donsrods
Member
and some days he gets you. 
Ever since we finished up my Kids T it has been plagued with little problems. One contributing factor is that we built it in 88 days, trying to make Turkey Run in Daytona in November. I think we rushed through things a little too fast.
The first problem we had was with his engine. It's a 30 over 302 Ford that we originally were building for his Capri drag car. It is just a little too radical for the street to be honest. It's a full roller engine with way too much cam and too much head work and way over carburated with two fours. It idles like a fuel dragster, but he likes it that way.
As soon as we fired it up one of the polylocks on a roller rocker loosened up. After a lot of research we found we needed longer studs on the rockers and shorter pushrods. Got that done and engine ran fine.
Next problem was that the chromed Speedway steering arm on the Flaming River box rounded out the teeth that engage the sector shaft. We figured it was just that we didn't tighten down the arm enough, so we overnighted a brand new one in. Finally got the bugs out of the car and as we were driving to Daytona I see smoke coming off of Don's tires, he was on the brakes REAL hard. He pulled over and tells me there is a loud ticking from the engine. Pulled a valve cover off and found one valve snapped off, so I towed him off of the interstate and we rented a U haul trailer to tow it 100 miles back home. He parked it and drove to Daytona in his family car.
When we got back we pulled the head and took it to a machine shop to have the bad valve replaced. Luckily, the valve only slightly touched the piston, so no damage was done. Buttoned up the engine and I took it for a test ride. That is when the NEW steering arm snapped in half on me. Luckily I was going slow and the car went to the right on off of the road without damage.
During all of this, he also had a handling problem. The rear end was hopping around quite a bit. I followed him one time and the bed was shaking up and down violently. I put a set of tires and wheels on from another car I have and the shaking stopped. Today I took all four tires to a friends shop because he has this fancy $ 30,000.00 tire machine. Find out one brand new Wheel Vintique wheel on the back is bent. I called Coker and they are sending a pickup tag and will replace it. However, I have to repaint the new wheel when it comes and go through the mounting and balancing routine again.
Needless to say, my Son is pretty discouraged with hot rods and is worried what the next problem will be. We have built a ton of cars together over the years and never had any problems like this. What is really discouraging is that he bought the best of everything he could find to the tune of over $20,000.00 in parts. There isn't one item on the car that isn't brand new or totally rebuilt.
So, tomorrow night he and I are going to start from scratch and realign and go over every part of the car to make sure it is right. I feel bad for him and sure hope all of this stuff stops soon.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Don
Ever since we finished up my Kids T it has been plagued with little problems. One contributing factor is that we built it in 88 days, trying to make Turkey Run in Daytona in November. I think we rushed through things a little too fast.
The first problem we had was with his engine. It's a 30 over 302 Ford that we originally were building for his Capri drag car. It is just a little too radical for the street to be honest. It's a full roller engine with way too much cam and too much head work and way over carburated with two fours. It idles like a fuel dragster, but he likes it that way.
As soon as we fired it up one of the polylocks on a roller rocker loosened up. After a lot of research we found we needed longer studs on the rockers and shorter pushrods. Got that done and engine ran fine.
Next problem was that the chromed Speedway steering arm on the Flaming River box rounded out the teeth that engage the sector shaft. We figured it was just that we didn't tighten down the arm enough, so we overnighted a brand new one in. Finally got the bugs out of the car and as we were driving to Daytona I see smoke coming off of Don's tires, he was on the brakes REAL hard. He pulled over and tells me there is a loud ticking from the engine. Pulled a valve cover off and found one valve snapped off, so I towed him off of the interstate and we rented a U haul trailer to tow it 100 miles back home. He parked it and drove to Daytona in his family car.
When we got back we pulled the head and took it to a machine shop to have the bad valve replaced. Luckily, the valve only slightly touched the piston, so no damage was done. Buttoned up the engine and I took it for a test ride. That is when the NEW steering arm snapped in half on me. Luckily I was going slow and the car went to the right on off of the road without damage.
During all of this, he also had a handling problem. The rear end was hopping around quite a bit. I followed him one time and the bed was shaking up and down violently. I put a set of tires and wheels on from another car I have and the shaking stopped. Today I took all four tires to a friends shop because he has this fancy $ 30,000.00 tire machine. Find out one brand new Wheel Vintique wheel on the back is bent. I called Coker and they are sending a pickup tag and will replace it. However, I have to repaint the new wheel when it comes and go through the mounting and balancing routine again.
Needless to say, my Son is pretty discouraged with hot rods and is worried what the next problem will be. We have built a ton of cars together over the years and never had any problems like this. What is really discouraging is that he bought the best of everything he could find to the tune of over $20,000.00 in parts. There isn't one item on the car that isn't brand new or totally rebuilt.
So, tomorrow night he and I are going to start from scratch and realign and go over every part of the car to make sure it is right. I feel bad for him and sure hope all of this stuff stops soon.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Don
This car has been very strange from the beginning, it fought us every step of the way. Like I mentioned, I think the time crunch of trying to build it in 90 days burned us all out. The three of us would meet at the shop every night and work until 2 am or so. I never want to see another McDonalds burger again in my life. 
