Frame looking shinny after urethane.



I had to tarp and insulate this with winter sleeping bags (what I had on hand in a hurry) with a heater underneath just to get this to cure. Which aided my realization that outside paint work was done for a while.

 

I have done a little painting when it is too cold out with some 6 mil plastic as a tent and a few pots full of wood stove coals under it for the paint to cure on an axle I was prepping for installation on my crew cab.
It is safe to say outdoor painting is done for 4 if not 5 months around here. Calling for -20 to -30 F here the next two nights.

Your frame is looking good.

 

That is quite ingenious, am going to remember that trick.

Just got out of our little cold snap here in BC, nice warm weather now, with slush everywhere. Couple more cold snaps left, and we should be coming into spring.

Good news is, I got my shop heater set up now, just a matter of keeping the heat in, so need to finish insulating the ceiling, fix the roof leak, and figure out how to keep the cold concrete floor warm.

 

As far as keeping the floor warm if you didn't put floor heat in when you poured it do like a certain person in Vermont does and get a couple of big dogs to lay on the floor where you will be working prior to laying on it .. they will warm it right up

 

Well I have the time so I figured I may as well just rebuild the thing. Will put new bearings in, deglaze them cylinder walls and install new rings. Am glad I decided to do it, since it looks like there may have been an oiling issue at some point because the rod bearings are showing signs. Could not get the mains off yet, have to go get a 23mm socket, my impact kit decided to skip that socket.




Now here is something that may make a few people cringe, so let me explain. Am setting the engine back in frame 6”, and the only way I found I could do this was to mount the engine conversion mounts further forward, to do that the oil drain casting had to go.



I stewed on this for a couple months and decided this was the easiest way, and it has now had the side effect of encouraging me to do a full rebuild, minus new pistons, since I will now have to take the bare block to someone with experience welding cast iron. There is a really nice little pocket for a thick plate to be welding in, and if done right this spot will be stronger than it was.

I know right, who purposely puts a hole in there block 😅 I may be too brave for my own good sometimes, or too dumb to know any better.

 

Rod bearings not looking great, not sure what the round spots are telling me in a couple of them that came out.
Mains were looking fine.



Crankshaft has been liberated, and the block is ready for the patch to be welded in. Found a guy who has done lots of successful cast welding to do it, will drop it off sometime this week.

 

The spots on the rod bearings are probably matching the oil tubes drilled through the crankshaft. It probably sat for a long time with very dirty acidic oil which caused the spots. Sometimes these engines take a lot of abuse.

Edwin

 

Also, if the rod caps are not marked then you should mark them so the same cap goes on the same rod. The same piston should go back into the same hole and the rods should stay with the pistons.

 

That makes sense, as this engine was sitting for a very long time.

Thanks for the heads up on the rods. Everything was marked previously, and I also organized everything to go back in the exact same way it came out.

 

They make Button head grade 8's in black fine thread. Check with Jim at Jungle Jim's he can probably hook you up with quantity. Just a thought.

 

Boy that really is turning out nice ! Your hard work is paying off.

 

Am trying to find a button head that has a small unthreaded section under the head, so that I can get a nice tight fit. It’s proving to be quite difficult to find.

The other option is to just put rivets back in, but than I will have to invest in the tooling needed, and I am not sure what is required to put the flat head rivets in to some areas inside the frame rails, seems like there is not enough room to get a bucking gun in there.

 

Have been pondering and researching the subject some more about how best to patch the existing oil drain casting hole, and have come to the final conclusion that I will not weld the block. There are just too many variables that can lead to a serious problem down the road, namely bonding different metals with differing thermal expansion rates, and I decided to err on the side of caution.

So, old school, tried and tested metal stitching is what I have finally decided on, especially because I can do it myself. Found a company called Irontite that sells tapered cast iron threaded plugs, and am just waiting for Monday to call and get some things sent to me.

In the meantime I went and found a used cast iron skillet, cut the bottom and made a patch, then epoxied it in place. Cast iron block, cast iron patch, cast iron stitches equal no unneeded stress with something that will see a lot of expansion and contraction cycles.




Also got around to deglazing the cylinder walls.




Now it’s just a waiting game for parts to arrive.

 

Found some old pictures of a build on DTR from long ago, unfortunately photobucket has long since deleted the pictures in that old thread, was trying to recover my old account to see if they were still there, to no avail.







Only one I could find with the bumper


This new build will most likely use the same colour combination, but will have the 89 front grill.

 

Metal stitching sounds tedious. Where'd you learn to do that?