Author Topic: I just bought a Henry J!  (Read 28863 times)

whatwouldjessedo

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #60 on: February 24, 2017, 05:13:51 PM »
Looking good as usual!
Been running gas & brake lines on the Aero and even with the old ones for patterns I must've gotten up & down from under the car about 50 times.
You're right about the body flex, floor mounted uni-body Aero MC is only about a foot from the union on the side frame and there's a loop in that pipe, mid production change added due to original design cracking.
Tuning that carb to your engine's flow demands is going to give you great low end response, a lot of guys don't consider that.

Stroke of luck on those Buick to MG headers, very nice!

Haha, I was very reluctant to hold those headers up to the engine after they arrived. I wasn't at all continent in my gamble that they would work and wasn't ready to face having to make headers from scratch. When I realized that they would fit with just a little modification, I really felt like I was going to see this car on the road soon.

I learned about the purpose of the brake line coils after finding a crimp in the hard line in my S10 race truck. I didn't include the coils, and found out just how much the cab moves around on top of the chassis. A lot, it turns out. Luckily I found that crimp before the line failed.

I see guys with 1000 cfm carbs on mild 350s at car shows all the time. It's hard to teach people that bigger isn't always better... But then those are the guys who will see this car and wonder why I didn't put a LS1 in it.

I like the Aero! I've always wanted one of those. I know some guys who road-race one:
http://www.roadkill.com/1952-willys-aero-lark-beats-many-bmws-lemons-season-ender/

whatwouldjessedo

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #61 on: February 24, 2017, 05:14:57 PM »
Great work! I have no doubt that this is going to be a blast to drive!

Thanks! Can't wait to find out if you're right!

whatwouldjessedo

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #62 on: February 24, 2017, 05:16:08 PM »
I just drove past Speedway Motors today..

I bought a kaiser from him also..

Surprised they didn't turn it into a roundy-round car. Haha!

MarkH

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #63 on: February 24, 2017, 08:50:22 PM »

I like the Aero! I've always wanted one of those. I know some guys who road-race one:
http://www.roadkill.com/1952-willys-aero-lark-beats-many-bmws-lemons-season-ender/



Next time you see those guys at Four Yak Press racing, tell them not only was I extremely impressed with their hutzpah as i read through that article, I also laughed till tears ran. I hope to see more of them!
Fully restored '54 Aero Lark
Rusty '58 Austin Healey 100-Six
Barely running'74 Chevelle Malibu

Barnum

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #64 on: February 24, 2017, 09:26:52 PM »
Thanks for posting the Aero article, I too would love to see more of them! I agree on the carbs....bigger is not always better :)
1968 Buick Skylark Convertible
1954 Aero Eagle
Taylor Brugman

whatwouldjessedo

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #65 on: September 01, 2017, 06:37:19 PM »
Well, I haven't posted any of my progress in awhile, but a lot has happened in the last couple months, and today I actually drove the Henry j around the block for the first time!

Here's a couple of video of it running in my back yard:

https://youtu.be/m4GO1w698og

https://youtu.be/06taROYShYQ


And here are some pics of the work I've done.

Here's one shot of the rear brake lines on the GM 7.625" 10 bolt S-10 rear end. This axle came with the car, and fits great. The last owner replaced the original spring pads on the axle with some poorly made custom pads, and he placed them so that the axle was positioned with zero degrees of pinion angle. I cut those off and bought a pair of 1.75" wide pads from Ruff Stuff Specialties and welded them on so that the axle no sits with 4 degrees of pinion angle to match the angle of the engine/trans. It has 4.10 gears on an open diff which will work well with the 5-speed I think. I replaced the wheel cylinders but the rest of the drum brakes looked good. I did have to make all new hard lines and used a S-10 rear brake hose along with a new welded-on bracket at the axle tube.



Here's the exhaust work. I did it all myself, and I don't think I'll ever choose to make my own exhaust ever again. It's pretty difficult work. I bought a bunch of random tube bends from Speedway motors and bought a couple of Thrush glasspacks so all in it cost me about $160, but man, I'd gladly pay someone 5 times that to do it for me next time...







Here are the finalized pedals. The gas pedal is an Offenhauser aluminum pedal. I had to make the firewall panel that it's mounted to, since I had to cut away some portions of the firewall to fit the Buick engine. The clutch and brake pedals are a unit I bought from Speedway Motors, and the pedal pads are obviously from Mooneyes. They are pretty nice, but I think I'm going to modify them a bit to get the pedals to sit at a different angle.



I added a bracket and tab for a button-type brake light switch, which I still need to wire up. No brake lights yet!





Here are a few shots of the engine in the car. It fits, but it didn't exactly "drop right in". If the engine bay was about 1.5" longer from radiator support to firewall it would have been a lot easier. Other clearance issues are at the steering box and the upper control arms. The steering box is about 1/2" away from the left cylinder head, and the a-arms at the inner pivot point are less than 1/2" from the exhaust headers. I moved the radiator forward in the radiator support, so that the front face of the radiator is flush with the front face of the support. This gave me a couple of extra inches, but I still had to cut into the firewall to make it all fit.





And there she is, just back from her maiden voyage around the block!





I still need to wire up all of the lights. The front tires are too big with the deep offset wheels so they run the fenders even if I turn just a little bit. I need to install the rear shocks and front sway bar. The fenders, inner fenders, and hood are all barely bolted together so I need to get a bunch of hardware and fasten it all together for real and install the grill. There are still massive clearance holes cut in the firewall and trans tunnel so those need to be patched. So there is a lot to do still, but it runs, and I drove it after 2 years and two weeks of purchasing the car. And now there is one more Henry J back on the road!
« Last Edit: September 02, 2017, 12:48:57 PM by whatwouldjessedo »

r1lark

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #66 on: September 02, 2017, 05:42:03 AM »
Jesse, only one picture is showing up for me. Also, I couldn't get the video links to work.

Maybe I'm the only one having these issues? Can't wait to see the other pics.......exhaust looks good.
Paul
Winston-Salem NC
Visit The Studebaker Skytop Registry website at:  www.studebakerskytop.com

kfnut

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #67 on: September 02, 2017, 06:28:05 AM »
I would love to see the pictures and video too , but NO DICE . I like seeing your progress . Keep letting us know how you are doing .

MarkH

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #68 on: September 02, 2017, 09:17:19 AM »
I've been wondering how the project is coming along.

Just one photo shows for me too, both in Explorer and Firefox, and the vid links bring me to a Google sign in page.
Fully restored '54 Aero Lark
Rusty '58 Austin Healey 100-Six
Barely running'74 Chevelle Malibu

Mike Richards

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #69 on: September 02, 2017, 10:19:06 AM »
Neat build, more pics please

whatwouldjessedo

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #70 on: September 02, 2017, 12:30:59 PM »
I tried just using the videos and images in my Google Drive, but it looks like Google wants you to be signed in to view them. I moved them all over to Dropbox and put the video on Youtube, so you should be able to see them all now.

MarkH

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #71 on: September 03, 2017, 11:34:59 AM »
I can view everything now. Sounds great, nice fabrication work too!
Fully restored '54 Aero Lark
Rusty '58 Austin Healey 100-Six
Barely running'74 Chevelle Malibu

Corsairdeluxe

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #72 on: September 03, 2017, 12:05:45 PM »
How do you find it on UTUBE?
Jim Brown aka Corsairdeluxe
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10 Henrys and 1 ALLSTATE
behind me. J less at the moment and having irrational thoughts.

r1lark

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #73 on: September 03, 2017, 12:44:31 PM »
Use these links:

https://youtu.be/m4GO1w698og

https://youtu.be/06taROYShYQ

Jesse, the engine sounds GREAT!  :)
Paul
Winston-Salem NC
Visit The Studebaker Skytop Registry website at:  www.studebakerskytop.com

h-e-n-r-y-j

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Re: I just bought a Henry J!
« Reply #74 on: September 08, 2017, 12:42:12 PM »
Nice work Jesse! I love the color of the car and your fabrication work is very impressive.