Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

madmike1157 said:

I only associate Coolio w/ Gangsta's Paradise.

That way, the first part of the song becomes almost always appropriate when I start working on something..

" As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my (grinders) life, and realize that that there none left".......

And for the record,....you have you Gila orifices wrongly identified.

The only noise that should come out of the Gila hole is exhaust noise.
The Gila fin - fan noise
The Gila gills - fan noise
The Gila nostrils - under hood noises.
The Gila vents - are TBD. They used to be on the back of the original hood, now that's gone. That leaves a G vent designator still un assigned.

All of the noise will come from the little Japanese kid.

While JB weld has been the staple of what I've used everywhere on my glued together car, it is far from the good stuff......you find out what is, when you butcher a super victor intake manifold to the point that it would be impossible to be able to weld back.
This scenario is what I did to myself when I decided to put 16 fuel injectors on said manifold. Had my machinist make me two mounting rails per side, each rail accommodating 4 injectors each. Then had him cut two staggered tiers on the runners so that the rails could sit on. T
What that left me with were areas that couldn't be accessed w/ a TIG, leaving the only option to glue the rails on instead.

After using conventional JB however, you find out that JB will not withstand exposure to methanol, and you have to heat the manifold in an oven to get it hot enough to cause the JB to fail, and start over......W/ some stuff from GE aerospace that costs 125.00 for 8 ounces, that they supposedly used to hold the space shuttle heat tiles on, and go to town.

Being careful to " not get it on you, and especially away from your eyes".
Because for the same reasons it is impervious to methanol, it's also impervious to lacquer thinner.
8 hours later, it dries to what looks like melted glass. Hard as a damn diamond.

And the .030 piece of aluminum that I used as a mixing board?......

As a test, I hit the back side w/ a hammer, I tried to curl, fold, wrinkle, bend, and twist the metal to get the thin layer that was left to fracture off, but it wouldn't. If it's got to tolerate getting to absolute zero on one extreme, and whatever temp the back side of that tile would get to during re entry, it should certainly be able to withstand my little " smack it with a hammer" test.

That is the good stuff.

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madmike1157 said:

Parallel huh?.......I'm still lost as a result of the " up" picture you posted to my " down" reply.

I know you were jokin' Jeeves,....I was all outta smart ass at that minute.

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madmike1157 said:

Last week the wife asks what I want for Christmas. I tell her I'll have to think about it, as this will be one of those Christmas's that I need nothing for the car. (And I always get car parts as gifts.......she knows better.)
So bottom line, I need nothing really.
After thinking about it, I tell her that I could use some HF wheel dollies, and just to be safe, my angle grinders are probably about to go. She asks how much that stuff is and I tell her, The wheel dolly set is about 120.00, and the 4-1/2 angle grinder(s) are a little over 20.00 each. I tell her I'll need two, one for cutting, and one for grinding. That way I can leave the respective wheel attached w/o having to change blades/wheels all the time.

That's all?

Yep.

However, no sooner did I tell her that, and grinder #1 takes a dump. Typical HF failure,...the brushes wear out. Although they include another set most of the time, the stupid plastic caps that hold the brushes in are fractured, so when I go to replace them, the cap comes out in pieces.

I hail mary the thing into the trash can.

Now I'm down to 1.

Fast forward to today, and grinder #2 slows down in my hand. I smack it, and it speeds back up. The rest of the day, It struggles to do what I needed to do, eventually giving up the ghost as well. I throw it down to the ground, as hard as I please.

They lived a decent life. They managed to get through more than 3/4 of the way through what will amount to be a 3 year build.

This however creates a dilemma. I now need two new grinders, and there is still 3 weeks till Christmas. I simply can't wait that long, especially considering that I have a fair amount of cutting, and grinding in front of me.

Guess I'm getting socks for Christmas.

What I managed to get done before Thing #2 took a crap was get the other bumper extension pretty much complete. As with everything I do where there are two, the second piece is always easier, or better, of took less time, or required less work. This was the case w/ this side as well.

The driver side extension is made up of 6 separate pieces of steel, the passenger side was half that. The driver side took 8 hours, this side took 4.




I still have to cut the piece of steel where the overlap is, and butt weld the extension in place, but it's getting there.

Also, since the fenders are on, I took the opportunity to check for interference when turning.



The tire hits the fender at full lock. The clearance that is there is laughable because any dip in the road w/ the tires turned will result in a hard scrub. The front end has gotta come up an inch.

Had I not bitten off so much other custom fab crap with this car, I'd consider going back to the drawing board, and bulge the fenders, and quarters Ala Capri, Then throw on some big assed 295's up front, and maybe a 335 or bigger rear.

But,.....ain't gonna happen. I have more than enough on my plate if I ever hope to get done in time for spring '16.

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