Bringing it back to factory specs

[Budnicks]

Resq302 sorry to hear about your set back, unscrupulous sellers, or merely parts failure & crap going thru the oil & into the bearing, it's a nice thing you caught it early & avoided catastrophe, cars looking nice thou...

 

[resq302]

Got some more parts from Frank Badalson in today. Can't wait to get to my Dad's again to get some more work done on the car! Engine should be hopefully completely back together next week.

 

[resq302]

Just a small update, nothing major, but scored some NOS Champion J-11Y spark plugs for the GTX! Looking forward to getting back to Dad's house to get more progress done on the "X".

 

[MT_Mopar]

Very nice resto work, thanks for the great pics and detailed notes.

 

[resq302]

Major progress today! I gained a lot more space on Dad's workbench as I had been using that as a "staging" area to lay out stuff to get ready to install once I got the painting done on the engine. I pretty much got all of the engine back together with the exception of the electrical stuff such as the wiring harness, spark plug wires, spark plugs, and throttle cable hooked back up. I'm really getting excited with getting it back together. Oil and coolant is back in we are one step closer to getting this fired up!

Upper and lower correct rad. hoses installed temporarily till I got the rad in place.

Fan, pulleys, and power steering pump back in. Also installed the green factory oil filter.

Radiator is back in, hoses hooked up and clamped in place with original corbin clamps, carb installed, coil mounted with capacitor, correct ribbed heater hoses with correct part numbers installed....

repro cloth wrapped belts installed.

valve covers back on, distributor in place, air cleaner and breather back on as well.... won't be long now!

I also got some NOS J-11Y spark plugs to install into the car. One more thing to bringing it back to the way it left the assembly line!

 

[roadrunnerman]

This car is going to be "OVER THE TOP" when you get it done.

 

[resq302]

Oh, I wouldn't say over the top. But I'm sure it would be one heck of a nice driver for Dad! By the time we are all said and done, he will have a brand new, errr.... 46 yr old car that is as good as brand new.

Better news is that today I got the engine fired back up! Bad news is that it stated tapping really bad only to find out that it was low on oil. I know I put 4 quarts in and it read full. I guess once I started it up and stuff started flowing through, it needed another quart. I figured I would give it a rest since I was running out of time and had to get home so tomorrow I will pick up where I left off and hopefully get the fine tuning done and the noise will be gone! Can't wait to road test it.

I also put a mechanical oil pressure gauge on it when it first ran and was reading 50 psi of oil pressure when it was running at what seemed to be around the fast idle range. Hard to tell what RPM it was since I had the choke disconnected trying to get the timing in and starting up the engine. Im curious what the pressure will be once it warms up and is at idle. What should the oil pres. be when it is warmed up and idling? 20-30 psi?

 

[RJS]

Brian as long as you have at least 10lbs. per 1000 RPM at idle you'll be fine.
I have questions about other aspects of your resto.?
Will you pull the upper control arm hardware and re-plate?
Do you have a proper master cylinder?
Replace or paint the upper shock studs to hide the blue color?

Inquiring minds HAVE to know!!!

 

[resq302]

Brian as long as you have at least 10lbs. per 1000 RPM at idle you'll be fine.
I have questions about other aspects of your resto.?
Will you pull the upper control arm hardware and re-plate?
Do you have a proper master cylinder?
Replace or paint the upper shock studs to hide the blue color?

Inquiring minds HAVE to know!!!

Hi Ron,

Good to hear from you and good info about the oil psi! I actually got the engine running and all timed today. Amazing what happens when you have the proper amount of oil in it. I guess the lifters bled down and with manually turning the engine over, it squeezed what little oil might have been in there out. I think the engine took a total of 6 quarts after running it the first time and stopping it. More than likely any oil that had been in there drained out as the car has sat for quite some time. Good news is that once it was running it still had what sounded like a bad lifter or a weak lifter which eventually quieted down. For a minute, I was worried I might have to pull the intake and valve cover again and have to replace the lifters. Luckily, everything straightened out and it is running nice and strong!

I still have to pull the entire front end and restore that and during that time, the upper control arm hardware will be stripped of the bronze paint and RPM'd as the correct plating is still there and in great shape. ( I had to pull the front hardware as the gold was annoying me since it wasn't correct!) lol

We have the proper master cylinder AND the proper Midland-Ross power brake booster for a drum car.

No worries about the front shocks! They too will be the correct color when I redo the front end. I even have a new upper bushing kit with the proper "mushroom" bushing and thick / wide silver cad washer. Pics of those to come when I work on the front end.

Anyway, here are some more pics of the engine. The nice orange over spray on the manifolds is no longer there and burned off within about 10 mins of idling when I was setting the timing. Oh well, at least I took pics of it before when it was pretty! lol

As you can see, the exhaust manifolds look gray again :icon_frown:

I also had a chance to install the correct saddle type exhaust clamps on the system today. Details, details, details! lol Also a pic of the dated correct mufflers from ECS!

 

[Ron 73]

Sweet is the word for this ride! Im a little always favored to these cars and i love how nice it all is looking! Real nice!

 

[resq302]

short video I took once I got the car running and tuned.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kt61uun7otfzcpn/MVI_0067.MOV

 

[1962polara]

stampings in the ID pad clean and bare just like from the factory. (Special thanks to Dave Walden for that tip on how to do it!)

Can you share how this is done?

 

[resq302]

When the paint was fairly dry just after painting, I took a sharp object like one of those pick tools for removing clips and just traced around inside the stamping. This would have gotten the paint out from the recessed area and "built" it up so you would have to remove (brush away, paint thinner, etc) the build up areas as this would not have been there from the factory since it would have been stamped when the engine was mostly dry.

 

[RJS]

Looks good Brian!! Get some paint on those wire separators.
Ron

 

[resq302]

Thanks for the tip Ron! I know on my mom's chally, they were not painted but didn't know if it was a small block vs. big block thing.

 

[RJS]

Yes small block unpainted, bigblock painted except the round circle behind the passenger head. The white plastic circle came with the wires so it was unpainted but it's bracket was as all others.
Ron
Ron

 

[resq302]

Ok, thanks! Yes, I know that white clip was on the wires when the wires were installed. I thought the other clips were attached at the same time. Looks like I was wrong on that part. lol

 

[69rag500]

Your doing a unreal job on your car. Wish i had the time to go down that street that you are. Anyways i see you are making your car a correct as possible. Not positive but in one of your pictures i see that you have a black round plastic sleeve in the carpet around your high beam low beam foot switch. Again not positive but i think this sleeve is not factory.
Cheers..

 

[resq302]

Ya know, I honestly can't remember if that is still there or not. lol If it is, it is easily removed.

ok, just checked the video I did above and that plastic sleeve seems to be in the black carpeted floor mat.

 

[RJS]

Yes the plastic dimmer grommet isn't used except possibly the early/mid 60's. And also GM cars.

Brian please understand I'm not trying to knock your work just being another set of eyes. You are doing things I don't have that amount of patience for anymore and your to be commended!
I think your washer bottle cap has writing on it, if so replace with a smooth cap.
Ron