Yet another Notchback project

MALACHI

MALACHI

Forum Member
This is my first foray into V8 cars. I expect to do something wrong and blow it up. I am normally a 4cyl turbo person.

Story of car:

I was selling an old PGT on CL and a kid calls me and asks if I wanna trade for a 79 w/302. Needs headgaskets he said. I said sure, and drove the Probe over and towed the car home.

Turns out, someone dropped a bolt into the carb, and fuxored the piston up. So I goto PG and tear apart a running engine for 1 single piston. Get it home, pull the motor, and find that the block is also cracked. Cam is also missing two lobes.

So I buy a complete 302 roller from an 87 truck.

Strip it down, hone, new bearings, rings (yay for suprise on metric rings after buying SAE), and head gaskets

A set of GT40P heads were sent in for decking, and checkout. Nothing wrong with either.
It turns out the Dynomax headers are not as great as previously promoted on the internets. Plugs still point right into the tubes, but I am a clever monkey.

New pushrods were needed for the SVO 1.6 roller rockers.

f303 cam

Mallory Unilite dizzy

Offenhauser intake.

Holley 750dp (yeah I know it is too big, but it is what I own and a 600-650 costs money my un-employement aint' payin for)

New water pump, gaskets, clutch disk (10.5"), wires, plugs, dizzy cap, and tons of other little things.

I had to add a pulley when converting it to a serp belt. Previous owners had only an alt, and the PS lines looped.

Yes, photos also show only a 2inch filter, that will change when cash permits.

Tied frame, T5 trans, aluminum driveshaft (damaged from towing without motor installed and no trans support, scored up bad from the safety yoke). 245 60/15 rear 235 60/15 fronts on aluminum rims.

2 inch cowl hood

lots of rust (came free with car)

fiberglass trunk lid

Everything on the motor except the carb was stripped down, cleaned and repainted.

Almost ready to run, but I gotta figure out ignition wiring, and how this whole carberator thing is hooked up and work. Fuel injection is so much simpler, and works so much better.

Big hang ups are lack of a usable driveshaft, and wiring, steering column is jacked, no heat, AC, parking brake cable, radiator fan.......

Here are a few pics as things are coming along.

0823001415.jpg


0713001703.jpg


My method of figuring out which rockers required shimming. Seemed to go pretty easy.
0713001243.jpg

I am not the retard that put the stickers on the car.


0525001412.jpg
 
No. Few soft spots in the floor pan, and trunk. Plus you can see the bondo under the paint. Honestly, this was the worse deal I have ever made not counting the XR4ti I had.
I love dumb asses who drive with worn out wipers and wreck windshields. And yes, they converted the front end over. I'd prefer the ugly 4 squares.
 
MALACHI said:
Honestly, this was the worse deal I have ever made not counting the XR4ti I had.
Click to expand...

Must be an XR curse. I previously bought one over the winter and that was the biggest mistake I ever made. After dumping dollar after dollar into it for something else just to go wrong. Sold it to and took a big loss on it just to get the POS out of my sight. Back on topic, looks like a nice project. The engine looks like it came together nicely.
 
Soon2B8 said:
Must be an XR curse. I previously bought one over the winter and that was the biggest mistake I ever made. After dumping dollar after dollar into it for something else just to go wrong. Sold it to and took a big loss on it just to get the POS out of my sight. Back on topic, looks like a nice project. The engine looks like it came together nicely.
Click to expand...

I swear to god, you could almost Google your post, and find somewhere on the internet I wrote those same words on the same car. The addage of "Help, I've replaced everything and this POS still won't run right" is spot on.

I will likely be heading down to the junkyard and grab a couple of power steering lines today, along with an oil cap. Also I cannot seem to get teh damn dip stick tube in the block. After about 45 minutes of not getting it to seat in the hole through the header pipes, I said screw it and went home.
 
I had a moment of stupidity In buying a 86 RS Capri that was a rotten piece of shit. Every thing I touched broke or leaked. I enere selling It In March and lost $300. Oh well...Live & learn. Good luck with the project.
 
Ive used those heads before. the best headers I have found for them are the motorsport ones and bbk shorties

the dynomax headers had to be completely messed up to make work and I ended up giving them away for free
 
Current plan is to install the wires backwards, and to get a pair of the "Ov'Glove".......those thermal/fire resistant gloves they sell for cooking and sleeve them. Worse case is they melt the cheap Autozone wireset.
 
nice project, looking good so far.

did you have to do anything to those valve covers to get them to clear the roller rockers?
 
The car looks good in the one pic, but has lots of dings and a nice dent in the passenger rear corner where an idiot tried to push it with a truck or something.

Yes, the valve covers were ground out to clear. The car came with the covers. I don't really like them, but did not like the shitty OEM ones I had as well.
 
Yeah, well a lot has been done and a few setbacks.
So I've been slowly buttoning up the remaining crap on this.

New power steering lines were installed. I did not really wanna junk yard em, so for $22 it got new.

I got the motor to TDC on compression and installed the distributor and tightened it down. Wires should be correct.

I then began wiring shit up. Below is the diagrams I was using. I have everything only twisted together, and later once proven correct will get good plugs installed. If I can I'll even take the distributor apart, and solder inside if possible. I want things to be as neat and issue free as I can make them.

As I did not get the correct resistor when I bought the damn distributor, I looked up how much a new one would cost..... another $25 or so.
I began looking for alternatives. MSD resistors are supposta work perfect. And much cheaper.

But not as cheap as my ass is.

I then searched out to see if I couldn't just buy a $2 one from Radio Shack. I was pretty sure the word "ballast" was not a different type of resistor. However, I stumbled upon that people were using the old Chrysler ones from the 70s. I could have gone and gotten one from the junkyard for $1, but on a hunch looked it up. $4 new at any autopart store.
Woohoo!

So that was an easy deal. And if it is not enough there is wiring diagrams for dealing with "run on" or the engine failing to shut down after key is removed.


Here is what I currently have and should be correct:

ballast2.jpg


And using the old Chrysler resistor method:

ballast1.jpg


So I go to crank the motor and hear the starter make shitty contact with the flywheel. FUCK.

I jack up the car and check.

Well it seems some fuckwads before me stripped out the bolt holes that the damn starter goes to. WTF. Starter moved around, and broke off one of the "ears" that the bolts go through. So now I gotta buy a new god damn starter and don't have a good core any more.

Fuck my life.

Steel driveshaft is now installed though, and other than starter, one nut for the driverside motor mount, and learing how the water sprinkler style fuel box on top of my intake works, car should be startable.

I am pretty sure the people before me diasabled every gauge on the dash, but we shall see. Nothing seemed hooded up on the trans, so I don't think a speedo will be in my life. I gotta wire in the tach by hand and hope it works.
Figure out how to get the key out the ignition.
replace ever bulb on the car.
tie down the battery
Clean up all the wiring, then sell this pig for a loss before it costs me any more of my un-employment monies. :(
 
Well, I did get the car started. However, this old carb needs a rebuild. The diaphram on the back bowl is leaking pretty bad. Thankfully that awesome 18inch fireball that came out the carb did not ignite it. :)

Finding a rebuild kit on a holiday weekend is not gonna happen.

I also can't find a wiring diagram for this car anywhere. So much of this car has been hacked up by idiots over the years, I am gonna be lucky if any of the headlights work. (currently they don't)


I also gotta cap off one of the heater hoses. I haev 3 outlets, on the motor. I was just gonna loop the two waterpumps back on each other, and cap off the one off the thermostat housing.

It also turns out that the rack leaks. I installed a new pump with new lines because the old one had all be hacked out and the lines looped. I filled it up and the fluid just leaded out onto the ground out of the driverside bellows.

I'll try and call around and see if maybe Glendale has the rebuild kits for the carb today, but I doubt they will be open.
 
Well carb is "rebuilt". Summit was the fastest. I hope I have all the linkages back together right. My buddy may have lost the one spring inside the rear check valve diaphram, but I think it will be back at the car when I head over there next to work on it.

Car has too much mud in the panels to call it nice IMO, and will need floor pans someday soon. I godd go junkyard up a new fan it seems. Someone installed a nice thin pusher on the radiator, however the last dumb ass just pulled the radiator out and yanked the wire out of the fan itself. I'll try and open it up and fix, but dont hold out much expectation that it will be repairable.
 
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