I have a good, running ECZ 292 out of a parts car that I was stripping for my convertible that needed good front end sheet metal. Anyway, the idea is to put together a portable stand that would have everything needed, from radiator to ignition key, and have the whole works somewhat portable for a trailer, to set up at a display, etc.

The stand I purchased was from Eastwood Company - the box and material said it was made in Canada - some of the smaller parts could be from across the ocean. It was originally intended for a scrub, although the package is supposed to be universal. I had a fella out in the midwest fab up a couple of upright mounts that I could slide over the existing stancheons, and voila! A Y block on a stand. I have fabbed up some angle iron braces that will go between the rear support and the uprights that hold the gauge panel. Just want a little more stability. The passenger car dual exhaust manifolds and original down pipes look as though they will fit nicely. What carb and intake to put on is another issue. Considering I would also like to put together the Paxton Mcculloch equipment I have, I probably will not be done until the actual day of the show.

Nothing like cleanliness - you can see the table of parts that keep "multiplying" themselves as I wait for time and paint to dry on the Y. Yes, those are "Ford Interceptor" decaled valve covers. For some reason, I just love the look of those red letters, chrome background and all on a full chrome cover. To me, everything just pops!

By the way, the paint is actually a hemi orange rattle can followed by a light coat of Ford red - it really gives that mid-50's look of "thunderbird red"

I will try to keep y'all posted and also include some snippets of the show if possible. I also have a 4'x9' full color Y block banner that a buddy and I designed and it is supposed to be here by the time the show hits.

Jessup

http://s673.photobucket.com/albums/vv91/danman55/?action=view&current=100_0962.flv

Working on a Y is like therapy...

Should attract some attention. I have not had much time to do anything else lately, 60 hour work weeks, preparing for the upcoming school year, and weekend obligations at our church have kept me pretty busy,,, not to mention a vacation with the family up to Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

But...final preparation for the ECZ 292 on the test stand will take place this weekend (and some of next week) before the show....praying all goes well

Jessup

        that motor in the video sounds very healthy to me.

Today, he is with his wife as she is in labor about to have their second child...so he might be busy for a few days.

Dan

Here is Luke's e-mail address. l.shope@applevalleydesign.com You can contact him if you would like. We have not had a banner this big printed (mostly just two by six's or eight's, but they have been good) at the print shop he uses for his work, so I will have to see how it turns out. Luke said the file was over 800 megabytes!

The banner will be here on Tuesday. I will tell you how it looks.

Jessup

I took my starter motor home tonight to clean it up and paint it. I saw that when I removed it from the parts car, the drive pin at the end of the shaft was missing? How the starter was continuing to work and turn the motor over, I do not know. Anyway, by chance I went into the laundry room and looked inside our shoebox of "parts" for house maintenance. Wouldn't you know it...a brand new ceiling fan drive pin fit perfectly (I did have to cut off a little on the end, but it was definitely hardened steel). And I didn't even have to dig - about 2 seconds in and whammo, there she was sitting on top of about 300 small pieces of miscellaneous hardware!

I did take an hour very early this morning before work to put on the fuel pump, pulley, spacer, and fan blade, plus a few knick knack hardware pieces on the block. The intake is now cleaned up, but needs to be blasted and painted. Also finished painted my VS57S blower. It is Daytona Yellow (engine paint) with a black pulley. The cover plate looks good too with yellow inset letters for the insignia. Craig Conley is sending me a good dipstick. The mounting bracket I have looks like it might fit on the passenger side if I turn it up, but then I will have to reorient the blower. Still debating what to do on that one. It looks as if the fan blade will hit any kind of belt that reaches down to the crank... - talk about "mock" up. No wonder so many guys give up on these vintage setups - it's all hit or miss.

Lots to do before next Thursday AM.

My name is Dan and I am addicted to Y blocks!

I am officially pooped. Went to the garage at about 6 am this morning to get some things done before work, worked all day, ended up at 7 pm at the juvenile jail for an annual training session (they do this so that I can have governmental authority to go in and teach - I have used the official Y block banner within the confines behind bars, but could not take photos because of the confidientiality of minors and all).

Went back to the garage after that and just got back home.

I am about 90% there, although I will not have the supercharger operational. I am running out of time...I do have a situation with one of my down pipes - it is hitting the upright of the engine test stand. Hopefully I can fire her up again for the first time tomorrow evening or early Wednesday morning - I am taking off all that day to load up and get ready for the CVA show in PA. Hopefully Murphy's Law won't be enacted upon me the next couple of days!

Jessup 

I fabbed up some angle iron brackets for a radiator mount for the 292 and have plans to fire her up again tomorrow morning about 10 or 11 am.

Update on the beautiful banner - the company that is printing it told my graphics buddy today that the banner had not yet even gone to print! He explained that he needed this yesterday, they put the banner to the front of the line, and said that it will be overnighted.....to the hotel!!! Hope it looks good live and in person. Nothing like trying to meet a deadline - I feel like one of those crazy shows on Speed or TLC or whatever. You know the ones. Guys are getting frustrated working on a project trying to get it ready and out the door by such and such a time, wrenches are being thrown across the garage, parts are "massaged" into place by gorillas squeezing well-oiled bananas, and all 3rd parties involved act as if your issue will just have to wait 'til Christmas!

Crazy

But you got to love it - after all, it's a Y block!

Jessup

My buddy's trailer will hold the backdrop while I position 2 US flags at the forefront. Y block - center stage.

The EZC fired up on command today at about 11:30 am - always feels like giving birth to a baby Unfortunately, my radiator (that never leaked previously) had a large hole in one of the cores. I never use JB weld, but in a pinch it was there - just short on time. She held water well this evening, so I will wait until tomorrow to fire her up again and do the real "pressure" test. The 2 barrel works ok, but I did put on a later style distributor plumbed into the intake manifold vacuum. The blower mount and blower clears with very LITTLE room to spare. I never thought about it before, but this was obviously made for a Tbird, because the clearance at the rear of the blower would never be an issue with a Tbird style water pump/timing cover combo that puts the blower bracket forward...

Leaving out tomorrow morning.

It was good seeing you at the CVA this morning, Thanks for the demo you gave my wife and I of the Y on the test stand. Nice job.

Going to hate to leave Saturday morning.

My 312 has 10000 miles since rebuild and in the last 600 has started buning oil at a rate of a quart in 350 miles, prior to that it burned none in 1500 miles. I have disabled the PCV and hope that is where it was going, will update when we get home to Long Island.

Kevin

Good to hear from you - got back home tonight -- how did that tech session end up?

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For the few of you that have been following these posts, we had a ball at the annual CVA show. We accomplished our purpose - to shake things up! Everything from "Wow, man cool!" to "You should have painted the oil filter black" to a few choice cuss words of disapproval to "Can you rebuild my Y for me?" Who ever thought a Y block could be so divisive?

Little did most people know that this engine was pulled from a parts car, has mismatched heads, mismatched rockers, mismatched dizzy/carb (the condenser went out on me on the loadamatic before I had the chance to replace it, but I did have that later dizzy to put on - hooked it to manifold vacuum and plugged the carb's vacuum advance port. Funny, most people could not tell the difference, but I did crank it with the advance un plugged, and then plugged it back in when I was horsing around with it.)

You can see a short video of my father-in-law revving it up a bit if you hit this link...

http://s673.photobucket.com/albums/vv91/danman55/?action=view&current=100_1827.flv

The drops of oil on that pan are coming out of the inside of the pcv tube on the side of the block. Unfortunately this engine got very, very little run time before I brought it out, so I really did not go over it with a fine tooth comb. NO LEAKS except for that pesky tube. I did put a couple of gaskets on the engine when I was painting/cleaning (mostly just degreaser, cordless drill/wire wheel), but nothing major. The vacuum on this motor is very strong, and you can see that there is virtually no smoke out the exhaust, even when choked a little.

The radiator stayed sealed up just fine and she took a long time to heat up, but she never ran hot.

The biggest impression made was when we first arrived and were literally swarmed with people. Somebody in the crowd said, "Does she run?"

I said, "Watch this" (started praying like crazy) and turned the key. Vroooooommmm! She fired right up. Some guys from New Jersey (didn't get their names, but were good fellas) just stood there for 20 minutes or more just watching it idle ! Others of course were there to ask a whole host of questions, but the end result...many came away with a renewed vision to keep a Y block in their car. Unfortunately the rain on Friday was absolutely horrible, but our few hours on Thursday afternoon/evening made an impact - it was very positive.

The CVA has some really great guys. Here is a photo of me and Bob Haas, the club historian in his 1954 golf cart - yep, he made that,,,,,has a cut down 54 dash and everything.

The CVA also has some guys that didn't appreciate my presence - I am younger than most, attracted a lot of attention, and did something today that I guess a few would never consider doing. You gotta love it when people start griping about this or that on your setup right in front of your swap space (that you paid money for). I told one fella, "hey, here's a can of spray paint, next time, go to town and do it yourself." And all of that happened with a bunch of Ford folks....

Wait until I hit real world in local car show or a swap meet!

Special thanks to Bob Haas, Kevin Kennedy and Fred Wilson (for their support and encouragement), my father-in-law (who worked his rear end off to help me), Luke Shope, Wayne Haines, Mike Hicks, and Don Jessup, my dad who introduced me to Y blocks!

Daniel, no it's Kevin Kennedy. You did a demo for my Wife and I just before the Tech Session.

I wound up skiping the session, it was to crowded and I have been to them before.

We are most likely some of the youngest members of the CVA, I have been a member since I was 40 (13 years ago)

You are right, some of them are very picky but they are a sight to see when a sick Y rolls into the parking lot. Before you know it 5 or 6 CVA members are hanging over the fenders and fixing it. It's a great sight to see 240 years of Y experiance working on a problem.

Keep up the good work on promoting the Y as a engine with potential.

As to my oil burning problem, on the way to the CVA I burned 1 qt in 350 miles. On the way home with the PCV system disabled I burned none. My PCV system was a PCV valve in a rubber gromet placed in the road draft tube. In 10000 miles it never gave be any trouble why it is sucking oil now I do not know.

I have a valley pan with a rear opening, just have not gotten around to installing it yet, will do it soon and put the PCV valve back there.

I was thinking the worst all the way home, did I lose a piston pin clip and was a piston pin cutting a grove into the cylinder wall. That is the condition I found before the rebuild, A .40 over bore and 1 sleeve later it was back on the road and has run fine for the last 10000 miles.

Going to do some maintenance sunday, as I write this the oil is draining and I have pulled an oil sample to have tested. In the morning I am going to pull the plugs and see how they are burning then do a valve adjustment since it has not had one since it's first 2000 miles. Not expecting to find any problems but it will give me some piece of mind.

In closing, it as a great week and I was sorry to see it end. Keep spreading the word on the Y

Kevin

You are right about the expertise of the members. Some of them have probably forgotten enough to write several books, not to mention what they still remember and are able to do in the here and now. Watching Mike work on Bob's 56 "ranchero" as he calls it was truly a sight.

Glad to hear you made it home fine and hope you are able to get some things squared away. I know that when I put the valley pan w/ pcv setup on my father-in-law's rebuilt 292 that it has had no issues about the oil. Not as many miles as yours yet though.

thanks again,

Dan

By the way the outlet tube on the McCullouch can be "clocked" to move it to a more open or easier to route location. Just keep the dip stick pretty close to vertical. You should be able to solve the clearance problem that way. Do you have a picture of the bracket you are using? Chuck in NH

I actually got some of this idea from watching you fire up that 3 deuce in your garage - wasn't that on youtube a year or two ago? or was that somebody else? We've always had car shows, why not an engine show? The most ironic thing is that I did not do very much to this engine beyond cleanup. Most folks following this thread have already viewed the footage of this Y running in the parts car. I just pulled it, cleaned it, did some minor adjustments, and ran it. I could not believe that this thing does not smoke at all.

The former owner had the crankcase tube plugged - found that out pretty quickly. I opened it up out of curiosity. It did drip a little (from the inside of the tube) - but that pcv deal can easily fixed with the right valley pan setup. I like what I did to my father-in-law's car.

Keep up the good work out there on the left coast.

Jessup

Daniel Jessup (8/2/2009)

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We sure had a ball!

I actually got some of this idea from watching you fire up that 3 deuce in your garage - wasn't that on youtube a year or two ago? or was that somebody else?

Jessup

It was me and it's still on there. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwyTHxB25o8&feature=channel_page

NICE!