Well, I finally got a chance to start working on a few parts for my VS57 build. Here are a few photos. I picked up the the Paxton VS57 air cleaner from Frank Lydell in Michigan. He happened to have a chrome air cleaner with an NOS Paxton supplied air filter. It still had Nov. 1956 stamped on it. It is in good shape. As you can see, so is the air cleaner. It cleaned up very well after some polishing. I had a devil of a time getting the lid on correctly and buttoning it down. The holes lined up perfectly, but the top of the cylinder itself was a little out of round. I had to make use of the workmate and "squeeze" the cylinder at the right spot to make it an almost perfect circle, and the lid went down snug along with the keepers I had picked up at the ACE hardware (they now have a chrome hardware bin with a good selection - wonder if its chinese made). One of the things I am wondering about is just exactly how these things attached to the engine or to the engine compartment. There are two holes, lengthwise, that have weld nuts to attach a bracket of some type I suppose?

   

This other pictures is of the two-piece bonnet (which I don't remember seeing on Jim Moody's website, but I am sure that he has a photo of it somewhere) that fits on the teapot very well. I guess that it's in two pieces so that you can leave your boost lines alone (there are holes for the boost lines on the bottom piece) when you take off the bonnet when you need to work on the carb. I do need to close up some extra holes that somebody just had to add years ago I guess. But it has been freshly blasted and looks pretty good. It does have some battle scars but it is very functional. I will have to get some good neoprene to refit the pressure release gasket that fits where those four holes are located on top. I have the original washer and hardware, but the rubber looks pretty rough.

And here is the coup de gras - the venerable teapot! Unfortunately Charlie Burns had a few very good cores so I had to bite at the chance to get this build up on the test stand looking and appearing close to what an original VS57 build would look like if someone were to install a paxton mcculloch on their 55 or 56 Ford passenger car. One of the cores had a very nice base and the throttle shaft and bushings were almost new. That will save me some time....and dough!! A few friends recommended to me that I have a carb shop do all of the work and just bolt it on. Well, seems my oldest daughter just came back from the orthodontist for her first "braces" visit. Not whining, but $8300 total over 2 and a half years is quite a bit for braces and teeth straightening! My daughter's worth it though, and a whole lot more I'd say. Suffice to say, I don't have all the extras in the budget to get the carb done by a professional (may be changing my tune when it comes time to fire it up) so I'll just have to do it myself. What's more fun than a barrel of monkeys? You guessed it, Holley's teapot! It's straight out of Alice in Wonderland!

The fuel bowl portion will be heavily modified with drilling out a few passageways for more flow, and drilling out the jets too. I plan to follow the VS57 passenger car manual on this one, trying to replicate "Harry Homeowners" attempt to install one of these beauties if he had the chance way back when. It was difficult to find the right drill bit sizes. No place in town had any. Eventually ordered them online....and they arrived yesterday. Another difficulty was in removing those pesky nozzles in the fuel bowl. ARGHHHHHHH...but they finally came out with little to no damage. For all those that believe I am insane or just plain crazy  == guilty as charged. Yeh, yeh, yeh, I know. I attempted this 4 barrel teapot thing this past summer and on a scale of 1 to 10 I would have given myself a negative 2! But this is a new day and I have taken apart EVERYTHING I could get my hands on and have CLEANED out everything I could. Now, I don't like spending a small fortune on gasket kits, parts, elbow grease, etc to mess around with these "hot to trot" teapots, but I learn new things each time I give it a go. Can't wait to get this show on the road. I would like to have it ready for the Ford show at Carlisle in June this year.

New info and pictures to come as time with the teapot and the VS57 marches on...

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Looks good Daniel! Keep your chin up and don't let those "teapots" get you down, show them who's the boss.   Looking forward to seeing the progress.

   God Bless.   Tim                           http://yblockguy.com/

350ci Y-Block FED "Elwood", 301ci Y-Block Unibody LSR "Jake", 312ci Y-Block '58 F-100, 338ci Y-Block powered Model A Tudor

tim@yblockguy.com  Visalia, California    Just west of the Sequoias

Thanks Tim, and here are a couple more photos of the total "kit" from Paxton McCulloch that I am trying to put together. Obviously we have the crankshaft pulley and the 1955-56 Ford passenger car bracket that mounts the head unit right above the timing cover. This one was purchased from Paradise Wheels in California - It is NOS, so I won't dare mention what I paid for it.

       

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Alrighty, after a little bit of frustration (mostly because of my ignorance), the holley teapot is back together and ready for action - I hope. This is a teapot put together from Charlie's stash that he sold me out there from the good old "left" coast. No real problems, just hoping that I battened down the hatches pretty tightly and that it will take the blow through without leaking. This has to be the most thorough build on a carb that I have ever done.

It sure does look nice... leave it to the Eastwood Carb Renew spray can. That stuff is like magic.

 She looks good, but will she run? The jets were drilled and so were a few of the passages (per the paxton vintage instructions). Probably nothing more unnerving that taking teapot parts and doing what you want to with them. I also boost referenced the secondaries. You can see the nipple that I added to the cover plate and you can see the light red piece of rubber used to seal off that chamber in the photo that shows the bottom of the carb.

    

   

Definitely not concours work, but it will do for aesthetics. Next up is to the tinker with the bonnet just a bit. It needs to be sealed off. I have already made a new flapper (pressure release) gasket for it, but some of the holes need to be taken care of, and it needs to be prepped for the kind of plumbing I am going to do.

Thanks Charlie!!!

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Kewl!

   God Bless.   Tim                           http://yblockguy.com/

350ci Y-Block FED "Elwood", 301ci Y-Block Unibody LSR "Jake", 312ci Y-Block '58 F-100, 338ci Y-Block powered Model A Tudor

tim@yblockguy.com  Visalia, California    Just west of the Sequoias

Man, you've got perseverance.  Keep up the good work and please continue to keep us posted.

Charlie Burns Laton, Ca (South of Fresno)



BurnsRacing981@gmail.com

Daniel;

Do you know if Craig Connley (Paradise Wheels) has any more of the McCulloch Y-Block Brackets? I have the tensioner arm and pulley.

Thanks,

Rono

  Ron Lane,  Meridian, ID

Rono,

the last time I spoke with him (about 4-5 months ago) he did have one used passenger car bracket left. He did not have any more idler pulleys or tensioner arms/springs around.

For some reason, he likes to talk quite a bit about how hard it is to get all of the original parts, all of the kits that paxton used to sell, etc...I just wish he would be more affable to putting his parts online, in a catalog, or what have you. How interested he is in doing something in that kind of market, I don't know...I am sure that some guys just bug him to no end, but he did buy up all the rights to the paxton/mcculloch stuff. Once people find that out, he is looked at as a source for parts, information, and the like. Most of the time, he steers guys away from keeping the original style setup with the 2 speed hi/lo blower idea and encourages them to get a different pulley arrangement...I guess much like the SN60. All in all, a very knowledgeable fella to deal with, very honest, trustworthy, and a real follow-through kind of guy...and he does/did have some nice equipment. I think he plans to sell what he has and then be done with it...who knows?

Could be me, but I think he leans more towards the early 60's equipment. For the original vs57's, I wonder if he has the blueprints, original spec manuals, part number identification (which most believe that he picked up when he bought them out) and all of the good technical paperwork.. Now that I would like to get my hands on.

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Daniel;

Thanks for the info on Paradise Wheels. I haven't done any business with him before, but I'll see what he wants for the McCulloch bracket. As far as the original drawings and blueprints go, John Erb has them. I saw them when I was at his place in Carson City, NV. He got them from Joe Granatelli. He told me that he gets lots of inquiries about Y-Block supercharger set-ups and that he my try to put a kit together. He is also developing a new piston company and in general, is a very busy guy.

Rono

  Ron Lane,  Meridian, ID

Rono,

FWIW, John Erb seems to be a guy that wants to keep the end of the 50s appearing and performing supercharger equipment going. (Along with the Keith Black piston designs) Craig tends to be a guy who is  into much more late model equipment (maybe a little bit younger than John?). Still worth a shot in giving him a call. He does seem to be knowledgable and I have had no issues at all in business dealings.

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com