89 Corvette Mostmint #39

[Fred32v]

Very nice! You could apply for a patent.

[wxo]

Andy, the effort you put in to fabricate this certainly comes through. Nice work.

[wxo]

Your windage tray, however, did generate an interesting question from Maverick. How do the cylinder walls get lubricated with the windage tray in place? Isn't some oil splash needed?

[MostMint]

there is always oil coming off the crank from the rod journals that will be splashed up on the bores.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ctr- ... /chevrolet

Similar products are commercially available but I felt this was not close enough to the crank, it did not extend to the front of the pan, and who knows what ChampCar would charge me for this point-wise. What I have was hand made and they charge like 1 point per square foot of sheet metal.

[GMJohnny]

If you don't end up liking your homemade part, you can always screw it
to a broom handle and swat carpenter bees with it!!

GM

[MostMint]

After way too many hours the windage tray is complete.

Joey was over today we made a lot of progress and the engine is now in the car.

[MostMint]

I am looking for a good deal on a ZF6 transmission, bell housing, clutch, flywheel, clutch pedals and clutch hydraulics.

Preliminary online checking has these transmissions around $1200-1500.

[wxo]

How about this one? https://raleigh.craigslist.org/pts/d/19 ... 65565.html

[MostMint]

Thanks - Definite possibility! I emailed the seller to see if he has any other parts. The clutch pedals, hydraulics, bell housing are all needed too.

[MostMint]

Making progress the last couple weeks:

Checked the exhaust found the cats had already been emptied. Removed the tube for the EGR and had the opening welded closed, put an O2 sensor bung on there for the AFR gauge. Fixed the center hanger under the trans by removing broken bolt. Replaced broken rubber hanger with chain. Replaced bolts connecting catalytic converter to exhaust pipe. Reinstalled the downpipe and cat. New O2 sensor installed.

Removed extra wiring from the wiring harness - A/C control related, also the wiring for the factory blower motor.

Found the lockup converter wiring and pigtail were wrecked. Also found the speedo sensor connector was gone. Why is that gone? And there was a random wire with damaged insulation

Engine accessories installed on front of engine. This uncovered two problems: 1) the alternator is mounted too high I can't close the hood all the way it hits, 2) I am unable to locate power steering to reservoir premolded hose of sufficient quality. The next best substitute is straight hose which will not work unless I modify the power steering reservoir mount.

Gas tank. When we first looked in there we found some nasty mix of gas, water and rust.

Today came time to install the sending unit in the tank. The car came with only one of the nine bolts. I planned to blow these out with compressed air and tap out the threads. When I did this there was to my surprise a lot of water coming out of there. The Vette has a plastic tank encased in a metal shell. After getting a bunch out with compressed air - enough to make a puddle on the floor - I decided the whole space between the tank and the shell was full of water. I made a small hole in the outer shell and drained over a quart of water out of there.

Then I turned attention to the inside of the tank. Tom had cleaned it a bunch when we first went in there but I found a bunch more debris in there. Used compressed air, shop vac, paper towels to clean the garbage out of the tank.

I don't have any pictures yet, but Fred32v has been over several times working on the brakes. All four corners have been disassembled, cleaned up and reinstalled. All the 29 year old rubber brake lines replaced with braided stainless, all the old fluid flushed out, and the e-brake was tested it is just a bit sticky but it is functional.

Pretty soon going to run out of atrocities to fix and it will be ready to start.

[Maverick]

Excellent quality pictures!! But, did you notice the swamp creature in the tank??

https://www.tiresmoke.org/download/file ... &mode=view

[wxo]

Excellent quality pictures!! But, did you notice the swamp creature in the tank??

And he took a selfie!!

[MostMint]

If the swamp creature tried to call I did not answer since I removed the phone from the car

I am not sure but we may have seen this creature before when we drained the oil out of the engine

My best guess is this car sat outside for a time where rain had access to get into the engine and into the gas tank - via the PCV lines in the engine and via the fuel sending unit for the transmission. You can't make this stuff up

[MostMint]

So this is how much water was trapped between the plastic gas tank and the metal liner. It is still dripping now though very slowly.

I think this is at least 2 quarts

[wxo]

That is probably the factory setup to improve the weight distribution.