Little Things

And when I say little things, I mean little things as in carb parts.  It's been a while since I posted to the blog.  A few months ago, I injured the tendon in the back of my thumb.  The one you use to lift your thumb up to hitch hike.  Well, it goes into your wrist and up your forearm and you lose all your grip.  So, I haven't been able to tackle big jobs like the rear-end swap.  Instead, I busied myself with a few small things that needed done that took forever using mostly one hand and my left had at that.  Oh, and try typing sometime with your right thumb and wrist in a brace..so, no blog entries.

Carburetor Rebuild

Since I'm on a budget, I decided to not really rebuild, but freshen up the 650 cfm Edelbrock that came on the car.  I bought a kit with new gaskets, floats, etc.

I don't know much about carbs but, this Edlebrock seemed fairly simple.  A mechanic son of mine told me that whatever I did, I should not take the rod assemblies on the sides apart because they're a nightmare to put back together.  I had to take the little pump actuator off to get the top off and it took me a while to figure out how it went back on even with all the pictures I take.

With the body disassembled, I cleaned everything out really well with carb cleaner.

Then I replaced all of the old parts that had new pieces in the kit.  After sitting behind a barn for the last 10 years, all the fuel had evaporated and it took a little work to get all the varnish out.

Steering Assembly

Steering seems to be something I'll want to do, so I started at the steering wheel and worked my way down.  Back in January of 2014, there's a blog post of where I rebuilt the top end of the column.  I had to.  The little cog that the key turns to pull the starter relay had broken a tooth.  While I was in there, I replaced the broken turn signal switch and installed a new transmission lever return spring that had broken.

The only real problem was the seal that keeps grease in the mid-joint of the column was leaking and worthless.  When it comes apart, it's a pretty simple set up with two metal squares clipped onto a rod that goes through the center of the shaft.

The only two things that hold it together are the rubber seal and the pressure of being bolted in on both ends.

I cleaned it all up, put in a wad of new grease and installed a new seal.

After painting it, with a little help to guide it in place (ya my wife thinks she's a mechanic now) I bolted it all back together and moved to lower section.

With the motor installed and some weight on the car I was able to install the rest of the steering assembly.  Everything's new from the connection between the steering column and new pump to the ends of the tie rods.

I mocked up the steering while the engine was out because it's easier with nothing in the bay, but I didn't tighten up anything until I had some weight from the motor.  I didn't even try to hook up the sway bar prior to stabbing the engine, it won't even come close and would probably damage the connections if you did manage to hook it up.  It's still a struggle getting it on without the weight of the body, bumper, radiator, etc. that's not going on for a while.

Lastly, a new steering pump.  I have primed the system by spinning the pulley with a plastic rod, but I'm not putting a belt on it until the engine is running.  One less fluid level and system leak to worry about when I'm trying to break in a cam.

Distributor and Spark Plug Wires

I went with a Summit Racing HEI distributor and MSD 8.5 wire with MSD HEI boots on both ends.

I ran the wires high and tight through the vertical loom that you see.  I like the clean look and it should keep  the wires clear of the exhaust manifold.  Which on a Pontiac is down low anyway.

The only problem I ran into (as shown here) with a normal sized brake booster, there isn't enough room on these vertical looms to fit between the booster and the head.  I ended up grinding about 1/2" off the loom and building an extension out of sheet metal to get the bracket back behind the booster.  The booster covers it completely so visually it's not a big deal but, it was an unexpected nuisance.

Stabbing the engine

With the help of my son Jason, we came to another milestone.  I took the radiator core support off to more easily slide the engine into position.  I had left the core support on because a) the bolts holding it on were rusted solid and b) I wanted to use it as a stationary reference when the fenders and the rest of the front end body panels go back on.

We decided that it would be much easier to connect the engine and tranny then slide it all into place rather than install the tranny and try to line things up laying under the car.  That meant taking off the core support.  I wish I would have thought through that sooner.  I've been working around that thing for months!

We also thought it might be easier to put the headers on first as well.  If you've ever put headers on a Pontiac and as you can kind of see in the photo, the heads are positioned so that the headers connect almost to the bottom, instead of the side.  This makes a horrible job out of installing them with the engine in place.  You have to remove the starter and the oil filter bracket, undo the motor mounts and raise the engine about 4 inches to get them in...from underneath.  The measurements showed that it would be tight, but workable.  It was a none starter.  If the engine only weighed a couple of pounds so you could work it around to kind of corkscrew it in there, then maybe.  As it was, the headers had to come off and get installed as the engine went in.

With the engine finally in place...I remembered that in the rush to get done and return the borrowed engine lift before nightfall, that I forgot to bolt up the torque converter!  Looks like I'll have a little under car work after all.  Other than that and the header issue, it was an easy install.  It took a little guidance underneath to stab the drive line back into the transmission, but other than that, it was an easy bolt in.

Tranny Time

This part of my project isn't for the faint of heart.  This isn't a tutorial.  I skip a lot of stuff like reaction sun gears, low/reverse clutch packs, center supports, anti-clunk springs, bearings, shims, thrust washers, etc.  If you aren't up for the risk of failure, maybe even, a thousand miles down the road, you may be better off to stay in bed and cough up the money for someone else to do this.

The first thing I learned when I rebuilt my TH 350 transmission is that you are far ahead to just buy a rebuilt one.  It's like everything else in life, if you have done a hundred of these you can blow through it perfectly in a few hours.  My rebuild took days.  Partly because it was a learning process.  Mostly because I'm very meticulous with this kind of thing, want to know how it works and why plus have everything perfect.  I'm sure a pro doesn't stop to run feeler gauges in every clutch pack and assembly, run a micrometer on every bearing that he seats, etc.  However the Pro job comes with a warranty.

So, here's a sampling of my process.

Here we are completely gutted.  Everything is out including internals, externals and valve body.  When I take things out I keep them all in order and separated by section, which is another thing I'm sure Pro's don't bother to do.  For example, I want to be able to see if a torrington bearing has uneven wear and if the matching thrust washer has it too.  Without keeping them in order, I don't know how I could do that.  A Pro probably has a better process.

This is a bearing I took out.  It has little to no wear and looks new.  the clutches and steels looked new too.  I'm positive this tranny was rebuilt just prior to being parked 12 or so years ago.  I needed to rebuild it anyway because all the gaskets and seals were leaking like crazy from dry rot and I needed to have a stage 2 set of steels and clutches to handle the power the motor will put out...someday.

While I was pulling the spring pack out of the forward clutch, I took the opportunity to take a picture of my highly sophisticated & technical transmission work bench.  Ok, its a 1" X 12" pine board with a 1 5/8" hole drilled in it set on half a whiskey barrel.

Without the specialized tools, replacing the bearings in the pump can be tricky.  I made my own tool by bending the end of a hardened steel rod and then grinding a chisel point on it.  It's long enough to go through the interior of the pump stator.  I had to keep grinding a new chisel point on the rod and tweeking the bend, but as you can see, it worked.  The other tools I got from Autozone on their loaner program.

Not having a pump alignment tool, I went to Lowe's and bought a couple of large hose clamps.  They worked fine to clamp the two halves of the pump back together in perfect position while they are bolted.  On the stator, you can see one silicone ring seal and the rest are old school steel.  I had placed all silicone rings on there, but when I pressure tested the forward and direct clutch assemblies, they wouldn't seal.  I was told that silicone rings don't pressure test well.  However, I decided to replace them with steel so I would know 100% for sure, that the clutch packs operated normally.

Then I started at the end.  With the rear piston, output shaft which you can't see because, it's going out the back into the whiskey barrel, and the rear planetary gear.

I put the forward clutch and the direct clutch assemblies together to make installation easier.  Another thing that makes installation easier is to line up all the tabs on the clutches as like I have done in the photo of the direct clutch pack.  That saves you a lot of time trying to jitter them around and work them done into their drive assembly.

The assembled direct and forward clutches are turned over and worked into their place..

In go the steels and clutchs for the intermediate / 2nd gear clutch pack.  I'm using the stage 2 high energy clutches and steels that are rated for up to 550 HP.

Lastly the valve body.  this is where I had most of my issues.  I decided to install a Transgo shift kit for a little harder shift and the ability to adjust a few things in the shifting if I decide I want to.  Installing the kit basically amounts to swapping some springs in the valve body and governor.  It all went pretty easy until one of the new springs (similar to the one furthest to the left in the picture) slipped out of my grip, binged off the wall in front of me and disappeared.  I spent the next 2 hours crawling around my garage and looking in every nook and cranny for that tiny spring.  I finally found it down in a pencil holder on my work bench.  The next major issue which isn't shown in these pictures happened when a small "S" hook that connects the manual shift valve on the opposite side of this valve assembley, slipped off and fell down into the transmission.  I had to take everything out, back to the rear piston to get to it, and then re-install it all.  All told, I really rebuilt this transmission two or three times with the issues I had.

Here are those stinking little springs in their new home.

With the governor installed,

The separator plate installed (you can see that nasty little "S" hook on the right),

All the valves back in and the valve assembly installed,

The speedometer back in and all the covers on,

I slapped some paint on the old girl and swore to never do it again...until the next time.

Brake lines

The transmission was getting on my nerves a little.  My number one rule with this project is that when it stops being fun, I stop working on it.  There have been a few glitches with the transmission.  More on that, in the next installment.  So, I let it set for a little while and switched to working on the brake lines.   They had to be finished before the engine goes back in anyway.

A large portion of the brake lines had to be re-routed because of the headers.  We had access to a shop with a lift and took off the stock exhaust and put on a set of headers and dual pipes about a year and a half ago.  I'm glad we did.  It brought to light a couple of problems that needed to be addressed.

(Drivers side front brake line)

 The problem with the brake lines was the proportioning valve (brass part in the photo).  The original position was mounted on the side of the frame which wasn't a problem until the headers needed the space.  So, it had to find a new home.  That required replacing all the front brake lines and the lines coming from the master cylinder

The new home is above the frame.  I have a staging lock to put on, but that won't be going on until the master cylinder goes on, which won't be until after the engine is back.

Engine Paint

With the engine all buttoned up, it was time for paint.  I used "Motor Coater" in the Metallic Pontiac Blue that was used during the years my engine was produced. You can apply most of these kinds of paint with a brush.  I did that with the POR-15 I used earlier and it came out really nice.  However, since this was a metallic, it would have streaked on anything that wasn't cast iron, so I shot it with a spray gun.  All I had was my little 3.5 HP compressor with a 10 gallon tank.  I could shoot about one side of the engine before running out of air.  If you tried to paint a car with an HVLP gun and a small compressor like that, you would burn up the compressor before you finished the side of the car.

The engine was cleaned to the point of not having loose debris when it came back from the machinist.  The heads were really clean because he did quite a bit of work on those with new valve seats and things.

The Motor Coater system is just like the POR-15 paint system.  There is a degreaser that's used first.  That part of the process took forever.  I did a lot of soaking and a lot of work with a wire wheel to get it to the point where a cloth wiped clean and then it got some flash rust about as soon as it dried from the rinse.

After that comes the "Rust Blaster".  It's a phosphoric acid solution that converts the rust (iron oxide) into a zinc phosphate that is bound to the metal and to which paint can bind.  You don't have to get all the rust off and it's even advisable to have a little still on there instead of bare, shiny, clean metal.  You just can't have any loose rust.

Here's a before and after.  Some day I'll dress it up a little with some chrome valve covers and stuff, but for now, I'm more interested in getting it on the road than looking pretty on an engine stand.

For now, I've painted the stock intake to save some money.  I plan to upgrade it later.

Closing up the engine

I got a lot of work done on the engine the last week or so. 

 The first piston in

All the pistons went in without a hitch.  I checked gaps and clearances.  Everything seemed good. I rotated the crank after each piston and at each stage after this.  Everything was smooth as silk.

The timing chain went on next with the timing marks both at 12 o'clock and the #1 piston at TDC.  Then the fuel pump concentric went on.  This is what holds the cam shaft in it's proper place.  I was confused about it being able to freewheel earlier.

I turned the engine over and installed the windage tray.  Pontiac installed these in the high performance engines for a few years.  They reduce the foam in the oil so the oil pump can pump a solid flow of liquid.  I didn't even have to rotate the crank to know I had a problem.  The enlarged counter balances on the Stroker Crank were touching the tray as soon as I put it on.  I fabricated some spacers that dropped the tray about 1/4" to give me the clearance I needed.  Then, everything rotated fine.

I'm slightly OCD and worry about and triple check everything.  I put the oil pump in a container of break-in oil and ran it just to make sure everything was operational.  Oil pump installation was a little touchy trying to get the bolts, gasket and drive shaft all lined up and in place all at the same time...and I failed.  After installation, as is my OCD tendancy, I rotated the crank and, CLUNK.  It was stuck.  A little investigation told me that the drive shaft for the pump had somehow slipped out and got away.  The crank shaft had caught on it.  The bad news is I had to redo it all.  The good news is, I found it now instead of when the motor is in the car!

Not wanting to leave anything to chance, I did make one minor mod on the oil pump.  After inserting the pickup tube into the pump assembly, I made a small tack weld to insure it stays there.  It's not a pretty weld, but I was mostly concerned about burning through the pick up tube not making it pretty.

Then the timing chain cover went on.  In a previous post, I showed how I had cleaned this in my wife's dishwasher after I had done all I could with solvent.  That worked great and got all the grease out of the minute scratches.  It came out looking new.  Just sitting for a couple of months, the inside became discolored.  Antifreeze is some nasty stuff.

I refurbished the old oil pan and reused it.  It's not pretty, but on my car it won't be seen at least in the near future and I need to put my money where it will make a difference.  So, I just beat the dents out of this one, made sure it was flush and put it back on.  I'm not impressed with Pontiac's oil pan gasket design.  That 4 piece gasket gives a lot of opportunities for leaks.

Before permanently affixing the heads, I put some modeling clay on a couple of piston heads then, put on the head gasket, lightly secured the head with old bolts, and rotated the crank.  As you can see in this after photo, I have plenty of valve clearance.  The valves didn't even put a mark in the clay.

After checking the valve clearance and cleaning everything up, I installed the heads with ARP head studs.  My mechanic son was questioning why some studs didn't seem to be in all the way.  I had the same question when I installed them and it's the way the engine was bored and tapped I guess because the holes weren't all a uniform depth.  Yes, there were some studs that were longer than others and I got them all in the correct placement or they wouldn't have fit at all.  I'm not too worried about it because none of them were seated shallow or anything like that.

Finally! A new high flow water pump with new internal dividers because the old ones were rusted through.  Everything's masked ready to start cleaning, prepping and painting.

It doesn't even look like the same engine.