I missed an update last week.
Well, truth is, not much really went on. Easter hit, I also had a bunch of other things I had to take care of. Most importantly of all, my friend who is in charge of making sure I don't do anything stupid was gone, so I wasn't about to risk burning the shop down without him.Anyway, this week was a bit better. Time to get the crankshaft in there.
There it is, all painted up and ready to rumble. I cleaned up everything yet again with some acetone and then we got the ARP studs in place.
Jake put the oil retainer end seal on first.
Then after the studs were put in, we lubed up the studs as well as the bearings.
Then we put the caps on and tightened it all down.
Then we got the big torque wrench out and tightened the end cap studs to spec.
Then we took a beer break and practiced some lassoing. Don't ask.
Next up, Picton rings! 4
...and I forgot to take any pictures while we were putting the piston rings on. So here here is the only pic I got of that day before it became a blur.
So some piston ring sets have to be properly gapped using a grinder. Basically before I put the rings on the piston, I have to make sure they are a specific gap (which can be found on your piston's spec sheet) to allow for proper expansion but not to much otherwise you'll risk losing compression and having gasses blow back into the crank. If they are not gapped, I have to place them in the bore, measure the gap, take it out and grind it a bit, deburr the edges, place them back in the cylinder bore and measure the gap. Rinse and repeat until it is properly gapped.
Anyway, check the picture below to get a good idea.
Anyway, all 8 pistons got em now so next time I'll be assembling the pistons on the actual crank. Then things are really are going to move.
Steering Column Fun
A bit ago, I snagged a column from some dude on the East Coast. Mainly because he hooked me up with all the original column shift linkage and it seemed to be a lot better condition than my current on; My current column is a mess and the ignition harness is basically shot. I got this for a project down the road but something came up and I gotta get this thing in now instead of later.
Reason is I want to put an electric fuel pump in, but I don't want to do that until I can figure out why my ignition harness in the engine compartment side isn't getting any power to the (i)Ignition wire.
Why do I need that all done? Because I have an electric fuel pump controller that will detect when the RPMs hit a low threshold and automatically shut the pump off. So if I roll the car, my fuel pump won't continue to pump death all over me.
That controller and pump will be powered by when the key is in the 'ON' position. And currently, my coil (and the rest of the car that needs that) doesn't know when the key is in the on position.
How is my coil currently being powered? By the accessory key-on. *nods* Yep. I'll get into that later but long story short, I removed all the old fire starting wiring jobs from the previous owner and ran my own fused circuit/relay powered by the battery and keyed-on by the accessory post.
Acc Post of doom. That yellow wire goes through the fire wall and will tell my relay when to give precious life to the rest of my ignition controlled car.
I would actually like the coil to be powered by the (I)-wire, controlled by my keyed ignition.
Check this diagram out:
I had to check that I had continuity when the key is in the on position. So I had to reach under my dash of wiring doom to verify that the ignition harness was at least doing that....
I took the multi-meter and gave it a test. Nothing. Dead in the water. So that explains why the previous owner had it wired this way. Ugh. Well....might as well pull the column out and pull the ignition harness out of the column for more testing.....hell, while I'm at it, let's look at putting the other column in!
So in the new column, the circled stuff is my ignition switch and harness. I gotta test those guys out before putting the new column back in. If both columns are bad, I gotta snag a new one.
But FIRST, I have to take the damn thing out. Which is fairly simple but I didn't actually complete today. The last bolt I needed to take out (sleeve to flex thingy or whatever) is a 12-point and not hex. Which I have no tools for.
This week I will snag the proper tools and hopefully get this done. Then after that, I can install the new fuel pump too - which may be some work because I'll probably bend some new line to replace the old stuff. As usual, I will post any major progress and keep it picture busy.
Until next time!