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So I have been pulling the motor apart and checking it out. So far nothing has really jumped out at me as a problem. It turns out that the L98 from an 89 Vette has a 2 bolt main. Not really a problem as I will be staying well below 450 horse power.
One thing that I am wondering about but not really worried about is the wear pattern on the cam. I have not pulled the cam yet as I have to get a broken bolt out of the intake so I can get to the lifters. But with the oil pan off I can see the cam from the bottom of the motor.
So to me it looks like a very odd wear pattern considering this should have a roller cam in it. I would think that it would show the wear all the way across the camshaft lobe. What do y'all think. I am fairly sure that I am going to replace the cam anyway but I would like to know what everyone else thinks.
Tim
GRRRR!!!!! Ok GM! Who is their infinite wisdom decided to put steel torx bolts into aluminum heads and NOT put anti seize on them?!?!?!?
The bolt is not hard enough to keep it from rounding out the head. Then when using an extractor the head pops off before it starts to loosen.
Then the shaft is seized so tight that it breaks the hardened steel extractor when you try it again.
I have two intake bolts stuck or broken on both sides of the motor. If all four were on one side it would help because I could probably get it off, but both sides and angled bolts... sigh....
Looks like I may have to drill them all down to the head and hope I can get them out of the head. Otherwise I may be looking at 4 Helicoiled bolt holes in the heads.
Put washer over and weld then put bigger nut and weld, let cool then out she comes. Use some penetrating oil when cooling. Or if you get the intake off hopefully the bolts will be high to put nut over and weld.
Good luck.
If you don't already have them go and buy a set of LH twist drill bits. Any real tool store or machinist supply company
will have them. Most of the time while drilling out enough of a bolt to use an ezy-out the CCW motion of the bit ends up
loosening the busted fastener and it starts walking itself out. Sounds funny but don't knock it until you try it a few times.
Dale
Well I worked on them yesterday and after getting the heads off two more and a bit more drilling I was finally able to get the intake and the heads off.
This is what I ended up with.
The worst one though is this one. It had to be drilled down further.
Today when I get home from work I will be trying to get the bolt shafts out the rest of the way.
Good news on another front though and the wear patterns on the cam shaft I was worried about is a non-issue. The odd patterns are only on the bottom side of the lobes.
So just had a great weekend with great weather. Since the Heat Index was not up at 106 I was able to work on the Hot Rod quite a bit. Here is a list of what I accomplished this weekend and a few photos to follow that up.
Finished pulling motor apart. Left the crank in the block and the valves in the heads.
Put the heads and oil pan back on the block.
Put the SBC motor mount adapters on.
Mounted firewall and DS footpan. (Three holes each and held with Clecos)
Put the motor in the frame.
Measured and marked the Power Steering motor mount holes.
Put valve covers, intake and carburetor onto motor just to take pictures. :-)
Pulled motor
Mounted PS motor
Mounted Tilt Steering Column
Did the steering linkage from steering column to steering rack.
Removed the annoying clutch pedal. (Had to go buy a small set of snap ring pliers.)
Installed petal box.
Installed master cylinders.
Installed break fluid reservoir
Ran break lines from reservoir to master cylinders.
It appears that I am limited to seven images per message so I will create another message and put the rest of the images there.
Here are the rest of the images from this weekend.
So before anyone says something... The reservoir top is below the fire wall edge. Since I don't have the body and hood I can't check it for fitment. I know that normally there are hood pins but I don't plan on using them as I will be going with hood pins.
Second, why did I do a bone head thing and run the break line over to the side. After I mounted the reservoir is when I noticed that to drill the hole right under the reservoir I would have had to drill through the frame. Not really an option so this is what I came up with.
Last edited by TDSapp; 08-28-2017 at 07:39 AM.
Last edited by TDSapp; 08-31-2017 at 09:54 AM. Reason: Changed to a better image
Last night I started working on running the break lines. First thing that happened was I made my first bend and then realized that the fitting for the other end was on the wrong side of the bend. Dang! I had to get it back straight enough to get the fitting back to the other end. I then taped it where it needed to be and started over. The left an odd bend in the tube but at least it is covered by the dash and will not be seen.
I also just realized while looking at the picture that where I ran the line for the back brakes will have to change. I have it going where it will be in the way of the floor pan. I might be able to work on it tonight so I will run it into the same hole as the front breaks and then towards the back.
I fixed my break lines yesterday after work. I thought that I had seen that I had ran the line where the floor pan would have hit it. But after sitting the floor pan in the frame yesterday I found that I was wrong on that assumption. It would have been below it. But I think it was better to have it ran the way it is now.
I do have a couple questions but I will start another post in the specific areas. One is about the transmission mount and the other is about the shocks.
That spot is where I would like to have run my power steering Harness also, but I had already added a 3rd line for the hydraulic clutch, and roll control so I was out of room. And... it didn't occur to me soon enough. Once I get a power tool in my hand something will get cut!!
This weekend I
flipped my shocks,
torqued the front end bolts,
removed the painted the steering rack bracket,
painted and installed the grill brackets,
continued running the break lines
I talked to Dan on Friday and he has shipped my adjustable control arms so I guess I need to go out and buy the rear end so I can get it hung.
Basically giving up the adjustability?
No it will just be much harder to adjust. I think that I may be able to get to the adjustment knob from the side of the frame. I have not got down there and looked yet.
Tim
Started working on the fuel system yesterday. Got the tank in place and the mounting holes drilled. Then I slid the sheet metal under the tank and and got the tank mounting holes drilled in it too.
I also dropped in the vent, fuel level sending unit and the fuel pick up.
I am moving along enough that the parts shelf is starting to have a bunch of bare spots on it. I will probably have to start rebuilding the motor soon so I can get the exhaust done before I put in the floor pans and all the sheet metal.
I am still waiting on the adjustable control arms (Due to be delivered tomorrow), the AC Unit (Dan is shipping out today or maybe tomorrow), and the wire harness. I may have found a rear end but am waiting on an email from the guy.
Went to the Good Guys car show this weekend and had a great time. Saw two or three FFR Hot Rods and got some good pictures of them. I also went into the the vendor buildings and found a steering wheel and adapter for my hot rod. This will make it much easier to go-cart the car when it comes time. I guess FFR is going to lose a bit more advertising on my car by not sending the steering wheel with the rest of the steering components. The steering wheel cost $125.00 and the adapter was $35.00.
While I was there I stopped at the Summit Racing trailer and found out that SR was offering 10% off everything in the Arlington TX store. It was the weekend of their grand opening so they were offering the discount. I went buy and ended up buying a scoop for my hot rod. It has to be one of the car items I have always wanted on a car since I was a little kid reading CARToons magazine and going to car shows with my dad. It will look so much better when everything else is on the motor taking up some of that "extra" space.
When I got home from Good Guys and Summit Racing I found that my wire harness had been delivered.
So I went out to the garage yesterday and started working. I got the axle and pinion seals removed only to figure out that I have the wrong replacements. The ones that I picked up were way too small. Well, the Pinion seal is the correct one but I could not find any RTV to add to the outside edge of the seal. Looks like I will be making another trip to the parts store tonight after work.
Tim,
Has Factory Five stopped using the harness from Ron Francis, and gone with American Autowire?
I went with Infinity wire system.
Bob
I don't know who FFR is going with. I had them remove the harness from my order and ordered it from another vendor who apparently can not be named. That is the harness I got from the vendor and it is designed more for the hot rod and does not include connectors and wires that are for the roadster only.
Apparently it has longer wires as well... I have not started any work on it yet as I want the AC and a couple other things put on before I start the wiring. So it is still in the plastic bags as pictured.
Tim
I understand that Factory Five is still providing the Ron Francis harness. However, like Tim, I wanted more circuits than were available in the standard harness and so I deleted the harness from my order. Ron Francis has suitable wiring kits in their catalog, but there are several other suppliers out there with comparable offerings. I haven't decided yet on which to use.
Keith
Why can't the vender be named ? Factory Five should provide a harness that is made for the 33 and not continue to poor boy off of the cobra wiring harness. I have spent a lot of time removing pieces of the harness to make everything fit under the dash.
Thanks... I got even more done this weekend. As I put on my web site, Check out my rear end. It is a rear end out of a 2002 Mustang GT with 3.27 gear set. I replaced all the seals, painted and hung it this week end.
After that was done it was still a bit early so I went ahead and mounted the fuel pump and the fuel filter.
Another great weekend especially on Sunday when the temperature had a high of only around 75. I started out yesterday by running the hard fuel line, and then putting on the insulated clips on both the fuel lines and the break lines. It's not a major undertaking but it is tedious and has to be done.
Next up was putting the grill, radiator, AC condenser and fan together.
This is again, was not a hard job but it was one that took time. I did install the horns as well since they needed to be installed before the grill was mounted.
I was then going to start installing the wiring but then had to stop when I realized that I had nothing to mount it to. Apparently when I had FFR remove the stock wire harness they also removed the sheet metal that the fuse block mounts to. So now I have to figure out how I am going to get it installed.
I do like the wire harness. It has 20 circuits on and the wiring are labeled as to where they go. It should make things much easier to get everything hooked up.
As usual if you want more details or pictures you can check out my build thread on my web site.
Nice pictures. Very helpful!
Awesome scoop too!
Yesterday I wanted to start running the wires even though I don't have the mounting for the fuse box. So I cable tied the fuse box into the location I am going to mount it and started to separate out the wires.
I pulled out the wires that go to the back of the car like the break lights and fuel pump and pulled them into a wire loom. Once the wires were in the loom I pulled over a small strip of heat shrink to hold the wires and to keep the loom from fraying.
The wire loom I found on Amazon and is 1/2" in diameter and is 25' long for $9.99.
( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 )
I also was able to mount the evaporator for the AC. This is a unit from Classic Auto Air and is one of their Street Rod Universal units.
Gotta love heat shrink. I found some 3x shrink that is so much nicer than the 2x stuff. Bad connections will bite you later if you don't do it right.
James
FFR33 #997 (Gen1 chassis, Gen2 body), license plate DRIVE IT says it all! build thread
My build: 350SBC, TKO600, hardtop, no fenders/hood, 32 grill, 3 link, sway bars, 355/30r19
Previous cars: GTD40, Cobra, tubeframe 55 Chevy, 66 Nova, 56 F100
The heat shrink 3x with glue is the best i have used.
HVACMAN,
Yes there is... I ordered this along with a new wire harness, and adjustable control arms from a non-supporting vendor who has recently been suspended from this site. I respect his opinion, as do many people on this site, and this is what he sells. He said that it fits better and will also be colder.
Turns out to not be too bad of a deal either. Classic Auto Air is in Coppell TX which is only about a 20 to 30 minute drive from where I live. I just happened to be about 3 minutes from their office this morning so I dropped in to check them out. I bought a bulkhead from them. Even though a bulkhead adds an extra failure point on the system I like the looks much better.
They also told me that when I am ready that they will crimp all my hose connections for free as part of the service of having their system.
Last night I went out and kept at the wiring by thinning it out and putting it into the wire loom.
Then I started the job of drilling the sheet metal. Uggg... What a tedious task, and I am not even close to being done.
I am going to have to pull the panel from the rear of the cockpit as I forgot to put the silicone between the metal and the frame. I also forgot to spray it with Lizard Skin. Once I am done with the floor pans I will spray all of the sheet metal with Lizard Skin. Once dry I will mount all the sheet metal except for the floor pans. The floor pans will just be set into place and held with Clecos. I am not going to rivet them until at the very last when I no longer need to be under the car or under the dash.