I just got off the phone with nathan:TU: my order is in. Has any one looked at thunderbirds product site? They manufacture and market copper roof drains. Maybe they could produce copper headgaskets and header gaskets for us?o No:
just off the phone with Nathan, more than a couple of you have not contacted him to get onto the paid in full list so that the order can get processed. he's got the "this is a pain in the butt" tone in his voice so if you could get paid up and not make me look like sh!t that would be appreciated.
I'm so sorry guys. I completely forgot about having to call.ou: I get paid this Friday, I'll give a call to pay for my order. I'm sorry for holding you guys up. Please forgive me?ray: Jeramie
if you are asking me I'd have no idea, suggest you call Nathan at Thunderbird and find out what the status is.
well sean, i cant get ahold of them to buy your 4 sets...i get a different company ...arg supppose to be 1800 tbird for the waterjet place, but i get a roofing company lmao
Just an update, finally installed the wheel over the weekend. Turns out the tooth height is about .05 or so too tall and there is a clearance problem with the bottom bolt on the water pump. had to replace the bolt with a hex head cap screw that had one side ground down to allow for the required clearance to allow the wheel to spin. If I had a lathe to spin the wheel up on it would have been easier to knock tooth the height down a touch. will prob come back and do that at some point and get the correct bolt back into the water pump housing then drilled the threads out of 4 nuts that were .260 tall in order to space the water pump pulley out, repeat for power steering and alt brackets as well to get the belts to line up again. Things are tighter than I thought they were going to be in there. In hindsight installing on the front of the balancer is do-able but prob isn't the best way to go. If I had to do it again I'd look into making a design for a press fit wheel that would go on the pulley that could be aligned for runout and then tack welded onto the pulley. the backside of the pulley is tapered and would require some fiddiling to figure out the correct wheel inner diameter. there is no room or mounting point for a wheel behind the balancer that I could figure out. another choice is to have your machinist notch 36 slots with the leading edge of every slot 10* apart in the first pulley lip. this would be the stealthy-ist way to go, just be sure to match tooth width closely to your vr sensor area width. from another site where someone did this to their pully: but this wheel works, just more customizing to get it to fit that I would have liked but so it goes with the first attempt of a new design. pleased that I was able to get it to fly with minimal work. working on a mounting bracket for the vr sensor now. EDIS install shortly. distributor removal imminent.
What I've always done up to now is to buy the stock Ford 4.6L trigger wheel (about $16-20), bore out the center hole for a snug fit on the back side of the damper and tack weld it in place in about 4 equally spaced spots. That has worked well but with some dampers there won't be room for it. What I'm thinking would be better is to have a plate of about .030" thickness welded to a ring 3/16-1/4" wide which has the teeth cut into it. The thin plate would sandwich between the front of the damper and the pulleys and only affect belt alignment minimally, probably not enough to worry about, and it could be mounted without pulling the damper. Jim
the problem that I saw with the above was that the balancer has the rubber insulator between the inner and outer halves that sticks up, I added a .125 spacer to get the wheel away from the rubber so that the balancer could still provide some dampening. I looked into this but it didn't seem doable, the backside of the damper isn't level for 360* so you didn't have good tacking surfaces, and the center shaft area looked tough to attach to. would love to see some photos on this setup if you have any to see how you did it. been mulling this all morning, and still feeling like notching the pulley is the easiest/most cost effective way to go with the least impact and no belt issues
I would love to get in on it, can I still buy one? I am make a mpfi intake for my 350, let me know and I will send paypal! Thanks!
Well, how far away from the damper is the edge of the pulley? Wouldn't there be enough room to set the ring in between the pulley and damper? Seems to me most engines have some space there. I don't have a Buick 350 to look at and my 340 will have a non-stock setup because of the blower so a photo of the damper/pulley would really help me see what you're up against. The external balance does complicate things a little, but I did one on an I-H 392 and that was external balance too and had a very large counterweight on one side. There was still enough room between the counterbalance and the timing cover to get the wheel and sensor in there. But I still feel bolting to the outside of the damper is the best idea, just not with a flat plate. It needs offsets in it to be able to center the VR pickup over the teeth, which means the centerline needs to be 5/16" from the damper face. Jim
figured it would make for a horrible signal since the toothed wheel would be right up against the metal of both the pulley and the balancer will get the camera out later today have a spare pulley that I'm going to see about getting teeth cut into VR sensor is going on the no longer needed fuel pump bolts, sensor will sit right near timing marks
