Technical What are you working on?

Good to see it going again, post more pictures. I had mine out yesterday for a run, after I pulled a valve cover to add another breather. Only had to make 1 run to S&K for a 1" grommet to fit the hole I popped in the valve cover.

 

New windshield in the El, discovered dash rust. Fixing this before the installing the glass. Didn't even catch the car on fire!

 

You must've done something wrong then... LOL!!!

 

I let my hotrod set for 5 years while a hurricane of personal stuff blew thru my life. The storm stopped and I got the old beast running again. Then the transmission problems started, first my internal hydraulic throw out bearing crapped out on me. Called in several old friends to help me pull the transmission and replace that throw out bearing (something to be said about external slave actuators lol). So I take my newly fixed hotrod out for a test run, after getting on it hard, suddenly huge awful grinding sounds and vibrations from the clutch area, yup, it destroyed the pilot shaft bearing, called my old friends.... "that was just a practice run, lets pull that transmission again, it was SO fun last time" .... lol. No complaints so far from 'the crew'

 

Well, I went to swap the cam and valve springs in the big block yesterday and was a little surprised when I checked out the cam card and valve spring specs. The cam is bigger than the guy at Comp Cams said and the valve springs are only good to a max .600 lift. So, will be making some calls tomorrow since I can’t button it up this weekend as planned. Oh, and I need it running this week.

 

Worked on a road trip to bring this 62 into are stable of W engine powered craziness.

 

That's badass James

 

It is a decent car. It belonged to a good friend that passed over a few months ago from cancer.
We had found the car for sale and made contact with the widow, she was delighted to have a friend of his to be the new caretaker of this car. My buddy is really stocked to have it.

 

If you average the cam lift and spring lift you'll get your 630 you thought you were getting lol

Unbelievable that they'd miss match it that bad.

 

Yea...just noticed that the springs will coil bind at .650 lift. Pretty sure there may be a problem. Glad I didn’t just blindly put it all together or I would have had a bad day.

 

WOW! That looks like a killer car James. Sorry to hear about your buddy passing. Can you post some more pictures of the car?

 

Since I am hung up on the cam swap, decided to de-arch some springs. Hopefully this and some blocks will get my sons pickup down where it needs to be.

 

We need to see more pix of that spring archer/dearcher. That looks much nicer than any other that I've seen. In my computer I've got hundreds of pix of various tools (home made and store bought). I don't have any of tools to reshape leaf springs because to date none that I've seen appeared good enough to copy/buy. Yours does.

 

Hey Mike, it works well but isn’t mine. I just live about 5 miles from Sid Drapal’s shop (Nostalgia Sid’s Dropped Axles) and he is a good friend. So, I went over there today and used his roller. If I remember right, he bought it but seems like he modified it some. I have never just used it for this before. I have used it to reverse eyes every time before. I can try to find out where he got it and if he modified it. These springs were 2-1/2” wide and were the maximum width that will fit through it.

 

Got the leaf springs back in my sons pickup. The springs worked out just as I hoped and dropped it right at 2” (plus the 4” blocks...), so 6” total. I was concerned that de-arching them might make them grow enough in length to make the rear shackle smack the frame, but it still has plenty of clearance. Not sure whether it was worth saving $200 or not for dropped springs, but I can at least say I modified them and did save the $200.

 

Thanks Bob, yea I have a ton of pics from removing the dash etc was thinking about a mini build thread. I wish I lived closer to S&K I would be there once a week lol

 

Post the build on the 52-59 forum. The time you were at my house, we were putting the dash back in my car. Fun times. How was the cardboard heater plenum? Mine I had to patch up.

 

327 going together

 

I guess I have a follow-up on the cam swap fiasco. Turns out the wrong cam was shipped, not a screw up on application which makes me feel some better. When I got in touch with the guy I know at Comp Cams, he asked for the serial number on the cam which lead to him finding out that it wasn’t the cam that was supposed to ship. In looking at the grind number, one ended in 10 and the other ended in 01. Seems like a legitimate mistake but is putting me in a bind on getting it going this week as I needed. But, the week isn’t over yet and I hope my next update is how they saved the day and got me taken care of when I was in a bind.

 

Finished trunk floor replacement, tool-tray lids, and fender interior “side-cards” all made with 16 gage cold rolled steel with accommodations for the fuel-cell. Next is passenger compartment floor…

 

Nice work!

 

Still putting a 327 together.

 

Life is good!

 

What heads are going on it Jim?

 

The original Power Packs. They've been redone with new valves, springs, guides, studs, etc. Quick and easy, and only 250 measly HP to worry about! Since the engine was already paid for and the heads were done already, I'm being lazy for now.

I did put a little bigger cam in, though.

 

Like 58cc power packs??

 

Finally getting back to painting the wife's Nova.

 

According to the internets the 896 heads are 60cc. They were milled a little, probably just enough to clean the surface.

 

Ask the Cam guy how to spell Tappet; Tapped is on the cam card.