We removed the bumper to get ours in! That long nose is a bugger with a standard size lift. Can't wait to see real photos!!!
Kurt

 

5 lug nuts seemed a lot easier than the nose.

The other camera won't be back home until Monday night. So, the in-progress pictures aren't going to be very crisp, I'm afraid.

 

I delt with that problem with my first motor swap with the picker arm being too short, the car was getting redone, so we literally pressed on....picker into the nose cone that is LOL!! But the side option was the next plan of attack.

Since that time I purchased a AC Delco picker before I dropped in the 388...what a difference. I could easily put the arm at full extension into the 8' tall ceiling if I wanted to and I had PLENTY of clearance between the noe cone and picker body...it's a cheaper lift, but man does that thing work good, very impressed for only $200.

Good luck with the rest of the small crap that goes into this, hopefully everything will bolt/wire up no prob and the firing will go off without a hitch. be sure all grounds are hooked up and add some if your bored, we've gotten burnt a few times with those darn things.

Looks good

 

We seem to hit little snags every few operations. I had tucked the speedo cable up in the tunnel while cleaning and moving the car around, forgot about it and smashed the end of the housing when I jacked up the tranny to put the crossmember in. That took about half an hour to straighten out. Then I discovered I had put the torque arm mount top bolt in from the wrong side, so I had to drop the tranny down and loosen the tailshaft housing to get that switched the right way.

We finished up underneath and dropped it back to the floor this evening. I have a few things done on top like the water pump, crank pulley, AC & PS, will get to the rest tomorrow (I hope). Still need to rebuild the carb. As I was looking things over before coming into the house I discovered I forgot to hook up the tranny harness . I'll do that with the first oil change (after getting it running, timing set, etc.).

We discovered that the new poly engine mounts did indeed raise the engine. So much that I had to cut off a corner of the passenger side A-arm mount to clear the y-pipe downpipe. Someone had asked me about that a couple months ago, I had plenty of clearance with the old mounts, no so anymore. Also put the pipe to the cat very close to the subframe connector. I suppose if I was doing this right, I'd cut & box the SFC, but I don't have a good way of doing the cutting. Do poly bushings ever sag?

Here's a picture of my new free-flowing tubular cat.

 

Five 7, are them engine mounts going to cause a hood clearance problem?

Auggie

 

"Do poly bushings ever sag?"

They might,but I don't think it will be in our lifetime!

 

We'll have to see about the hood clearance. The air cleaner wasn't actually hitting the hood blanket, so it may still be okay. I think what has happened is the engine is not only sitting higher, but has been shifted side-to-side. The tranny mount was weird before, requiring slotting of the crossmember to get the center bolt in, but now fits within the original slot.

I think I'm going to drop the y-pipe and go ahead and take the high speed electric angle grinder to the SFC to get the needed clearance. Not something I look forward to, but something I should do.

Here's my son Nate installing the starter. That was another of our snafus, the S terminal nut got started crooked, and eventually broke off. We spent an hour and a half finding another solenoid. The one that was on the starter didn't have the R terminal we could rob, and I couldn't locate a "spare" within my vast spare parts inventory (it was about 130 degrees in the garage attic, that may have contributed to the failure to locate).

 

I dropped the y-pipe and cut an "L" shaped length from the SFC with the cut-off wheel. I didn't have time to remount the y-pipe to verify clearance, but it should be okay (I hope - that cutting process wasn't a whole lot of fun). I'm going to reverse the piece cut out and weld it back in to "box" the cut out portion.

I also connected the transmission harness while I was under there.

Progress is slow, but there is progress.

 

Last night was another example of why this is taking so long. I fit-checked the y-pipe, clearance fine, so I cleaned up the edges of the cut-out piece, vice-gripped it in place, tacked it in, re-fit checked the y-pipe. Everything looks good, so I proceed to run beads around all the edges. Had to add some filler metal to the ends to close them off, used a big flat washer cut to size for that, was in the process of finishing the closure welds when the welder ran out of wire. Too late to get some from the stores, but too early to quit working. I chose the latter and got myself cleaned up.

The rest of the week typifies the other reasons this is taking so long - celebrating daughter's birthday tonight, son's horse riding tomorrow evening, appointment Thursday night, anniversary Friday night, more horse riding Saturday morning.

And the horse trailer towing van transmission is making a funny noise now.

And the beat goes on...

 

I hear yah man I hear yah

Auggie

 

Finished the boxing tonight and got it back together. After getting it all painted up and re-attaching the y-pipe, I discovered I needed to cut off the front corner as well. (sigh...)

This represents 3 evenings of work. I know, lousy welds, but that's using a hobby-quality flux core wire welder and laying on your back with sparks going down your neck. However, I've gotten worse welds that I paid to get done, and they had professional quality MIG equipment.

 

A view from under, looking to the rear. Tucks up pretty nicely, I think.

 

wow, that tucks up there REALLY nice...

 

Today was an off-Friday from work. After running a few errands in the morning, I was able to get out to the garage a little before noon to continue the topside work.

1st was swapping the distributor gear with the '57 - it has a ZZ3 distributor in it, since that was the same cam as I'm using in the Camaro, seemed to make sense to use that gear.

I was getting ready to install a new alternator when I discovered I needed to rotate the housing. In that process, the brushes slipped out, so I needed to separate it completely to get the brushes back in - then discovered this "all new" alternator was the victim of a brush swap. So, back to the parts store to exchange that. Then the "new" Car Quest water pump didn't have the top heater hose angle quite right, so I had to modify the top alternator bracket to clear the heater hose.

Left is carb rebuild and attaching what attaches to it, add fluids, then maybe actually trying to start it later this weekend.

 

I noticed you used a load leveler to put your eng/trans in. Do you know about how much ceiling clearance is needed. The ceiling in my garage is pretty low 7 foot 8 inches. I pulled the eng/trans out without a leveler and had a few inches to spare. But when I do the install I'd like to have the headers on.

Thanks

 

We used a load leveler 3 times and have been using the carb plate ever since. The lever principal is nice, but you do lose clearance with ceiling height, our shop we all used to use that was a non issue, but new one it's a big issue.

Best advise if purchasing one, get rid of the hand crank, it'll take forever to adjust, and install a nut that you'll weld to the end of the thread all that moves the cariage, this way a simple air ratchet will expediate the process.

A $15 carb plate, or even a home built unit has served the purpose with for all our motor swapping needs and we'll never try a leveler again, PITA, IMO.

 

Our ceiling is 8', but we pushed the car half-way out to give more working room in the front (since we ended up going in from the side, it didn't matter). The hoist ended up under the garage door, which is another 6" or so below the ceiling, and we didn't hit it.

The bigger issue was hitting the firewall lip with the leveler as it was almost in. Had to wrestle it by a little, but managed.

 

Got the carb rebuilt. Took a little under 4 hours, taking my time (and not counting taking the air horn back off after finding the pump check ball that had been hiding from me during reassembly).

No real surprises, although this was a little disappointing.

 

Oops, hit "Submit" instead of "Browse..."

 

I guess it's time to retire this thread. The "rest of the story" will follow on https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=312746 .