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Friday, May 17, 2019

Cooling and Braking


Yesterday I rebuilt the emergency brake cables and the crimping operation went reasonably well. The hardest part was removing the stainless-steel stops without damaging the wire cable while saving enough length to re-crimp. I used a Dremel with a narrow cutting wheel, but I’m getting to the point where I don’t trust my hands for precise work anymore. Lucky I guess...everything survived.


This crimper did the job, but it's not top quality by any means. The manufacturer included several seals and gaskets with the kit, so they must expect problems  and are covering their butts.


The cable rebuilds required removing the longer, heavier return spring from the long cable, and installing it in place of the lighter spring on the short cable used on the left side. The long donor cable will now being used as the front cable attached to the e-brake foot pedal. Once I secure the front and rear cables into their mounting brackets, I can determine what size intermediate cable I’ll have to buy.

The lower shock bolt I ordered from Mancini arrived today and I got the hole in the shock plate re-sized for the new bolt. If I can avoid distractions tomorrow, I might be able to finish the shock installation as well as install the brake cable mounting bracket, attach the gas tank wire and hoses and touch up the bottom side paint scrapes. It would be nice to complete all the mechanical and electrical tasks on the rear-half of the car so I can get back to the front and try out my wheel alignment tool.

Now that all the belts and pulleys are in place, I ordered two high performance Spal 9” curved blade fans for cooling.  I had hoped to use a single large diameter fan, either electric or stock 7-blade with a clutch.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough clearance between the 4-core radiator and the water pump pulley for either option, despite the numerous low-profile fans on the market. The combined CFM rating of the two nines is about the same as a single 14”.

Designing and fabricating a fan shroud might prove to be interesting!




3 comments:

  1. Gary, do you still need a shroud with the electric fans ?

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  2. Ray, Since the blades are so close to the radiator, which would tend to isolate the draw, it might be a wasted effort. I haven't read or seen anything saying they are needed, but I saw pictures of both single and dual fan setups with them. Not that I'm a belt and suspenders kind of guy, but our normal Texas summers can be brutal and really do test a car's cooling system. As long as I'll have to make a fairly complex mounting system, I decided to see if I can design something to help direct the air. That said, I'd like to hear your opinion.

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  3. My shop truck is a '51 f1 with a 460, I finally went with the Lincoln mark 8 fan modified (its pretty slim) with is own built in shroud, and a aftermarket controller, it will suck in small kids and pets. But I had to louver the hood, the hot soak after driving was frying the electronic ignition modules. Google search this " lincoln mark viii electric radiator fan" this is NOT mine but close, don't know how to put pictures here: http://brucerichards.com/markviii.htm

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