POWER

The Engine is pretty well assembled, and the tranny is attached. Boy is that thing heavy. Putting all that in place in one piece is going to be a challenge.

Tranny's Done

Got the Cast Iron Powerglide back from the overhaul shop. No problems were found. The overhaul was preventative in nature. Can't wait to get it in, but we have a lot of work to do first.

Engine Block Boring

The cylinder bores checked out to be 0.010 worn, not real cylindrical, with a bit of houglass taper. Into the boring machine she goes. It will take 0.040 oversize to get clean and true bore holes. Not bad, as this is a standard size piston. The engine should be ready for reassembly next week. The last 3 photos are videos. Click on the arrow.

CAST IRON POWERGLIDE

The damm thing weighs a ton. It takes a crane to get it in the van or on the bench. And to think, Doug and I pulled this thing out with the engine attached. We got it cleaned up and off to the rebuild shop. Below are the photos of the initial disassembly. All the hardware looks good. I got the overhaul kit in todays mail, so next week some time, we should get it back.

Engine tear down

As much as we were trying to avoid rebuilding the bottom end of the engine, once it was out and up in my shop, there was no turning back. I pulled off the flywheel and housing and mounted it on my stand. I stripped off the harmonic balancer, timing gears, and removed the cam. I reamed the ridge off the top of the cylinders and pulled all the pistons. Then out came the crank. The cam looks OK, but we will probably replace it anyway. There are signs of wear and some pits, besides we already have the new lifters. I found broken top compression rings in the #2, 3, & 7 holes but no damage. Cylinders and pistons look pretty good. All the bearings looked real nice, as do the journals. I got everything cleaned up and brought it up to the machine shop for measurement and assessment. I am hopeful that we can hone the cylinders, throw in a new set of rings and bearings and get away cheap. I don't want to bore it out unless I have to, as that would mean all new pistons. We'll make the decision by the numbers. Should know more in a few days.

Engine comes out

After much consternation, Doug and I decided that it would be best to yank out the engine and tranny. Cleaning the engine compartment will be much easier and I can do a much better rebuild on the engine when I have it out and on a stand. So Fathers Day, Out it came.

I picked up a good crane off Craig's list, set it up and we had the whole thing out in pretty short order. That assembly is HUGE!

We split the tranny off the engine and loaded it all up for a trip up to the Spa.

The sum of the parts

After removing the heads, and disassembling them we found the valve stems to be pretty worn and the exhaust valve seats to be pitted. After a good cleaning, I took them to Reeds machine shop and had new hardened exhaust valve seats installed. Also had the exhaust valve guides knurled. We replaced all the valves and had a complete valve grind done. It took about .008" of a skim cut on the main face to get it flat and clean. A new set of lifters was only $40 bucks so we gave up on re-useing the old ones. Reeds also talked me into replacing the oil pump. Cheap insurance. The heads are preserved and painted, in my shop loft waiting for installation day.

There is a lot of stuff in my loft! The manifolds, the heads, the valve covers, the oil pan, the starter, the generator, the water pump, the fuel pump and the heater fan have all been cleaned, checked out and painted.

We dropped the drive shaft last weekend and changed the oil in the rear end. We were very happy to find clean oil at the right level when we pulled the plugs. The shaft and yoke came up to the spa where the U-joints have been pressed out, and everything cleaned and painted. Once I press in new U-joints they too will live in the loft for a while.

I removed the wiring harness from under the hood. Once I separated out all the crap that had been cobbled in over the years, the harness doesn't look too bad. I've got the voltage regulator, the horns, the horn relay, and the start/run resister out as well. These too will get the spa treatment, as will the battery box, the winshild wiper motor, and a host of other small parts, brackets, and gizmos.

Mabel Gets Undressed

Friday night Doug and I dove in down and dirty. We dropped the steering drag link and removed the oil pan. We used a cheap kiddie pool for a catch basin, and proceded to do some serious desludging. We scraped and wiped all the crud from the pushrod gallery, then put the solvent right to it. We pulled the heads, but left the lifters in place as we didn't want crud washing down on the cam. Our goal at this time is to leave the block in place, but that is subject to change as measurements and inspections continue.

We also removed the Fan and the water pump. Pulled the starter, and the fuel pump as well. We know that aspiration and ventilation in this engine was a problem. But we believe that the engine mechanicals are strong, after all we did have it running and she gave us a pretty decent set of compression readings. We are not really going for the "engine overhaul" at this time. We are just disassembling and cleaning. We havent found any reasons yet for major parts replacement or machine shop work. A top end gasket and seal set was only $50 and on the shelf at NAPA

The starter, water pump, fuel pump, heads, and oil pn all came back to Bellingham with me for a good cleaning and a paint job. We do plan on a valve inspection soon. After a good soaking in a lye bath. It might be wishful thinking but the plan now is to hand lap the valves and replace the seals. This engine does not have replaceable valve guides. We might have to get the valve stems knurled, but won't know until we get the valves out.

Sludge is coming off in layers. When we removed the cooling water drain plugs from the block nothing came out. We blew compressed air back up in the holes and it wasn't pretty. Doug didn't think it tasted very good either. We used a lot of brake cleaner solvent spray cans and the kiddie pool is ugly!

I saturated everything with WD-40 and will let that soak for a while. The cylinders looked pretty good at the first glance. The piston crowns appear in good shape. Doug got one of the hydraulic lifters apart and it too looks to be re-usable. We have a tremendous amout of tedious cleaning to do, as our mission is to reuse everything we can and keep the cost down. Nice Jugs huh

What's new with the engine?

Not much. In fact most of it's pretty damned old. There's gunk on/in that block that's probably twice my age. Lots of it... and it's thick and nasty. The deeper we dig into this car, the more we are coming to realize that it is a living testament to the quality of old school American engineering. I've lost count of how many times I've stopped, looked, and thought "Damn... all that and it still runs."

We've been busy up in the engine compartment. A previous post mentioned that the carb had come off, and it's now disassembled and mostly clean. Turns out the shaft that hold the choke valve and connects it to all the linkages that control choke was busted beyond repair, which might have been a deal killer for that carburetor. Dad managed some pretty impressive networking though, and found a shop in Mount Vernon run by Terry, who's an expert on these things. We paid Terry a visit last week and ended up buying a beat up top end off a similar carb from him for $20. It just happened to have a shaft of the right length, with the right cuts in it, and dad was able to drill and tap the necessary holes in the end to attach us to all the linkages. So my friends, it looks like we're keeping our carb. :)

In other news outside the block, a closer look at the radiator revealed it to be in rough shape. Still holding most of it's fluid, but leaky, and definitely looking shaky on the inside (read: thick brown sludge on everything.) We yanked it out last weekend, and it's now in a shop in Bellingham being rebuilt. Along with it, dad took the alternator, which has passed a professional inspection and looks sound, so it'll be getting shined up in dad's shop. And then there's the things attached directly to the block...

No Radiator?

Let's start with the exhaust manifold. We noticed early on that it was missing some bolts. As it turns out it was missing most of it's bolts. Dad will have to fill in the blank on the exact number holding it in place, but it wasn't many. There are some other bolts missing from other parts of the car too, but lets stick with the exhaust for now. We always knew the manifolds would need to come out, and when we finally yanked them, there were no gaskets either. Awesome. Those are getting the spa treatment in Bellingham currently.

After a fair amount of deliberating, we decided it would probably be best if we took a look inside the top end before we tried to run it again. So next the intake manifold came off, and I'd say we were immediately validated in our decision. Unbelievable crap has accumulated in the gallery. Thick gooey, chunky crap. Looking down the passages into the heads, the air intakes look rusty, but okay; however, the water passages are filled with the same brown sludge that's in the radiator. There's an exhaust crossover passage that is meant to warm up the manifold, and that's pretty black, but no surprises there.

And finally, tonight I pulled the valve covers off. More of that grimy gunk. Piles of it. Quarter inch deep in some places. And this in and around all the valve levers & such. It is amazing that this car fired up and ran with all this crap in it's guts. It's hard to do the image justice with a snapshot picture, but this one shows some of the gunk: