Wrench, Ream & Hone

Hey All! I've been doing a lot of work on the '55 the last week and haven't had time to update the blog! My New torque wrench...

Reamed out the Ridges in the cylinder...

Honed the engine, (Cleaned out and polished bore)

My Rocker Arms Before & After...

Removing Crankshaft...

More tomorrow (assuming I finish the video)

A few Engine Before & Afters

I did a little Scrubbing and painting today,

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!

Another look at the Engine color.

Sockets

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...

Engine Teardown

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!

Engine Work

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!

Driveway is a sandbox...

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/#...