Engine Out

Yesterday Dad, me and my mate Adrian got stuck into it. We borrowed an engine crane off my mate Danny and pulled the engine out in no time at all. This car is so easy to work on. I'd previously removed the rear clip and a few lines, so there wasn't much left to clear the motor. Unfortunately, I suck at remembering to take photos, so didn't take any of the engine on the crane. Anyway, here's the after pic. I'm looking forward to cleaning up and repainting that chassis.

We did notice a bit of rust on the chassis, but on closer inspection, it's just surface rust. Score!

Dad and I picked up an engine crane for $55+GST (who quotes prices ex GST these days?) at a place called Radum around the corner. Absolutely bargain price. It took a bit of messing around to get the engine mounted on the stand, since we didn't have any long enough bolts. I did a trip to Repco, but took the wrong bolt (IDIOT!), so had to do a second dash. Got it mounted up in the end and got stuck into stripping it down.

The bottom end doesn't look too bad. A bit of grime in there, but it doesn't look like too much water got down into the sump. Some small block chevs have 4 bolt mains. We thought this one did, going by the engine number and what the interweb revealed. Oh well...

Pistons out. They all look quite good.

We couldn't take the crank out, because we need a pulley puller to get the harmonic balancer off. Dad has one at home to use next time. The crank journals look OK. Someone has machined it in the past.

Next we started to try and clean up the dodgy cylinder (previously full of water). We started to rub down the bore to get to the bottom of the pitting. Then we can measure it and decide if a full bore is required or if we can get away with a hone only. This is how far we got... It's looking like a bore out will be required. Thankfully parts are amazingly cheap for these Chev motors. Not like the Jap parts I'm used to.

We're starting to build up a collection of parts here there and everywhere in the garage. I need more storage shelves and a nice work bench. Oh well, things can only improve from here.

Check out this crazy flywheel. Made up to suit Audi gearbox and adapter plate....

So all in all, we're quite happy with the engine. With the exception of the dodgy cylinder, everything else is in quite good nick. The previous owner said that the engine had been rebuilt and only had roughly 2000km on it (10 years ago) and it seems reasonable. Dad gave the dodgy cylinder head a quick clean up and it came up pretty good, too.

I'm off again with work for a few weeks. This is my last trip to New Caledonia (for the foreseeable future). I've got a new job that I'll be starting in a few weeks. Horray!

The missing book...
Tim came over a few weeks back with a book that his Girlfriend Renee had bought him "How to Rebuild a Small Block Chevy". I thought great, that will be handy. My mate Jim also gave me a Chev magazine from 1974. Also good reading. Anyway, yesterday I thought I'd dig up Tim's book, but then realised I hadn't seen it for a while. I figured he must have taken it with him. After sending him a text he said "Last time I saw it, I put it on the roof of the Mini". Doh! Not a wise move. That was a crazy day: I had a job interview, I had mates over and I had to go into the city that night. Needless to say, I most likely drove off with the book on the roof. Being a short-arse, I wouldn't have noticed it sat on the roof. Oh well, I just ordered a new copy to give Tim....

A few more pics

I noticed this blog doesn't have many pics of the car before we started attacking it. Here are a few more..

Plenty of work to do.

Crème Brûlée in a cylinder?

Hey All,

Sorry it's been a while since the last post. I've been away with work and camping for the last 2 weekends. Blah blah blah, on with the updates...

So I was back in Australia for all of 2 hours and Dad gave me a call "Do you wanna work on the car tonight?" Is the Pope Catholic? Of course I do. The supervisor also came along (Bomba the dog)..

We removed the heads and were unfortunately greeted with a horrid site. As much as I like Crème Brûlée, I'm not such a fan to see it inside an engine cylinder....

The cylinder was full of water with a thick crust of rust. It even cracked nicely like a good Crème Brûlée. It turns out that the inlet valve on this cylinder was open, so it is most likely that water came down through carburettor and through the intake manifold. Not sure how, since the car was under a thick cover for the past few years. I guess Brisbane has had horrendous rain in the past year, so anything is possible. Oh well, that's life. We expected to find some challenges along the way.

The cylinder head doesn't look too good either.

After giving the cylinder a light clean-up, the bore still looks quite corroded. You can see the 'tide mark'.

So we've had a fair bit of discussion lately as to the future for the engine. We've thrown around options of replacing the engine with a modern GM LS1/2 engine. These engines obviously have many advantages such as being light weight, having electronic fuel injection, huge aftermarket parts range and also capable of bolting up to the same gearbox adapter plate (bar 1 hole). The other alternative is to rebuild the 350. We've decided to go with the rebuild option to keep the costs down. As tempting as it is to drop an LS1 in, there would be many hidden costs and further delays. If we decide to upgrade the engine in the future we can always sell off the 350 Chev.

The car is now pretty much ready for the engine to come out this weekend. I'll be getting hold of an engine stand and borrowing an engine crane off a mate.

Oh yeah, this project was a perfect excuse to buy an air compressor and air tools... Loving the rattle gun. It makes easy work of rusty bolts :)

Here's how the car is looking at the moment. I love working on this thing. It's so easy. The entire rear clip section was held on by two bolts and the air strut. I lowered it on to my garage creeper and wheeled it out of the way. Too easy!

Update coming soon..