CSX4158 For Sale, but Salvage due to Flood

[mickmate]

Hey welcome back stranger. You have been productive with your time away from the computer I see. I was excited for you to see the inside of that rear end, and all the other stuff you've opened up is really looking good. I forgot that is a Girling car, some very nice hardware that's really coming right back into it. Your frame prepping comments hit home with me. I had chunks of the powdercoat coming off mine. When I stripped the frame, which happened a little too easily, you could see the frame number crayoned onto the frame tubes. That told me how well they (hadn't) prepared it for powder and that explains my decision to prep and paint it with chassis paint. Looking fantastic keep it up!

[snakehunter]

vacation and some other more pressing items got in the way since my last post. As of today the engine is complete, running and ready to install aside from addressing a couple small issues.

For one, the fresh carb had major over-rich issues on startup. Checked everything several times and found no obvious issues, but the primaries were dumping fuel like showerheads.

Since I couldn't run it very long like that, we swapped to a spare carb and will send this one back to the carb shop. I bought the main body used and had it restored, but am afraid either it or the metering block has seen some race mods that we missed.

The backup carb worked great and the rest of break-in went great. Motor sounds awesome!

Here's our engine run-in stand adapted to work with the cobra radiator and oil cooler. BTW, Speedway's pre-fab FE crossmember is too narrow to clear the Aviad oil pan. I thought I'd save some time by buying vs. fabricating one, but ended up hacking and reinforcing Speedy Bill's piece...



here's an ironic twist - for giggles I tried to reuse the old MSD unit and a couple gauges on the test stand. The oil temp and fuel pressure gauges cleaned up and worked great, and would you believe the MSD worked like a champ after being underwater, caked in mud, and left to sit for over a year? Guess they're sealed pretty well from the factory!! Even the old Mallory electronic distributor guts tested ok, although we'd already purchased replacements for everything.

[snakehunter]

the firewall panel was looking pretty tired, so a new one was made after taking a pattern off the old one.

[snakehunter]

rebuilt and installed master cylinders. Fortunately kits are still available from AFCO, although the cylinders themselves have been discontinued.





Stripped and recovered the master cylinder heat shield

[snakehunter]

Here's one of the old shocks - a Dynamic Suspension unit made in England and branded with Shelby's name. There's not much info on these that I could find, although after speaking to the factory in the UK, they directed me to a supplier in the US who could rebuild them.

Unfortunately for us, the Penske upgrade made better sense. Installation required fabricating a bushing for the rear lower control arms, as Penske uses a 1/2" mount top and bottom, whereas Dynamic chose to use a 5/8 lower mount.
There's also a small clearance notch required for the Penske charging valve.

We still have the full set of Dynamic shocks and matching Hyperco springs if anyone wants to have a go at rebuilding them.

[snakehunter]

new gauges courtesy of Nisonger Instruments...
Luckily we ordered these a while ago - the fuel pressure gauge, for example, is apparently on "world-wide backorder" according to several sources. Grab 'em while you can!