A Berkeley with Bite! (ccrunner)

[davew]

Love that idea
The large flat areas may be prone to oil canning. To prevent vibration you may want to consider welding longer beads in those areas to help stiffen the surface. The welds should also shrink the metal and put the surface in tension.
How about a video with sound when finished installing.

[ccrunner]

A late Christmas gift..

I have 2 daughters; my oldest is 21. It's an exciting time in her life- she's just about to earn her Bachelor's degree, and she's planning to move out in the next few months; her life is really just beginning.. She has also recently started dating a young man, and things seem to be getting quite serious.. He's a good kid- they went to HS together.. He's got a good job, and very soon he will earn his instrument-rating for his pilot's license. I've always been pretty fond of him, and he treats my kid well.

Just last month at Christmas he explained that his gift for me would be a bit late. I didn't even know we were exchanging gifts, but my wife has explained to me that that is what you do when your kid is dating someone seriously- lesson learned. I didn't want to make him feel bad or awkward about this late gift, so I didn't even make a joke of it.. God knows when I was young and dating, the boyfriend-to-girlfriend's-father waters were tough to navigate; I promised myself years ago not to make that any more treacherous than it already is for whoever my daughters end up bringing home.

So yesterday my belated Christmas gift finally arrived, which is pictured below. I don't know if he's playing me, and just trying to curry favor as his relationship with my daughter heat up, but this kid's OK in my book. I liked him before, and I like him even more now.. NO ONE knows what a Berkeley is- especially not a 21 year old kid, and yet he went on Etsy and sought out my particular make and model, right down to the 'new and bigger' 3-cylinder engine! Did he get lucky and guess it right? I don't care how he nailed this so perfectly.. He's a hell of a lot more thoughtful than I am, and this is just further confirmation that my kid has chosen well... and look, I now have this cool Berkeley in-period ad to hang in the garage!

--ccrunner

[JAMADOR]

That's a cool addition to the Berkeley saga!

[ohmite]

He’s a keeper! I hope your daughter continues to think so too. She chose well I think.

My one son in-law just bought a ‘57 Bel Air and took me for a ride soon after, squealing tires and no seat belts. He’s a keeper, good thing, 2 grandkids and one on the way...

[benny_toe]

Pretty cool Dean! I dated a few ladies in my life and never even considered giving their fathers a gift of any kind. But then none of them were neat car guys.

Cheers!

[ccrunner]

January 30, 2022

Back at making the exhaust for the wee car.

This time around everything is stainless (which is surprisingly expen$ive ). The rectangle tubing is 1"x3" @ .065... the muffler is 16 gauge.. The goal is to keep the bends as gentle as possible, while having it route over under the passenger side and exit at the right (pass) rear of the car. My original goal was to not have anything hang down under the belly pan, but that ship has sailed; the ONLY way to get the exhaust to the rear is to hang it under the pan.. I've used the 1" thick rectangle tubing to keep it as tight to the body as possible.. Surely I've given up some performance by using this odd shape to route the exhaust, but to what degree I can't tell- she's still plenty quick..

*I only got to the rear of the muffler on this session- I'll try to complete it out to the tailpipe next weekend..

--ccrunner

[rx7locost]

I can't wait to read your report on how it performs.

[ccrunner]

February 4, 2022

A California Rally; wanna get out and drive?

As these builds and years stack up, I'm trying to get out of the garage a bit more, and in this quest, I'm looking to enter a regional rally or two. Last year I drove the Volvo 1800 in the "Faultline 500" rally in central California; and although the weather was VERY hot, I had a great time and met many very nice people.

"The Snowball Rally" has just opened registration for their April 29-May 1, 2022 event. It is run over two days from Sacramento, CA, over into Nevada, up to North Shore Lake Tahoe, and then back into Sacramento to finish out.. (there is also an 'extra leg' at the beginning if you wish to extend the trip that will take you from San Francisco to Sacramento, which is where the rally 'really' starts).. Sounds fun!

I post this here because if you're into it, they cap it at about 50 cars, and it fills up within a week or two.. If my entry is accepted, I'm going to pilot the Berkeley and go solo.. I have no affiliation with this event- I'm just a guy looking for some car-stuff fun.. If you want to get out and drive your unique car through a very pretty section of CA, seek this out and sign up soon

link: http://www.thesnowballrally.com/

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

February 6, 2022

A few stray pics..

Earlier I mentioned an inflatable lumbar pillow to try and make the seat bearable for more than an hour.. This car will never be a cush ride, but hopefully this clever pillow will allow me stay comfortable at least last until the car needs a gas stop; It's tucked behind the seat cover where you see the bulge (note the inflation bulb dangling off the left side).

I also mentioned needing to step up to a larger radiator.. The one in the pic below is sourced from a Kawasaki Mule 3000 side by side- it gives me about 40% more surface area than what I am currently running; it should be enough to do the trick..


--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

2-6-22

More Exhaust Work..

The car is up on stands and hasn't been drivable for a few weeks, but I have an event next Sunday (13th) a few hours away in SoCal that I plan to take the car to.. I've got to push a bit to get it back on its feet, which means the 'new' exhaust needs to go in..

These few pics just jump right in to an overview of the old vs. new.. The next series shows a little more detail, because, you know, you can't have too many pics of a part of the car I really don't want to have seen

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

Last of the Exhaust..

It's a pet peeve of mine to have a big, clunky, cumbersome exhaust pipe hanging way down low under a car. Surely there's a way to channel/tuck/hide that ugly but necessary eyesore, right? Well, on some cars there is just no room to hide it; it's just going to have to hang under there. In this case I opted to use rectangle tubing to get it to hug the body as tightly as possible.. I've also integrated a pancake-flat muffler of sorts.

So let's see if it works! These pics show it bolted up into its new home, but I ran out of day to test drive it, so for this week, it's just going to have to sit there and look pretty. One thing I did take a bit of time to do was give the last 10" or so an upward kick so I could have the tailpipe sit flush up into the body (I didn't want the tailpipe to extend past the body on this car; stealth was the plan).

*please ignore the janky ramps/wood blocks to get the car so high. I know better, but I took some shortcuts in the interest of time

--ccrunner

[ohmite]

Dean,
That exhaust looks very cool and innovative. I hope it accomplishes the goal of quieting things down. I did have to look away from your stands though, they made me shudder. Please be careful !
Regards,
Eric

[horchoha]

Dean
I always look forward to your build updates.

The way you can "look out of the box" to solve build specific issues is truly amazing. I love the exhaust system.
I can say that I always take away your solutions and store them in my pea brain in case I may need to use them some day.

As for your car stands, I am ok with your set up only because I see that the front end is on jack stands so the possibility the Berk rolling off the rear wood blocks is pretty remote.

Keep up the great work!

[Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F]

Probably a little lighter despite being more to it, considering the thinner wall material. Looks good!

[ccrunner]

As always guys, thank you for the support and encouragement ....I'm hopeful this aspect of the car won't need any more mods so I can move onto the next thing.. I'll know once I get it on the road and put a load on it to see how it sounds- I'm cautiously optimistic ..

With this new exhaust, I now need to go back and run a few sessions with the Dynojet PC-V 'Autotune' programmer to get my fueling right again.

Miatav8.. you're right about the weight.. I haven't scaled it, but there is a noticeable difference in heft between the old and new systems, despite more material being used on the latter.. The tubing I used in the original exhaust was way, way too thick..

--ccrunner