Nice!
Nice!
Got together with GRMer whiskey_business this evening for some government work at his place. Knocked two items off the "while it's out" list: trimmed excess material from engine adapter plate, plus drilled and tapped 3 holes for additional trans attachment points. Got it home and test-fit says 10/10, will rock.
That looks sooooo much better.
How much did you lighten it?
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
Not sure, but i can find out because I kept the chunks we cut off.
i'm going to add 3 M10 clearance holes near the bottom, because there are three threaded blind holes in the front of the bellhousing for additional bolts. problem is, the LT1 sump restricts access to put bolts through those holes. My first idea was to install some M10 all-thread in the bellhousing holes, just long enough to poke through the adapter and secure via flange nut on engine side. my second idea, which just hit me as i type this and i don't like nearly as much as the first idea, is to put the bolts through the adapter before fitting it to the engine. nah, i don't like that idea at all. going to go with Plan A.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:Got together with GRMer whiskey_business this evening for some government work at his place. Knocked two items off the "while it's out" list: trimmed excess material from engine adapter plate, plus drilled and tapped 3 holes for additional trans attachment points. Got it home and test-fit says 10/10, will rock.
Nice! I still recall fondly the group therapy session we had at whiskey's place helping Adrian exorcise his blue oval frustrations cutting up that chassis.
wawazat said:Nice! I still recall fondly the group therapy session we had at whiskey's place helping Adrian exorcise his blue oval frustrations cutting up that chassis.
Adrian could have been in a lumberjack world championship that day!
^ Dude was on fire wasn't he! 
Good times! I think he went thru like 8 of my metal cutting recip saw blades.
Man, this pace keeps up and Stampie is gonna have to find something else to make fun of you with.
Mr_Asa said:Man, this pace keeps up and Stampie is gonna have to find something else to make fun of you with.
Ha!
Last night i reconfigured the coolant pipe that ties the rear of both cylinder heads together. it now exits toward the driver side. i will drill, tap, and install a return port into the top of [edit] water pump outlet [/edit] to simplify cooling system plumbing. Beyond that, i didn't cross anything else off the list last night. i did spend some quality time sitting in the empty engine compartment, contemplating additional reinforcements and dick-punching myself for not removing the package tray and making the headers exit higher. Not taking a do-over on anything, but would certainly do V.2 a lot different. Will hit it pretty hard this weekend, and have meaningful updates along the way.
The cross over pipe is actually a steam pipe. The LT1s tend to create steam pockets in the heads and its forced to the back, in the OE desgin it allows that steam a place to escape and return to a high point on the radiator. Ive seen setups like yours on swaps without problems, but the LT1 specific guys dont recommend it. I mean the OEs designed it like that for a reason, but you probably wont have problems changing it. I might be a little more concerned in a hot place or for track use.
Revisiting the bolts through the back.... you could grind the heads into squares and cut in matching square holes to capture the heads so they can't turn.
Or remove the threads in the bellhousing bolt holes and tap the adapter plate then run bolts from the transaxle side in to the adapter plate.
Before I can make some clearance cuts in the rear wheelwells, I need to stitch a few body seams. Here's one of them:
and as I learned from the smoldering stench, before I can weld that seam I need to scrape the undercoating from the wheelwells. So I went from this:
to this in about 2 hours of not very much fun at all:
Tomorrow I'm running 7 miles starting at 9AM, so I probably won't get into the garage til noon. *if* I can convince myself to not go to the junkyard for that LT1 PCM and that Volvo electric power steering pump.
Nice pile of "coal". Each step is one closer to completion. This really is a cool project.
"Real feel" temp was far too low for running at 9AM, so I made a big batch of apple banana blueberry pancakes:
and sat on my ass for a couple hours. Then I went to the junkyard to see about that LT1 PCM, since the car just hit the yard on Wednesday. PCM and connectors were gone, so I grabbed the air box and underhood fuse / relay panel and headed for home.
Made a peanut butter sandwich with the two remaining pancakes, then my wife and I went for a hike at the local state park.
its 5:15 and I just turned on the garage heat.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Do it, the Volvo pump is an easy snag w/ the pigtail from the larger harness.
Derp!
In reply to ralleah :
I'm gonna, but it might be in the improvement plan for 2024. The Volvo to my right was put in the yard 2 days ago, and the PS pump was already gone. :-(
Christmas gift, engage!
wow, this Miller Weld-Mask (tm) is sooooo nice! Let's me get into spots a full helmet won't allow. It came with a balaclava but I'll wait til I burn my neck or head before putting it on. So I'm cleaning up and laying beads where things were just tacked before, and between the new mask and the new MIG, I'm pretty OK with the results.
gonna leave these seams tack-only, no need to fully stitch them.
MIG QUESTION: when I have to aim the wire "up" as when welding the bottom of something, a lot of times the wire is melting back toward the gun tip (away from the joint), and balling up. Not enough wire speed for that condition?
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
There's so many around here, can't imagine you don't find another, or a focus one when you're ready 
.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Yup. MIG overhead I usually bump the feed speed a bit.
Do I remember correctly that you're running an Eastwood MIG ?
In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :
Yep, Eastwood MIG 180.
Sunday morning church of Monzoora!
84FSP said:Sunday morning church of Monzoora!
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