Hot Rods The Belly Button Bucket Build Thread

^that is a hell of an idea! I have a bunch of extra tiles stored in my garage. I think you have just bought me some extra space @1-SHOT

 

Just pull the bottom drawer all the way out and load them up

 

Hello everyone- I hope you all are happy, healthy, and building hot rods in this strange part of our lives. I took some of your advice and decided to take a small break from the house nightmare to work on something hot rod related. I’ll have to jump back on the house once this is buttoned up as everything falls apart the second I take a break, but this was VERY much needed on my end.

I have stated several times I am waiting on the machine shop for my 283 somewhat traditional build. The first block was punched to 4” and had significant taper, so I found a new block.... no clue if that is any good as I never heard from them. I did hear one of the camel hump heads I brought them was cracked, so I became a little discouraged in building a full race 301 out of the 283. With my limited capacity fuel tank, I think I would get stranded often if I am married to race gas or E85. Long story longer, I figured why not build a mild 283 with “the look”? I located a set of power pack heads, took them into the machine shop, and went over what I would like to do. That was quite awhile ago..... I’m all for being patient, but I am essentially waiting on the engine to proceed....

As an aside, one of my coworkers a couple years ago was telling me about his truck, how it overheated, and how he is just gonna put a crate engine in and be done with it. Turns out the engine he was speaking about was a late model roller cam block with Vortec heads. I expressed interest in the take-out, and to my surprise, he came into work one day and said,
“The wife wants it out of the garage immediately. If you want it, it’s gotta go in the morning; otherwise, I’m gonna haul it off for scrap.”

Well, I can’t say no to free junk, so I stopped by and picked it up. Fearing the overheating was caused by either a blown head gasket or a cracked head, I pulled the heads to have them mag’d. They checked out fine surprisingly, and I was able to get those back from the machine shop in short order. That was a couple years ago....

View attachment 4915006

I was watching episodes of Engine Masters and Roadkill recently and saw the “COVID-350” build. That inspired me to do my own version of that, only where Freiburger dug around in his garage to build the engine from cast-offs, I had to rely on several catalog orders... BUT, MY goal was to avoid the machine shop on this build, so that was the challenge on this. I have assembled freshly machined engine parts a few times before, and done a couple cam swaps, but I have never done a complete “garage rebuild”.

I’ll spare the long winded details as I am typing on my phone, but over Thanksgiving, my brother and cousin came over to begin the process. We tore down the engine to the bare block, checking clearances as we went. Everything looked really good! On the heads, we lapped the valves, checked clearances, and assembled the heads with what I believe to be shorter than stock valve seals, LS6 beehive valve springs, Comp retainers, and Comp locks. After they left, I pulled all the studs and tapped them for screw in studs using a jig from Summit (which required minor modifications but worked great). Later, after measuring clearances etc, I swapped the Comp locks for some Crane 0.050” offset locks, which put the springs at the recommended 1.8” installed height (photos are prior to offset locks).




The block was a little tricky to clean at home, but I got it figured out. Between several cases of brake clean, a few bottles of Simple Green, various brushes and pipe cleaners, and a .22 rifle cleaning kit, I was able to get it pretty darn nice. The only block modifications I made were stress relieving/removing casting flash, and I tapped the cam/lifter oil galleries at the front of the block to accept NPT plugs rather than the freeze plug style. I de-glazed the cylinders with 320 grit honing tool chucked up in a drill, chased all the threads in the block, and moved onto the crank, pistons, and rods.




The pistons and rods only required a good cleaning. I reassembled them using moly rings as an upgrade. The crank needed a polish, so using the shoestring method, I got that cleaned up with some 600 grit and 1000 grit sandpaper using oil as lube.




The short block assembly went really well. I installed all the freeze plugs, drove in the cam bearings with a tool from Summit (which also was used for removal), and installed the oil filter adapter with the filter bypass plugged. I spent quite awhile looking for that damn gasket locally, only to find out later my Felpro one piece pan gasket came with the filter gaskets too! I installed an LT4 hot cam before putting the crank in- I haven’t done it that way before, but I will from now on as it is much easer to slide it in with the engine upside down and guide it with your fingers as you slide it in. For the crank install, I ended up with 0.002” clearance on the main journals, 0.0025” on the thrust bearing, and 0.0025” on the rod journals. I set the Melling high volume oil pump pickup ~ 1/2” from the bottom of the pan (accounted for gasket thickness, too!), then tacked the pickup to the pump housing for peace of mind. I had to source some caged flange nuts from Parkrose Hardware for the windage tray as one was missing when we disassembled the engine... lol. Once the crankshaft was installed, I was able to install the GM Performance timing chain- double rollers do not clear the late model timing covers, so the GMP single roller seemed to be the go-to. Speaking of timing cover clearances, the LT4 cam has a long dowel pin that originally was used to drive the front mount distributor, and this doesn’t clear a Vortec timing cover. I tried to pull the old cam dowel pin with some vise grips... no go... so my brother ran the shop vac while I cut the dowel pin down with a hacksaw. The factory timing cover is plastic and considered expendable, so I replaced it with an aluminum one from Holley.




The engine will be assembled with polished stainless fasteners, so I needed to paint everything separately. I carefully masked everything off and assembled the long block without gaskets and with minimum fasteners. I then filled the accessory bolt holes with filler to hopefully make it not so obvious this is a late model engine. I have never sprayed paint from a gun before, but after watching some videos decided to give it a try. I needed to upgrade some of my air compressor fittings and air line sizes, as well as relocate the moisture trap, but overall I was already set up to do this. I threw some plastic over the somewhat important things in the garage and began the process. I started with two coats of rattle can VHT engine primer 10 minutes apart (there was supposed to be three coats, but the third can was worthless and just bubbled out of the nozzle). After a half hour, I began spraying color (TCP Global single stage Wimbledon White), three coats at 10 minutes apart. Everything went really well for my first time. Next time I will spend a little more time on the filler over the accessory holes, but that is a minor detail on the grand scheme of things. This is where I am at currently, but hopefully there will be some updates trickling in for a bit prior to likely another year or two of radio silence lol.

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I don’t know why the photos aren’t working. Anyone know of a fix?


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Cool to see you can sneek in some hotrod jobs in betwin.
My place was a total mess when i bought it. So first we have to make it
good enough to live in before i could start with the fun stuff again.

 

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I am troubleshooting the picture upload- if this works, what I have learned is you cannot edit a post and add pictures in - they must be added into the original post.














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Yep, that seems to be it. Good to know!


















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Looks fantastic and a good moral break fro working on a house for certain!

you can edit photos in but I think it depends if your using the app, the site on a mobile browser or xyz on wether it works or not. Felt like the hamb was a little slow/ glitchy this morning for me also so that could be a factor.

what tins/ intake are you dressing this with?

 

That makes sense. I haven’t been regularly posting so I don’t know if this is new or if I am forget things. Either way, I got the photos uploaded.

I’ll cover the dress-up and the remainder of the engine build in the next few weeks. I need to have the intake polished, so that will be kind of a bummer to wait for it... I have a guy down in the Eugene area my buddy referred me to - is there anyone in the Vancouver, WA area someone has used? I had a lofty goal of having this thing in the chassis fired up NYE....


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Hey Tim
From your engine text and photos it looks like your first complete build was pretty thorough, paint detail looks great, nice touch filling in the accessory holes too.
The photo of the cam gear may be a mockup but make sure you secure the bolts with some form of lock tab, lockwashers or loctite.
Also, you can probably find out from @Bandit Billy who does his polishing up there.
By the way, I don't recall who made your deuce roadster body.
Keep at it.

 

Thanks Doug. Yeah, you’re right about the cam gear. I used red Loctite. The cam I took out and the GMP timing chain set both didn’t have the little retainer plate like an earlier GM block. The internet dictated red Loctite, so that’s what I did!

The body was made by Roger ____ last name escapes me out of Oregon City. It’s a Vicky roadster body or Phantom (90s street rod thing). I wanted something with a back seat for the next build. It is yet to be determined if I can make it look right with a top for rainy days. I want to daily drive whatever the next build is, so if I can’t make it work, I’ll sell this and get an economical glass coupe body or or sedan or something.


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Chrome Troy at Pacific Plating does some polishing for me. They are in Vancouver. I don't think you will get it back in time for a NYE fire up though...I might, just sayin. I just had him polish the entire SS exhaust system for my truck, turned out Roadster Show quality. Pay him well and he will love you long time.

 

I’ll send you a PM either tonight or tomorrow on this. I’d be willing to throw in a bottle of Crown or your choice if your presence would help grease the palm!


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That would be Roger Brinkley.

 

you CAN add photos while editing. There are two ways of editing. When you first hit edit is the first way but at the bottom of that box is ANOTHER button that says MORE OPTIONS click that and a full page opens where there is a upload file button like when posting a post.

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Progress photo dump:

Got the heads torqued down and oil pan installed.



As mentioned previously, the Vortec timing cover is considered expendable. Holley makes a nice, economical replacement, so I went that route. It came with dowel pins, front seal, and hardware- although I used ARP fasteners. It came pretty smooth, so it didn’t take much to polish it. It came out “good enough for who it’s for”. Some of the Vortec blocks don’t have a couple of the holes drilled, so it looks kinda weird until the water pump goes on to hide this.





Next was the balancer and the only polished water pump advertised as standard flow that I could find:



After that, some chrome pulleys and the only fan I could find that would fit without hitting the radiator lol.



I moved onto the valve covers next. I wanted breathers this time around, so I had to get brave. After lots of H.A.M.B. research, I learned Studebaker valve covers fit the center bolt pattern SBC heads. A couple years ago I scored a pair on eBay. They are pretty tall, but luckily I was able to find some stainless fasteners from Parkrose Hardware. The washers have a rubber backer. I polished them prior to install.





Bringing to current, I mocked up the bracketry to install a smaller generator than what I had previously. Since this engine has no mechanical fuel pump provision, I think I will get one of the Powergen alternators that look like a generator. I need to order shorter pushrods, another small fortune in ARP stainless fasteners, and a starter that clears my bellhousing, as well as the items to design and fabricate a new fuel system, so we’ll see how much I can get done with a week off. I did get the intake dropped off at the polisher the Bandit recommended. Feels good to move forward on this for a change.










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Looks nice. Merry Christmas.
Just for your information, I really hope that fan works for you.
It didn’t work at all for me.

I thought that it would be nice with the flat front profile and the blades bent to the rear but it just didn’t move enough air.
I tried a shroud and that didn’t help either.
Overheating just idling.

With my small radiator I needed more airflow so I switched over to a 6 blade steel Derale race fan and it worked out great.


The flat faced fans just don’t pull enough air through a small rad.
As you can see the Derale rigid race fan has blades that are shaped to really scoop and move air and they do a good job of it.

My space limitations only allow for a 13” fan and it really works.

 

I like that a lot better - do you have a part number for the fan???


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Derale 17313 standard rotation
https://derale.com/product-footer/b...shroud-kit2013-10-18-11-52-51999354306-detail

13” is the smallest one they offer in the line.
I ordered from Summit
This explains standard rotation.
They also offer reverse rotation

 

I really like the offy valve covers on that!

 

Getting there slowly!


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Looking good.
Let’s see the fit of the new fan
I hope you were able to get the blades 3/4” -1”away from the core of the rad.

Mine is 3/4”

 

Slightly more than 1/2” at the top was the best I could do. If this doesn’t cool it, I have a few more options, each one less appealing than its predecessor as far as modification requirements go.




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Well, I’m really hoping that works out for you, it looks like you had to cut off a pretty substantial amount off the leading edge of the blades.
True they’re still angled and maybe they will still pull enough air through the rad.

I’m not sure what else you might try other than moving the rad forward to give you a little more room.

 

Yeah; I know what you're saying. The "Mounting Surface to Front: 1 7/16" " is what got me into trouble.

I started by trimming a little, then some more, then some more until it fit. The shape of the blade on the leading edge out to the tips remains the same, and the pitch is the same, so I am confident it is better than the flat faced flex fan I had. Just spinning it by hand, there is a noticeable current, which isn't there with the flex fan. If it doesn't cool, my options are as follows:

Derale makes this fan in a 13" and 15" version, which has a bit of blade pitch compared to the flat fan you and I initially tried. I don't think the 13" will be any better than what I have already, but the 15" would work after trimming about 1/2" off the radius (making it a 14" fan). The Mounting Surface to Front is a much more usable dimension for what I'm working with.


If that still doesn't work, I can't move the radiator forward. I initially had a Speedway radiator when I mocked all this up, and it leaked like a sieve out of their "pressure relief valve" at the bottom of the tank, so I bought a different radiator, which of course changed things up a bit. I didn't think about having cooling issues until you (Blue One) brought up the issues with the same fan I had. So my next, much less appealing option, is to move the engine and transmission back. I could make offset motor mounts (rearward), a new drop-out transmission crossmember, and have my driveshaft shortened (again LOL). There wouldn't be any cutting or welding needed on the frame from what I can see, which is good as it is already powdercoated. I have my clutch linkage cross shaft pivot ball in the bellhousing, so I would just move it back until the chassis side of the linkage lines up with the pivot ball provision on the engine block (I think that's about 2"). There would be some firewall modifications etc. As I said, much less appealing option, but it could be done. I'm just hoping for good results from "the little fan that could"!

 

Like I said I hope you have good results and are able to test it out before you get the car together to the point where the changes are going to be difficult.
If you were to look at my build thread you would see that I initially thought I had no choice but to use a small electric fan which would have been totally inadequate. I decided to make the changes required to go with a mechanical fan which took a fair bit of effort changing the steering tie rod with bends and removing one extra pulley from the balancer pulley (only need one anyway.)

While I was tuning the engine getting ready for the road is when I discovered the inadequacy of the flex fan.
Then came the fixed blade fan that fortunately I had room for it.

As far as rads go I always get a kick out of the guys who call aluminum rads cheap junk.
That’s true for some of them but I had my aluminum rad custom made in the US by Griffin.
A really good quality rad.
Good luck with your adventure.

 

Slowly chipping away at some detail work. Painting brackets, polishing bolts and nuts, re-doing brake lines in cunifer. I’m trying to get the chassis done so when I pick this back up later, I can move onto body work etc.














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That's looking great!