I haven't written anything lately, but I have been busy in the garage. I decided to keep an in-line 6 cylinder engine in the truck, but not the 230. I do still have the 230 engine, but these old engines are so inefficient, that I am worried that I wont have enough power for modern freeway traffic. I picked up a 292 engine last Thanksgiving, and a rear end around Christmas. My goal for the winter is to get these parts ready to go into the truck once the rainy season ends.
A
shop in Vacaville was doing a 350 swap on a '68 Chevy
truck, but the old engine ran so well, he hated to junk it, so he put
it on Craigs List. The truck itself is
in beautiful shape,
and appears to have only 80,000 miles on it, so this could possibly be
a never-rebuilt engine. Anyway, it is supposed to run really well and I
intend to install it pretty much as-is. There are a few things that
need fixed though... Both front and rear crankshaft seal appear to be
leaking, and the vibration damper is coming apart (old rubber).
I beefed
up my engine stand a little for this. This engine weighs about the same
as the Chevy V8, but is
much longer, putting more stress and more of a stability challenge on
the stand. You can see the extra "legs" that I added to the front of
the stand for stability. (Ignore the large pink and black legs, that's
the hoist.) I was nervous when mounting it, that the stand would
bend, but it seems to be holding up fine.
I have never replaced a rear main seal before with the crankshaft still in the engine, so I wasn't sure I could do it. I have read about this before, but got the impression it was tricky. But it turned out to be surprisingly easy.
This is a two-half seal; one half comes off with the main cap, the other is in the block, underneath the crankshaft. In this picture I am giving the end of the seal a push with a punch. Pushing down on this end, causes it to push up the other side. Once I got it started, it was easy to rotate it all the way around the crank and out. The new seal rotated in just as easy.
The front seal was another matter. I had hoped to just pry this out with a screwdriver without ever removing the timing gear cover. Well, it didn't come out easy, so I pulled the cover rather than risk damaging the crank nose. And it STILL wouldn't come out. I wound up beating the seal off from the backside with a punch and hammer. The new one went in a lot easier.
I just thought this was a cool picture with the timing cover off. The big cardboard box on the floor is to catch all the crap that I am still scraping off of the engine. Plus the engine drips oil when it is upsidedown.
I had a new damper ready to go on. This engine uses the same installation tool as the V8 (very convenient for me). The new seal is under there somewhere. You cant see it.
I am going to paint this engine the same blue that was used on the 1941 engine. Chevy switched to orange in the 50's, and I have never liked it. This looks like Ford blue in the pictures, but it is a little darker and grayer than the Ford paint.
I dont have the pan back on yet, but the hard part is done.
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