Ferret 38C5968

[Mullaney]

July 1, the longest run yet. Still no video though.
After months of sitting it started with little complaint and all systems worked as well as when I parked it. Not the highest bar but reassuring to be sure.
Almost exactly 10 miles travelled today.
First from my house to the local CHP office and then jump onto the freeway and drive back to the shop. Before I drove anywhere I checked the timing and retarded it about 4 degrees, a significant improvement on the freeway as my flat land speed rose from 47MPH to about 53MPH and downhill from 47 to 60+. My fuel consumption plummeted as well from something like an estimated 2.5MPG(worst case) to something like 8MPG!
Operation of the vehicle came back fairly quickly.

Now the bad news, the local CHP officer refused to verify the VIN.
Officer "they don't have all the regulated safety equipment like seat belts"
Me "1954, nobody required seat belts and if they existed at all they were uncommon. This vehicle has every bit of safety equipment required for a vehicle of it's age"
Officer "well, yeah... but no"
We went on like this for a minute but eventually he gave me a document citing a rule against registering surplus military vehicles.
I'm not sure his reading of the rules are correct, it looks like a technicality and could be called either way.
So, now I have to investigate other options. These include:
Trying to get the DMV to verify the VIN and hoping they feel agreeable.
Paying to have a verification service do the work.
Just buying a big stack of 1-day permits, for as much as I'm likely to drive it it might be a wash cost-wise but it would be nice to have plates.
I'm interested to hear from others in CA who have road-registered Ferrets.

I've been running off a gas can for quite a while while waiting for the fuel tank to dry out so I could clean it. No leaks but lots of scale in there.
Today I stripped off the fuel filler neck extension and reaching in, scraped and vacuumed up as much rust as I could. I've arranged with a person with shorter and smaller arms than I have to spend some hours scraping and wire-brushing the tank. It won't help much on the right side of the vehicle but it should give me a pretty clean "main" fuel tank to work from and that will improve my effective range and convenience significantly.

.
I don't know if you have ever heard of a guy named Jay Leno, but he is the proud owner of a Ferett. Another guy in California named Jeff Dunham has several YouTube videos of his vehicle on the streets in that state. I know you ain't them and chances are that your wallet isn't as fat - but you might research what city they are in - and maybe a road trip to that DMV might be helpful in your situation.

And make sure that they aren't trying to outlaw your vehicle with the ban to outlaw the four legged critters with the same name.

 

[teletech]

Turns out a previous owner switched some wires around between the headlight circuits and the turn signals, sorting that out has gotten me working turn signals at long last. In celebration of it being at least somewhat reasonable to drive the vehicle alone, I'm using it as transportation to work today. Should be amusing.

Another milestone for this vehicle is the fuel tank is scraped, wire-brushed, and vacuumed inside as well as myself and a smaller-armed person can make it. After putting some fuel in and running am electric pump through a filter to recirculate things through the lines and tank for a couple hours I've dispensed with the 5-gallon can and it's actually running off the internal tank again.
Making the turn signals work has broken the headlight wiring, so there's a a bit more to be done there but for now just not driving in the dark or rain is sufficient.

I don't know if you have ever heard of a guy named Jay Leno, but he is the proud owner of a Ferett. Another guy in California named Jeff Dunham has several YouTube videos of his vehicle on the streets in that state. I know you ain't them and chances are that your wallet isn't as fat - but you might research what city they are in - and maybe a road trip to that DMV might be helpful in your situation.

There are several registered in California which is why I thought it would be easy.
Seems as though the DMV commonly registered them "by mistake" up until 2017 when the memo come out. If you have one with a title and plates you should be fine but they in theory could revoke you. Sadly, the vehicle I bought was from an estate and the title was lost.

 

[teletech]

14.5 miles R/T commute to work and it went fine overall. I can't say it's something I'd want to do with any frequency though and I can't even imagine that big multi-country road trip the Brits did in the pair of Ferrets back in the day!

Question for the Ferret owners among you: My fuel tank selector switch was plugged up and leaking so I replaced the gasket remnants with some other gasket material only to have that fail in short order as well. What do you like to use for this application? I was thinking about some sheet Teflon about .020" thick but I'd love to know if someone already solved this problem.

 

[Ferretboy]

Well the original looked to be cork...so I used a cork gasket material....so far so good...no leaks....but keep the switching from main to reserve to a minimum.....the Teflon idea you have sounds good....worth a try.....

 

[teletech]

Well the original looked to be cork...so I used a cork gasket material....so far so good...no leaks....but keep the switching from main to reserve to a minimum.....the Teflon idea you have sounds good....worth a try.....

I did try making a teflon sheet one and it wouldn't seal so I went with cork which is doing fine thus far.
There was a cut into the back surface right by one of the gasket locating tabs that was low and it leaked there. I suspect if I had set the valve in the mill and faced that surface .020" deeper it would have worked but I thought I'd see how long the cork held up. If it's a 5+ year lifespan I suspect I'll just leave it alone. If it fails in the year or two I'll do the extra work net time.

In other news, having a lexan front windscreen is awesome, no longer do I need to wear safety glasses to go for a drive.
Early on I was prairie-dogging out of the front hatch to check clearances but now that I have some miles logged I'm getting used to the clearances so thought it would be fine.

A couple pics from the drive to work:

 

[Ferretboy]

Thanks for the photos.....

 

[Ferretboy]

I find it very impressive...the modifications you all come up with....love it.....keep them going.....

 

[teletech]

Ferret fuel system strikes again!
The last few times I've run the Ferret, it's seemed like it was taking more time to get fuel into the carburetor and has been longer to warm up and run right. Well, things came to a head last trip out when it stalled completely and would not restart. The problem was traced to sucking air at the fuel tank saddle switch. I've replaced the gasket twice (first paper, then cork) and I don't recall touching it after the last time, and yet it still failed.
I'm thinking of trying a different material, but not sure what to use. I think solid Teflon sheet might be the next try.

In other Ferret news, I've finally got enough Clansman boxes and cables that I now have a working intercom system. So far I'm *deeply* underwhelmed with the ANR system, but I'll see how I feel when my other headsets arrive in the hopes I just have a bad one. Still, the ability to communicate with the person in the commander's seat without screaming is a nice feature.
I'm also not at all sure I have my cable routing anything like correct, so if anyone has Clansman in a Ferret and is fairly sure their cable routing is correct(ish), I'd love to see it.

 

[teletech]

Ha-ha, the joke's on me. it was sucking air from the selector, but that's mostly because the tank pickup was plugged up for the third or fourth time... usual Ferret things.
In an effort to do something about the lack of power, low compression on a couple cylinders, and just generally not running that well, I finally got in and adjusted the exhaust-valve clearance. That's a job and no mistake, took me an hour and a half to adjust the six valves because you basically have to hold all three wrenches on the tappet and use the feeler gauge all at the same time and can't see what you are doing, so it's all by feel. Another hour and a half to clean off the covers and block, make new gaskets and reinstall.
I'll have to recover before tackling the intakes since it requires the engine decks and crossmember to come off for a start.
Rearranged the Clansman cables and moved a crew box, so it's closer to correct. I still hate the ANR headset but the regular ones do allow for reasonable conversation.
I just keep giving it a few minutes or a couple hours when I have time and it keeps looking better with every bin and fitting I install. Some day I need to do some big jobs, but hopefully not until both my CVR(T) are running (one down).

 

[teletech]

PROBLEM FOUND.

Inspect the plugs, one was oily and nasty, clearly fowled and not one that had previously had low compression. Hmm...
Compression test showed the five other cylinders had increased and much more consistent compression: 90-105PSI, very reasonable for such a low-compression motor, but also about 5PSI on the bad-plug cylinder.
Cheap borescope shows rings where the motor sat and had some corrosion, but not bad, also ring scoring, hard to know how bad since it was a loaner tool and with that magnification my scale was all out of whack. Not a significant ring-ridge and nothing awful, with some cross-hatching present in some parts of the bores, so I'm calling it fine.
Realizing I could check the intake pushrods from the side, I pulled the cover back off and quickly realized the pushrod for the intake valve on the fowled cylinder was hung up far from the tappet.
Then the big hassle of pulling the engine cover assembly, crossmember, and rocker-cover.
Just driving the vehicle for the 10' to where I could lift the decks with a hoist it already ran better from the valve adjustment and cleaned plugs, nice to know it was some better already.
Inspection showed a damaged pushrod, likely some rust or grit caused the valve to hang up and then the rod floated and came derailed.
I adjusted the other five valves, they were all a bit tight (as had been the exhaust). Was this someone setting things too tight or is it normal wear and valve-recession, I can't say, but it will be interesting to see if the compression improves even more and how it runs.
Pretty sure if I repair or replace the pushrod, I'll have a pretty reasonably-running Ferret.

 

[teletech]

straighten out the cup on the pushrod and reinstall, another cylinder pushing at least 90PSI. Started and ran better than ever in the time I've owned it. Next I'll put the rocker cover on and hit the road to see if it holds up.

 

[teletech]

So much better. About 20 miles of local and freeway traffic (cruise at 51 to go easy on it) and it's running better than any time I've owned it. It's a huge relief to have reasonably consistent and reasonable compression as I'd had visions of needing to pull the engine and find enough parts to bore the block for larger pistons. Time now for a long-overdue oil-change. I've read that mulitgrade oil burns and makes more-abrasive residue in that engine, so 3.5 gallons of straight-30 is the order of the day.
Still has a little timing issue I think and I need to tweak the carb to the new reality of the engine., bogs when setting off from idle and an occasional backfire as it builds RPM.

 

[teletech]

I gather that motor was used in some other vehicles, I'd love to find a head gasket and other parts so that when I do eventually need to do a valve job I'll have parts on-hand. I see reference to how the engine is designed to burn some oil. I suspect a fair part of that oil use would be that it might well lack valve stem seals. In this modern age, clouds of smoke in the driveway are frowned on and to be fair, it does cloud up the garage a bit on starting. That makes me wonder if I could retrofit vale stem seals on the intake valves.

 

[teletech]

OK, now that the engine is running well, time to get back to the fuel system.
The banjo fittings for the pickups are at the *very* bottom of the tank, so they silt up with rust and whatever else finds it's way into the fuel tank. I think this is my third or perhaps fourth time draining the tank to clean them out and I'm tired of it.
Following the example of another Ferret owner, I soldered a bit of pipe onto the banjo bolts going into the tank so they pull fuel from about an inch above the very bottom of the tank. That should keep a large amount of the crud out of the fuel lines and I'll just have to pump the tanks empty and drain that last inch every once in a while to reduce water buildup.
With that done, time to straighten out the most mangled of my fenders, patch some tears, and add a doubler to some of the outer flange to stiffen the compromised section. It was so floppy the bulbs on the fender were dying from having their filaments flogged about so constantly.