Bemused and Confused

Over the last few weeks I have been steadily adding components to the engine when I had the time to work on it.

I did run into a bit of a problem with the intake manifold as shown in my last post. The problem turned out to be me, as usual. It seems that I hadn’t gotten one of the old gaskets off of the head. It blended in so well that I didn’t see it. That is how the intake manifold cracked, the mating surfaces were not flat.

I got another manifold, cleaned it, and tried to bolt it on. I cracked it too. That’s when I found the old gasket. Pretty stupid, I must say. I don’t know why I didn’t check better before trying the second one. I guess I was thinking I had just let the manifold get partially hung up on one of the studs and that is what caused it.

So, I found another manifold and had it shipped up. It arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, it was an intake manifold for the wrong engine. When you look at one of these manifolds, they look pretty much the same. But when you put them side by side, you can start to see the differences. The one I got would fit, but it has smaller tubes so it won’t flow air as well.

 The dirty one is the wrong type.

I found yet another manifold and am having it shipped up. I checked the casting numbers on this one and it is the correct model. Now I just have to wait for it to get here. Then I’ll have to clean it up and then install it. What a waste of time and money. It’s things like this that really make me kick myself. Oh well, lesson learned.

Bigger Stuff

I installed the flywheel, clutch, pressure plate and the transmission today. It went relatively well. The only real problem that I ran into was getting the clutch plate properly aligned so that I could mount the pressure plate. There is a special tool for doing this, which I don’t have. I managed to whicker up a little rig with some sockets and extensions that managed to do the job though. Aligning the transmission with the engine was a bit tricky. The engine has to come off of the engine stand, obviously, and it was mostly just hanging on the hoist. Getting it at the proper angle and height to mate up with the transmission took some time, but I eventually got it.

I will mount up the starter and the new manifold when it comes in. There are a few more pieces that need to go on, but then it is ready to go back into the car.

I also bought an oil pressure gauge and sender unit. I want to be able to see what the oil pressure is not see an idiot light when I have no pressure. However, I bought an adapter that is going to allow me to keep the factory oil pressure switch (which runs the idiot light) and hook up the pressure sender too. I have to wait for the adapter and some hose to come in before I install it. I also have to figure out where to mount the gauge in the dash. I am not sure where I am going to do this. I can cut up some stuff, or velcro it on, or buy a mount system to put it down where the ash tray would normally go… but I don’t know yet for sure what I will do.