Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

Couldn't wait, so I had to see how the wheels would look on the car. I popped the center cap off and much to my delight found zero rust and great looking steel wheels.



Pulled the wheel off and found a nice clean drum. It even had the little clips that hold the drum in place. I measured the drums and they are 10" x 2".



Grabbed a rear wheel and mocked it up. It's going to look sweet!



The clearance on the backside is perfect. I have a good inch everywhere.



The front side is going to be tight, but it should be workable. The stainless wheel well molding sticks past the fender lip so it can be trimmed and the inner wheel well lip can be rolled a little if need be. These are 15x8 with 4.5" backspacing and I plan to run 255/60-15s.



To be continued...

Andrew

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

That's about all I can do with the wheel for now until I get the tires mounted.

Decided to explore a little deeper and see what's lurking behind the drum. Wiggled the drum off and found some pristine looking hardware and almost brand new shoes.



Unbolted the axle retaining plate and pulled the axle. Mint all the way around. This car is solid! The 31 spline axles are massive.



There is no sign of leaks at the cylinders, so I am not going to mess with it. Besides, I have no clue what to do with all that drum hardware...LOL



The rear suspension definitely has a few interesting mods. There is a small sway bar, which I am pretty sure these cars never had. Both sides also have a helper spring mount with air bags inside. The lines for the bags run to rocker pinch weld and there are a couple of fill valves on either side of the car.



I guess this thing is ready to pull a trailer or air bags were installed for drag strip tuning? Not sure...

To be continued...

Andrew

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

With all the good stuff I was finding in the rear end, I got brave and decided to hook up a battery to the car and see what works and what doesn't. The engine wiring is pretty basic, so I moved wires out of the way to make sure nothing was grounding, said a few prayers, and hooked it up. As soon as I got the battery hooked up I scared myself silly because the horn started blaring. I then remembered that the horn button wasn't installed on the steering wheel. I unhooked the horn button wire and it shut off. I then turned on the lights....Bam...



Both the dims and the brights were working, except the high beam switch is pretty corroded so it was getting stuck. Need to replace it. With the help of a couple of members of the Cougar forum, I was able to identify the reverse light wires, hooked those together, and Bam...



So far so good...no smoke, no blown fuses, and even the blower motor for the heater was working.

The Cougars have some of the coolest turn signals ever made. They are sequential, and I wanted to see if those were working...


Not too bad for an almost 50 year old car..

To be continued...

Andrew

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

With power to the car, I hooked up the battery charger to keep an ancient Optima battery alive and got inspired...


You saw in the video that I got the steering column out. This made working under the dash a lot easier. The column had to come out anyway because I have a TCP manual rack coming.

The brake master is from a 1974 Maverick with manual brakes. It's a disk/drum MC with a 15/16" bore. This should work very well with the new brakes and give a slightly softer pedal compared to the original 1" bore MC (it had to be swapped anyway for disk brakes).

The Maverick MC is a direct swap, but the pushrods are slightly different. The Maverick pushrod is on top:



I just robbed the new retainer clip off the Maverick MC and used the original Cougar pushrod. The other differences with the Maverick MC are the outlet fitting sizes. I got new fittings and will be making new 3/16" lines going from the MC to the distribution block. I also plan to install an adjustable prop valve in the rear line and a line lock in the front line.

With the column gone there is plenty of room to work under the dash.



Before doing the plumbing for the brake MC I decided to install the MC for the clutch. I am using a kit from Modern Driveline. The kit is very well engineered and installation was pretty straight forward. I used the bracket that mounts on the inside of the firewall to mark my holes and drilled them above and below the big hole where the clutch pedal push rod used to come through.



Here is a view from the inside. The MC mounts slightly off vertical. This is done to make room for that pulley which is part of the e-brake mechanism.



There is a nice billet bracket that goes on the outside of the firewall:



And also a bracket that mounts on the inside:



Then the link is attached from the pedal to the MC actuation lever.



All in all, pretty simple and effective set-up.

I also started on the brake lines for the brake MC, but didn't get very far. I love working with the NiCopp brake lines. Even my inexpensive flaring tool makes perfect double flares.



More tomorrow hopefully...

Andrew

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

The Wilwool MC that came with the Modern Driveline kit is exactly the same one that I have in the GTO. However, the outlet fitting that they included was a 90 degree o-ring fitting with a AN-4 male end. I like using AN-3 line for hydraulics and I also see no reason not to run hardline from the MC close to the trans and then run a short flex line.

The Wilwood MC outlet is a 3/8" x 24 concave inverted flare, which is an older European (hence Gurling style MC) style of fitting. The local Napa didn't have anything that would work with it, but a smart counter guy hooked me up with an adapter to convert it over to a regular 3/8" x 24 inverted flare. Here is the end of the fitting that goes into the MC.



Working with the NiCop lines is super easy and they flare nicely. I bent up a line that comes out of the MC, runs down along the firewall, then on the side of the frame rail.



Then I used a 3/8" x 24 inverted flare to AN-3 adapter and mounted it to a bracket on the framerail.



This will be easy to get to with the engine installed and I can just run a short length of braided line to connect the dots.

To be continued...

Andrew

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

Since I was on a roll with the tubing flaring tool, I decided to finish doing the brake lines as well. The car originally had a 1" drum/drum MC. Since I am going with disk brakes in the front, I swapped over to the aforementioned Maverick MC, and I also decide to install an adjustable prop valve in the rear line and a line lock in the front. All this required making new lines and using different size fittings.

I decided to mount the prop valve under the MC.



The lines comes out of the front port, loops into the prop valve, then back towards the factory distribution valve.



I had an old Hurst line lock solenoid banging around my tool box. I decided to mount it to the shock tower and I ran a line from the rear port of the MC to the solenoid, then back to the distribution block.



There are numerous holes in the firewall that I won't be using again, so some of the new wiring will be passed through those holes once I get all the connectors figured out.

Andrew

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

It's cold again, so I wasn't able to spend much time in the garage over the weekend, however, today I wanted to see if I could get the seats cleaned up a little. The interior is supposed to be white in this car but over the last almost 50 years it has gotten pretty dingy. There is also some signs of mildew in the vinyl. I read up on cleaning vinyl and Simple Green kept coming up as a good solution.

Here is the passenger seat before doing anything:



Looks pretty nasty.

I got some Simple Green, went over the seat back once, went over again again with a small brush, then hit it again for a final wipe.



Not too bad. I think with a lot of elbow grease the interior should look presentable!

Andrew

Jimbo1367

Looks good. Might wnt to try "LA's Totally Awsome" We get it locally at the Dollar General or Dollar Tree for $1. BEST cleaner ever. If you spray it on direct ( not deloted) let it sit for 30 seconds and wipe it off. DONE.

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

The Big Brown Truck made a delivery today and brought me the TCP manual rack kit.

The rack is built super stout and has 3 turns lock to lock. With the skinny front tires it should have very nice feel and be pretty quick. I can't wait to see how much more room it gives me both for exhaust and lowering the engine in the front. This will be done so that the engine sits more level compared to how I had it before.







The kit included a new intermediate shaft with nice u-joints.



These components will be used when I shorten the column, per the instructions.



I am hoping to have a buddy come over when I install this so that we can shoot an install video.

Good stuff!

Andrew

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

Made a quick video to show how to flare hard line to made with AN style fittings.


Andrew

DW SD

Cool video thanks for sharing. No lube before flaring? How much is that tool? I considered buying the 37 degree dies for eastwood's flaring tool. I think they are $100.

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

With the relatively soft copper line, I see no reason to use lube. I paid about $112 for the tool on Amazon. It was on Prime when I got it, but doesn't seem to be anymore.

Andrew

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

Received the MT 255/60-15 drag radials earlier in the week and had them mounted. Looks pretty perfect to me.



Not too big, not too small, and fills up the wheels wells nicely.

Andrew

Kharp

Always good to see EXACTLY what it will look like and how it fits. Thumbs up!

kwhizz

Perfect !!!!!!

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

The weather was absolutely gorgeous today. I love nothing more than working on the car, with the garage door open, and the tunes blasting. Today I got a chance to do just that and got a big project done. I got a roll of NiCopp 3/8" line to use for fuel and I wanted to finish all that today.

I found an existing hole in the side of the trunk that was perfectly positioned for installing a 90* bulkhead fitting.



It took a few tries to realize that using the tubing bender is a bad idea with 3/8" line. The benders have a bend radius that is much too tight and the line will kink. Instead, I decided the best approach was to just bend the line by hand and make gentle radii. I used cushioned stainless clamps to hold the line in place.



The fuel tank that I am using is from Tanks Inc. and has the pump inside the tank. I played around with various routing schemes and finally settled on this arrangement.



I am not crazy about having fuel lines inside the trunk, but I am not sure what else can be done about it. The fuel pump is a Walbro 255L/hr, which should be plenty for the kind of power that I am making. Here is the pump module that sits inside the baffle inside the tank.



I routed the fuel line along the inside of the driveshaft tunnel, then down a little and up along the firewall into the engine compartment. You can see the brass union that I used to join the front and rear portions of the fuel line together.



The fuel line terminates on the fender well, between the shock tower and the firewall. From here I will run a flexible line once the engine is installed.



I plan on using some spray on berliner on the exterior of the tank, and once that is done, I will install it for good.

Andrew

Jimbo1367

Great work as always Andrew. Gotta love those early perfect days working on your car.

That RIGID AN flare tool is one of the best purchases I've made for my tool box.
Jim

KilrMGBGT

iTrader: (2)

Very Nice. I always look forward to your updates

TipsyMcStagger

iTrader: (1)

I have the Speedway bleeder kit (5151399-36) sitting on the shelf waiting for installation. I'd rather not have any leaks if they can be avoided.

Can you list the part number(s) of the parts you bought to rectify the crush washer situation?

Thanks.

Tipsy

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

Tipsy,

Just read through my posts, the links to where I got the fitting are there.

Andrew