B3R Garage: Lifting the Carb

A whole lot has happened to the the Mad Scientist's Ford Maverick this weekend. First off, the Mad Scientist went ahead and sprung for a 1" carburetor lift plate in order to raise the carburetor scoop up height enough to avoid resting on the HEI distributor. I am not going to lie, putting the lift on his intake was significantly more of a task than I had doing the same process on my Capri. However, in just about an hour we were able to raise the roof on the newly installed street/strip carburetor scoop.

If you have been paying close attention to the pictures of the '87 truck block dropped into the Maverick you might have guessed that the Uni belt pulleys on the Edelbrock water-pump and crank might cause an alternator issue. And you would be right. So the Mad Scientist took it upon himself to drop into the nearby Pick-it-yard (takeapart.biz). He climbed up in an old Ford and walked out with a handy dandy uni-belt pulley, some hood rubbers, and window trim clips. He then went ahead and swung by the nearby NAPA and bout a new alternator, and had the employees put the used belt on it so that it would work with the current pulley setup. Pretty crafty huh!

The Mad Scientist even went so far as to acquire a handy dandy band new radiator cooling fan. Unfortunately, the fan requires that it be put on the front of the radiator (behind the bumper). As it turns out there is not a log of room there. The room that is there is currently occupied by a trim bracket. Bummer! But don't worry everyone! The Mad Scientist and I are no stranger to chopping off unneeded pieces (check out the shock tower chopping section) and/or fabricating what we need. So, hopefully the new radiator fan will be going in this weekend.

The only thing that still seems to be missing is the exhaust. The Mad Scientist has his eyes set on a pair of Lake Pipes from Jegs.com, but he may just throw together some of the spare pipes with a couple of over-the-counter mufflers just to be able to roll down the road a little earlier.

If you are interested in the Mad Scientist's 1970 Ford Maverick, be sure to keep checking in and occasionally check his Squidoo page under the Maverick tab above for more information and videos to come.