Plans for this weekend
 

Well guys, I guess it never really ends. I thought I had "finished" my 67 GTX clone...but no. A couple of weekends ago, I installed a new 3:55 pumpkin and green bearings on the axles. This weekend, I have a full schedule. I am pulling the 318 radiator and replacing it with a 26" 3 core aluminum radiator by Champion and a new 26" new shroud. I am going to have to fab some brackets to get the original shroud to fit the new radiator. While I have the water out of the system, I am going to also try and stop a thermostat seep. I also have a new 8387 MSD dizzy to replace the standard Mopar electronic unit. There seemed to be quite a bit of slop in the standard unit. To top off the day I will be pulling the 9173 Edelbrock intake and installing new gaskets. I called Edelbrock this morning and told them about how my gasket blew out around the middle runner on the intake. I asked about a gasket with metal in it to close off the port that heats the intake, and they told me they do not make such a thing. They suggested I get some 15 thousandths stainless steel, put that over the port, then install the gaskets over it. That seems kind of like a hokey thing to have to do..

If I get that all done, goodie for me. The I can move on to the rear main seal leak on my new 440. I would really like to take my car places and not leave a puddle where ever I go. It would be really nice just to drive it for a while without working on it, but I figured with Summer coming on, I had better see to the cooling system. I'd probably be bored if I didn't have something to work on. I'll let you all know how it goes next week!

what slop in the dizy r you talking about? clockwise slop? if so thats normal,,... and good luck

The middle runner in the intake is to allow the carb to warm up some as to allow better running of the motor durign the winter months. While most of us do not drive our gems in the winter months, if the rest of your intake is sealed and holeing good, then do not pull it just for that. You can get a small (1/2" thick) phenolic carb spacer. This will raise teh carb off the intake and insulat it from any heat being flowed through the intake. AMC did this on a lot (if not all) of the FSJ vehicles with V8s.

http://www.summitracing.com/search/S...rd=carb+spacer

You can get them 1/4" thick to 2" thick. I would recommend 1/2" thick as you may have issues with your air cleaner hitting the hood. Meassure the clearance first and go from there. Depending on how you built your motor will determine which type of spacer you go with.

It is not that I am worried about the heat to the carb, but the valley pan gasket has partially blown out and is leaking exhaust under the hood. I found Fel Pro part number 1215 which is a metal gasket which has the heat ports blocked off. The metal gasket is .015 and the intake gaskets are .030. Once I pull the intake, I will be able to see exactly where it was leaking....there is a possibility that the intake is not sitting properly due to block machining, but it may also be that it was not properly torqued or whoever installed it did not put sealer around the vulnerable leakage areas. Only removing it will tell. I'll let you all know what I find after the weekend.

it seems that everyone who rebuilds these motors has this leak
let me know how it goes

Which one? The exhaust leak, the thermostat leak or the rear main leak? Man, I need to put a diaper on this thing!!!!

the rear main leak
what did you originally use on it?

Unfortunately, I don't know the answer. The engine was built by a guy who will no longer return my phone calls.

ah

that leak is a common problem
what are you going to use to fix the problem?

I spoke with a Mopar engine builder and he suggested a few things. He suggest I go with a billet rear main seal retainer. He suggested using a grinder wheel to shave off just a few thousandths off the top of that piece so it will fit tightly at the block. He suggested using the rubber seal. The the main thing is to use a generous amount of sealer on the top and sides in the inside side of the retainer.

Since I have a lakewood scattershield, I will have to pull the driveshaft, trans, bell housing, pan, and possibly the engine (to get the pan off), so for now, I am going to just let it leak and add oil.

that is what I have been doing

Well, I got the new 26" aluminum 3 core radiator in. It took a little drilling and bolting to get it to work, but it is in and so far not leaking. I do see a little steam coming from the cooling fins of the radiator, but no drips.....so far. I have only run it in the shop because it has been frickin raining every day!!!! #&#*%$!!!

I also put a new 180 degree thermostat and gasket using Permatex gray rigid sealer and again, so far, no seep (yay!). I also got the valley pan changed to the one that has the metal blocking the intake heating ports, and again, no leak so far..... It is suggested to put paper gaskets under and on top of the valley pan, but I tried and it did not work. with .065 fo gaskets in place, I would not get the hoiles to lone up, so just the .015 metal valley pan is in place ( that is what was there when it took it off), so I hope that holds.

As long as I am here, I'm gonna byotch about sellers on ebay who lie to get your money. I told two different sellers I needed stuff by the weekend (this last one) and they promised the parts would be there. Didn't happen....I won't buy from them again. I was able to find radiator hoses locally or I would not have gotten the radiator in and had to wait 2 more weeks to do it. Now I will have to wait for 2 weeks to put the new MSD dizzy in........ @*^&%$# a holes!!!! I do what I say, and say what I do and it really pisses me off when others are not good for their word.

Anyway, in 2 weeks, I will do the dizzy if it is here by then. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Ok, so it has been a couple of weeks since I got my 26" aluminum radiator and 180 degree thermostat installed as well as the new valley pan that blocks the heating ports for the intake. So far so good, no thermostat housing leak, the temp hangs out at around 190 degrees and no exhaust leak.

This last weekend, I dealt with the new MSD distributor and the wiper motor. I got the old dist out and the new dist in and found that the plug boots would not work on the new MSD set up. I had read something about it in the instructions, but I did not really understand what was being said until it was in my face (that is me most of the time...like oh yeah!, now I get it!). Thankfully, a MOPAR buddy had a set of boots and clips for MSD, and another buddy had the crimping setup. So I got to practice my crimping and boot sliding skills, and yes, I did use the dielectric grease. I finally got all that done and my fingers were sore. Then it came time to pull the control boxes off the firewall and re do some wiring, that was a pain in the a$$!!! Ok, enough distributor drama...on to the wiper motor.

I had checked around to see about getting my motor rebuilt as it would not work at all. No one seemed excited about doing it saying that they did not have good success with wiper motors. So I trolled around on ebay and found a used one for sale for $45. I bought it and had it shipped. I opened it up and could see immediately that is was different, but the mounting holes lined up. I also found another clue where it said 67 Monaco in yellow junk yard grease pencil. I had to use the arm off of my old motor. We plugged it in and grounded it and the damn thing ran with just the key on, the switch was a 2 speed, and nothing worked correctly. We jacked with it for a while and finally decided to take my original motor apart and see why it was not working. It was just seized up from sitting. Some emry cloth to the shaft, a good cleaning of the components and some fresh lube and we could turn the shaft by hand where that would not happen before. The brushes were good, so we re-assembled everything and plugged it in and ground it and went for the test. Worked like a charm!!! While I had it apart, I figured out how to adjust it so the wiper would park properly. So now I know how to rebuild and adjust my wiper motor. YAY for me!!!

It was a pretty good weekend. Saturday was warm and sunny, Sunday was warm and very rainy. I left the car in my buddy's shop overnight and picked it up after work today. we just kind of set the inintial timing roughly and I took it for a drive. I runs very well, but need a little tuning. I'll deal with that next week when I have vacation. Basically, the new dist really woke up the engine. It runs like a raped ape now. It pings a bit at full throttle and has a bit of a hot start issue. I am sure a bit of tuning will resolve both of those issues.

Anyway, that was my weekend, what did you do???

haha