Drivetrain Work - Day #1 (3-18-06)
It is a little unfair to call this Day #1 of the Drivetrain work, but I think most of this page will probably be devoted to the motor. I might open the cover of the tranny and put a new filter in there, but there will be little else to mention here. I might make mention that I am getting a driveshaft made or this is what I am doing with the shifter, etc. I am putting a 283 Chevy motor that I took out of the my 1957 Chevy Bel Air about 20 years ago. I checked the numbers on the thing and it is out of either 1961 Chevy car or Corvette. This weekend I took it completely apart and started assessing what I have to put a motor together for this truck. I put some Easy Off oven cleaner on the block and ran some hot water through my pressure washer to clean off all the grease on the block. I got it back in a swabbed all the machined surfaces down with an oily rag. Five of the 8 top compression rings were broken on this motor on cylinders 2,4,6,7 & 8. Through all of this, the motor ran when I took it out of the 57, but there was little scoring on the walls of the cylinders. It also looked like this motor was worked on once before. The tops of the cylinder walls were flaired out and I noticed that one of the head alignment pins was malleated as if an attempt was made to remove it at one point. I am not sure if a new head will fit on this thing, so that issue will need to be addressed. I have a few pictures of what I am starting with shown here:
4 Sets of Heads, 2 intakes & 2 tails pipes to choose from
Valve covers, torque converters, oil pans, etc.
Motor bolts
Even another motor
Broke down motor block
Drivetrain Work - Day #2 (3-26-06)
Thanks again to Bob Schmidt. He took me over to Phase II engine millwork under Watson Rd. Auto Parts. Mike had an extra standard 283 piston with a rod and gave it to Schmitty. A most generous individual. I'll be stopping by to see Mikey again soon. I de-burred the lifter valley of the motor and cleaned the carbon off the pistons. I stopped by Autozone and picked up a new set of stones for my cylinder hone. Honing was a little tricky. The stones would fill up with extremely fine metal shavings that would stop them from cutting. At first I used a rag to wipe them off, but when the filings were heavy, they would not come off that way. I next used a smooth, flat file, but I was not happy with how this was wearing away the stone. After a few more times, I used a wire brush and this cleaned the stones the best. Lastly, I slowed the variable speed drill down to about 60 rpm (about a revolution per second) and the stone started skipping on the cylinder wall. This kept the shavings from building up on the stone, gave a nice even pattern to the hone marks in the cylinder and I got past the varnish goo deposits I was having to clean off the cylinder walls. These took some elbow grease and a gas laden rag to remove. I took a flat file to the decks to see if some corrosion I noted there might happen to just be some head gasket debris. It was not. I should probably have the decks milled, but I am going to stick to my "poor boy" attitude on this project. Same goes for some ring wear I noted at BDC on the cylinders. I should have the cylinders bored out .030" over, but same comment as before. I am just trying to build a simple motor back into running shape for a cute little truck to drive around and enjoy. The only hint at performance will be a mild cam to make the motor percolate at the stop light, at idle. I assembled my list of parts to put this motor back together. I am not sure about some damage I incurred to the cam bearings in the block. I am being told that these are tricky to replace. I put a call into Feiss, but I didn't hear back from him. I checked with Scotty, the next day and he wasn't sure. I have a couple of pictures of the block and one of the frame without the front bar I put on it to hold things together when I was fabbing up frame components:
Honed cylinder
Frame outside the shop
Drivetrain Work - Day #3 (5-22-06)
It has been hard to get down to the shop to work on the truck of late. Chris has been sick for weeks with a low grade fever that just wouldn't go away. I had problems with getting the wrong bearings from Advance Auto Parts and I got the wrong piston from Phase II. I picked up an opposite bank piston. Mike up there was gracious enough to trade out the piston for the right one and I found the right piston bearings I needed at Auto Zone. I got the short block back together and I've started on mocking up the water pump, pulley and alternator arrangement. It looks like everything is starting to line up and fit. After sealing up the short block with oil pan and cam cover, I painted the block and took a shot for an update here:
Drivetrain Work - Day #4 (6-7-06)
I am working on the heads for the motor. I have one bank ready to go back together after cleaning it up, taking it apart, grinding the ports on the intakes and exhaust sides. I am also clearing out castings just below the seats in the ports. I lapped the valves in on this bank and that is where I stopped. The other side needs to be cleaned, ported, lapped and we'll be ready to start putting the valve assemblies back together. The objective this weekend is to get the heads done and torqued onto the shortblock. Then I can mate it up to the tranny and set it into the frame to see how the front suspension reacts. Things are starting to clean up with fresh black paint on the frame and the Chevy Orange of the 283. We'll see how much I can get done with bandjobs in the schedule this weekend.
Drivetrain Work - Day #5 (6-11-06)
I had a suspension spring break on my band equipment trailer on Friday. I am a very lucky individual to have gotten it home after my job that night. It was a tough breakdown on Saturday morning at the shop, but after I got the old parts off the unit, I called WM Services in Marine, IL. and Scott over there got me set up with everything I needed for about $48. I was back in operation and ready to go with the trailer by 11am. Thanks Scott, that was great service. Look for a link on my band's website. This allowed me to get onto what I hoped to get to for the weekend on the truck and otherwise. I finished the head work and bolted the motor back together. Here is a shot of the motor in front of the frame.
Drivetrain Work - Day #6 (7-15-06)
I cleaned out the tranny. There was a bunch of gray muck inside. I put on a new filter and buttoned it back up, bolted on the torque converter to the flex plate and then could not get things to go together. It was impossible to line up and hot so I gave up for the day to try to get things put together tomorrow. Here is a shot of the tranny all cleaned up and ready to close doctor.
Drivetrain Work - Day #7 (7-16-06)
I pulled the torque converter off the flexplate. At this point I noticed that I was trying to put the flexplate on backwards so I fixed that difficulty. I still could not get the torque converted to go onto the snout of the Turbo-350. I took the old torque converter I pulled off my 57 Chevy in 1986. It did fit, so I bolted it on to the flex plate and was able to get everything to bolt together. Everything looked pretty good so I took a couple of shots of it.
Drivetrain Work - Day #8 (5-27-07)
I cleaned up an put in all the rocker arm parts that Bob Schmidt gave me. No pictures on this work.
Return to the 36 Ford Main Page
Start ..... LINK ..... Last Entry
(4-4-05) ..... Getting the Truck ..... (Finished 4-4-05)(4-6-05) ..... Getting Ready ..... (5-6-05)
(4-8-05) ..... Deconstruction Work ..... (Finished: 4-19-05)
(5-1-05) ..... Frame Work ..... (11-19-05)
(4-24-05 ..... Rear Suspension Work ..... (12-23-05)
(4-24-05) ..... Front Suspension Work ..... (7-15-06)
(3-18-06) ..... Drivetrain Work ..... (5-27-07)
(7-11-05) ..... Body Work ..... (9-1-08)
(7-15-07) ..... Shop Visits ..... (7-15-07)
(4-24-05) ..... "Feiss" Vette-mobile ..... (4-24-05)
(4-4-05) ..... Acknowledgements ..... (6-12-05)