Vacation is over back to work.

Me and the wife spent a couple of days on Catalina Island. It was a good time to get away from the truck. I was having a little trouble staying motivated. I get to the point I can't see past the little problems long enough to make any progress. I've got to walk away for a day or to when that happens. Cleaning up the garage helps too. My only intention today was to go clean up the garage. I didn't clean much before ideas started popping into my head. I think I have figured out how I an going to set up my throttle now. I'm going to use a cable. Would have liked to have figured out a linkage instead. But I have faith that my cable will perform nicely. I am going to fab up some brackets so I can keep my stock pedal. Today I also got my choke and fuel lines done. I've got my glass bowl fuel filter in. Looks good. Wish I had taken a picture to share. The fuel filter I have is not unique in its form. You can order then at any parts store. But my is "distressed". It's got probably 40 years of wear on it that you can't really fake. I like the patina. I like that back then parts didn't get thrown away. Instead they were rebuilt. Hardly anything on newer cars is fixed. It's just replaced. My other progress of the day was my clutch pivot. Ups brought me the correct ball and spring. So now there is nothing keeping me from getting my transmission in. Still looking forward to starting her up. All these little things make a big difference though. I like to let ideas ferment a day or two before I start building anything custom. For example, as I was typing this I just realized a great place to put my throttle return spring. I was planning on attaching it directly to my carb because that's the common method. But I wasn't happy with the size spring I would have to use. A short spring can be strong enough but would not be very smooth. Instead I will use a spring on the bracket I will be making connect my accelerator pedal rod to the cable. There will be much more room there. I don't know. I'll let that one stew till tomorrow. Also I started fiddling with my $50 welder. It's an Astro PowerMIG 130. I need some new tips. I'm not sure how well it will run flux core but I'm sure I will find out soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Motor is in

I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on this today. But in the few hours I did have I made some progress. I got my drivers side motor mount shortened and mounted on the frame. And I got the engine in and bolted to all four mounts. I didn't clean the whole frame forward of the cab like I would have liked to. It would have taken me the rest if the week to do. So I painted everything that did get scraped clean. Now for the hard part. Setting up my clutch and throttle linkages to the new motor. Still need to work out an alternator mount and figure out my belt alignment. I need to go to the junkyard and find a fan and a bellhousing inspection cover.

Motor mount

I wish I could say this way my weld. I opted to take to the muffler shop down the street from my house. He did a really nice job and only charged me $20. I'm sure this kind of thing could add up but as far as this motor swap goes this is the only outside welding that I have needed.

I saw the light

The light at the end of the tunnel. I had the engine in position today. Only for a few minutes though. Just long enough to bolt it up to my bellhousing crossmember and mark exactly where my front mounts will go. I've still got a bunch of gunk to clean off the front of the frame rails before I will be able to paint them. I think POR15 is going to be the answer here, especially on the front crossmember. It's spent that last many years filled with mud and oil. It's got some rust but not nearly as much as I expected.

Front mounts

I got the passenger side mount in. This is the mount that Stovebolt engineering aka Tom Langdon sells. The drivers side mount needs a little less than a quarter inch taken off the height to fit inside the frame rails. Should be a simple cut and re-weld. I thought I might take it down to the exhaust shop down the street and let then throw a bead down on it. They said they would only charge me $20. But I think my little 110 welder might be up to the task. I thought I was going to need to drop the leaf springs down in order to drill the bottom mounting holes. But my drill bit was just long enough to go thru the top hole to drill the bottom hole. I'm using 7/16 grade eight hardware. Now that its all mocked up I will pull the mount and paint it and red loctight the bolts.

Little adjustments

My frame as some spots that needed a little tweaking. This seams to be the prefect tool for the job.

Tuck!

My boy is almost two and he is nuts for the truck. He loves to sit in it.

Project O the day

Today I need to find a flywheel that will bolt to my 70 Nova crank, and work with my 57 pickup bellhousing and starter. Seems like this should be easy but I'm have a bit of trouble.

Cross member done.

Welds are looking better.

Old engine is gone.

I sold the 235 that came out of the truck. I probably would have given it away. Working in my one car garage I don't have the space to keep parts that I don't intend on using. I had it hanging from my engine crane so now that it is gone my new 250 is hanging from the crane. I got it situated so the engine hangs very close to level. I am going to have the engine in and out at least twice while I mock up my motor mounts and bellhousing mounts. I'm pretty excited about getting this thing on the road again. I need to take some vacation this month or I stop accruing new vacation time. I think I'll be making some progress on the truck. My stated goal is to get the drivetrain done by the end of the year. I may be able to go thru the suspension and disc brake conversion too at this rate.

Another bump in the road.

Some days everything just comes together and I make a ton if progress. That was yesterday. Today however after I spent all of next weeks truck budget on parts and then realized that the flywheel on my motor is for and automatic transmission. Also I noticed that my alternator is not lining up to my crank pulley. I've got a water pump pulley in the mail that I found on ebay. I'll probably wait for that to show up before I start messing with belt alignment. I'm going to call it a day for now. Maybe tomorrow I'll bolt the bellhousing up so I can finish my crossmember mounts.

Getting there.

I'm not much of a welder but I am really happy with how these came out. All I have done it cut three, three inch long, strips of two inch steel and welded them into a c-chanel. They fit on the crossmember very snugly which will make the easier to get in the right position. Today I will drill the mounting holes and mount them to the bellhousing. Then I can slip it on to the crossmember and get it exactly centered and mark where I am going to cut. I need an access hole to reach the mounting bolts. If I keep going at this pace my engine will be in by the end of the weekend. After that I'll just need to work out the exhaust.

Crossmember Modification

This is what the original crossmember looks like. There are flat spots on either side fo the transmission that the bellhousing mounts to. The newer style bellhousing mounts are at a 45(or so) degree andgle.




















This is approximately what the crossmember looks like in a cutaway. It's not boxed, its a C-Chanel with a little flare on the bottom.






























So the plan will be to find or make a C-Chanel that will slip over the top of the original crossmember. I will cut it along both sides and bend it to the angle I need. Then I will weld this bracket to the top of the original cross member. When I get home tonight the paint will be dry on my new bellhousing so I can stick it in there and take some measurements to see if I will need to cut away any of the original crossmember to get the transmission low enough. In any case I will be cutting access holes to be able to insert the bolts into the bottom of my new bracket(below).