d stohler wrote: > speaking > of valve lash, its been a couple thousand miles (all year this year > to be exact) since i torqued my head, and adjusted valves) guess its > time i should put that on my "to do, how do i get time to do" list. metoo! 5000, 6000 miles since last. Idle is the tiniest bit rough, so time to turn all the screws on the motor. Fall then spring, that's an easy schedule. But it's starting to rain here, and I have all the upper seals out of the doors (I got the pass. front door panel done (came out nice), pure aluminum!, got all the layers of paint off the door edges and chassis around the door). Got the new seals in lower but the upper, that's a project! I have to make something, I don't think anyone has new seals for that (63 hardtop American). [I NEED to work on metal as therapy after reading 600 pages of tedious critical writing.] But I didn't drill the drums, and we all know how much fun wet drum brakes are. I had a little epihany about drilling the drums. I was gonna put a LOT of holes around the circumference of the drum working surface, but it occurred to me that it only needs about 20 -- enough to sweep the entire surface. So the drum surface is 2.5" wide. So 20 .1" holes lined up in a row would sweep the shoes clean. Of course that would ruin the drum -- so spread those 20 out around the circumference evenly. Now the drum remains strong, the entire surface gets swept, and it's easy to drill. I'll make up a paper template and do 'em at work on the tall drill press (I have only a 8" Delta, and the mill table is not tall enough.) So I'll pull the drums off, take 'em to work, check the upper trunnions while I'm in there, and drive the Hornet to work this week. Brake drum drilling is allegedly an old hotrodder trick: this shop still does it http://www.chtopping.com/CustomRod4/ http://www.tffn.net/drilldrum.html Here's someone else's drilled backing plates http://www.totalkitcar.com/tech_talk.php here's mine (done already) http://wps.com/AMC/1963-Rambler-American/Drums/ And look at these cool hotrod brake hubs; I wonder if they use A2 and A6 bearings... would make some easy disc adapt projects easy! http://www.streetrodderweb.com/tech/0807sr_finned_buick_drums_early_ford_spindles/index.html _______________________________________________ Amc-list mailing list Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://splatter.wps.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/amc-list