What did you do today on your 1955-1957

[OhioTbird]

Put my Bird away for the winter. This year trying the Car Capsule with hopes of keeping vermin out and washed car clean.

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[Heartbreaker57]

Just finished replacing the rear main seal in my 312ci with a new neoprene one from Best Gaskets with great success. Also opened my 9" Trac Loc inspected it cleaned it and put it back together with a new pinion seal. Again success!

 

[odannyboy]

Well started stripping the 292 down, right side looked good, At 61k miles I expected it. And then there was the left side, OUCH!
My guess is it was parked in 1988 because it was smoking, whit smoke. Looks like antifreeze had been getting into the cylinder?
You can see in the 2nd pic the block 3rd one is the head. Don't see how the valves could of opened yet no bent pushrods. Will look into it more
once out of the car. Good news is it came with a spare motor.

 

[Ward 57]

Just finished replacing the rear main seal in my 312ci with a new neoprene one from Best Gaskets with great success. Also opened my 9" Trac Loc inspected it cleaned it and put it back together with a new pinion seal. Again success!

How did you do the main seal?? I did print out an advisory on how to do it without pulling the engine. Majorly intricate. There is a big debate on the original rope seal upgrades or going to neoprene. My tech says he wants to see it first to decide which way to go. The engine was rebuilt 35+ years ago buy a Ford specialty rebuild shop. I think I'm going to let it drip for a while.

 

[Heartbreaker57]

How did you do the main seal?? I did print out an advisory on how to do it without pulling the engine. Majorly intricate. There is a big debate on the original rope seal upgrades or going to neoprene. My tech says he wants to see it first to decide which way to go. The engine was rebuilt 35+ years ago buy a Ford specialty rebuild shop. I think I'm going to let it drip for a while.

Not necessary to let it drip anymore. You can do it without dropping the Tranny, but I did drop it and it gave me a bit more room to polish the journal surface for the seal to have a fresh smooth surface. This is the most important part of the job. After removing the old rope seal, which was easy, I took 1000 grit sandpaper cut it the length of the paper X 1/2" wide. Pass this strip of sandpaper over the journal. Grab the two ends with pliers and begin polishing turning the crank over two get all the surfaces. the move on two 1500 grit and finishing with 2000 grit. It will shine like a mirror. I took my time and spent 4 hrs for this part. Then following the instructions for the new neoprene seal, which pushes up and over the crank easily. Eaton Balancing has good instructions for this on the internet. My experience was "It's not that difficult. Definitely neoprene is the way to go, beats a rope seal to Hell and back! I've been driving it now about 250mi and no drips, no runs and no errors. A car lift helps tremendously if you can get access to one. Hope this helps.

 

[Ward 57]

Got my clock back from being converted to a quartz movement. Just picked up my brake booster from being rebuilt. But unfortunately Here in the Spokane area it's at freezing and with an unheated garage, trying to assemble anything is not a task I want to undertake.

 

[knuckle47]

Finished my temporary shelter…the instructions say it’s a 2 man job but 3 is a piece of cake.. yet I remain a solo artist. Installing the rubber pond liner floor to help minimize moisture but it is only 2 months of use. Little puffs of wind made it “exciting”. Seeing my list getting longer every day but I don’t see anything major yet. My friend has a lift in his pole barn and insists on me driving over so getting it in the air this week may quickly add to the list. I did change to the 15” steering wheel and LOVE IT!. Got the temperature gauge connected and working. My only dash problems are the dead clock, radio comes on but only low level white noise, and my heater control lever for temperature has come off. Sending the clock for a quartz update. I’ll test my electronics knowledge with the radio and go from there.

 

[CSPIDY]

First off I want to thank Ward 57 for starting this thread
I have wanted to post what have have done but have been too busy with other projects
Finally did some work to the bird
Since the last post was in December, it took a while to find.

Perhaps the thread could be a sticky to make it more visible to the group

So,
My 57 has been using oil since I picked it up in 2016
It was noticed to give a puff a smoke on first start up and after letting off the gas going down a hill.
I did a compression test and had 160-165 on all cylinders.
So I replaced the valve guide seals with umbrella style
Had 3 that were totally gone others were half gone
Fairly simple process once I found a valve spring compressor that would work.
Because there are no rocker studs I had to use a simple spring compressor, note the staggered jaws.
The rocker arms come off as a complete assembly.
I used an old compressor tester hose and shop air to keep the valves up.
I haven’t had a chance to check the oil consumption but will once the weather cooperates
And report back.

 

[knuckle47]

I did finish the drivers side door on my ‘56 but I now think the door handle is in the wrong direction. I mindlessly just got to that part of finishing the internals and window switch when I was freewheeling through the process.

 

[Ward 57]

I did finish the drivers side door on my ‘56 but I now think the door handle is in the wrong direction. I mindlessly just got to that part of finishing the internals and window switch when I was freewheeling through the process.
View attachment 21157

Yup Backwards. Just remember the keeper clip pushes off from the handle side.

 

[Ward 57]

Frustrating day. Tried to bench bleed my just rebuilt M/C. Nope, took the end fitting off and it looks like the last reed valve was installed backwards , couldn't get anything out of it. OK back to my shop tomorrow. Then tried to mount my rebuilt booster. Got the back hidden bolt started which took a bit even with my small hands then the front bolt just refuses to start even though I can see it to align.
I've been threading nuts & bolts backwards, blind and by feel for decades. Dang fine thread bolts. Had to walk away after yes a couple of hours to attack again another day. Why is it when a ten min. job turns into frustrating hours?

 

[Ward 57]

Frustrating day. Tried to bench bleed my just rebuilt M/C. Nope, took the end fitting off and it looks like the last reed valve was installed backwards , couldn't get anything out of it. OK back to my shop tomorrow. Then tried to mount my rebuilt booster. Got the back hidden bolt started which took a bit even with my small hands then the front bolt just refuses to start even though I can see it to align.
I've been threading nuts & bolts backwards, blind and by feel for decades. Dang fine thread bolts. Had to walk away after yes a couple of hours to attack again another day. Why is it when a ten min. job turns into frustrating hours?

Got my M/C back and the tech told me you can't bench blead my type of M/C. It has to be mounted in the car to bleed it. Never heard of that.
He explained that there is a check valve in there that needs the multiplied force of the brake pedal to open it.

 

[jimntempe]

Got my M/C back and the tech told me you can't bench blead my type of M/C. It has to be mounted in the car to bleed it. Never heard of that.
He explained that there is a check valve in there that needs the multiplied force of the brake pedal to open it.

That's interesting. Now that I think about it, it seems like MC's I have bench bleed had bleeder screws on them. You plugged the outlets and opened the bleeder screw to bench bleed them. The Tbird MC has no bleeder screw so I can see there is something different going on.

 

[Ward 57]

That's interesting. Now that I think about it, it seems like MC's I have bench bleed had bleeder screws on them. You plugged the outlets and opened the bleeder screw to bench bleed them. The Tbird MC has no bleeder screw so I can see there is something different going on.

I'm wondering if it is part of the engineering of the off set booster. The booster needs a positive application to activate and this valve provides that so the booster doesn't activate inadvertently.
Now that's old school now consider the new school. Automatic braking... It's supposed to be a safety feature but I've been reading reports and recalls of them going off at random.

 

[jimntempe]

I'm wondering if it is part of the engineering of the off set booster. The booster needs a positive application to activate and this valve provides that so the booster doesn't activate inadvertently.
Now that's old school now consider the new school. Automatic braking... It's supposed to be a safety feature but I've been reading reports and recalls of them going off at random.

No, I don't think so because it's the same MC with or without the booster. As I recall there is a check valve in the MC to maintain a residual pressure in the lines and wheel cylinders when the brakes are released, something like 8 psi. It's to ensure air doesn't get drawn in thru a small leak and also to minimize "take-up" when you apply the brakes. My guess on the bleeding issue is that the check valve can't open unless there is a pressure buildup which means that without a bleeder you can both bleed them and let fluid out thru the outlet of the MC at the same time.. as soon as you try to let fluid out to bleed it the check valve closes, or something along those lines.

As to the booster going off at random... yes, mine did that and smoked my brake shoes. I wish someone would come up with a power steering pump based booster like I have in my 99 mustang. It's very compact.

 

[knuckle47]

Are you guys saying that the brake booster may decide when to apply extreme braking at ANY time it wants?

 

[Ward 57]

Are you guys saying that the brake booster may decide when to apply extreme braking at ANY time it wants?

Not likely unless there is something faulty with it. As I discovered when mine went non-operational the manual side still did it's job.

 

[Ward 57]

No, I don't think so because it's the same MC with or without the booster. As I recall there is a check valve in the MC to maintain a residual pressure in the lines and wheel cylinders when the brakes are released, something like 8 psi. It's to ensure air doesn't get drawn in thru a small leak and also to minimize "take-up" when you apply the brakes. My guess on the bleeding issue is that the check valve can't open unless there is a pressure buildup which means that without a bleeder you can both bleed them and let fluid out thru the outlet of the MC at the same time.. as soon as you try to let fluid out to bleed it the check valve closes, or something along those lines.

As to the booster going off at random... yes, mine did that and smoked my brake shoes. I wish someone would come up with a power steering pump based booster like I have in my 99 mustang. It's very compact.

Oh Lord, then you get into the hydraulic wipers later before they went electric.

 

[jimntempe]

Are you guys saying that the brake booster may decide when to apply extreme braking at ANY time it wants?

I don't know what all the possibilities are but it can fail in a way that results in a hard pedal and at the same time a slight unintended application of the brakes. I don't think a hard application is very likely.

 

[Ward 57]

I don't know what all the possibilities are but it can fail in a way that results in a hard pedal and at the same time a slight unintended application of the brakes. I don't think a hard application is very likely.

I think the technology is sound. Just trying to understand it. Once I got back into the brake system I'm learning. It was just drums & shoes and leaking slave cylinders years ago. Never got into the top end. A whole different ball of wax.