Just a page to update what's going on with my numerous projects.
I currently have 3 projects going on in the garage 2 1976 Honda CB750K motorcycles, and my 1955 Chevy 210 Hardtop.
/i got the head bolted & torqued down to spec, the pushrods lifters and rocker arms are all lined up and working properly. All sides are painted up.
I got the New water pump painted and ready to go on...
New fuel pump installed with New stainless steel bolts...
New spark plugs & Wires installed
The Oil line you can see that's sticking straight out from the pushrod housing is supposed to be curvy and go from the point where it's screwed in to the little hole in the left corner, However the old oil line got damaged during it's moving around during the rebuild... This is the closest length to the original I could find, I'll have to cut it the correct length and bend it to match the original one. You can also see the New oil pump & refurbished "pick-up" screen hanging out of the bottom.
Just been working on getting the engine put back together and painting it in sections. I read that judges take off points if the gaskets are painted, not that I plan on entering car show/contest as a serious contender but I do want to go for as much authenticity as possible. Also if I paint it all together paint will cover my pretty Shiny new Stainless Steel bolt kit!
Hopefully tomorrow morning I can bolt the head to the block and get the pushrods & Rocker arms aligned, install the oil pump, pickup tube & oil pan. Then I can bolt on the fuel pump, distributor, install spark plugs & wires, flywheel & Bell-housing. Then all I'll need before mounting the engine back in the car is the tranny rebuild...
Sorry for the delay in updating the blog, for a few weeks there I was waiting for all of the parts to come in, then when they got here I was too busy putting them together to update the blog. That and ther Awesome guys at Dobbin's Brothers Inc. in Graham, NC were working on my engine for 2 weeks cleaning the head & block, installing new valve guides, new freeze plugs, boring out the cylinders .060 over (due to a misaligned piston wearing), resurfaced flywheel, installed new alluminium timing gears (old ones were brittle fiber),also installed the camshaft bearings and polished & tapped the crankshaft for bolting the harmonic balancer on.
Some of the new parts I orded and got in so far were
Pistons & Rings (6) oversized
Intake & Exhaust Valves (12)
Valve Springs (12)
Valve Guides (12)
Valve retainer clips (24)
valve stem seals (12)
Camshaft (with stock grind pattern)
Cam Bearings (4)
Mechanical Solid Lifters (12)
Solid Pushrods (12)
Aluminium Timing gears (2)
Complete Gasket Set
Parts I'm still waiting for (in transit)
Oil Pump
Water Pump
Fuel Pump
Glass Bowl Fuel Filter (stock type)
Thermostat
Electronic Ignition System (to replace points)
"Flamethrower" Ignition Coil (40,000Volts!!)
Rebuilt Original Starter Motor & new Solenoid
Complete Engine Bolt Kit (Stainless)
Complete Transmission Bolt Kit (Stainless)
After getting these parts in and installing them in/on the engine I'll be ready to fire her up, I also need new Spark plugs+wires and battery, but figured I can get them locally cheaper later.
Here are my shiny new 0.60 oversized pistons & rings...
Here's my installing of the new Valves into the cleaned/polished head and new valve guides...
Here's the installing of the new valve springs, reatiner clips and rebuilt rocker arms...
Here's the "thrust plate I cleaned up and painted (after taping off the gasket area for the timing gear cover & water pump) I think it looks pretty good...
I also fiddled around with the transmission a little cleaning it up and tking it apart just to look at the pieces... (I'll upload that vid tomorrow...)
Due to the Crappy weather (& the stupid Jerk that totaled my car last week)... I've had no time to work on the '55. After researching for a week I found the car I wanted... Mid-size Luxury sedan with good power.
I picked up a 2004 Hyundai Sonata GLS it's loaded (leather, sunroof, premium sound), the 2.7L /v6 24V engine will fly if you hit the gas! I just noticed last night it has the "homelink" rear-view mirror which can be used to replace the old garage door opener!
I've found a few things I'd like to upgrade on the car, the horn was just too "sissy-ish", the radio doesn't have any digital hookups, and I'd like to install a remote starting kit for the convenience of having the car cooled down/warmed up.
New horn!
Monday, July 2, 2012
The process I've gone through on all of my grimy engine partys so far...
I dropped off my engine at the machine shop this morning, they told me that I may have screwed up the block by reaming it out, he said I reamed out the "original alignment" and would have to track down a "deck plate" to rebore the block into alimentary. he said he might be able to bore it in @ .060 over. He's going to do a valve job, (replace guides, seats) cleanup (hot tank) and overbore for around $350 which sounds pretty reasonable to me...
Here's the Harmonic Balancer, I bought some Muriatic Acid (30% HCl-Hydrochloric Acid) used for etching Concrete and "cleaning rust" as well as chlorinating pools! I had read it was great at stripping rust, wow it was right!
Here's the Push rod Side cover, I read an article about cleaning heavy baked on grease off of engines using "purple power", this stuff is amazing!!! (just don't inhale the mist... you'll choke half to death)
Here's the Timing Gear Cover
Here's a photo of an original "stock" engine. this is the original paint color. As you can tell in the photos below, the color varies depending on what angle/lighting you look at it under. the bottom left and bottom right photos are of the same part, but at different angles using different cameras. I have to say the engine color photo on the left looks like a dead ringer for a match. To my eyes the actual parts look like a cross between the 2, and I love it!
I got myself a present to help keep organized, these nifty socket holders were on clearance @Lowes (father's day leftovers I think...) I know Beau will be pleased that we won't be searching through a bucket for the right socket next time he comes over! I also got the deep well sets because I can never find mine and I didn't have a full set of each...
Here's the engine all chained up and ready to pull!
Quick video
After I cleaned it up my brother came over to help me put it on the stand.
On the stand, after we've taken off the rocker a
Valve job
Taking out the pistons
I decided to try a new cleanup method for the sludge on the head by soaking in Kerosene.
On the Block I tried a different approach I read about online somewhere using "Purple Power" heavy duty degreaser... I'll let you be the judge as to whether it worked or not, but you can see some of the original paint afterwards...
M engine guy Beau will be back in town next week and we'll check everything's sizes (piston/rings/bearings) So i can order the right rebuild kit!
I Got the engine hoist all cleaned up (it sat in a rusty environment for years), after sanding and lubing up the hydraulic shaft, I put the entirety of my body weight on the crane to help break the rust free and got it pumping smoothly. I went to Lowes to pick up a Heavy Duty chain for the hoist I decided to get the strongest one they had. This chain can lift 3900# and I only paid ~$3/ft. Then I had to find the Class 8 bolts to mount the chain to the engine block as the original bolts weren't long enough to get through the chain and securely fasten to the engine.
I Finally got the engine off of the frame after about 2 hours of crawling under the car, yelling, banging, more crawling, and a little bleeding (gashed my knee crawling out from under her). There were many things hooked up that aren't easily visible, Shifting Linkage, grounding cable, transmission/driveshaft...
Here she is hanging free and clear out in the driveway
There's the big empty hole waiting for me to finish blasting the frame and firewall, within the next week or 2 I'm hoping to get this ready for prime and paint.
Here's Me and my brother getting the engine mounted on the stand. (for the record that's my pink work shirt, I didn't want him to get his shirt all greasy)
Here she is without the valve cover, oil pan, transmission & bellhousing. My Engine expert/buddy Beau Tiffany was helping me take her apart and told me that a lot of the parts look fine/reusable and apparently this engine is all original with the factory copper head gasket still in place.
And here are my finished rims next to the finished Valve color, I think the colors look good together!
I decided to
start working on the hood today, this is after 5 hours of sandblasting and using my dual action sander. My hands started to cramp up after holding the vibrating materials for so long.
The sandblasting process takes a lot of time and makes a huge mess... BUT it also gets down in every nook and cranny unlike sandpaper which sands across dings and divots. Sandblasting is fast in that it cleans down to bare metal in seconds. It takes a lot of time because you blast a small area at a time, so it's like coloring the entire hood with a Fat sharpie. As you can see in the bottom pic theres about a half inch of sand from one side of the driveway to the other, (I kept the garage door down while blasting to keep the sand from getting everywhere inside).
I use regular play sand from Lowes $3.50 per 50# Bag
, then pour it through a strainer to get out pieces that would get stuck in the sandblaster hose/nozzle.
After blasting the piece the good news about the cheap sand is that it can be re-used, I suck it up with the ShopVac and filter it again, then it's ready to be reblasted...
Eventually it will be blasted into a fine powder (which you can still use) but will need to be replaced if you want to keep the rust/paint coming off quickly. This is why I use the cheap sand instead of the Glass beads/ blassting media which usually costs $1/#...
I finally finished my carb rebuild! cleaned up and painted with "Eastwood Carb Renew II" chemical and gas proof paint specifically made for carbs. I think it looks spiffy.Here's the Air filter and carb together as before and after shots... I'd say it's quite an improvement... And after I got my new Air compressor working, I tested out my new Dual Action sander on the driver's front quarter panel.
I decided the inside needed to soak a little more before the final sand and priming before I learn to weld in the patch panels! I have thought about just using fiberglass to patch up around the eyebrows and the rear of the panel, but several people have told me that welding in patch panels is the best way to go... so I guess I'll try to do it the right way even though it's going to cost A LOT more to buy&weld in new sheetmetal.
It's taken me a week to rebuild my carb, I got it put back together only to realize I had spare parts left over in my kit! Oh well Its only 5 screws to get those pieces replaced... Today I got my new air compressor up and running so decided to try out my new Dual Action Sander! I got the entire front drivers quarter panel exterior down to bare metal, headlight bucket out, and it's now soaking in the molasses (phosphoric acid) solution. more tomorrow with vid & pics!
Today worked on getting rims ready for paint, 2 of them have been primed & painted, two need to soak another day or two in the phosphoric acid solution and one is rust free and needs the old paint blasted off tomorrow. I also worked on my 60gallon air compressor, the tubing to the pressure shutoff keeps blowing out (bursting) and the only thing Lowes carries in 1/4" is 130psi, (my compressor blows to 150psi) also it gets so hot coming straight off of the compressor the tubing feels as if it's about to melt(which probably adds to the blowout problem) So I may have to special order some heavy duty piping before I can use it again... seriously thinking of running copper tubing far enough from the compressor for it to cool off before the plastic tubing...
Here is the color of the trim I decided to go with, it's dupli-color royal blue metallic. Looks pretty good in the pictures but it looks even better in person.
Before & After of my Left inner fender. I finally found a really close paint color I like So I laid on a coat! Another coat or 2 will darken it up a bit. I also got my tires off of the rims, scraped off 30 years of dirt & paint and now they're Soaking in the phosphoric Acid Solution. The "Acid Vat" has been sitting in the sun untouched since September and seems to have concentrated a good deal! I accidentally dropped in a part and fished it out with my arm... Lets just say it burned a bit before I washed it off, It was only about 10% when I made it last year and I could wave my arms in it Willy-nilly with no burning feeling. More pics and Stuff later on this week...
Media blasting cabinet I built for $50, the main reason I made it was when I was sandblasting the and ended up EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!! You can re-use sand and other media if you filter it after using it (which saves money),however if the sand is all over the ground mixed with other debris this is harder... Blasting in the cabinet eliminates the need for a lot of cleanup time after blasting as well as easier recycling media. (the enclosure of the sand/dust also eliminates the need for me to wear the stupid hood/breather mask)
P.S. this is my first narrating video, sorry for the moving around so much and erratic speech...
I got my new sandblaster in Yesterday and I can tell you it is amazing! I sanded using sandpaper for almost an hour on one part then the blaster got delivered and the rest of the parts took less than an hour in total. I also got my vinyl swatches and I like them, they're the colors I'm going with. Keep in mind it's not Carolina Blue, it's BABY Blue. At the bottom is my Fresh painted dash trim and air filter. more later... ^New Vinyl Colors! ^New Paint Colors for interior Trim ^Before and After dash trim ^Before and After Air Filter
Well... Today I attempted to do some pleating with some success! Since I was just practicing to see what it looked like I didn't draw straight lines to follow, but my freehand is OK for this I think...
Specs foe rear of front seat, rear seat, headliner and package tray,(rear windshield)
Measurements of the front seats, all measurements are total lengths including hems & seams... Mostly I put these on here so I can quickly access hi res photos from other places including my phone when needing to know how much of what I need...
Well it got to the point where it was too cold to work on the car, now that it's starting to warm up a little bit I'm back out there. Today I cleaned the garage until my ears got numb, then came in to start a new project!
Custom Upholstery! The plan is to go from cloth light/dark blue to a vinyl light/dark blue w/white piping, I'm having the crests from the 55's custom embroidered at a pro shop to sew into the backrests, the original seats were plain and flat, I decided to "dress them up a little" by pleating them giving a "ribbed" look.
Over the weekend I got a new "tool" to work on my new seats. 1945 Singer 15-91 with ALL-STEEL gears & Internals! This thing will stitch through 3/8" of tool leather! Jenn's new plastic Singer sewing machine although good and expensive will barely go through 2 layers of cheap vinyl.
The cool thing is it folds up into this tidy little package! The machine is shiny and looks almost new with the exception of the usual small scratches of 67 years of use, the table has been completely restored. Both for only $120 what a steal!
I practiced some straight stitches, longer shorter and lock stitches... (Keep in mind this was my first attempt at using a sewing machine)
Then I did a "welt" "cording" or "piping" test as my seats will have piped trim...
not having any luck with pleating as of yet but I think it's because I got the wrong kind of foam backing... I called the nice people @ midwestfabrics.com today and they were nice enough to mail me out some samples of the colors I want to buy.
