Vert Ventures, Part 3
August 21, 2003
The next day I got to work on swapping over shrouding and all the other bits and pieces. I cleaned out the heads and jugs on the new motor with compressed air. Here is the motor after I did some cleaning:
Next, I got to work on transferring the shrouding from the other motor. I removed the carbs, carb linkage and fuel pump as a unit, and did the same with the plug wires and cap, since I was going to be using the set from the old motor. Before I took the wires off I marked them with a paint pen by putting dots on the boots, one for cylinder #1, two for cylinder #2 and so forth. This worked very well.
Because my old motor had an 8 fin oil cooler and the new one has a 12 fin (bonus!), I had to modify my shroud. I laid the shroud from the new motor on top of the old one so that I could mark my cut.
I then cut the shroud with a Dremel tool.
I did a bit more work changing over the shroud, but by 1:00 a.m. I was gassed, so I hit the sack.
The next night was more of the same. I swapped harmonic balancers because the one on the old engine was brand new. By 1:30 a.m., I had the motor pretty much complete.
Last night John came over at around 9:30 to help me with the final stages.
Since the new motor was came out of a manual transmission car and my car has a Powerglide, we had to switch bell housings. This was pretty straightforward. We drained the oil and dropped the pan from the new motor, set it on blocks, took the old motor of the dolly and set it on blocks, pulled both bell housings, cleaned the daylights out of the autotrans bell housing, installed a new front main seal, put in a new gasket, and bolted her up. The flex plate went on, and then the torque converter. She was ready to go back in the car.
The reinstallation went pretty much without incident, and by about 3:00 a.m. the car was back on the ground.
We cranked the starter and it turned over great, but did not fire. After trying this for awhile, John shot some starting fluid into her and she roared to life. The motor ran strong and smooth, after a bit of clattering as the lifters pumped up.
I shifted into gear for my triumphant first convertible ride in six months and...
...nothing.
The shifter clicks through all the gears, but the car acts like there is no transmission there. We did not disconnect the shifter so I was befuddled. We gave up and called it a night, or maybe a very early morning.
This morning I talked to Ken about what happened. He suggests that my rear pump may have lost prime. He suggests that I jack the car up in the rear, release the parking brake and give the motor a few good hard revs. His plan "B" is that the screen in the tranny may be packed with crap and when we drained the torque converter we let out the only fluid it was working from and it cannot now reprime, so if plan "A" doesn't work, I am going to drop the tranny pan and clean the screen. Any other suggestions?