Thursday

After an hour in my nice clothes.

Wednesday

Why you should label bolts during disassembly;

Gymnastics required to apply 105 pounds of torque to the flexplate mounting bolts while hanging from the engine hoist.

 

Bolted engine to tranny and noticed a big hole... oops!

  

Back together with the proper missing piece. This is long!

  

BTW-check your flexplate to converter bolt pattern BEFORE assembly to avoid panic. Turns out there is only one possible way to bolt them together and the correct way always leaves the converter drain plug accessible through this large hole in the flexplate. I also had to SLIGHTLY enlarge one bolt hole to account for a manufacturing error in welding on the nuts. Par for course.

 

Close of business Wednesday. Dinner was due and the hoist was running into the frame.

 

tuesday

Close of business Tuesday.

sandblasted

oil pan to pickup clearance(that is black Play-doh)

sandblasted and clearcoated

sandblasted and 2,000 degree paint applied

Close of business today.

Oil filter

update;

Due to new knowledge about the oil pump containing the pressure bypass and the filter providing drainback protection I will go straight to block like this;

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I spent a little time in Kragen today opening filter boxes to help decide which filter to use. I wanted the biggest one that would work and fit. The block is a 1989 which is same as a 1991. The chassis is a 81 so I thought I might worry about clearance but that is not an issue.
91 oil filter is a short squat PH16 prob same volume as a soda can
81 oil filter is a PH3675 which is about the size of a soda can
In 1980 and earlier, there was a PH11 which is HUGE and the size of a small peanut butter jar.
The 81 block used a small anti-drainback spring assembly captured under the filter thread adapter.
The 91 block has no such provision apparent and the cast aluminum adapter has nothing internally. The filter itself has a small anti-drainback O-ring built in.
So I removed the short threaded piece from the 81 block, removed the long threaded extension out of the 91 adapter and put the 81 piece in.


This allows me to use the early style filter which can be the small 3675, the fatter short PH25, or the fat and long PH11 which will give me almost double the filter capacity for now. Later, I will be installing a remote filter so the filter can be vertical and not leak when changed and not drain back at all. I will also install an oil cooler.

today

few days ago

zero deck

update 2/5/2010

now 2.75/4.50/5.25/5.50/3.50/3.00
gonna deal with it. 0.0025 difference high to low is acceptable

stock is 8.7SCR, 6.36 DCR, and 0.0725 quench cam -8' and 8.7/6.82/.0725 at 0 advance
after all these weeks I will end up with 9.93SCR, 7.85DCR, and 0.0429 quench 0 advanced cam.

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update 2/2/2010

piston height was something like 10.0/13.0/13.0/14.0/13.5/15.5
now 7.0/5.0/5.0/6.0/4.0/8.5 is the new version after getting them back from the machine shop... thats the amount that they stick out now.
9.98 SCR, 7.89 DCR 0.0405 quench
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Got the #5 piston back and installed without rings over the weekend. Now instead of 15.5 out of the block it is a mere 4.5 thousandths out but my #1 is 10.0 out so I had to pull it and take the rings off and deliver to my machinist.
Maybe get it all assembled this weekend? Sooo tired....