Forgot to add that something else we found was the engine in the GS Has already been rebuilt before. I kind of expected that but it was confirmed. It has .030 over pistons in it. The good news was that it was all pretty clean inside. It looks like there hasn't been very many miles on it since the rebuild. The pistons appear to be cheap cast replacements. Before this engine gets put back in the car I may swap those out as well. But for now I gotta focus on the replacement.
If I had the extra cash I would more than likely do that. Got some other things around the house chewing into my car money.
Got a little progress made Saturday. Got the LT Code block prepped to go to the machine shop. Removed all the freeze plugs, oil plugs, and brass plugs from the block. All the leftover gasket material is scrapped off now. Hopefully one day this week I can get it over to machine shop and get the ball rolling. Did confirm that it is a standard bore block, so hopefully they won't have to take out much to get the cylinders cleaned up. Going to be keeping my fingers crossed that all the inspections and everything go OK as well. Once the machine shop gets everything cleaned up and all then I can get my dimensions over to Tom to get the pistons made. I'll also be ordering all the miscellaneous bits and pieces that I am going to need over the next few weeks. Have lots of work ahead of me to get things in order for the new drive train, but its so going to be worth it! Will keep everyone posted with the progress!
Got all the pieces I currently have over to the machine shop today. The owner was in the middle of an engine dyno session with another customer so I didn't get to talk to him yet. He is supposed to call me to go over everything. Hopefully he calls this afternoon or Monday. To be continued.... Just got the call. He's gonna get the block and everything cleaned up and inspected. He should be getting back with me end of next week with the information I need for the pistons. Awww yeeaaahhhh.
Not much progress has been made in the past month and a half. The machine shop did call several weeks ago and gave me the finished bore size, 4.233 (+.045). I'm stoked about that. Haven't heard from the shop in several weeks. I need to call over there and follow up with what is going on. Especially where we are with a possible cracked head. He was supposed to be confirming whether what appeared to be a crack in the exhaust crossover, was indeed a crack or not. On another note, I did pick up a 1-1/4" front sway bar and a 1" rear sway bar along with a lower control arm boxing kit from OPGI. The sway bars are made by Addco and appear to be well done. Should really help with the handling in the corners and eliminate a lot of the body roll. I am also looking into buying an upgraded steering box. Been thinking about the '69 Chevelle 396 box that can be picked up from NAPA, that Jim Weise mentioned in an old thread. I liked how he described it, "Works good, feels about "right"... a performance ratio, but not like driving a go cart either." Hopefully it will be a vast improvement and the "right" feel with the '66 and the stock steering wheel. Outside of that I haven't accomplished much other than tinkering with small things on the car to clean it up a bit. Hopefully I'll be able to report back with some more news. I'm ready to get this ride back on the road.
Finally got another small update with some pictures. I decided to switch out the stock cast iron drum brakes and go with aluminum drums all the way around. Earlier this week I dropped them off at the coaters and had them coated with a product they refer to as "Arctic Black". It is a Heat Dispersant coating that is supposed to improve the cooling properties. Supposedly on aluminum it works really well. Figured it was worth a shot, plus it also makes them pretty. The fronts and outsides of the drums are coated with the heat dispersant, the insides are coated with a rust inhibitor minus the braking surface obviously. The rust inhibitor is not really needed for aluminum, but it looks good. Love the way the fronts turned out. The rears still look good, but the casting of the late model aluminum is not as attractive as the fronts.
Well after a long anticipated wait and a juggle back and forth about whether or not the stock heads in my car would be good to use or not, we finally find out they are not. Bummer. When the machine shop tore the heads down they found that every exhaust and one intake port had hardened seats installed. So, as a safety precaution I told my shop that I wanted them to replace all of the hardened seats because I know he does good work and he had successfully installed a set in a Nailhead previously. I had no idea the quality of work that a random shop had done for one of the previous owners. Boy am I glad that I had him check it out. The shop finally got around to cutting all the old hardened seats out and he called to tell me the news. In one head, the seats had been cut so deep that he didn't feel comfortable installing new seats. They were already about twice as deep as he would have machined them. So that head is junk. On the other head, in the only intake port to have a hardened seat, the previous shop apparently cut into the water jacket and installed the hardened seat anyway. SO that one is junk as well. There is a slim possibility that the metal was paper thin right there and it didn't bust until the seat was installed, but I'm not putting any money on that. But I am also a pessimist and constantly leery of shady people, so call me crazy. To also put something to rest, it just so happens that this hardened seat in the water jacket is the same cylinder that hydro-locked on me. Cylinder #5. So I am pretty confident I now know where my water came from and where that chirping noise I was hearing was coming from. I took down another, hopefully virgin, set of heads to the machine shop on Friday. He is going to get these cleaned up, tested, and see where we go from here. Going to avoid going to hardened seats if possible. Keeping my fingers crossed that the seats are still good or need only minor work and can go back with stock valves.
Johnny, if the seats are sunk too far in the "Virgin" set of heads you could just install SLIGHTLY larger valves. Now you have a new seating surface to be machined. I usually use SBC valves. 1.940" intake & cut them down to 1.900". Then a 1.540" or 1.600" exhaust & cut them down to 1.520". Of course you now need to do some "Bowl" clean-up, but that's fairly easy. I have made 11/32nd. guides & in stock. Now you have many options open to you as far as valves, springs, retainers & locks. A "Pandora's box full of options. Tom T.
just curious is it possible at all to repair a head that has been cut into the jackets? just wondering.
Thanks Tom! I discussed that with the shop when I dropped off the new set. I told him I do not want to do hardened seats unless we have to. If they cannot be cleaned up and used as is, then I will explore the larger valves as you mentioned here and we discussed over the phone. Of course since my guy builds race engines for a living his first response was "well if we end up doing that then I would go with a smaller stem". I told him about the 11/32 guides you spoke of and his response was, "I'd go even smaller than that". He says the new valves these days are much better built and you can get away with an even smaller stem than what you used to. I'm not sure I am into that or not. I think I would rather go with something I know that works right now, I just want my car back on the road and to be dependable. Thanks again Tom and I will be in touch when I hear more about the heads, hopefully real soon. He says he is going to get right on these and wants to have everything wrapped up before the end of the year. We will see. The problem is welding cast iron to start. It's not a simple process. It can be done, but that area is so thin it makes it tricky to do and be confident it will hold pressure. One of our overseas Buick brothers did it, houmark I believe is his handle. The details are in a build thread of his. Lots of work and testing involved. And as far as I know it hasn't been run yet so really don't know if it is going to hold up under use or not. But he did get it closed off, passed dye pen inspection, and hydro. So it is looking promising for him so far. For me its not worth the hassle at this time. I had another set at my disposal and this bad set will get deemed for flow bench duty and soon as the Uncle and I can get the time to build one.
gotcha just wondering if possible. be worth it to save some of the rare heads id think if no luck finding some but idk.
Well, there is a small shed of light this week. Hopefully it isn't short lived. I am on head #5, but finally have 2 that have successfully passed mag testing. Now just keeping my fingers crossed that nothing goes haywire during the reconditioning of the valves and seat pockets. As it stands now, I should have a pair of stock heads with stock valves and NO hardened seats. Again, keeping my fingers crossed, throwing salt over my shoulder, and carrying a lucky rabbits foot.
Got another call Friday evening from the machine shop. The stock valve guides were pretty shot, so they drove the old ones out and installed new guides. He said they will start and should complete the valve job this week. He hopes to call me with a completely finished set of heads and the actual finished chamber volume this week. Keeping my fingers crossed. Maybe just maybe I will get to call Tom and give him the final numbers so we can get in line for some pistons. I am ready for this engine build to be over, it has been dragging on way too long.
That's very tempting, but I have plenty of work I need to get done on the car while the engine is out. Been procrastinating too long. Gotta get out there and get to it.
FINALLY, we are moving in the right direction. Machine shop got a complete set of valves resurfaced and they are almost ready to be re-installed. All that is left is to make any corrections to stem height, he says it is going to be close cause there isn't much room to play there, but he thinks he can get them all close enough to the same height that we can use them with different pushrods if need be. So still positive news. Also, he gave me the new CC for the heads, which is 127cc. Put a call in to Tom Telesco this morning, but he didn't answer at the shop so I left a message. Once he calls back we are getting these pistons moving!!
Just read the thread dude, glad to see your getting back in the right direction, and man is that a sweet car you found!!!!! Hardy ever find em that clean nowadays. Good luck and enjoy it!!
Thanks Joe. Tom called me back this morning and we got all the details lined out. Soooo, excited to finally get the pistons underway. I can finally start to see a small spec of light at the end of the tunnel, I just hope someone doesn't blow out the candle anytime soon.
Making a little more progress. No real further movement on the engine or the condition of the car yet, but I am acquiring parts again. Think I almost have everything I need ordered now for the engine build. There will be a few more odds and ends I know, but the main components should be covered. I spoke with the famous Carmen both yesterday and today and will have a check headed his way in the morning for some parts. Talked to Tom this week and we are still waiting on the guy with piston set #5 to clarify some dimensions so the order can be processed. Hopefully whomever said person is comes through soon. Hopefully in the coming month or so I will be able to start posting some pictures of the car being torn down and such for the new drive train and center console install. Still have a fair amount of parts to buy for what I want to get accomplished before I hit the open road, but hopefully it won't be too huge of an undertaking. I would love to have it back on the road by end of summer, but its not realistic with everything that is going on. So I will shoot for end of the year and hope for better if things will start coming together.
