Update 'before' winter

Well, it's after Thanksgiving and there's snow on the ground.  Oh, goody.

I've done some cleaning items lately, waiting till after the holidays to get the torsion mount repair metal to start welding.  I did cut out part of the driver's floor, though, so I could clean up the metal down there better with my wire brush attachments on my drill.

I continue to struggle with my 'free' air compressor.  I finally figured out a way to use it, just having the regulator closed off and putting a port on the side of the regulator body rather than the plug on there.  Problem is I've screwed up the little plastic fitting screw to close off the regulator so that won't stop air pouring out anymore.  So now I need to try to find a screw that will fit in there to close that off.  So... still no air tools fun.

I figured I'd break down the heads and get them cleaned up.  It has to happen sometime anyway and they're a filthy eyesore on my shelf, so what the hell.

It took some work to break them down.  The air tool to compress the springs would have been great, but of course, my air compressor's not useable.  So I picked up this cheap lever thing at OReilly.  When I used it, though, I just succeeded in lifting the head.  I gave up for a couple of days and then had a thought... I screwed an extension onto my workbench and c-clamped the head down... THEN it worked... especially after breaking the 'seal' on the keepers with my dead-blow.

A tedious process but it worked.  Also had to have the valve blocked in the combustion chamber... which I did with the brass end-cap that I hoped would fix my air compressor but didn't.  It's underneath the green brillo pad there.

The exhaust valves are all really filthy... intakes aren't as bad.  Also most of the exhaust valves are really loose... I think I'll need to sleeve the valves guides on the exhaust side.  There were no valve seals on the exhaust, just the intake side.

Here's an exhaust valve... AFTER I cleaned it for a while... I think they need to be replaced:

 Here's an intake valve... not nearly as bad... do I need to replace them??  Would save me like 80 bucks... 

Took the heads to get tanked and pressure tested... no leaks!  Got them home and went to town with my wire brushes... got them pretty clean:

Compare the cleaned-up head to the other one that is back from just getting tanked:

I cleaned up that second head, too.  I'd like to paint them, but... that's probably premature since I am going to need to have the exhaust guides sleeved anyway <shrug>.

So the tanking and inspection was 90 bucks... 8 new exhaust valves is probably 70 bucks, sleeving the exhaust guides should be about 80 bucks... new springs and keepers will set me back about another 70 bucks... and I want to get the home port and polish stones and whatnot to help with the flow (100 bucks)... which sets me back $410 total.  OR.... replacement higher-performance iron heads can be had for $1000.  <sigh>  Building on a budget... besides, those heads might make it TOO powerful.  ;-)

Taking a break, I poked around on the block a bit more, looked more closely at the cam bearings... they're pretty bad.  The below shot is the 'worst' one, I think, but the rest (except the one in the back) were varying levels of burnt out also.  I was planning on replacing them anyway when I get the block cleaned, inspected and machined (if necessary) anyway, but still... not good.

Finally, I took some brake cleaner and rags to the distributor last night to clean it up.  Again, nice just to see clean parts on the shelf.  The dist cap looks fine, but it's only like $20 anyway so maybe I'll replace it... hard to say at this point.  It's electronic, not a points distributor.

That's all for now... hopefully back again before New Years... ;-)

Not too much new to report.  I was going to do something with the rear brakes, examined them for a while and then put the wheel back on and jacked the front back up.  The torsion mount needs to be the focus.  I finally got the rusted-to-hell brake front brake cable off of the torsion mount clip by cutting the cable and wrestling it with a vice grip.  My 4-inch grinder/cutter is not going to work for cutting out rusted metal in there, it's too clumsy, I need to find some other tool for that.  The rod holding the intermediate cable in place for the parking brake would not let me loosen the nut so I just cut it out and mentally added it to my parts list.  Tried to remove the front cable from the brake lever in the cockpit but I think I have another rusted nut to loosen from an awkward position, so I just coated it with liquid wrench for now... along with every other exposed nut/bolt I could see under the steering column.

Unbolted some clips holding the brake and fuel lines on the right side of the engine compartment... took the rear clip out of the left torsion bar and tried to loosen the adjusting bolt on the front... no budge at all, even with the breaking bar.  I coated everything I could see on the left side up there with liquid wrench and inspected the further-mangled frame rail.  There really isn't much good metal left in a lot of those sections, I hope that slip-on (and weld) frame rail is strong enough without any real structural support from the underlying original frame.

I am considering just dropping the whole front end... I need to make some kind of support for the front end before I do that, rather than propping it up with an immobile frame of some sort.  May be some metal fabrication and casters in my future for that, I dunno.  I need the car farther off the ground to be able to work on that torsion mount, it's very awkward under there.

I got a free air compressor... just 20 gallons and it needs a replacement regulator valve.  I ordered a $20 replacement and it didn't fit of course.  I may just cap off the regulator, but I need a 1-inch end cap for it and I haven't been able to locate one.

Looking more closely at the torsion bar mount, I think I need to remove both torsion bars and the crossmember so I can remove/replace a falling-apart doughnut bushing/mount dealio in order to clean it up enough to cleanly get the repair piece in there and weld it in properly.  I wish I had a rotisserie.

Summer work

I keep doing this and that to get things done...

I borrowed an air compressor and impact wrench and got the damper bolt off of the block.  THAT was fun... the coworker that loaned me the impact wrench is giving me an old air compressor that needs a new regulator, can't wait to get my own impact, etc.  Then I took off the timing chain cover, chain was very loose.  Turns out the cam sprocket was a 'silent' model with plastic teeth, many/most of which were chipped off which is where all those piece of plastic came from that I've found throughout the oiling system.  Lovely.  Took that stuff off, took out the cam, took off the flywheel, cleaned up the cam hardware, bagged and tagged it.

I got a die grinder a while ago and finally broke it out yesterday.  I cut off a piece of the driver's quarter panel to practice with my stick welder... very fun cutting.  Ground the bondo and paint off of a good section of the metal, clamped it down and got to practicing.  I had checked out 'Welding for Dummies' from the library and the one item in there that was the key was the instruction of starting a stick weld by striking the metal like you're striking a match.  What I found works better is... and this is probably kind of obscure... to strike it like you're doing a turkey call.  I watched some hunting show years ago where a guy was all done up in camo, talking in hushed tones to the camera, etc... a super tense situation... the turkey across the field... he said he'd try to pull it in closer and then  you hear this 'creeeeeek, creeeeeek!' croaking noise from him scratching some kind of stylus on a pad of some sort.  Apparently that's a turkey call.  Anyway, that kind of action is what worked for me, scratch at where I want to spot weld and after a few scratches and sparks, eventually an arc will form and hold to drop the spot weld.  It's messy as hell, but appears to be structurally sound.  I want to go buy sheet metal now!!!!  I welded a nail to the metal.

Before I rebuild the engine, I need the car structurally sound to put the motor back in... which means the torsion cross-member mount and the front frame rail  on the driver's side.  The torsion mount will only set me back about $150 so I'm going to order it in September to get that started.  I had worried about cutting out and rewelding the torsion bar mounts as per the instructions online, but when I was looking at it last night, the piece I have to replace just has the bar going through it, not mounted to it. so that's cool.  It'll just be a matter of cleaning up and cutting away all of the rusted stuff so I can 'cleanly' weld the repair piece in there.  Then the same process for the frame rail (but that's $300).

I've also been cleaning up the timing cover so I can paint it.  I want to deburr all of the casting stuff off of it, though, so I'll get a set of stones for that.  I wish I had a better tool than my regular drill to connect that stuff to.

more stuff

I haven't gotten around to updating in a while, I keep wanting to have pictures to go along with the posts and the cable connector on the camera's all screwed up, so it's kind of a pain to get pictures off of the SDcard... but, it's been too long.  

Last time I posted, I'd gotten the transmission out.  Since then I took the transmission to the car wash, hosed it off to get a lot of the crud, then I started brushing it off some more, scraping in the nooks and crannies, removed the last pieces of the transmission cooler lines, it looks much better.  I don't know about painting the transmission, I don't want to totally have it broken down unless I have to.  I'd love to just take it to a transmission shop to be inspected to make sure it doesn't have anything broken in it, don't know what that would cost.  Anyway, it's not a big ugly pile of greasy dirt and metal on the garage floor anymore.  

Here's a close-up of the rusted-out transmission cross-member.  Another part to the list (eBay, here I come..)

After I got the transmission out, I rolled the car out of the garage to do some clean-up... I cleaned the garage stall (that was long overdue), hosed out the inside of the car to get a lot of that lingering dust taken care of and I started scrubbing out the engine compartment.  It's quite a bit cleaner, but I need to take a lot of components out yet at some point like the brake lines, etc.  

On the engine side of things, I cleaned up the intake manifold some more and might paint it one of these days. I also took all of the lifters out, rotated the engine (I really need a new stand), took off the oil pump and dipstick.  I tried to remove the vibration damper, but I can't get that bolt to move at ALL, even with my breaker bar.  That doesn't bode well.  I need to get that thing off.  

I have peeked into the timing cover to look at the timing chain and poked at it... it is totally loose in there like it's only attached to one pulley or something... DEFINITELY 'out of spec' loose, so that'll be a replacement item for sure now.  

Looking at the rods on the underside, I see that a lot of them are stamped, but stamped wrong.  Like the rod on the Number 1 piston is labeled '5'... I don't know if the engine was ever rebuilt in the past, I didn't think that it was, but that's kind of a warning sign, isn't it?  

Still hoping the cylinders aren't worn too much so I can just hone and re-ring, re-use the pistons.  I'm leaning towards decking the block a bit to raise compression on the engine, assuming it isn't a cost-prohibitive machining option.  

Interesting note... I don't remember if I mentioned earlier but there were little black plastic chips under the valve cover on the heads.  Not good, right?  They were in the oil pan, too... and as I was cleaning up the oil pickup, they started raining out of the screen filter dealio on it.  I'll take a picture and post it, but it's pretty bad, oil flow must have been pretty well-compromised considering the volume of plastic chips coming out of the oil pickup.  

What I NEED to do next really is fix the brakes, I think.  The calipers pistons are rusted in place, I think... I could work on restoring/rebuilding them or... just get replacements from O'Reilley for $25 a piece... hmmm... that's a real tough decision.  Probably first I should just get the parking brake working, though.  I'm not sure if I have to replace everything with it, last time I tried to get at it on the rear wheel I couldn't even get the drum off of the axle.  

I've been thinking about paint, too... I think I might want to go with cobalt blue instead of the stock color... which means the engine compartment won't match (unless I pay to have that done in cobalt too) so I'm thinking of doing the engine compartment in black, with silver accents and the Chrysler blue engine. 

tranny out!

I haven't updated in a while, I've been holding back until I can post pictures, but I did get the transmission out.  Going to need a new transmission crossmember (rusted through)... and bolts while I'm at it, they're pretty rusty.  But it's out... got it hosed off for now.  Turns out the shift linkage DOES 'just' lift off of the transmission.  Problem was that it was caked and surrounded with crap so I couldn't really just lift it off, but I was eventually successful.  I'll get the dip stick tube off, tighten the pan bolts, clean it up a bit more and put it into storage on a lower shelf somewhere hopefully in the next couple of days.

So now I can roll the car out of the garage again (since the transmission isn't resting on wooden blocks anymore) and clean up the floor, clean out the car more, etc.  I'd like to get the brakes working and get my bench/table set up so I can practice welding.

Painted manifold

There it is.  :-)

pretty exhaust manifolds...

I degreased and cleaned up the exhaust manifolds and painted them with silver header paint.  They look pretty awesome... all shiny and clean, like new parts!  I can't post the pictures because the camera cable is messed up, but it'll happen one of these days.  Makes me really want to clean off and paint more stuff like the heads, oil pan, etc... but I'm going to be taking the heads to get hot-tanked and everything, so I'll hold off on the paint there.

Engine inspection

So... I commented already that the lifters are concave and need to be replaced along with the camshaft.  Not a big deal except that I was planning to go with the 340 stock cam which has a higher lift than the 318.  I'm assuming (a bad thing, I know) for planning purposes that I could make that swap on a stock 318 motor with no issues, specifically regarding valve clearance with the pistons.  I could check that clearance pretty easily with putty on a piston, bolt the heads and everything back on and use a feeler to measure what thickness of putty is 'unpenetrated' by the valves through an engine cycle... which I will do before I order a new camshaft.

Where the wrinkle comes in is with the pistons.

First of all, the cylinder bores are totally smooth which means they should really be honed by a machine shop after I have the block inspected.  If that honing puts them out of tolerance for stock pistons, I'll need to replace the pistons regardless of anything else.  Another reason I may want to replace the pistons is to increase the compression ratio of the motor (stock is 8.5:1... which is kind of low).  So if I 'have to' replace the pistons due to clearance after honing, why not just get the higher-compression pistons anyway?  Well, because those higher-compression pistons poke up higher into the combustion chamber where the valves are moving...  so if I have a camshaft that pushes those valves into the chamber farther (which increases airflow), the risk of hitting the pistons goes up.  Although, the pistons I was looking at have notches cut into them to accomodate the valves, however those are likely cut for stock valve lift.

So... the future is uncertain.

The safest path is to just keep the stock pistons/compression ratio.  Even if I need new pistons, I can keep them at stock and not risk the valve clearance issue with the new camshaft (I assume).  Actually, the safest path is to just use stock replacement parts, but even though my family insisted that the car had 'plenty of power', MOPAR documenatation says that engine made about 185hp which... doesn't seem like 'plenty' to me.  The camshaft change and bumping up the compression ratio would theoretically be cheap/free ways to get more power out of the motor if I'm already replacing the camshaft and pistons and I'd hate to have to go back into the bottom end of the engine at some point in the future in order to make those changes.

So... bottom line is that the cylinders need to be honed to give them the cross-hatch needed for proper ring operation... I'm going to have the block cleaned/hot-tanked and inspected beforehand so I'll know if it's cracked anywhere or if anything is out of tolerance that needs to be addressed.  I'll also have them put in new cam bearings at that time.  It's also possible that the decks might need to be milled to be flat which would increase the compression ratio even with the stock pistons, but I'll still need to check clearance beforehand to see if the stock pistons with the new cam would still clear if some of the decks are milled down, so I need to make that check of the valve/piston clearance check before I tear it all apart and have the block cleaned and inspected.

Meanwhile, I still have to pull the transmission, clean up the cylinder heads (and transmission), etc.  No rest for the wicked.

heads pulled

Hey, I'm down to the short block!  Some brackets and stuff to get off yet, motor mounts, transmission brace, oil dipstick, etc, but pretty near there.  I have to rent/borrow a puller for the damper too but I may be ready to let it rest for a while, once I get the oil pan all drained.

Took the intake manifold to a car wash to pressure-clean it... much better.  I'll do this with the heads, too.

First pulled cylinder head.  Those are some dirty combustion chambers.  Can't wait to see what the intake valves look like on the other side.

Closeup of combustion chamber deposits.  I may just get new valves.

Much lighter on the stand... I should weigh the intake and heads.  It's fun to turn the crank and see the pistons go.

My shelf of parts gets more loaded.

Checked the lifters, they're worn concave so it's looking like the cam/lifter upgrade/update is required rather than optional.  340cam, here we come!  :-)  I can't figure out how to take the pulley off of the water pump... there are no screw heads or anything that I can see through the holes on the outside of the pulley.  I know it has to come off... because there are bolts in there that won't even come out all of the way with the pulley in the way.

I'll probably leave it as it is for a while... probably.  We'll see.  There are still brackets and stuff to take off, but nothing big for now, until I get a damper puller and take off the front cover... then the timing chain and whatnot... I should get the transmission out first, but it's so easy and tempting to take things off of the motor.  Also need to play with the welder and work on the body, for that matter.  The engine is a serious distraction...

'as designed'

Okay, update... the 'port' that looked totally caked shut?  there's no port there, that's just some old oil buildup on a solid bit of iron.  Nothing to see here, move along, move along... ;-)

Engine coming apart

Yeah, I have no patience.  I have an excuse, I want to reduce the weight on that engine stand by getting the intake and heads off of it.  But that means it needs to be mostly disassembled.  I'm sure by that point I'll want to take the short block apart, too, but I'm going to try to resist the urge, the heads and intake look like enough work to clean up at this point anyway.  

Took some more stuff off of the intake manifold... and I wanted a reference shot before I went further.  

This was supposed to be a shot of that bracket in the foreground right behind the oil dipstick so I know what it is and where it was before I took it off... then I didn't take it off yet anyway.

 Cleaned up the distributor contact and marked it with a little 'chisel' (aka: regular screwdriver...)

Here's the carburetor. 

 Here's where the distributor used to be.  I get it now (how it connects with the camshaft and everything)

Distributor and mounting bracket with bolt. 

 Lookee here!  The intake manifold!  It's filthy!  That must mean that the engine's 'open'... I'm very excited.  

Look at that!  Camshaft, pushrods, intake ports on heads, water jacket holes... um... is that hole in the middle supposed to be packed solid? 

Close-up... this doesn't look good... something tells me there were some cooling issues, possibly the reason why the freeze plugs blew out?  I hope nothing's cracked.  

This is the opposite-side port.  Looks better.  

I'm going to chip away at those deposits with a screwdriver and hope that they can be cleaned.  I haven't even looked in the intake port yet, I got called back in the house to herd toddlers.  At least none of the pushrods look bent or anything, right?  Next step: more cleaning and getting into the heads...

Motor's out.

Last week I picked up a couple of chains for pulling the motor, one for the motor and another to hold up the transmission.  I was getting everything ready for pulling on Saturday and realized my chain was too short to go from frame to frame (it's only 4 feet long).  Probably should have a 6 foot chain for that.  Anyway, I jacked it up with a block of wood under the trans oil pan and it worked fine.  

Here's the rented hoist in the back of the van... 

...and assembled.  Rated to 1500 pounds, $18 4-hr rental from Ruddy Rents... an outstanding deal, assuming I only need it for four hours...

I was waiting for Mark to get back from his errand, so I rolled it in and lifted the engine just a teensy bit.

After some fighting, she came out no problem.  I had missed a big bolt down by the oil filter, had to take the oil filter off and get that bolt out (5/8 inch).

I had a lot of bad scenarios playing through my head, like will the lift be high enough for the block to clear the car and not too high to clear the garage door... it was just fine.

With the new vantage point and better light, an Asian beetle infestation was revealed.  Also, it's cool seeing the exhaust valves in there.  Filthy... like looking in a chimney... which makes sense, I suppose.

Photo op with Nathan, who was interested to see the engine pulled and really needed a haircut.  The hoist wheeled really easy also, it was great.

Nate wrenching the engine stand bolts onto the block.

And there it is.  It's not a very good engine stand, but it was free. The oil leak at the front of the crank kept going, so I replaced the Crate and Barrel cardboard with the oil pan and have since drained the oil from the oil pan (as best I can... the angle means there's a good amount in the pan yet.

And here's the engine bay with all kinds of room for me to climb in there with a scrub brush.  :-)  I still have to figure out how to remove the shift linkage for the transmission so I can pull it.

Since then I've continued attacking the block with a wire brush to clean things up and took off the carburetor. I also picked up a 'way on sale' stick welder and 4-inch grinder from Northern Tool so I am primed to start some serious work, hopefully... assuming I don't electrocute myself.  With the engine block there and the further work planned, I'm kind of assuming that my car will be parked in the driveway from now on in order for there to be decent room for the van (for Sarah and the kids).  It's cool, it's almost spring anyway.  

I'm going to practice weld chunks of the exhaust pipe to start out and start carefully cutting away the rusted body panels with the grinder to get at the underlying structures that I need to cut pieces of steel to replace.  I'm hoping I don't 'need' to get a band saw for cutting sheet metal, but we'll see.  Also (like I said), need to disconnect the shift linkage to get the transmission out, clean up the engine compartment... then get the car set up so that I can remove the k-member and get set up to replace/repair the frame.  And while I'm at it, proceed with cleaning/disassembly of the motor.  It's good to have something to keep me busy. 

Pulled a body panel!

I never did post anything about the exhaust manifolds.  I've cleaned them up some, I think I've located a car wash I can degrease them at so I can paint them.  

More clean-up inside where I pulled out the rear seat belt.  It's not as bad as I thought it was.  Then again, I don't really know what I'm doing so maybe it IS as bad as I thought it was, or worse, and I'm just ignorant to the horror.  I'm tempted to start wire-brushing away flaked paint and rust, but I'm not cutting that out and fabbing new pieces anytime soon, so I let it go.  Once the motor and tranny are out I want to wheel it out of the garage and really clean it out.

I don't know what the body panels are named, I'm sure I could learn with a proper service manual.  Anyway, I got the first body panel off today, the one that goes from fender to fender on the front top there.  Took out the headlight mounts to get it out... they're pretty dirty and rusty.  I wish I had a blasting cabinet... and nice air compressor, 60-gallon tank, etc....

Passenger-side with the stuff gone.  I want to get the fenders off to fix and clean up/repair everything underneath... and make it easier working on the frame and all of the suspension components.

I can just cut those rusted parts out and weld in patches, right?  Right.  :-)

The removed piece that I don't know the name of.  There's a nice furry surface of rust inside there.

My shelves of parts and baggies.  The rest are in the trunk.

I still can't figure out how to disconnect the shift linkage.  Of course, I also haven't researched it, I just lie there on the cold floor and look at it, maybe cleaning it up a bit with shop rags.  I loosened the transmission mount bolt, also, so that's ready to pull out once I figure out how to disconnect the shift linkage.  The tranny fluid cooler lines are still there, too, I'm going to replace them though so I'll just cut those out when I'm ready to pull it.  Also have to disconnect the speedometer sensor/sending unit, but that's a no-brainer.  (famous last words?)  

The passenger-side floor plan should just be replaced, also.  I can see a constellation of little pinpricks of light coming through the floor on that side.  Might as well make the floor more solid.  While I'm at it, the passenger-side rear floor is dented up pretty good, not sure what happened there.  It looks like the car was dropped on a boulder or something.