The Snowball Saga - '68 Standard Revitalization Project by Blitz

12 minute(s) of a 767 minute read

9-26-2013

The short list looks like this: 

To Do:

1. Everything Else

But to elaborate, I guess I'll start bolting things to the engine, like pulleys and brackets and vacuum trees and water necks and stuff. Install new starter solenoid and voltage regulator. Attach wires. Procure and install trans cooling lines. Install refurbished trans fluid dipstick tube. Attach fuel line to pump, pump to carb. Determine if I'm going to use my generic replacement carb for now or find a proper '68 Autolite 2100 to rebuild. Attach choke tubes if necessary. Also some things in the cabin like cutting the front speaker holes and finishing things up under the dash. Also need to assemble a heater box and find out if I can re-use my A/C evaporator core, and install the blower fan assembly and vents and ducting... Which reminds me, at some point I'll have to refurbish / replace the A/C components under the hood. Aaaand I'm thinking about doing the rear seat divider panel, and probably some sound deadener in the interior, maybe start wiring stereo stuff... And of course I need to get the rest of my skins from the painter and start putting them on, do all the weatherstripping for the whole car, install windows & mechanisms, door handles / lock mechanisms, carpeting, upholstery, restore and install dash & gauges, refurbish entire rear suspension, brakes & axle housing, restore front grille and rear taillight grilles, blah blah blah blah blah blah.............

12-19-2013

For now I'm using the 1.08 venturi carb I have, which is theoretically the right size for a 289.. There's been some debate around the office, however, about whether I should put on a bigger one (1.14 / 1.23) since the engine is now professionally built / slightly more displacement and might benefit from breathing a little more, with the right jets. Any opinions?

Anyway, time to do an update. First of all, I wanted to post some pics from underneath because it looks cool:

While looking at the underside I couldn't help but think that this is like a giant toy, especially with the big blue engine and silver transmission, and misc. black stuff. It's like a Lego set, only it doesn't just snap together. Also note the starter, which I just gave a cosmetic resto. It's a fairly recent remanufactured unit and still works like a champ. After this shot was taken I did install the inspection cover for the trans, so don't worry 'bout it.

So basically I've been busy cleaning up bits and pieces, installing new parts, and generally trying to button up the engine compartment & drivetrain. Here's a shot after blasting and painting the front brackets & installing them on the block.

I opted to get a reman alternator from Auto Zone... 65 amp. It came with a black fan, so I replaced it with a more correct looking gold cad fan.

Another view that shows a few of the other additions. Note the new trans. cooling lines - they are a little tricky to install, especially with the sway bar in place. After I installed them the first time I realized that they're supposed to go OVER the sway bar, not under. The clearance is deceiving with the car in the air... it will be lower when the car is on the ground, giving the lines more space to go over it.

Gave my original coil a cosmetic refurb. with some paint and a decal. Left the collar bare, thinking it looked kinda cool, but it's supposed to be black like the rest. Still seems to function just fine. I may cave in and replace it with a new one at some point. Other new parts in this shot include the water elbow, engine feed wiring harness (used the XR7 version because of the red plug and slide-on oil sending unit plug, which is how mine was equipped. This is the one: here), new water temp sensor, and new fuel pump to carb steel line... etc.

Got a new solid state voltage regulator and painted the cap blue and stuck a decal on it. I could have bought the whole repro cover with the correct stamp, but the new regulator was totally sealed with a hardened gel-like substance, so I opted for the easy and cheap method.

New ground wire. Just for reference in case anyone forgets where this goes..

Next was to put the fan / clutch / pulley on, which of course are all cleaned up and repainted:

Also installed a couple of the belts. The PS pump I didn't do much other than remove the reservoir to repaint it, clean the inside, and paint the bracket natural cast aluminum color. It had a "remanufactured" tag on it, so hopefully it's still good. I later took the belt back off it since it wasn't yet hooked up to anything.

The next logical step was to install the radiator. Luckily for me, my original 24" radiator was in good shape. Just a handful of acorns inside, but clean other than that. I boldly decided to clean it by bead blasting it, which was a little iffy but I was careful to keep some distance and not too much pressure. I managed to do this without hurting anything, although some of the fins may have gotten slightly bent on the edges. Here's what it looked like after blasting:

Then I painted it with some VHT Engine Enamel in semi-gloss black. Should be able to withstand high temp, hopefully.

Next, I needed to fix a crack in my original fan shroud. It was in good shape overall, but there was a crack along most of the seam on the top passenger side. I ended up using some JB Weld "Clear Weld" 2 part epoxy that seemed to work really well. Here are some "after" shots. Looking at it in the car, you wouldn't notice anything had been repaired. I just used enough so that it didn't seep out on the visible side.

Ta-da... ready to install

Part number just because:

Fast forward, and things are really coming together. These are cell phone pics but they work.

It really looks a lot more complete with the radiator / shroud in there. Also I may as well mention that I used new hardware for the radiator and for the shroud. Also put new rubber pads in the lower and upper mounts for the rad. And of course the hoses, clamps, and cap are new too. The battery is an old-ish repro of the original Autolite, but I'll have to fill it with acid and stuff. Don traded it to me when he stole my like-new Duralast battery for his beater Honda. I'm not sure if I want to use it yet, or get a new modern battery and just use the fake Autolite cap. But anyway..

At this point it was finally time to pour some life blood into the engine. 5 quarts of Joe Gibbs break-in oil, straight down the distributor hole. Then a long extension on a cordless drill enabled us to spin the oil pump (counter-clockwise of course) until drops of oil started to seep from the lifters and over the rockers. I then turned the engine over with the starter for the first time, hoping to circulate the oil a little more. Next, antifreeze and water into the radiator. Then I installed the driveshaft, which I haven't cleaned up yet but just needed it to seal the back of the trans so I could put fluid in it as well. And on it goes... hooking up wiring, installing Pertronix unit into dist., seating dist. in the right place, installing spark plugs and wires, running a short hose from the water pump to the neck on the intake (no heater box yet) etc etc. Finally, it was time to pour some gas in the tank and see if she would fire up. Here's a brief video compilation of what took place:

To give a brief synopsis of what happened: The first night we tried to start it, it actually fired up the first time and seemed to run great for a few moments. Probably thanks to the initial dose of starting fluid. But then we couldn't seem to keep it running, and it didn't seem like it was getting enough fuel. The fuel pump was fairly new, so I was hesitant that that would be the problem. But by the end of the night, that seemed to be the most likely culprit. So I came in over the weekend and installed a new fuel pump, buttoned up a few other things, and tested some of the electrical components to make sure they weren't the problem. Then after work on Monday, with Darrell's help again, we made another attempt. It was definitely getting fuel, but wouldn't fire - no spark. That turned out to be simple, the spark plugs were drenched with gasoline from the previous attempts. We just had to remove them, dry them off and reinstall. After that, it fired up, but wouldn't stay running smoothly. We tried a different coil and bypassed the wiring from the ignition switch to the coil. It would run, but for some reason it kept surging in an almost rhythmic way... would rev up, almost die all the way down, then rev up again. So finally we took off the top half of the carburetor and discovered that it was kinda gunked up, just from sitting for a year or two. So we cleaned it as best we could and dug into a rebuild kit to replace some of the parts. That helped immensely, and we were then able to fire up the engine and run it smoothly, allowing the 20 min / 2000 rpm cam break in period to happen. Finally, it runs!

So that's the big news of the week. It was pretty exciting to hear it run. I've been itching to start it up again for no good reason, just to hear it. But for the next couple weeks it will hide under a car cover while I'm on vacation for the holidays. When I get back, I need to pester my body guy, as he still hasn't painted the fenders, hood, trunk lid, extensions, valences, and other misc items. Also need to assemble a heater box and get that in the car, put together the entire A/C system, do all the ducting under the dash, cut the kick panels for speakers, install new dash speaker, refurbish dash components, restore steering wheel, do sound deadening, carpeting, upholstery, lights, wiring, trunk mat, weatherstripping for the whole car, find some good glass (some of mine was lost in the shuffle), start restoring the grille and taillight bars, etc etc etc.... one thing at a time...

One more parting video clip.. basically the same thing but just a short clip I did on my phone for facebook bragging purposes. Video

Onward and upward! Hope you all have a great Xmas & New Years & stuff.