Ok, here is a story: I was driving last friday evening around with my Skylark Custom and its lately rebuilt 350 (300 miles on the clock), still pretty patanoid listenig carefully for any knock and tick,constantly checking the gauges to see if all the parameters are normal..running smooth and happy down the highway Then, just a few blocks from home I hear a knockknock and see a huuge white smoke cloud in the mirror. Immidiatly turned the car off and after checking for overheating signs (nothing found) decided to tow her home. The night was awful.. what did I miss? What might have gone wrong during the rebuild? Might this mean pulling the engine out again? How much will it cost? Next day I started checking the basics.. Oil, coolant, leaks, plugs. All levels normal, no leaks, just cyl.#8 plug completely oily and way darker than the other ones. Talked to the engine builder who told me to check the vacuum line for the transmission vacuum modulator, which hooks exactly to the #8 cyl bank on the intake, and the brake booster vac line for any oil in it.. And there we had the cause: a broken modulator diaphragm causing oil to be sucked by the # 8 cyl. Surprisingly my parts dealer hat the last one in germany on stock,and even cheaper than in the states ( don't ask me why). Taking off the broken one it happened.. the head for the retainer snapped.. Not easy to drill out with the tranny in it and laying under the car. Got some quality drills and an extention bar to reach over the crossmember an drilled a hole through. Mounted the retainer with a screw and called it a day. Not pretty but it holds the modulator in place until the tranny comes out to be serviced. What puzzles me: how comes the modulator got bent like that? Was it while lifting the tranny to pull the engine? The knockknock whe it happened was due to increased compression caused by the oil in the cylinder? What I've learned: even something that simple might ruin your weekend ..
Takes a good bit of effort to bend that piece that much I would think. Probably had bumped it when pulling the engine or supporting the transmission. They don't "just bend". I wouldn't worry about it again until you either pull thengine again or pull the transmission.
But how..? In my opinion the crossmember is still too far from it to touch it when lifting the tranny. I supported the tranny on a point more forward. I guess she will keep that secret ..
Could be the jack, something under the transmission holding it up when the engine came out or went back in, a pry bar to get them put back together. Did someone help with the engine R & R? Maybe slow roll over something you didn't know about? Lots of possibilities and, yep, it maybe one of those never to be understood secrets. At least the part was cheap!
I see you have met "Murphy".... he follows me around on a lot of my projects. I'm thinking all of us shade tree mechanics have him in our DNA ancestry tree some where in common.
That or... She doesn't like my wife. Every time she comes with me for a ride something hapens. Strange..
It is pretty tight like that but I admit, it might be safer with a bolt and a nut. Didn't have the right size so I took the screw so I could run the engine and see there were no other problems
If you have access to ramps or a lift you should be able to drill out that bolt and rethread it in the car.Just be careful.
