New Motor!

Well, I finished up with the new motor. This one's an 010 block, 350 cid, with 461 heads, Edelbrock C4B intake, Edelbrock 600 cfm carb, and the fabled 350HP cam.  Should be good for a few hundred horse, anyway.  Still have a few loose ends (rear freeze plugs, install alternator, that sort of thing ) but otherwise we're good to go!

Well, it's been a while, but I did progress a little bit on my '51 project today. (and when I say today, I mean for the past month or so. Babies have a funny way of occupying your free time )

Frenched my headlights.

I didn't take any "progress" pictures- I didn't want my SLR anywhere near the dust in the shop - but I did make it out tonight to take a few snaps. I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Understated and clean. I'm not a fan of tunnled headlights - like you get when you use those kits.

Basically, I took the headlight buckets out. They normally mount in from the front. I then removed all the clips from the fender and flipped them around, so that I could mount the headlight in from behind. Once that was done, I mounted the headlight and I taped the trim ring in place - a few times. It's a little tricky getting it lined up right. A few tack welds, and then I removed the bucket for final welding. I had to move around a LOT here, and go really slowly to avoid warping.

Then when it was all welded up, I pulled the filler out and smoothed everything out. With that done, a coat of sealer gets us to where we are today.

What do ya think? This was my first ever french, and I'm quite proud of myself. :)

Woo. (Hoo.)

'nuff said.

Ok, not really. I've gotta pull the motor now to replace the badly leaking rear main seal. (And move the car so I can clean the driveway from the copious amounts of oil it spewed.

But, it ran. So that's a start!

It's Frigging Cold...

...but I'm still plugging away. Got the new heads, oilpan, intake, carb, timing chain cover, balancer, and distributor installed...

Let me tell ya... if you've got a hankering to do some stuff to yer engines there... do 'em while the motor's out of the car!

In the next day or two I'll add the starter, pullys and the alternator... weather permitting.

Winter's STILL here....

...but I've made some progress on the small block chevy:

I've installed the heads (461 doublehumps from a '65 Corvette) and the intake (from a '68 Camaro).

The distributor is a neat unit called a "Power Fire" - and it's neatest feature is a little knob on the side that will allow me to advance or retard the timing in 1/2 degree steps without having to unbolt the dizzy. Neat eh?

I've got a new waterpump, pulleys, balancer, alternator + brackets all ready to go on it - and next week I'll probably pick up a nice chrome oilpan to round the package out.

I'm going for a nostalgia look (sort of)- so those are "corvette" script/finned valve covers- and the oil fill tube is on the intake (so I'm hoping I don't have a pvc issue.. if so I'll have to drill into the intake to fit a pvc valve, and there's not a lot of room to do that in. I'd rather not alter the covers that much.

The only real work left is fixing up the exhaust manifold- but I'm a little short on space so I'll work slowly.

So work really is progressing, just very very slowly :)

Winter's Here

Yes. I managed to fit a 16 foot car in a 15 foot garage. Space is tight, but the heater's on and it'll be warm enough to hopefully get the motor running this winter.

I've ordered the starter, alternator, waterpump, dizzy, and a bunch of other little bits and pieces, and I'll be hacking away at it.

I know... the updates to the blog are few and far between. Sorry. With a baby on the way, car time is being eaten up a bit.

Peaked Hood Part Two

Since the last post, I finished welding the 1/4 round to the hood and cleaned up the welds. I then added fiberglass filler so that I could shape it into a peak. I've never done that before, but it came out really nicely!

I still have more sanding to do, it's not quite perfect where it meets the grille (but it's close). I also need to touch up where it meets the windshield - but you get the idea.

It's REALLY hot out - over 30 celsius - so I'm taking it really really slow - but I've ordered engine gaskets (to get the heads and intake installed), and brakelines + fittings etc. I'd like to get the thing sort of moving before winter. By sort of I mean that I need to be able to push it around. :)