Graham’s Corvette Blog and Studebaker bits ‘n’ bobs

Bits and pieces ready for the rad frame to be installed.

Rad frame back in. It’s a bit of a tight fit and I’ll be painting over some scrapes on the fender aprons! Other wise ready to install the AC condenser and the new radiator.

A new ‘fail safe’ 195 degree thermostat. A bit of red sealant to make sure there are no leaks from flaws in the metal.

Not the original outlet, but rather a new unit used on older engines without the modern emissions fittings. A neater look and I have disconnected the EGR and the cold weather warm-up systems (the under manifold heater and the warm air induction system from the manifold to the carb via the air cleaner). I’ve snugged up the bolts by hand and will torque to spec in a day or so.

The alignment shop (OK Tire) could only set the toe on the front end. The caster was OK, but the camber was out. They wouldn’t attempt to change the shims to get it in line. The alignment tech did note what it would take to get the right front tire aligned.

Even though the tech wrote ‘add shims’ shims actually need to be removed to adjust the A arm outward to move the camber from negative to positive.

Fortunately there were four 1/8″ shims that could be removed. Two from the front and two from the rear.

There are still some shims at both ends. I torqued down the bolts to spec and all should be OK. I will still need to do an alignment as I have changed all the bushings in the rear suspension. It will likely now be out of spec. Another $100 to the alignment shop!

Movin’ along, the AC condenser is in place.

Next: I will be putting the power steering pump and front crank pulleys in place before fitting the new rad. In the meantime I’ll go underneath and bolt the flex plate to the torque converter and get the trans cooling lines in place.

I won’t be doing much to the AC condenser. I am straightening the flattened fins. Likely won’t make a big difference, but … A piece of thin plastic works fine.

Working on the short connector high pressure pipe. It holds the AC low pressure cutoff switch and the high pressure port. The kit I got contains fittings to convert from the original R12 system to 134A. I will likely use R22 gas when the time comes to charge the system.

I had put lots of penetrating oil on the bolts over a few weeks and with my impact wrench they all came out of heads OK. It seems by the casting numbers that they are both right hand manifolds so I guess they must be very similar. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that one of the ears is cracked on the manifold that came off the right side. Now to find a used one or a new one – no used ones locally that are up for sale so ordered a left side unit from Rock Auto for $120 at my door tax in.

I’ve blocked off the heat riser passages in the intake so I don’t need the flapper in the right exhaust pipe. I still need the unit as a spacer so I removed the flapper and tapped the bushing for a standard bolt.

I didn’t tap the bushing all the way in so that the bolt would jam tight. I also uses lots of blue lock tight and then cut off the bolt head.

This side of the flapper body fits into the exhaust pipe. There is no provision for a donut gasket??? So I’ll pick up some muffler cement and use that to seal between the unit and the exhaust pipe.

The high rise manifold has a casting bump that stops the TV cable bracket from mounting properly. So I cut a couple of brass bushings from a piece of brass pipe and used them along with longer intake bolts to get the bracket in place. It is actually better because the carb is higher with the new intake and the TV cable will be lined up better.

Since the heat riser passages in the intake are blocked I also need to block the opening for the choke heater tube as it can’t fit with the passages blocked. This is an Edelbrock block off plate. I will be using an electric choke on the Quadrajet in the final setup.

Next: On to the rad frame and installation of the AC condenser and the new aluminum rad.

The engine is now in the car, but there is still work to be done to connect everything back up. Here I’m working on the rad/AC condenser frame. It and all it’s associated screws and clips need to be cleaned, sanded, cleaned again and then painted.

Hung up to paint in the garage upper floor – my default painting room:-) It’s in flat black here and will need a final coat of semi-gloss. The nice thing about all this work is that I won’t need to do it again when I re-install the original motor/trans.

The original rad cushions were toast after so many years. I decided to try and make my own.

I used some closed cell foam to make new cushions. They are a tad thinner, but I hope they will work and I can put the $70-$90 cost of a new set to other uses.

I tried to install the driveshaft only to realize I forgot that I had to install the yoke first and then slip the driveshaft in. A tight fit. I had earlier coated the universal strap holder bolts with blue locktight. They were stiff to screw out which is good.

Driveshaft in place with the yoke re-attached and the back of the driveshaft to the differential flange.

The clip on the left is the factory style clip to hold the parking brake cable to the frame bracket. It may work OK if the bracket is perfect, but mine have been damaged over the years and the clip isn’t holding securely. I ordered some C clips from Amazon. They have a 12.5 mm opening and 8mm arms.

They fit nicely over the parking brake cable holding it to the bracket. One side was tight, but the other was a bit floppy so I squeezed the arms in a bit and it fit OK. I would have preferred to have an opening of 11-12 mm, but I couldn’t find any.

Next: more reassembly prep work.

New plastic air dam in the original style. My old air dam was split in the centre and a couple of the mounting points were damaged.

A mounting screw was broken off in the support bracket so I decided to remove the brackets and give them a going over.

Engine lined up for the install. Just need to put the trans and engine mounts on and then I can attempt to get the unit in the Chevy.

I had lots of clearance and with the rad support out and shortened chains on the hoist.

The adjust able hoist worked well getting the engine/trans down and under the trans hump.

Had issues getting the long arms of the hoist under the car moving back. I used a 2×4 to coax them them back and then a 2×6 to bang the arms back when the arms were well under the body – a bit primitive, but it worked.

Of course the jack stand got in the way! I put a hoist under the frame a bit further back and removed the stand. I only needed another 5″.

Once I got the hoist arms back enough the engine could be slipped in place. The engine got itself jammed with the trans tail shaft to one side. It would have been nice to have someone underneath guiding the tail shaft into position. I only had to pull it out a bit, align the tail shaft and then it moved back enough to be dropped onto the front engine frame mounts.

Next: time to hook things up starting with the underside components.

The new dryer is a multi-fit unit and has a selection of three tubes for attaching to the bottom. This one seems closest to the original, but in the end I used a different one. The mounting bracket is loosely fitted here.

At this point in the install of the AC I’ll be attaching low pressure line to the dryer. I needed to find a couple of plugs to close off the pump connection. I need to keep the dryer as free from moisture as possible and it will be only after the engine is installed that I can finish the AC install.

The new dryer has two ports where the old one only had one. The second port gets in the way of the mounting bracket so I had do do a bit of a mod to the bracket to get it to fit.

Dryer in place. I have used a short ‘U’ shaped tube on the bottom and ran the hose from there. The original setup had the hose wrapping around the back of the dryer.

New splash shields in place with new push rivets – lookin’ a whole lot better.

Next: a new air dam and checking the rear wheel rotor run-out.

Some new parts in: recovery tanks, bleeder screw and AC orifice tube. Strangely I bought the parts from Northern Corvette, but for some reason the parts came from Rock Auto??? I ordered a new orifice tube as I wasn’t sure of the old one and it was the only component that could cause problems and require the system to be opened – not good for the new dryer if that had to be done.

Drivers side clean up before paint. The A arm splash shield has been removed. It was toast. I have new ones on order.

One staple holding a small splash shield on the lower front side of the apron pulled through the rubber. I used a thick 3/16″ aluminum pop rivet and washer to fix it back in place.

Time to start the job of scratching and scraping away years of collected crud.

I got at least a pound of accumulated dirt and grease off the frame.

Cleaned with a small wire brush, a tooth brush and parts solvent. Then a go over with paint thinner.

Looking a whole lot better with a coat of Tremclad semi-gloss rust paint.

Next: getting the AC dryer in place and on to the engine install – hooray!

Calipers back on. A bit of a grunt to get the bolts torqued using the inch lb wrench as the longer Ft Lb tool won’t fit. The ‘bride’ helped me to bleed all four calipers working from the longest line to the shortest. I wasn’t happy with the amount of air coming from the rear calipers so I redid them and sure enough I got lots of air out to the left rear unit.

I’ve removed the AC condenser and the rad frame. My ceiling isn’t so high at about 8′ so I want as much room as I possible to get the engine/trans unit into the car. This will also make it easier to clean and paint the rad frame and the front of the engine bay.

AC dryer, frame and thermostatic switch. A beggar to get out even with the recovery tank removed.

On to cleaning the fender apron before I install the new AC dryer and components. Came out not too bad with a coat of Tremclad semi-gloss paint. The A arm opening cover is sort of OK on the passenger side, but the one on the drivers side is toast so I will have to order a couple in with the plastic rivets to hold them in place.

More bits and bobs to clean up. This sensor sits inside the Heat/AC box.

I found a strip of dried up epoxy on the bottom of the recovery tank so I put in some water and sure enough there it is weeping through the plastic seam in the bottom. New ones are available from Northern Corvette for about $50 so I’ve got one on order.

Some of the bits needing paint. I give them a coat of Tremclad rust primer and then two coats of semi-gloss black. Nice a warm upstairs in the garage so it’s good for painting. These are AC brackets and screws for the rad frame and AC condenser.

A bit of a bother cleaning the firewall and then giving it a coat of paint. Just have the left side to do then I can go on the the frame cleanup.

Next: more engine bay prep.

Using my bearing packing tool. Works well. The extra grease inside the bearing centre after the packing I used to smear on the outside and on the bearing cup (race). I’m using wheel bearing grease rather that a chassis general purpose lubricant.

New parking brake shoes and new and old (cleaned and painted) parts ready to go on.

The parking brake shoe retainer pins need to go on BEFORE the backing plate is installed. So I had to pull the plate and re-torque down the nuts with more blue lock tight.

Left side parking brake in place. So much easier to put on without the spindle in place. The outer bearing and seal are also in place at this point.

Rotors back on. Always fun adjusting the parking brake pads through the tiny hole in the rotor!

Not happy with the replacement parking brake cable clips. I’m looking for a set of the usual U shaped clips for brake lines that might fit more securely.

Tightening up the spindle bolt is a challenge. In the end I attached the torque wrench and let it rest against the strut. I then used a pry bar to turn the spindle until the torque wrench clicked. The spindle nut was ‘lubricated’ (hard to keep it clean when slipping it by the greased bearings) so I only torqued to 80 Ft-lbs rather than 100. I have a chart that specifies the torque for bolts dry and lubricated. I figure 80 lubed is as good as 100 dry. I then tightened a bit more until the cotter pin hole appeared.

This is how I held the rotor and spindle in place while I torqued the four axle shaft flange bolts to the spindle. I used blue lock tight and 75 ft lbs so they are likely a bit tighter than spec as the blue will act somewhat as a lubricant.

Next: calipers to go on then final tightening of the strut bolts.

The trans on the jack won’t fit under the car. So it has to come off and be slid out. I could jack the car up to take it out on the jack, but I would have to raise the car a lot and then go through the whole process to get it back down.

In the end I just slid it off the jack and pulled it out. Lots of trans fluid everywhere. Next time I’ll drain the trans while it’s still in the car! Why GM don’t put drain plugs in the transmission pan i don’t know???

Donor trans on the jack and ready to be connected to the engine. I have decided to attempt putting the trans and engine back as a unit rather than do it separately. Hopefully my 8’ceiling will will allow me to get the engine/trans high enough to go back in as a unit.

I’ve put a couple of pins in the block to help line up the trans for assembly. The factory alignment pins are short and it is hard to keep one in place while trying to fit the other. these longer pins work better. Get the trans on one pin then use a small vice grip to hold the trans on the pin while getting the other in place.

The engine stand was too wobbly so I did the job on the floor holding up the engine with the hoist and lining up the two that way.

Engine back on the stand and a little support for the trans. I’m in the process of transferring the modulator, speedometer gear, shift lever, etc from the original trans.

Next: back to the rear suspension.

(This post is a bit out of sequence. I actually did this work before going on to pull the engine.)

Very hard to get the short shaft u-bolts in place and tightened. No way to get a torque wrench in place for final tightening. So I tightened them as I always did in the old days – a good pull on a regular wrence, but not overly. I put blue lock-tight and new lock washers on all of the u-bolt arms.

Spindle support and parking brake flange in place with nuts torqued to spec – 30 Ft Lbs.

New plastic bushings in place. A real trick to get them on. I had to jack the spring up until the car started to lift then use a 2 X4 to press down the trailing arm enough to get the lower washer and bushing in place. I also had to disconnect the shock and remove the strut bolt before the trailing arm would lower enough.

Next: I’m waiting for parking brake parts so I will have to leave the rear suspension for a bit. Now I can get back to the engine swap 🙂