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Old May 11th 2020, 16:42
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owdlvr owdlvr is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Canada - West Coast
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Well, some aspects of the project are stuck in "waiting on parts" mode, while others are taking a lot longer than anticipated. While waiting for parts, I figured I better tackle the curb-rash on the wheels. Normally I would Powdercoat, but we have reached the limit for the project budget. Rattle-can colour change it is! I used the Dupli-colour wheel paint system, and didn't read the instructions until after the first coat. Normally it's colour base, wait 12-24hrs and then clear coat. Nope! Clear coat 1hr after base OR wait for 48hrs to clear. Well, crap. By the time I had ground, sanded and prepped, it was already late. Oops. Finished the final coat of clear at 3am. Fortunately it has been hot and sunny, which helps bake the finish the day after spraying. I'll wait until the last minute to have tires mounted, in hopes that the paint hardens up enough that the tire shop doesn't completely destroy the work done.





On Thursday the engine parts finally arrived, after a 28 day delay at the balancing shop. Frustratingly, it seems they balanced the crank from pulley to pressure plate, but may not have touched the pistons or connecting rods(!?!). Pistons with pins were 1.5g off out of the box, but by swapping out piston pins, I was able to get them to zero out...at least to a half gram, which is the best my digital scale can do. I have no way to confirm the rods are balanced outside of total weight, but the set did zero out so...I can hope? Engine internals and heads are all AA Performance, and I used their balance shop in California as I was told it could all be turned around within a week or two. My usual balance shop was closed due to Covid-19, and CB suggested the order (had I gone through them) would about a month. In the end it took 4wks for AA to ship, but I did save roughly $1k over buying a CB setup. Setup has taken me a fair bit longer than I planned. Apparently in my various box of goodies I have a timing gear for the crank that is off by about 1/2 to 2/3rds of a tooth, and carries no timing dots. I didn't really clue into the problem until the crank was assembled and in the case, and I couldn't get the distributor to "sit right" while setting everything to TDC. Had to find a stock gear, make a timing gear puller, and head backwards on the setup. Having a milling machine and the lathe has been a godsend, as I had to pull material off the rocker stands and shorten the studs.

I have also forgotten how long it takes to build up a motor from scratch, vs. rebuilding a motor I already have. "Hmmm, why is the pulley tin piece not in the box of tin pieces?", "Why do I keep 4 oil coolers I would never reuse, but don't store the one I would reuse with them?" etc. etc. Not to mention the time to carefully measure, inspect, and confirm everything is fitting right! Didn't get nearly as far as I had hoped this weekend, but I am at least at completed long block stage. I'd have the motor all the way to installing the fanshroud stage, but for the life of me I cannot find a good lower pulley tin piece in my collection. I'll have a new one tomorrow (which has to be modified to clear the oil fittings) and then will hopefully finish up the engine build. At this stage, I'm now pulling out used bits to finish it. For tin I've pulled out some of the powder coated blue tin from my '69 build years ago, and it's getting spray painted semi-gloss black instead of re-powdercoating. The exhaust? I'll be putting on one of the back-up units from the Rally Bug, which has been rallied and beat up. But hey, better to be driving it than waiting around for the world to re-start!



I think I'm going to have to order a second set of pushrods for this motor. The oiling hole I added could definitely be closer to the tip, I was being a little too conservative with where I placed it. As it stands it only clears into the head in the top 20% of the pushrod travel. Drat!




-Dave
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'71 Type 1 - Rally Project
'58 Type 1 - I bought an early!?!
'73 Type 1 - Proper Germanlook project
'68 Type 1 - Interm German 'look' project
'75 Type 1 - Family Heirloom
'93 Chevy 3500 pickup - Cummins Swap
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