Thanks guys! It will be nothing short of insane... thats the goal! Everyone keeps asking me WHY?!?!?! to which I reply: WHY NOT! When was the last time you saw a twincharged big block in a 55 year old military truck... exactly, NEVER! It's NOT another boring 32 Ford clone with a 350 chevy in it, and that is exactly why I love how it is turning out.
Made the jackshaft tonight... ran into a BIG snafu... My dad had one of his friends with a lathe make a bearing sleeve and a snout extension for the supercoupe jackshaft, and, the sleeve fit perfectly over the bearing, but, the hub extension was 1.25" too long... UH OH!
So, I did the first thing any good,s elf respecting engineer would do: I tried to pin it on the machinist... LOL! unfortunately, after consulting the print, it quickly became clear the part was exactly as ordered and it turns out the guy operating the CAD program (me) didn't understand how to operate a tape measure.
So, I ended up growing a set of big steel ones and cutting the center out of the stock supercoupe pulley, then rewelding it at the proper offset. Took me a few hours to get it so that there was no raidal runout, and a few thou of axial runout, but, I finally got it...
Next thing was to bore the escort timing gear out, and bolt it to the hub extension. I put 4 small allen screws in it, as well as the center bolt to carry the load.
I heated the hub extension to 500*F and it slid right onto the end of the bearing shaft with a few whacks of my 2 lb sledge. Let it cool and it is one TIGHT shrink fit. Runout is excellent on the fit, measuring almost nothing.
Complete assembly. The cogged crank hub will turn the cogged pullet on the jackshaft:
The sleeve my dad had made. It fits over the stock thunderbird supercoupe unit bearing. that is one BIG bearing! 2.75" long!
I'll weld mounting brackets to the sleeve that will bolt to the engine block. That way if I ever need to put a new bearing in, all I have to do is press the old one out of the sleeve, and then heat the hub extension till it comes off, and press it onto the new bearing... Completely serviceable.
our puppy investigating the weld quality on the supercoupe pulley:
the pulley after I got done fixing my SNAFU. For a while there I wasn't so sure Iwas going to be able to fix it!
