B3R Garage: All new Still Issues

The 1984 Mercury Capri was intended to be a work in progress. However, I did have a time-frame in mind that I would like to have been driving it! Over the past few months I have been spending my weekends traveling to the Mad Scientist in order to work out the bugs with his 1970 Ford Maverick-leaving the Capri on the back burner. While helping the Mad Scientist, I would put as much spare time as I could tinkering with my Capri. Unfortunately, I could not figure out the idling issue on my own. So, I had to recruit some help from someone willing to travel just to see the engine. I called Pep!

B3R Garage: A Surprising Resolution

As you may know the Mad Scientist has been driving his 1970 Ford Maverick around for almost a month know. Interestingly enough, he has been doing so with an unidentified Ford 302 block with a Frankenstein Holley carburetor. That's right the carb was put together with parts from three different carbs! Unfortuantly the car would move but the secondaries would never open up. So, we never knew exactly what the old car could do.

That was until the Mad Scientist went out and nabbed a brand new 600 cfm single pumper Holley of the shelf. He threw the new carb on and guess what! The car sounded like CRAP!. It would idle real nice until he put his foot anywhere near the pedal. This was confusing to say the least.

After about two weeks of insanity checking the timing, replacing sparkplug wires, spark plugs, and the distributor cap and rotor the Mad Scientist had enough. He was about to push the old car into the back yard and tarp it over for good. Until he got the idea of removing the valve cover and watching each of the valves open and close as he manually cranked over the engine.

As it turned out, the timing was off. Way OFF! What the Mad Scientist and I though was a standard Ford 302 block (With regular firing order 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8) was actually a Ford 302 HO motor (with a firing order of 1-3-7-6-5-4-8) .

I won't lie, this discovery simply blew my freaking mind! Just one week before the Mad Scientist put on the new carb we where out driving though town. Granted we where only going about 35mph the car still sounded PERFECT! It was quite, smooth, and not backfiring.

Now that the Maverick's kinks have been worked out and we know everything there is to know about our little Maverick, the car drives smooth and has no problem breaking the 100mph in a relativity short distance. If we could just get the back tires to stop spinning when we hover over the gas pedal we might even be able to get the front end off the ground!

B3R Garage: An unfortunate turn of events

Yesterday was one of Orland Indiana's reestablished car shows. The mad scientist and I had been working feverishly on the weekends of the past few months in order to get are Ford powered tire squealers ready for the event.

B3R Garage: The Capri nears the Finish line

My 1984 Mercury Capri has seen a little neglect on the site in the past two months, but its progress continues. Unfortunately, I had a little transmission problems. As it turns out the current header setup requires that the entire engine and transmission be pulled every time the transmission needs to be removed. So, over the past two months the Capri has been completely dissected once again. The radiator, motor, headers, and all were once again removed in order to get to the tightly packed in transmission. The transmission was taken down to a local transmission repair shop to be completely rebuilt.

After just under two weeks the transmission was returned. However, after shifting it through the gears while it was in the car; it appears as though the shift kit was put in wrong! Go figure. On the plus side, I was able to gather enough hardware to put the cars interior trim back in, install the door panels, and even the glove box. I won’t lie, it is kind of nice being able to put my arm on the arm rest once again.

Tasks still at hand include fixing a minor power-steering leak, tune the carb, check the timing (yes again!), sand down the front bumper – primer it – paint it, and finally install it. As it turns out Orland Indiana has started having a car show in town ever third Tuesday of the month. I would like to get the car up and ready to go before the following week, but it may not happen. The Mad Scientist’s 1970 Maverick will likely be making the event. So, if you are interested in checking it out make sure you are in the area. If my Capri makes the deadline you are sure to hear B3R cars long before you see them. Hope to see you there.  

B3R Garage: Driving the Maverick Home

That's right everyone. The Mad Scientist was able to drive his 1970 Ford Maverick out of the operating room and take her home. Unfortunately, the carburetor needs a little work and the car needs a set of front tires, but the car was able to make it 13 miles across town without too much trouble.

So what does it all mean? Will we hear about the Mad Scientist's Maverick in the weeks to come?

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.

B3R Garage: The Capri gets a Scoop too!

Sorry if we have not been keeping everyone up to date with B3R happenings over the past two weeks. The Mad Scientist and I have had our fair share of issues placing the last few pieces of our cars back together. In fact, both of our allegedly good transmissions have turned out to be needing rebuilt. But that is another story for another day. Today, I want to inform everyone/(anyone interested) that I will be chopping a handy dandy hole in my hood in next few weeks to make room form a brand new carburetor air cleaner.

Check out the Capri's new Air Cleaner.