GMJohnny wrote:I like the new stance! Looks sweet!!
GM
Well, it's not quite done, stance-wise. I still need to replace the front springs, and I haven't looked at the spindles yet. I did run into one snag though -- the bracket for the hop shock and the rear sway bar look like they need to be in about the same place. If I have to choose one or the other, I'll take the sway bar over the hop shock. It's definitely going to require something custom.
At the other end, the engine is finally done!
"Use stupid parts, get stuck doing stupid mods." -- so this whole project started off with me wanting to use up as many parts in my inventory as I could, which included the finned aluminum oil pan & aluminum timing cover. These were pieces that didn't work on my 400 years ago (to be fair, they didn't list 400 in the description). Anyway, I put them on this 350 and no issues -- until I went to put the timing pointer on. The flange on the timing cover is probably 1/4-3/8" thick -- much thicker than stock stamped steel. It screws up the mounting of the timing pointer. A stock pointer was overhanging the balancer, so it would be impossible to read. SO, I bought a trick looking Moroso piece with a little needle for the pointer. With the shiny cover, and pointer, I figured a stock balancer would look a little crummy, so I found a replacement that matched visually, and was fairly inexpensive at $60. Problem solved, right? Wrong.
Chris came over and while trying to mount the pointer, it wouldn't sit flat on the cover because of the radius at the cover's flange. Grrr.. so, he did some clearancing on the pointer while I was still working on the rear brakes. After he finished, we were drawing the balancer onto the crank it got tighter at one point, but it clearly wasn't fully on. Just figured it was tight, being new. I was using a breaker bar, and it lived up to the name -- I broke my installation tool after not seeing that the balancer was hitting the lower mounting screw for the new pointer. Caught us both by surprise. It just barely didn't clear and left a little ding on the balancer. You can see it right behind the "1610" marking.
I started looking online at different pointers and saw some that had the lower bolt at a different mounting depth. I almost bought one, but then figured I could just modify the one I had. We put it in the vise, and after couple cuts with a jig saw, and I had something that worked. (there was a few days between breaking the tool and success modifying the pointer). Re-installing the balancer the second time was a success. Once it was on and the pointer was aligned for TDC, I could finally finish putting the engine back together. I had to wait until the pointer was lined for TDC before I could put the driver's head on, so it had really been holding me up. Lesson learned: had I been content using stock pieces, it would've been together a couple weeks ago. But, the end result looks much nicer than stock pieces. Pick your poison.
This past Sunday, while watching the final hour of Rolex 24 @ Daytona, Chris came over again we bolted on the heads, the intake, installed the lifters, and adjusted the valves. I attached the water pump, carb, and distributor to take a picture, but they'll come back off when I set the engine back in the truck, but it's ready to go back in!!
I still have a lot of work left, but I'm starting to see a faint light at the end of the tunnel.
-Dave
