Restarting My '70 Nova Project

[BravoXray]

So, back to the original topic.
I machined the shackle bolts to allow them to slide all the way into the bushings, then chucked each of the shackle bushings in the lathe and reduced their shoulder thickness by about 1/8", maybe 3/16". The urethane actually cut pretty sell, as it's pretty stiff stuff. After those modifications, the shackles went together with no problems. I didn't tighten them all the way down, as that needs to be done once the rear suspension has it's normal weight on it and they are in the static position. I dug out the cherry picker and retrieved the differential from the top of my metal/wood storage rack. Sat it on a couple of jack stands, dusted it off and looked it over really well, nothing obvious after setting up there for 10 years. I turned it 180° and removed the chrome cover, drained the lube and looked it over. Just for giggles, I set up a dial indicator to make sure I had set the backlash correctly when I replaced the open carrier with an Eaton posi unit soon after I bought it. It was right on at .010", so it's good to go.
With my floor jack and some fancy maneuvering and lowering the body about a foot, I got the differential in place on the springs. Pulled out the old u-bolts and the bottom plates for the Cal-Tracs and when I tried to assemble them, two of the u-bolts were too short. I have no idea why two are longer than the other two, but there must have been a reason. But that was 10 years ago and I've slept since then.
So, off I went to the local Power Brake and Spring store to get a couple of longer (7/16" x 7") u-bolts. They didn't have any in 7/16" stock, but did have that size in 1/2" stock. I went ahead an bought four of those and the nuts, and was pleasantly surprised as it only came to $30.
Took them back to thew shop and cleaned them up and gave all the pieces a coat of black paint.
Today, I got the u-bolts installed and torqued down, them installed the adjuster tubes for the Cal-Tracs and torqued the rod end bolts up to spec.
Ater that, I pulled out the rear shocks, cleaned them up and got them installed. That all went pretty well, just had to jack up the axle a couple of inches to get the bottom ends of the shocks on their studs and the washers and nuts installed.
Earlier, I realized I hadn't refilled the diff, I didn't have but a pint of 80W-90 Limited Slip gear lube, so I made a trip into O'Reilly's and picked up three quarts of Castrol lube. Got the diff filled up, cleaned up the spillage, and decided to go ahead and hook up the brake line. That was a little tricky as the hose from the diff to the hard line is almost too short, but I got it together and tightened up.
When I had pulled the diff out of the car, cleaned it u and painted it, I decided to change the driveshaft from the original 1310 series u-joints to the beefier 1350 series. I had bought a new yoke for the pinion and had a devil of a time getting it on as it fit really tight. I even called the vendor, Strange Mfg., they had me make a couple of measurements and said it was the proper one and to try heating it a little when installing it, not so hot as to damage the pinion seal, just pretty hot to the touch. That helped it a lot and was able to pull it on the last 1/4" or so with the nut. So, then I needed a 1350 yoke for the transmission, and I knew I had bought one when I had bought the Tremec TKO transmission several years ago. After searching for a while, I thought I must have left it on that transmission when I sold it, but I really didn't think I did.
So, this evening, after supper, I went back down to the shop, did some more searhing, and lo and behold, I found it in a small storage bin on a shelf of a work cart. In with it was the pivot ball that the clutch throw out lever pivots on, which screws into the bellhousing, that I had been searching for also.
Two mysteries solved this evening.
It looks like next on the agenda it to get the engine off the engine stand, on to a different stand so I can install the bellhousing and check the concentricity of the crankshaft and the pilot hole for the front bearing housing of the transmission. Tremec cautions that more than .005" of misalignment can cause input shaft bearing failure, and I don't want that. The Muncie transmissions are a little more forgiving, so the concentricity isn't as critical.

So, progress was made this week, and hopefully that will continue.

 

[BleedingOrange]

Looking great. Making great headway now. I really enjoy your very detailed and concise updates.
I cann,t remember, did you re-build the engine yourself ? What HP and Torque numbers does it have ?

 

[BravoXray]

I rebuilt the original 350, as it was drinking oil quite profusely. I have the receipts from the previous owner showing it was rebuilt by a NAPA shop a couple of years and a couple of thousand miles before I bought it. But when I tore it down, the ring gaps were not spaced correctly and had very little tension, they almost fell out of the bores once the rods were unbolted. I'm thinking that it was overheated and that's what killed the ring tension. That engine is preserved in a plastic bag in my shop, as is the original Muncie transmission, which I also completely rebuilt.
The engine I am going to install in it now is a small block 434 stroker motor, built from a 4 bolt main truck block with an Eagle 4 inch stroke rotating assembly, Eagle I-beam rods and Mahle pistons. I bought a set of aluminum heads with 2.02" intakes, 1.60" exhaust valves and 64cc chambers, so it should have a static compression ratio of 10.5 to 1. For a cam, I used a Comp Cams Nostalgia 30-30 hydraulic flat tappet unit, which is a copy of the old 327 350hp cam. To fuel it, I have an MSD Atomic electronic fuel injection unit and for exhaust a set of Magna-Flow headers. I am, I think, going to replace the headers with a set from Doug's Headers as the Magna-Flows have only 1 5/8" tubes and a couple of the plugs are really hard to get out and tend to scorch the plug wires.
I wanted to install a transmission with an overdrive, so I ended up with a Tremec TKX unit with a .68:1 5th gear, which will give me 1900rpm at 60mph, instead of the 3000rpm with the Muncie transmission.
Here is what the cylinders looked like when I pulled them off the 350.

Here is the 434 I built up.

 

[BleedingOrange]

Awesome. Thanks for all the great info and the pictures. Looking forward to a video of your new engine running once it has been installed in your beautiful car, and at least one video of a smokey burn-out. LOL .

 

[BravoXray]

Here you go.
This was when I had set the engine and trans up in the subframe so I could test fit it with the body.
I have a better video, but Imgur only allows 60 second videos, and it's 1:07 long.

Edit: BTW, since that video was shot a year ago in March, I've lost over 40lbs.

https://imgur.com/a/lbFO7h8

 

[BleedingOrange]

Awesome, sounds great. That has got to be a great feeling to fire it up and hear it run. Love the sound of the lumpy cam.

 

[BleedingOrange]

Who do you have your beautiful Nova insured with ? Do you have an agreed to value on it ? I have 3 cars insured with Hagerty, all of them with a mutually agreed to value, just in case something bad goes wrong with any of them.

 

[BravoXray]

I have them on my Cincinnati policy with my other car, truck and motorcycle. I have an agreed value that I can change when the restoration is finished.
I was thinking about checking out Hagerty once it's finished up.

Been doing a few things on the car, got the bumper filler and it's support assembled to the radiator support. ran a tach signal wire from the MSD ignition for the MSD EFI, I had forgotten about it when I was doing all the other wiring on the firewall.
I also pulled all the plugs and cleaned them, as when I had it running on the subframe, the O² sensor was in the collector adapter with no pipe or muffler attached and that made it think it was running lean and ran it really rich, and they were really sooted up. Interestingly, Engine Masters just aired an episode about positioning O² sensors that showed that very thing.
I also repositioned some wiring on the engine, installed the oil pressure and water temp sending units for the gauges, removed the motor mounts and installed a pair of supports for when I take the engine off the stand to dial indicate the flywheel and transmission bearing support bore.
After my friend Van and I came back from breakfast this morning, we hung the doors back on the body. With new door seals, they didn't want to close all the way at first, but I went back down this evening and they had compressed enough that I could get them closed all the way. I decided to install the springs that go in the lower door hinges to hold the door in position when it's open and I knew they were not going to be easy, and I was right. The driver's side wasn't too bad, it popped out of the compressor tool in the wrong place on one end, but I was able to get it pried into place. The passenger side wasn't so easy, I tried several times and finally the spring popped out of the tool and shot off to somewhere in the back of the shop. I searched for a while, but with all the stuff back there it could be in some little cranny and I'll never find it for years. I'll probably order a new one, or two, and this time tie a piece of wire or stout string on it so it can't get away if it pops out of the tool.
With the doors on the car, tomorrow I'll get the engine off the engine stand and on some blocks so I can check the crank concentricity. If that's good, I'll pull the flywheel and get it surfaced. It's gotten pretty rusty in the last 10 years, and I want a good surface for the clutch to mate with.

 

[BravoXray]

Been pecking away at the items at the top of my to-do list on the car, and making some progress.
I got the engine off the engine stand and on to some 6X6 blocks on the floor, as I don't have an available table that I would trust to support the weight of the engine and transmission once it's installed. First job was to get the bellhousing checked for axial runout as the Tremec installation instructions state that there shouldn't more than .005" of runout. I bolted the new bellhousing to the engine and managed to get one of my dial indicators attached to a 7/16" X 3" bolt that replaced one of the flywheel bolts. It was a fiddly setup at best, but it gave me the bad news that the transmission opening was way out of spec. The readings started at .000" at the 6 o'clock position, -.006" at 3 o'clock, -.032" at 12 o'clock and -.022" at 9 o'clock. Not good.
After some calculations I figured a pair of .021" offset bellhousing dowels would be needed to get it into the correct position. I got a couple from Summit Racing, and after fiddling (not the f word I wanted to use) with those for several hours, I couldn't get it close enough to work. I pulled the new bellhousing off and installed the old one from the 350, and bingo, it was almost perfect with about .004" TIR! But, when it checked the fit on the front bearing housing on the Tremec, it fit like a saddle on a sow, probably .020"-.030" of clearance in the bellhousing bore. So, back to square one. Last evening I ordered a couple of other offset dowels, hoping some combination of them would get it into spec.
Later on, I began thinking about the possibility that the combination of one of the original dowels and one of the offset dowels might do the job. I wondered about that because when the new bellhousing was installed with the original dowels, it was apparent that the dowel holes in it were not spaced properly, as you couldn't get it to seat against the block without a little tapping with a fist or mallet. With that in mind, This afternoon I picked the resurfaced flywheel form the shop and bolted it on the engine. Then I reinstalled an original dowel in the left side and one of the offset dowels in the right side. I rotated the offset dowel until the housing slipped on with very little effort. I also ditched my original dial indicator setup and used my Noga magnetic articulated dial indicator mount that uses a 1" travel indicator, and that worked a lot better. I set the crank so the indicator was at the 6 o'clock position, zeroed it, and rotated it around to the other three positions, and OMG, it was within .004". I double checked it and it came out at between .003" and .004" total runout. JUST TO BE SURE, I pulled the bellhousing off and reinstalled it and indicated it again and came up with .003" TIR. Bingo!
I pulled the housing off, reinstalled a flywheel bolt I had to remove to get the magnetic base to set level and rechecked the torque on all the bolts. By then my friend Brian had stopped over, and he wanted to watch and learn, and help to get the transmission installed. I showed him how the clutch is installed with the pilot tool and evenly torqued up. Then I installed the throwout fork in the bellhousing and mounted it back on the engine. We carried the transmission over and sat it on my floor jack to help with sliding it into place, and once properly aligned, it slid in all the way except for about 3/4". That's when the input shaft goes into the pilot bearing. After some jiggling and shoving wasn't working, I got a big long pry bar and was able to have Brian use it to pry the throwout fork enough to release the clutch, and it slipped in the rest of the way. I bolted it in and we discussed just how that worked, as he's not very experienced with the mechanical workings of cars.
That done, it was 6PM and we called it a day.

Progress!

 

[BleedingOrange]

Great write-up. I ,m very impressed with all the mechanical knowledge you have, and continue to display. I like seeing that you are so committed to getting everything right. Awesome build. I would have zero issues about buying one of your completed projects. Cheers