Blueprinting and Balancing

I got the motor back from the machine shop today.  In pieces. Here are a few of them (notice that the block is upside down on the engine stand).

The heads look great to me!  After milling, the combustion chambers are between 66 and 67cc's, which, along with the squared and decked block, should yield around 9:1 compression ratio, about optimal for running on 87 octane gasoline.

This "blueprinting" of the engine brings the performance up to better than the original factory specifications... literally the best that it can be.  With the new cam, '57 intake & carburetor, and Mallory distributor, I expect the motor will be capable of over 240 horsepower.   The pistons and crankshaft have been balanced, which should result in a very smooth running car.  I am pleased with this.

I'm glad to have the machining done, but I still have a lot to do.  My next challenge is repainting the outside engine parts, and replacing a few of them... water pump, fuel pump, alternator...  This will take some time, but I'm grateful for the progress that has been made.  The t-bird's heart is gradually transforming, its physical state aligning more closely with my intention for it.  It is not yet ready for assembly.  I hesitate to place a date on assembling the motor, but it would be delightful to hear it running before the end of the year.  Especially if I can share that event with my boys!

The condition of my own heart mirrors the t-bird.  Both personally and professionally, I see my life being taken apart.  I'm on the brink of another career transition.  An elderly parent is on the threshold of mortality.  My children are leaving me to strike out on their own.  My motor isn't broken, per say, but it is being overhauled.  It has been dismantled.  To be "the best that it can be", it needs to be blueprinted and balanced.  I need to be willing to let my holy mechanic do his great work in me.  But, I get discouraged.  I get impatient.

I learned something important from my earthly Mr. Mechanic the other day.  He is a very patient man.  He told me that he has had many friends that liked to think of themselves as mechanics, but they just didn't have the temperament.  They got frustrated when things don't go the way they expected, when things don't quite fit.  In their frustration, they are more likely to force things... and break them.  He told me of one friend he found shouting like a maniac and jumping up and down on the roof of his car!  Then, instead of just a broken fuel pump or brake line, he also had a huge dent in the roof.  That guy should never try to be a mechanic.  He should let someone else fix his car.  And do his taxes.  Mr. Mechanic didn't call it this, but he was clearly talking about serenity.

Serenity. That's what I want right now.  That's what I need.  It will take time... well, OK.  Lord, I can submit to your intention, and your timing.

Balanced. Smooth.  The best that I can be.  Lord, please make it so!

Bird Teeth

The grille from my t-bird was stolen 27 years ago. Many other parts were stolen, including the seat and the hard top, and a Paxton supercharger that was given to me by a dear friend. Miraculously, the hard top was recovered, but nothing else. The supercharger was worth more, both financially and sentimentally. It was the continuing sense of loss and failure that broke my spirit, and induced me to sell the t-bird in 1977, 5 years after I had so eagerly received it.

A short time later, my Dad sold the 1935 Pierce Arrow coupe that the had been unsuccessfully "restoring" for 30 years. While I can applaud his letting go, it was still a sad and frustrating event for me. I wasn't really attached to the Pierce, even though my sister and I played in its rusty cabin when we were kids. Nevertheless, I was quite disturbed to learn that Dad had sold it. This was perhaps a realization that my Dad really wasn't the person that I thought he was... that he SAID he was. He really didn't have the knowledge, tenacity, and resources to restore his car. Even the one car he had chosen to keep for 30 years.

Why, then, did I have any right to expect him to help me restore MY car? How could he encourage me when he couldn't even encourage himself? Thinking back on the order of events, it may well be that my willingness to let go of the t-bird may have, in some way, enabled my Dad to let go of the Pierce. I take both loss and blessing from that thought.

Last week I found a replacement grille for my t-bird on eBay, local and with a very reasonable buy now price. Even though finances are a little strained, I bought the grille, contacted the seller, and subsequently picked it up. I met another fascinating man, a "ford-a-holic" with two mustangs (a 67 and a late model), a motorcycle, and a 57 t-bird. My kind of guy! His wife must be very forgiving. His t-bird is in about the same condition as mine, with very ugly paint and rust holes in the floor. Check out his blog here!  It had the wrong grille when he bought it, so he sold the grille to me. He has no kids to put through college, so he should have the resources to complete his t-bird project before I do. I hope he does.

The grille itself is not important. It wasn't a priority of mine, just something that I knew I needed... eventually. Car restoration on a budget is teaching me to be flexible, to set general priorities but remain alert to new possibilities. I know that I have a tendency to obsess on my own agenda... and sometimes loose sleep over it... but I also know that progress requires my continued enthusiasm, which is more important than time or money. I believe that God provides me little graces, like this grille, to bless and encourage my enthusiasm. Also, to remind me of his power to redeem my past hurts.

"I will repay you for the years that the locusts have eaten" Joel 2:25a NIV

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Blessed with a Vision

Yesterday, I saw a couple driving a beautiful light blue 1956 t-bird with the top down... the man in his cap, the woman in her scarf.  They were clearly enjoying themselves, and the drive, and each other's company.  I appreciated the fleeting scene as they went by, then it struck me.  That's what I want!  I really want that!  And I started to picture myself, with my sweetheart, driving my own legacy through the beauty of God's presence.  

Magnificent!

There is something inherently wholesome, inherently right about that picture.  I need to take care of my "legacy", of the engine and the paint and the upholstery... but that's not the focus of the picture.  I should care about where and how I am driving, but that isn't the focus either.  It is a vision of being.  Being satisfied.  Being together.  Being complete.  Being at peace.  Paying attention to what is important, and choosing to live accordingly.  Experiencing joy.

I want that desperately!  It is my hope, in the deepest sense of the word.  This car and it's restoration has a role to play in my own redemption.  It is teaching me something about myself, about restoring and valuing my past, about a need for living intentionally, and about my relationship to my Creator. Lord, help me to pay attention, and give me the courage, determination, and strength to do devote myself to the work you have set before me.

"He has also set eternity in the hearts of Men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done..."  Ecc 3:11b (NIV)

Risk vs. Regret

Tech Alert:  Skip the next few paragraphs if you aren't a "gear head"... there really is something important further on!
The machine shop called yesterday.  They are skittish about milling down the heads as much as I want them to.  They even called a local y-block specialist, who tended to confirm their fears.  Why do I want to mill the heads .040"?  Well, I want the engine to have a genuine 9:1 static compression ratio (SCR).  This still lets me run regular gas, but still get as much power out of the engine as I can.

These heads originally provided about 8.5:1 SCR, leaving about 20 horsepower "on the table".  I have since called the local expert myself, and talked to two other highly respected y-block experts across the country.  Two of the three say that taking .040" off of 113 heads is absolutely no problem, that they have taken much more, and that they will certainly do it again. Believe it or not, I had trouble sleeping last night.  If I take too much metal off of the heads, they will be ruined.  The engine would consistently blow head gaskets, and the heads would be useless.  About $1K, plus the inconvenience.  On the other side, if I didn't get the SCR I had planned, I would always wonder if I could have done better with this engine.

Non-gearheads start reading here:
Take the risk, or risk the regret.

My mother in law is dying.  She is in the final stages, the last days of her life.  I don't want to talk to her about safe, trivial things... I want to talk about deep, significant, "risky" things.  She has never been good at that.  I want her to realize the power her last words have to bless those she loves.  I'm willing to risk offending her, rather than regret never expressing how I feel, the regret of never having asked for her blessing.  I need to tell her, in a positive way, what she has meant to me, and how proud I have been of her... I need to do that now.  Risk, not regret.

I called the machine shop this morning.  They agreed to cut the heads down .040".  I rest confident in God's blessing.

Intentionality and the Unexpected

So, I need a new gas tank.  OK.  Oh, by the way, the engine isn't really "done" yet...  as I was reminded by Mr. Mechanic yesterday.  I'll need a new water pump.  Oh, and I need the rocker faces resurfaced.  Oh, and the exhaust manifolds should be resurfaced.  Expect another bill from the machine shop.  This wouldn't be a problem normally, but it's been an expensive summer for my family.  I'm feeling a little annoyed - this doesn't fit with my plans.

This is the nature of car restoration.  It is also the nature of recovery.  "Plans" are really noting more that loose guidelines, statements of intent.  I NEED to state my intent, that in itself is a good thing.  But, I need to know it is not a schedule, and the real test of my character is how I respond to the unexpected. 

I tend to invest a lot of myself in my plans.... working out in my mind how to make things right, to make my little part of the world better.  I commit myself to these plans, budgeting my time and $ to them.  But, of course, I build my plans in ignorance, and when reality collides with my plans, I get annoyed.  Then depressed.

Perhaps God is telling me to let go of something.  Again.  What do I need to let go of?  Well, I don't think it is my intent.  God has blessed my intent to restore this car.  He has blessed my intent to live a sober life.  Perhaps, he is asking me to let go of achieving this intent on my own terms.  I know how to live with intentionality, I've done it before.  Things come up, unpredictable things.  I don't need to get annoyed, I just need to let go of my ego, my schedule, my timeline.  I need to trust, even though I remember past failure.

I had a dream this morning.  I was driving the t-bird along the coast with my wife.  The top was off, and we were enjoying the sunshine and each other's company.  The condition of the car wasn't important.  I'll take this dream as a blessing, a confirmation of my intent, and accept it with gratitude.

Update 9/27: I snagged a new gas tank for an amazingly low price off eBay.  The seller had a delay in shipping it, felt bad, and sent it to me almost for free!  Why do I let myself get so worried?

What's That Smell?

Today, I pushed the car out of the garage, set it up on jack stands, got underneath and (eventually) removed the gas tank.  This is actually significant, since the fuel line to the gas tank is one of those things that usually freezes up solid on old cars.  I used a little WD-40, then a heat gun until it just started to smoke a little.  This expanded the fitting so that I could actually loosen it, and the deed was done.  As far as I could tell before removing it, the tank was empty.  Actually, it had a small amount of a thick, very smelly syrup that used to be gasoline.  Upon removing the tank from the car, I couldn't help but notice some rather conspicuous rust holes in the top of the tank.

Of course the rust holes are in the top of the tank... the bottom was coated with gas-syrup, which probably provides good rust protection!  In any event, I have added "gas tank" to the list of new items I need to procure.

The smelly gas-syrup and the holes got me thinking.  This car smelled bad 30 years ago, and I noticed when I got it in my garage last April that it still smelled bad.  I figured it was 20+ years of road grime, stuck to the bottom of the car by a thin layer of engine oil from the road draft tube (more about that in a minute).  Now I'm wondering if this stench has been coming from the sponge-bob gas tank all along!

Tech Alert!  If you are a gear-head, I'm sure you will find this fascinating! If not, please skip to the next post.
Now a word about crankcase ventilation.  Before 1962, virtually all cars used a simple tube to vent exhaust bypass gasses from the crankcase.  Blow-by happens because the piston rings aren't perfect at holding in the gas-air mixture during compression, or the burning gas-air mixture during combustion.  Since these gasses are mostly hot gasoline vapor and air, some very bad things can happen when you let them build up in a confined space like an engine crankcase!  In the case of the t-bird, the "road draft tube" that vented these gasses led to the bottom of the car, right behind the engine.  Besides blow-by gasses, this tube also vented a small but steady amount of vaporized engine oil (which is normally abundant in the crankcase), which deposited itself as a thin oil film on the underside of the car.  This oil film was great at attracting dust and dirt, and making it stick to the car in a dirty, slimy, smelly, oily mess.   A similar thing happened in the engine compartment, because the oil filler tube had a vented cap to allow fresh air into the crankcase, to replace the nasty fumes coming out the road draft tube.  Well, this only worked when the car was moving, and there was enough air velocity under the car to suck the gasses out of the road draft tube.  If the car was stopped and idling, the gasses went up the oil filler cap and into the engine compartment.  Along with the oil vapor.  You can see where this is going... when I got the car in 1972, the entire engine compartment, and everything in it, was covered with a thick black fuzzy mixture of engine oil and road dust.  I steam-cleaned this gunk off, but I didn't get the gunk on the underside of the car.  This is why I thought the car stank.  I had to bathe twice to get the smell off me as a teenager.

Needless to say, I intend to convert the car to a Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV) system, which sends the crankcase gasses through a special valve and back into the carburetor or intake manifold.   It's OK to do this, since the gasses are mostly gasoline fumes anyway. This system has worked great since 1962, and cars have smelled remarkably better ever since!

One area that had a particularly nasty accumulation of oil-dirt-slime underneath the car was the differential.  This may be in part because the front seal may be leaking, slowly flinging gear oil back over the rest of the differential. Here's kind of what it looked like before I started cleaning.

I used a paint scraper to get most of it off in chunks.  Pretty nasty stuff, but the differential looks much better now.  You can seek some of the gunk on the ground.  The color in the picture is a little off... it's rusty, but not really orange.  I should probably remove the entire rear axle, and have Mr. Mechanic check out the seals.

Then it started to rain, so I decided to wash down the top of the car, take it down of the stands, and put it back in the garage.