up doing with it in the end, some of those things don't look so daunting now.

[Edz66Vert]

Yeah I remember your threads on it. I think I sometimes forget how much I learned building my car from you and others. In the early period of building it there's no way I would have considered going to that degree, but when I look back at what I ended up doing with it in the end, some of those things don't look so daunting now.

Yes, I've enjoyed your build Hybrid, it's progressing nicely.

Fired up the new motor on Friday, had a horrible noise.

I thought the roller rockers were hitting the cover but after I ran it with no rocker covers, it still made the noise so it wasn't that. It sounded like it was coming from underneath near the gearbox so I removed converter cover plate. and the noise went away! I couldn't find the original torque converter cover plate I had so I had made one out of 3mm aluminium and screwed it against the sandwich plate which pushed it back so it was rubbing on the torque converter bolts as it spun. Found the original and screwed it in between where it's meant to go and the noise is gone.

It sounds very tough, Tim at Queanbeyan Engine Services has made me a very tough motor with a lumpy idle. Now I'm keen to finish the under-dash wiring and take it for a run and hopefully get it to wheels next Sunday. 1st time on the road since March last year.

Click this link to hear it -
1st startup of newly rebuilt motor

[hybrid]

Sounds good!