The leaf spring U-bolt nuts are frozen as well. I would have seperated them on the car if I could have broken them loose. Not sure how I'll break them yet. Got em sprayed good, maybe that'll help.
The rear shackles were bent so bad they looked like offsets, suprisingly they came out fairly easy. Who ever owned this car before really dogged it.
Metal Fuel line was so brittle it broke, even had plain clear pvc for the flex line, the rear brake line broke as well. But all that's being replaced anyway.
On a positive note I got the 350 off to the machine shop, got the heads apart cleaned, ported and port matched, intake blasted, lots of other parts cleaned, etc...
The wife says I don't need help, I need a pit crew. I tend to agree.
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Since I'm waiting on parts for the 428 car I thought I'd work on the race car a bit.
I figured it would would be best to pull the rear end to cut out the floor pan since it goes over the spring perches, plus it had to come out anyway. But Murphy was my helper yesterday.
The nuts inside the frame were broke loose from their tabs and frozen on the bolts. I had to cut the floor anyway just to get to them, then with a wrench holding the nut and an impact wrench on the bolt I pounded the wrench into my finger when it got wedged between the wrench and frame rail. Ouch!
Man I just love working on old rusty cars.
Finally got it out and my old dollys on the frame. Just another typical day in the Busted Knuckle garage.
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A fellow V8 Firebird owner checked his pivot ball for me. He has one that's 1/2" longer at 2 1/4" But, we cannot find a listing for it anywhere and several other Bird owners measured theirs at 1 3/4" plus the resto supply houses all list the 1 3/4" so we're stumped. Dealing with 40 year old cars sometimes yeilds a mystery or two.
I'll leave my fix alone but I will be on the lookout for the longer pivot ball. It's an easy change, just have to find one.
I started mocking up the Power Steering pump, since my car didn't have it I got a complete old system to mock up, once I get it to fit and look right I'll buy new hoses and a new pump, but for now I can't get it to fit, got a feeling I have a wrong pump.
I also got my new RobMc 550hp mechanical fuel pump. Nice piece of work. I plan on running the lines in steel with brass fitting, kind of an old school look. The pulleys are just bare blasted metal, I kind of like that, I may paint them that color instead of the standard black. I don't want any billet bling bling on this engine.
I then spent the rest of the weekend rearranging the garage. Finally got all the dirty work stuff on one side. The blast cabinet was making a mess where I try to do clean work.
Just another busy garage weekend.
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I think I got it. Best I can figure is something you don't run into often. Progressive tolerances.
The engine measures about the same, maybe an 1/8" over some others I checked but I do have new urethane mounts. All the parts measure correct. Z=9" Stud= 1 3/4"
I pulled the bracket off the frame and put a straight edge on it, the frame had a slight crown and some high spots, the bracket had a slight crown as well so I pulled another bracket off the race car, it was better but I still put it in the vice and made it flat and straight, I then took a BAH and knocked in the high spots on the frame, mainly where the threads were pulled outward creating the high spots, possibly from impact wrench assembly way back when.
I drilled out some .120 shims, one behind the block stud and one between the bracket and Z-bar stud. Got it all back, the seal is even inside the tube now. Still not sure where that much distance came from but it should be fine now.
Sometimes you can still fix things with a BAH!
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Seems this journal is nothing but a list of problems, always something not fitting it seems.
Years ago I had a problem with the Clutch Z bar coming off the engine pivot ball, it just didn't fit far enough over it. I never could find the cause so I just welded an extension to the Z and I had forgotten about it until I went to mock up the linkage.
This time I'm trying to fix it right but so far I still cannot find the cause.
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