Medical Update - May 27, 2026

Morning guys... well if you have been wondering why I've not been on the forum for a bit it was because I suffered a stroke on May 11th. Thankfully my wife was awake and noticed my thrashing and gibberish while trying to roll over. She summoned the EMS immediately and they rushed me to the hospital. By early the following morning  they had me resting in the ICU and was responsive. I was released on Thursday the 14th and was very grateful to all the medical teams who worked on me and thankful that the Good Lord blessed me in such a way that everyone was amazed at how quickly I responded.

Still hae a ways to go and praying that I can get the Tomato finished before it's too late!! Appreciate all the prayers and best wishes for the coming day...

THANKS GUYS 👍

April 27, 2026 - UPDATE

Well I tried on my latest 3D printed throttle solenoid bracket and I'm EXTREMELY happy with how it turned out.....

A couple slight tweaks I want to make to it then I'll call it good and begin the search for a source to get it 3D printed in metal.

Next on the agenda will be recreating the divorced choke assembly....

Have the choke pull-off and linkage as well as the choke stove so now I need to loocate an OEM style divorced choke thermostat that will mount to the intake/choke stove and then fashion the linkage up to the carb choke assembly.

ANYONE with a 429CJ who might have their choke assembly pulled apart that wouldn't mind sharing a bunch of pictures of the bits so I can get an idea of what I'm searching for I would be VERY GRATEFUL!!

UNTIL NEXT INSTALLMENT

ZEBRA 3 OUT

April 12, 2026 - UPDATE

After taking a short holiday trip last weekend, I played some more with the QuadraJet this weekend. I got the new choke vacuum pull off and link installed on the carb (OOPS, forgot to take any pics!! ) then turned my attention to the 3D printed throttle solenoid bracket...

When I set the carb onto the workstand and then placed the bracket into position, I ALMOST FELL OFF MY STOOL as to how close I had gotten with my BEST GUESS BRACKET!! 

The spacing between the mounting holes was 1/16" too far apart, the mounting leg was 1/16" too wide, the alignment finger across the front of the carb was 1/4" too long and the solenoid mounting leg needs to be about 1/4" longer to center the solenoid on the carb throttle arm. Aside from making those few corrections, my best guess was pretty damn close!!

Next weekend hopefully I will have the revised bracket in my grubby little hands and will try fitting everything onto the intake manifold to verify everything is a it should be.

PROGRESS

ZERBRA 3 OUT

March 31 2026 - MID-WEEK UPDATE

With the majority of the Quadrajet parts now on order and inbound, was time to turn my attention to the missing link of the project... the throttle stop solenoid bracket.

Since I had already created a 3D drawing of what the piece looked like, I had a buddy with a 3D printer print out my "best guess model" for me.

Now I can set it up against the Rochester and see how close I was and note the changes necessary to make the bracket correct.

MORE TO COME

ZEBRA 3 OUT

March 28, 2026 UPDATE

A few more baby steps this week in getting the Tomato running again. Got the missing choke parts and linkage ordered for the 429CJ Rochester carb as well as getting the fuel pump and temporary fuel line reinstalled on the 460 installed in the car....

I was also looking over the orginal 460 from the car and noticed it had the choke stove assembly installed in the intake similar to what was used on the '70 429CJ engines and I thought "could this possiblt be the same part?" so I pulled it out and did a quick clean up....

I then took it over to the 429CJ intake to see how it fit....

VIOLA... 😍 I think I've found what I was looking for!!

Now to find that elusive throttle solenoid bracket....😖

Until next time...

ZEBRA 3 OUT

March 24 2026 - UPDATE

 With the decision to rebuild my original 460 into a "460CJ", I've started reassembling the 460 that is in the Tomato now so I can get the car mobile again and get her into a shop for final bodywork and paint. When I pull the current motor out of the car I will then detail out the rest of the engine bay components that I'm unable to access with the engine in place. With that decision made, I've started putting the 460 back together....

I have a very good friend of mine, Charlie Mills who is now retired, acting on my behalf visiting local engine builders to see what their capabilities and knowledge of the 385 series Fords are. He has found a couple very good prospects to tackle the task and one even has an in house dyno!😍

Now the race is on to get the car mobile by the end of Spring so she can finally 🤞🤞🤞get her final colors on!!!

February 15 2026 - UPDATE

 Well after a very long hiatus due to weather and lack of drive, I FINALLY made a bit of progress on the Tomato this past Saturday.

I had recently scored a rare '71 429CJ Rochester QuadraJet carburetor for the rebuild of her original engine. I had also picked up the 429CJ intake a couple years ago and got it all blasted clean in December of 24 so I figured it was time to pull it out and see how things looked together.

Here is the intake before...

and here it is after blasting.

A drive screw that holds the baffle in place on the underside of the intake had it's head snap off during removal. The remnant can be seen in the upper left corner of the baffle area. Also have a little work to do on the baffle itself to get it straighten out...

 

Once I got the remnant drilled out, I flipped the intake over and set the QuadraJet in place to see how things lined up and what was missing for it's use on my engine...

Couple items I noticed were the bracket and throttle solenoid for use with air conditioning as well as the bits and pieces for the divorced choke arrangement on the Rochester.

Did a quick Google search for the original FOMOCO parts but there are none available at this time. I'll do some digging and see what I may be able to substitute or fabricate.

UNTIL NEXT INSTALLMENT...

ZEBRA 3 OUT