The Plymford

One more post for today....

After pulling the front clip off the LTD, I wanted to see how the corresponding Plymouth parts would fit up.  By now it was July, and seeing as how it was my birthday weekend, I had the whole 2 days to do whatever I wanted.  

Which was, of course, to create an automotive Stone Henge out of the front clip of a '51 Plymouth.

*insert dramatic music here*

I may have mentioned that the Plymouth was rusty.  The fact that it's windshield bore a NYS inspection sticker dated from 2001, and came with a NY transferable registration card, may have had something to do with the level of corrosion.  It was so badly rusted that most of the bolts that held this clip on simply broke off when I went to loosen them.

The next step was, of course, to test fit the clip onto the LTD:

Up until this point, doubts lingered in my head about how I'd pull this off, or if it was a good idea.  But seeing the clip sitting there on the front of the LTD- man, this picture really sealed it for me.  The Plymford had to happen.  I had to do it.  I had to _finish_ it.  

Naturally, there were one or two (thousand) little issues to be worked out.  Still, this was promising.  Motivation had been achieved.  

I loved seeing the Plymford in the yard.  It just looked so....right.  I didn't get much of a chance to work on it for a few weeks, but I left the front end of the car uncovered whenever it wasn't raining.  Even Mrs. VCH had to admit- she was excited.  

It looked especially sinister after the sun set.

Even though I'd essentially created a piece of yard art, the Plymouth front end just perched on top of the LTD, it was....majestic.

#majesticAF

Perching the Plymouth sheetmetal atop the LTD did more than motivate, however.  It also revealed the first problem I was to encounter:

That's as far back as I could get the fender before the fan on the engine (460 Big Block, for those curious) hit the radiator support.  

Looking at the whole arrangement, it became clear what the solution was going to be:  The engine was going to have to move back.

Engine setback is good, though extreme for what appears able to be solved with a rear mounted radiator and turbo.

Moving the engine back solved a lot of other problems, too, and wasn't as difficult as it seemed at first.  We've always run into issues with cooling this big, inefficient beast, so sticking the radiator somewhere other than where God and Henry Ford intended it to be, and adding forced induction to boot...just didn't seem a good idea.  

The main obstacle with moving the engine back was the oil pan- more specifically, the front-mounted sump.  Here's the view from underneath:

There's "maybe" an inch between the sump and the front suspension crossmember.  Either the crossmember needs to be modified, or the sump needs to move.

Either way, it was time for some major surgery.  I cleared out as big of a hole in the garage as I could, fired up what was left of the LTD (briefly, since the radiator was missing) and moved the clip-less car inside to begin operations in earnest.

Some assessment of the situation and a whole lot of time with a tape measure showed that there was an "easy" 6 inches or so that the engine could be moved backwards in the chassis.  After that, major issues like the valve cover interfering with the brake booster would start to crop up.  Potentially the driver's position would have to be modified, too.  Which could involve modifying the cage.  Since I wanted to avoid all these things, I decided to scooch (is that how you spell it?) the drivetrain back the "easy" 6" and then figure out how to mount the sheetmetal accordingly. 

I made this handy chart of dimensions:

Not that anyone cares about the actual dimensions, but to show the sort of detail here, and all the things that needed to be considered.

Things like, the steering rod, which is behind the crossmember.

And the engine mounts.

A bit of background here: the LTD was originally equipped with a "400" engine as it left the factory in 1975.  We trashed the 400 in favor of the 460, and did a quick and fairly dirty job of it.  The entire 460 was perched atop two 3/8" grade 8 bolts, one on each side, as shown above.  After a few races like this, the bolts were beginning to wallow out the holes in the mounts, and the whole thing just looked very sketchy.  Relocating the engine would give me a good opportunity to fix the sins committed in the name of prior expediency.

The driveshaft was another issue.  The current engine installation was done so as to re-use the driveshaft that the car originally had.  In doing so, the driveshaft fit was a bit snug.  Even jacking the car up, with the rear axle at full droop, we were only barely able to get the U-joint bearings in and out.  Its very possible that the driveshaft was imparting some rather unfortunate forces upon the output portion of the C6- which could have been the cause of our sundry driveshaft/ transmission woes.  The driveshaft would need to be shortened after the engine and transmision were moved back, so, again, a good time to do it right.  

Well, "right", as in, "the correct way to do it when modifying a 1975 LTD to move the drivetrain back".  Which has absolutely, certainly been done before.  I think.  Maybe.

With the front body panels removed, engine/ transmission removal is almost a trivial affair.

Trivial, that is, if one excludes having to jockey half a ton of nearly 6 foot long drivetrain around a cramped single-car garage space.

In this picture, the LTD back end is poking out of the garage.   Like 8 feet.  C'est la vie.

One option we had considered here was a truck oil pan, which has a rear sump.  However, looking at my notes, I had taken some measurements of the truck oil pan I had on hand (most used 460's we find come from trucks; we swap oil pans and oil pump pickups when mounting them into the LTD chassis.  As a result I have amassed a pile of truck oil pans worth exactly nothing to me) and the rear sump oil pan would require a LOT of engine relocation.  The steering linkage takes up a good 3.5" of real estate behind the crossmember, meaning that, with a rear sump pan, the engine would have to be moved back something like 8-1/2" at a minimum.  That would entail moving the brake booster, possibly the accelerator pedal, and possibly the steering wheel and seat and maybe the cage.  So, I ruled out the rear sump pan.

Another option we considered was modifying the crossmember.

Either lowering it..

Or cutting out the center section, and adding some braces.  Or some combination thereof.

After some discussion it was decided that no one (including me) was entirely comfortable with modifying a major structural element of the car.  Even with all my fancy engineerin' schoolin' and CAD and Machinery's Handbook and Stengths of Materials and whatnot.  

There was only one option left: modify the oil pan.  

Having been down a similar path recently, its fun watching this!

And be grateful you have different oil pan options. I had none, so modifying the pan was the only option. As well as the crossmember. And firewall. And....

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

I can see all you went through just to move sway bar mountings!

Still haven't finished those.....

Please take a day off work to finish up the documentation of this. I'm hooked!

Your perspective is probably clearer than the photos can show, but I would have been tempted to gut the core support out of the Plymouth clip to make room for the fan. Easier than pulling an engine, building new mounts, and welding an oil pan. But engine setback helps handling, so it's all good either way. That is one beautiful embodiment of raw speed you got there, by the way.

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Wish I could, but I promise I'll finish the write up in fewer than 16 months  

maschinenbau said:

Your perspective is probably clearer than the photos can show, but I would have been tempted to gut the core support out of the Plymouth clip to make room for the fan. Easier than pulling an engine, building new mounts, and welding an oil pan. But engine setback helps handling, so it's all good either way. That is one beautiful embodiment of raw speed you got there, by the way.

As you can see here, the problem isn't just the fan  The radiator won't fit under the Plymouth hood, with the hood at such a height as the driver can still see over it, unless the radiator gets moved back.  

I did post HERE about the oil pan shenanigans.  Click on the "HERE" to read more about it in detail.   The general progression was:

CONCEPT

DRAWINGS

END RESULT

The oil pump pickup got flipped around; instead of facing backwards, it now faces forward, into that new forward-jutting sump.  The result looks a little funny, but held water overnight, so I figured it would be "good 'nuff" for racing.  

As I was searching through my emails and notes, I came across this message I sent out to the team, dated September 19, 2017:

"On a less-technical related note...T-minus 51 weeks until the fall CMP race of 2018.  (The 2017 race was this past weekend).  Who thinks we can get the Plymford ready to race in time?"

On year to go...and the engine's not even back in yet.  Were I a professional racing fabrication shop, with 8 hours a day and all the right tools at my disposal, this project would probably be finished at this point.  Since I am, in fact, a working father of 2 who likes to see his family sometimes, I get an hour, _maybe_ an hour and a half each night out in the car hole to ponder and pound on metal.  

By this point, looking at the date tags on the pictures, it was late September.  Not only should the kids be back at school (just kidding, my kids are too young for school...but bonus points if you got the reference), but this hilariously enormous engine really should get getting back in the Plymford where it belongs.  Inhale....

Whoo...oil filter's getting pretty cozy with that crossmember....

Looks OK from this side.

Bump...bump...bump....huh.  Why won't it go back any further.  Oh, wait...

We know from eating Fig Newtons that two real objects cannot occupy the same point in physical space at the same point in linear time.  I think that was Newton's Second, which pretty much everybody knows.  Unlike Beethoven, who needed 3 more to get to his famous one.  

(Fun fact: you can remember how to spell "Beethoven" if you just remember "beet" and "hoven".  Maybe this is easy for me, because I love beets.)

Apart from physics and classical music, plenty of clearance around the oil pan sump!

Underneath the car, the tailshaft seems to fit the existing driveline tunnel with some clearance.  So it's just the transmission bellhousing running afoul of the firewall.

Ooooh...and that exhaust dealie is kinda close to that steering dealie.  

So, to summarize:  Some stuff's too close, some stuff's hitting, and some stuff looks OK.

So, what's the next step?  

Clearly, it's to tear all the wiring out of the car!

Take that, nasty rat's nest of 40-year-old hacked-up wiring harness!  I spit in your general direction!

The first thought I had, to deal with the obstreperous firewall, was to get out the BFH and clearance it.  About an hour's worth of straddling the frame rails (after removing the engine) while wielding a 10 pound sledge resulted in...

A very sore back.  A few new cuts and bruises.  And not a whole lot of extra clearance.  

So, out comes the engine and transmission.  Again...

Clearly, this situation called for less effort of the bash-y variety, and more, um, thought and creativity.

Since the oil filter was nearly interfering with the crossmember, which could make servicing it difficult, I decided to notch the crossmember there while the engine was out.  Pretty simple- just plasma cut out an 'L' shaped wedge, flip it around 180 degrees, and weld it back in, with some side pieces cut out of scrap metal.

The passenger side of the new oil pan sump kick-out looked like it might interfere with the crossmember, too, once the engine went back far enough.  So I did some cutting and welding and grinding here as well, to add some extra clearance.

A couple of posts back I noted the somewhat non-sequitor of tearing out all of the cabin wiring.  There was actually a good reason why this came next in the sequence of things.  Since the firewall needed to be modified, it was easier to accomplish this without tons and tons of wiring and electronics in the way.  Part of the plan (well, what plan there was) involved simplifying and cleaning up the wiring anyway, so no harm in getting the removal part done.  It's so much nicer not having to work around all that mess.

Anyway, back to the firewall.  Since the sledgehammer couldn't budge the metal enough to accommodate the transmission bellhousing, I decided to attempt what I'd seen others do before: fabricate a new firewall.  I've never tried this before, but it seemed like fun.  

I mean, it involves metal, cutting, and welding.  Of course it'll be _fun_.  

I had this rusty old hood from a Volvo 122 that I'd already cut pieces out of for the oil pan modification:

Of course, I took one look at that and thought, "That would make a pretty killer firewall right there."  

And....yeah, it kinda does.  

Using a black marker, a straightedge, some bendy sheet metal pliers, and the plasma, I got the hood close to what it needed to be to fill the giant gaping hole I'd cut out of the firewall and transmission tunnel.

Then, using "CAD", I filled in the smaller, remaining holes.

Trace out of cardboard, cut out, transfer to sheetmetal, cut out, tack weld in place.  Repeat.  A lot.

Till eventually...

We have a fully enclosed firewall again....just...moved back a bit.  

And this, by my records, is where things stood as 2017 came to a close.  Snow gently coated the landscape, and frigid temperatures made work in my unheated (and, with that giant freaking car in that, not even fully enclosed) garage pretty much untenable.  Plymford progress ceased for a couple of months while we huddled inside by the woodstove, making soup and drinking mulled wine.

I hereby give you permission to take tomorrow off as vacation and finish this write up before turkey day...please.

I love hat cars. After helping build the Toyocedes I thought, "hat cars are difficult, but totally something I could do myself." You are making me think otherwise.

You're not just making a hat car, it's like you're redesigning an XL head to fit a ML hat while also making that ML hat a L hat with scraps from other S hats. Okay, maybe that hat metaphor went too far, but you did a lot of berkin work. Awesome job Mr Kamchatka!

In reply to buzzboy :

The hat metaphor is very apt, actually.  There are usually at least four ways to do anything: The easy way, the right way, the wrong way, and the hard way.  It's pretty obvious which way this is.  I like to think that the hard way, though it may not always be the right way, is at least almost never the wrong way.  

After several months of this:

The firewall modification was complete.  When I shared the pictures of my hours of sweat and toil with my team mates, the first reply I got back was,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhCM-8_2AxY

Wise ass.  

(I cannot for the life of me figure out how to embed videos.  Sorry.)

From the log book:

"Mysteriously, while the 460 was sitting on my shop floor, 4 of the 6 freeze plugs decided to liberate themselves from the block.  The engine was drained of water prior to removal.  I can only surmise that the single-digit temperatures caused the brass plugs to shrink at a faster rate than the iron block, after which gravity went into full effect.  $11 later, 6 new freeze plugs were installed.  This also gave me an excuse to use one of my Christmas presents (to remove the engine mounts, in order to gain access to the freeze plugs)."

New freeze plugs installed, I decided to test fit the 460 with the revised firewall.

This feels like deja vu...all over again.

Now let's see how the radiator fits.

One of the goals here was to get the radiator behind that very front-most frame crossmember.  I had three rationalizations for this:

Rationalization the First: The radiator could mount on this crossmember, somehow.

Rationalization the Second: The crossmember would provide some protection for the radiator.

Rationalization the Third:  The Plymouth hood curves downward right about at this point, when the trailing edge of the hood is at the windshield base on the LTD windshield.  

With the engine crammed and jammed back as far as it would go (given all the various geometries going on here), the radiator only just fits.

I decided to call it good, and work on the engine mounts.  

You guys deserve some meat to go with your potatoes on this Thanksgiving Eve, so here's how the engine mounts went down.

As part of the original 460 installation of dubious quality, our crack team of engineers apparently decided to toss 3/8" bolts into 7/16" holes, to allow for some freedom of alignment.  In laymen's terms, slop.  I redrilled the holes and tossed in some 7/16" bolts to attach the engine mounts to the frame mounts.

How this all works is, the 460 bolts to the engine mounts, which are rubber and steel.  The engine mounts bolt to those square-ish shaped frame mounts, and the frame mounts bolt to the crossmember.  Since the engine in 6" back now, the frame to crossmember mounting holes had to be redrilled.  

And, since the car originally had a 400, which had different frame mount positioning on the crossmember, there were now (at least) 8 separate holes on each side of the crossmember.  Holes were devolving into slots.  The crossmember would be Swiss Cheese with another 8 holes drilled into it for the "460 setback" position.

The frame mounts were also looking like they would be cantilevered off the back of the crossmember with the engine that far back.  To fix all these problems and more, I welded up all of the unused mounting holes in the crossmember, and welded in some 1/8" thick angle iron for the new frame mounts to bolt into.

Ain't purdy, but it was flat.  "If you can't weld, learn to grind" ought to be my motto.  

Frame mounts attached to the engine, I set the drivetrain into place where it needed to go, meticulously lining up everything...by eyeball.  I marked all the holes, drilled them, and bolted in the mounts.  Now for the real test....

The engine fits...

And the bolts go in!

Gentlemen, we have officially moved the engine back!

This is what happens when motivation turns into determination.  

Now let's get the berk inside.  It's snowing into the race car.