Last Indian

1 hour ago, JUSTA6 said:

Nothing from the engine shop.  The auto repair did manage to look at my truck. (I had to haul home on a trailer from the cabin)  The transfer case is gone.  Have a feeling when they install the new one, that they will find probs with the DR side front wheel too.  This is gonna be major expensive.  The Bird motor is gonna be a big bill as well.  Never fails......  Again, there goes the GTO paint fund.

I don’t know for sure how, but I think there’s a guy who occupies a white house somewhere south of you that is responsible for all of it. But hey I here he’s passin out money like candy maybe he’ll pay for it. You can call it building back better. 
Have you ever considered painting the GTO green? Tell him it’s part of the green energy plan! 
All of that put aside, I feel for you buddy, Karma’s a bitch, but when it lands on the wrong guy; I call that JustA plain wrong!

17 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

last Indian, i cant find where they are selling that short nozzle? here in nz i have asked the Milwaukee team and they dont do it here...  

i can buy the 2742-20 but not that nozzle... 

i must remember this is a work tool ! thats the only way i am going to get anything past the boss at the moment after my little purchase !!!🙄

Kiwi, the short nozzle is only available with the 2824-20 blower, which is more  than $100 US more than the 2724-20! I use the long blower nozzle because that’s what it has & it works fine, but you can get a stubby nozzle for the Milwaukee blower from this web site https://www.detailedimage.com/Stubby-Nozzle-M128/Items-Only/  for about $31.

22 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

Wow what a good idea !

I have always used mircrofibre cloths 

and the concept of using a blower a great idea ! 
last Indian 

what Milwaukie are you using ? 

Kiwi, I’m using the M18 (2724-20) blower 450 CFM 120MPH, but they now have a new one that is a duel battery unit (2824-20) it has 600 CFM 145 MPH + it has two additional nozzles. The one is a stubby necked down piece that would be even more ideal for drying a car.

One of the things I really like about it is, that I use to take the cars around the block to get most of the water off the car, plus it tended to dry the brakes enough to not rust, but especially in the spring & fall there is a lot of crap on the road so I would come back with crap n the car 😡! Now on crap on the car & I blow dry the wheel, brakes & tires. That works great! No rust ever on the brakes.

Hey guys I started drying my car about 3 years ago with my Milwaukee blower? Wow what a difference! So much quicker, so much cleaner & when I have to wash one of my dark colored cars in the sun I can get almost no water spots. When I do, it takes very little to get rid of it! 
To my surprise when I web search dry car with Milwaukee blower there are several videos showing it being done.

On 7/26/2022 at 6:54 PM, KiwiStarChief said:

Chris, I had to go out and take a look at my dash to see what the wheel is for, but it is not on mine, and has a blanking plate instead.

It intrigued me so much that I had to track down what it is, and found this in the owners manual.

Learn something new every day.

This is kind of the predecessor to what became reverb in the mid “60s”

3 hours ago, JUSTA6 said:

Update.  Shop called my NEW old crank is screwed up.  Only 10 over bearings everything went together well, then went to put the timing chain on and the crank gear slips on and wiggles N has some deep grooves from the gear breaking. Asked if I have another crank.  Yes I did and ran it up there but I had it in plastic, but failed to oil it down.  It's rusty and not sure if 20 over will fix the prob.  Gear fits that one perfect.  Other scenario is welding N machining the 1st one.  Block is decked, cleaned and cyls done.  Had the crank in but it's out again now. Heads are done too, New seats installed, seals, decked, freeze plugs. He said I could have brought it home today until this prob.  Doesn't look good for Woodward.

Man you really have been up against it buddy! Your misfortunes well soon change to blessings I pray! I know you want to make the Dream Cruze, but it’s better to get the bird right than rush it.

32 minutes ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

hmmmmm "Clyde the last chieftain" 🙄

Or White Buffalo the last Chieftain! The White Buffalo in Lakota (Sioux) is sacred & very rare in nature as well. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m part Blackfoot, which is part of the Sioux nation!

13 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

One thing that jumps out at me is the steering wheel ! thats staying... i need to work out how i can modernizes it but keep the horn ring and Pontiac center !

Way Cool Kiwi! That should keep you busy! 
I could give you some ideas on modding the steering wheel. 
 

How about the name Last Chieftain 😁 JustA crazy thought! I don’t know where it came from. 🤪

Recent events made me think maybe some questions folks might have could simply be answered here, and if not there are many others who are more than willing & capable to help!
This piece is to give some perspective to what is really needed to change a brake system. Especially if you have made substantial modifications to the vehicle with respect to weight, height, CG, RC or major suspension mods! Not if you are just replacing parts. 

There are lots of articles & sites that push bigger brake systems & there is nothing wrong with going bigger, to a degree, but you are going to pay for the upgrade & is it really needed? Maybe just maybe what you have is really close to what you need with just some tweaking.

So I will use the process of my build to show the process! After designing my suspension system I knew I needed to move to the braking system as it was just a subpar performing system & the OEMs due diligence is not the best! Sorry just a fact. Did you know the real reason anti-locks came to be? Do you realize that a properly engineered set of brakes will almost never activate that system? 

Ask yourself this. Why would a car that is of comparable weight, but has more weight in the front than the comparable one & as a result a greater transfer of weight upon braking have smaller rotors? Smaller pistons in all of the calipers? Harder pads & by comparison softer rotors? The answer! Money! What do you do to offset this? You would install a cheaper system to overcome that short fall, a antilock module that’s what! 

This accomplishes several things! You no longer have to do all the math for each car line, but more relevant you save money on components. The ABS modules are an easy CNC mass produced part & interchangeable from car to car, but are they better? Are they safer? No & yes respectively.

So needing to gut the brake system, but only after I had acquired all the data I needed to determine where the car was at with all the physics, with respect to the change in characteristics of the car, since virtually everything about it had changed. Weight, weight distribution, CG, RC, tires & rims (we’re going to change), E.I. everything! That was going to require several hours of just math once all those measurements were made! This was not the worst system I had ever seen, but per usual the component selection was poor & fluid was typically marginal. 

I now needed to find or make better rotors that were the right metallurgy that would be compatible with the right pads & both of these number would be base on their coefficients of friction, with respect to each other, as well pad material.

So first up was rim & tire selection! These needed selected first as this is one of the very first things that’s needed to be known. If the tires don’t have the tire-pavement coefficient that you’re looking for with regard to what you desire in performance everything else is wasted effort. 

So I wanted a wider stance as well as a larger diameter rim. Yet while still keeping the same outside diameter for the tires. So I settled on a set of American Racing two piece that were somewhat unique. These rims are built backwards, I.E. as the outer ring is flipped so that the outside edge is inside, but the center section still faces outwards. This actually gives the 5 spoke center a larger look than a standard 5 spoke rim of that size. I also went with Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 after quite a bit of research I found these tire had a compound makeup that gave them a .68 tire-road coefficient, and yet a good ride, plus excellent cornering characteristics, so I now had my starting point.

Having removed about 175 lbs from the front & where it was in relationship to CG & RC, plus adding around 235 lbs to the rear & it’s relationship to CG & RC, changed the dynamics of not just the handling, but the transfer of the weight’s dynamic energy on braking. This is important because this impacts the whole brake system & it’s mathematical calculations, I.E. rotor size, caliper piston size & location, master cylinder piston bore size & brake pedal configuration, etc…

Stepping through the math, to see where the car had needs that might have changed. First up was master cylinder bore/piston size! Since what was needed in wall thickness for the master cylinder was there, the master cylinder was pulled & Bored it out to 1 1/8”. This is an increase of 27% increase in volume moved. That’s a lot! So this, under the same perimeters, I.E. same pedal pressure, same stroke, same components, would increase line pressure by 27%, but would also cause a harder pedal. Now with power brakes that’s not as big of an issue as it would be with manual brakes, but still harder. So I will help correct this with a change in pedal geometry, but I actually need to change that geometry because the stock system is quite inadequate! The original pedal ratio was 5 to 1. That means 150 lbs applied to the pedal for the original master cylinder & components, generated only 750 pounds of line pressure & at 200 lbs would net 1000. That is actually on the very low end of line pressure. My change of master cylinder piston bore size changed those figures to a respectable 953 & 1270 psi respectively, but now we are going to change the pedal ratio to 6.25 to 1. So with the bore size increase & pedal ratio changed, 150 lbs applied at the pedal now yields 1190 psi line pressure & 200 lbs yields 1587 lbs. that is into the realm of racing brake pressure. And no you are not going to blowout a line at that psi even in a panic stop. Now in of itself these two changes brings the W platform into a very respectable braking car, even without changing anything else, but I’m not done yet.

Again, stepping through the math to make a judgment on just where I was for rotor & caliper needs was now the next order of business. It turned out that the major fault with the braking system was in three areas. Master cylinder piston size, pedal ratio & coefficient of friction matching of pads & rotor materials! Not a big surprise actually. 

When you calculate the needs for the front brake system it looked like this. (T=R x A x F x N x P) T is total system torque/clamping ability, R is the radius or the rotor minus the outside edge of the rotor to the caliper piston center line,(which can be more that half the piston radius), F is the coefficient of friction number of the pads, N is the number of sides, for disc it should be two, & P is line pressure. 

So for the stock system those  numbers were not good! The front applying 150 lbs at the pedal yielded  9,797 lbs & the back was 4,314. Now with the new configuration of master cylinder modification & pedal geometry change I now could get 15,676 lbs at the front & 6,902 at the back when applying 150 lbs to the pedal. You can now see the multiplying factor that physics plays. I now have by far more than a 27% increase in stopping power. Yet this is still short of what I want for stopping power, but I’m very close. So now with all these measurements made I haven’t physically done anything yet. So now I’m going to backup to my pedal ratio & make it 6.5 to 1, because I have the room on the pedal arm & it will accommodate the angle that comes with the change. Now I redo the math & I now have what I want. There is still much more to this! For instance, how much braking do I really need? This can be determined, again through math.

So this calculation goes like this. T=W x R x D / N. T is torque required in inch/pounds, W weight of vehicle, R is rolling radius of tires (centerline of wheel to ground), D is deceleration rate, (this can be from .2 to 1 or more, but most MFGs use 1) for safety purposes. N is number of braking wheels. So in the case of the Indian that final number was 11,375 inch/pounds! Still there was  more to get to before the end of this whole process!

Now I need to determine weight transfer. This is the action of stepping on the brakes & the energy of weight (inertia) transfers weight energy forward. This drastically changes the requirements for braking especially the higher the CG of the car is. As well as the weight distribution. So the calculation looks like this. Weight transfer Wf=U x W x H / L. This equation goes like this. U is coefficient of traction, W is vehicle loaded weight, H is center of gravity & L is vehicle wheelbase. Here’s how the Indian calculation went. 1 x 3500 x 19 = 66,500 / by 110.5 = 602. With the Indian having a 54/46 weight distribution, due to all the changes to the suspension, the weight transfer needed corrected like this, traction coefficient 1 x 3500 lbs x 19 CG / 110.5 = 602. Divide 3500 by 2 = 1750 + 4% (this 4% represent the 4% over the 50% margin of weight distribution) = 1820 + add 4% to 602 = 625 = 2445 lbs for the front weight transfer. The rear, divide 3500 = 1750 – 4% ( likewise subtract 4% because the back is 4% under the 50% ratio) = 1680 - 625 = 1055 rear transfer weight.

Almost done! Now I need to see what the brake load per wheel is. Which looks like this Tf = Wf x R x D / N, Tf is torque force, Wf is weight transfer, R is wheel radius as before, D is deceleration as before. 

So the front, 2445 x 13 x 1 divide by 2 = 15,892 & the rear 1055 x 13 x 1 divide by 2 = 6,857. 

So with the new master cylinder piston size & pedal ratio change I have the following output available compared to my need. With 150 pounds applied at the pedal I will create 16,172 inch/pounds of force at each front rotor, but I only need 15,892 of torque & if I apply say 170 lbs at the pedal I will generate 18,327 inch/pounds of force at each wheel! The rear brake configuration is similar, with 150 lbs applied at the pedal I will create 7,121 inch/pounds of force, but I only need 6,857 inch/pounds of torque, yet if I apply 170 lbs of force at the pedal I will generate 8,070 inch/pounds of force at each rear rotor.

When I finally made these modifications to the brake system, which include a specific type of cross drilled rotors & a pad material that had a .35 coefficient rating, the Indian became a completely different braking car! The very first time out, without doing anything different, the car stopped more than 75 feet short of were it had before. Than just two days later, I had a guy slam his brakes on in front of me as a rescue squad answering a call pulled out of a station in front of us. I was closer than I should have been & this was at 40 mph, I hit my brakes hard. The car just flat stopped really quick! No skid, no ABS, nothing! Just stopped. All of this accomplished by master cylinder piston size increase, pedal ratio reconfiguration, different rotor & different pads & oh yeah different fluid! A DOT 5.

So I didn’t need to get into expensive calipers & rotors, wheel clearance issues, different mounting issues, etc.. Just a pretty straightforward non complicated modification.

Great Build “31”! Every T crossed every I dotted! I know there are many things left to do, but a paint job will not make your work more spectacular! Quite the opposite! As a beautiful paint job can cover a multitude of sin, but nothing I mean nothing can out shine beautiful craftsmanship & that you have done! 
No doubt your paint job will be glorious as well!!

There is not a time I can remember that I didn’t love cars! Most of all, Hot Rods! My neighborhood consisted of 4 streets with 32 boys all within 4 years of age from each other, 1948-1951! Of that about 50% of us loved cars from as young as I can remember. We would build model cars constantly, modify them, put nice paint jobs on them. Then set up a plywood ramp & race them weekly. By the time I was 10, real Hot Rods were everywhere! Chopped “32” “55”-7” Chevys etc… Than in 1963 came the GTO! My first true love, had to have one. So in “67” I got a “64” GOAT. Heaven! But in “68” when the new “69” Z/28 came out it was all over for the GTO, sorry JustA! It took me till the end of “69” to be able to buy one, but that marriage lasted 35 plus years till sadly we departed! There will never be another one like that car for me. I imagine that’s true for most here.

This was just 4 years before it was sold in 2004! The day I always call “A bad day at black rock!”

On 7/16/2022 at 6:58 AM, Ron Dietz said:

Hello folks. I have a fisc convertion on my 58 chieftain. I got them working really well but I can't get the tires to lock up. My question is should the wheels lock up. It will dive the nose and stop well but you hammer them they don't lock. Any advise

Nose diving & stopping well doesn’t really answer or indicate a lot. So a couple questions. All 4 wheels or just fronts? What did you do for a master cylinder?  What change if any did you make to the tires? Did you do the math calculations that actually tell you what the stopping power is for what you installed? 
I’m not picking here, but brakes are in general a straightforward math equation. Which means if you get everything right they work well. On a car that has the right setup, & that includes a lot, the car on paved dry roads should stop in nearly all situations without lockup! 
There is a lot more that could be discussed here, but in general what your perception is of your car stopping may or may not be what it actually is! Only knowing what the physics, I.E. math, is will tell that.

17 minutes ago, RIZZO said:

Thank you. 

Thank you for this information.  I think I will play it safe an get it checked at my next oil change. I have some auto tinkering abilities, but I dont wanna mess with this. Thank you!  

I think that’s a good choice. These are not your fathers transmissions anymore. If you’re not knowledgeable about them you could get in to big trouble. To change the fluid takes some special know how.