Building a clone of grandpa's service truck

Thanks for the advice, guys. I ordered a new head gasket this morning, and it will be here tomorrow. Unfortunately, I'm on duty at the fire station tomorrow, so the next attempt at installing the cylinder head will have to wait until Friday. I'll keep you updated!

Damon

 

Gm assembled the blocks and trannys, then painted the whole shooting match as one part, Gaskets and all. Of course resto guys don't want to do things as sloppy as the MFG, so they dis assemble and paint in pieces.....OVER RESTORING....but it shore do look nice! You should see the Corvette guys cringe when having to slop on the weatherstriping glue like the factory did......

 

I'm planning on assembling everything, then painting it. However, I will probably paint the engine and transmission different colors. I dunno why, that's just the thought process at the moment... it could certainly change. I'm not an experienced painter, so I think that's the safer route... I don't have the talent to properly mask everything off and paint the parts separately, then assemble everything afterwards. The accessory brackets, however, might end up a different color, just to break up the gray a little bit.

Thanks, Russ!

Damon

 

Sounds like a good plan!

Looking foreward to see the results on your paintwork.

 

Driveline Painting

I didn't say anything about painting gaskets...... .

Like GM , I paint the assembled engine with the ports covered then install the accessories , it'll look much better thata way .

Tranny and bell housing should be gloss black , the engine , even a 235 , should be gray .

 

Finally! The cylinder head is mounted to the engine block, and I think I even did it right. Sure hope so. Here are a few photos (nevermind the messy garage, please...):

Freshly cleaned block deck, awaiting the head.



Here's the block with the head gasket (with Copper Coat on both sides), and the dowels I made, in place.



Here's the cylinder head, ready to be mounted. I had a buddy come over and help me lift the head into place, as another friend is borrowing my engine hoist at the moment. I cut up a piece of angle iron as handles, and used two of the bolts for the rocker assembly to hold them in place. Ain't pretty, but it worked.



The last two shots are of the cylinder head in place after the bolts had all been torqued to specification. I followed Nate's advice and used the step-up process, and the final torque is 93 foot-pounds.





As you can see in the photos, there's quite a bit of rust clean up to take care of once more of the engine is assembled. The next step is to clean up and install the timing plate and cam shaft. I should then be able to tackle the unpleasant task of removing rust from the block in preparation for paint. I just hope I can keep the gunk from getting inside the engine. Shouldn't be too difficult, I wouldn't think... just mask off the openings.

I'm also looking for a photo of a 235 oil pan that hasn't been banged up. Seems mine has seen better days, and I'd like to see one in good shape so I know which indentations aren't from the factory so I can work on removing them. Seems like the bottom of my pan has hit something on the road at some point. If it were installed onto the engine, there would be a bit of oil left in the pan that wouldn't drain due to the shape. I figure it shouldn't be like that, but I'd appreciate someone posting a photo of a good pan so I can compare mine to it.

Thanks!

Damon

 

I don't have a picture from the bottom. Here's a couple that show the contour though... I had to bump out a couple of indentations too. Your engine is looking pretty good.

 

Thanks for the compliment... and the photos, Bilbo! Your engine looks pretty sharp, too. I'm kinda glad to hear that someone else had to deal with some dings in the pan, that may confirm my suspicion that this pan has suffered a little damage at some point. I appreciate your help!

Damon

 

235 Progress

Looking good , that Garage isn't dirty nor messy atall ! .

I'd post a pic of my garage but you'd never talk to me again .

Be sure to tape up all the block's openings then trip the overage of the tape with a razor blade before scrubbing the rust as rust particles make dandy grinding compound if they get inside .

Steel wool works well too , you can soak it with dilute phosphoric acid or white vilegar .

 

Nate,

Keep in mind that the focus of the photos is the engine block suspended on a stand... you don't see much more than that. If you did, you'd wonder how in the hell I'd find my way TO the engine to work on it.

I've been doing some digging on rust removal. I will probably experiment a little on my days off to see if I can find a winning formula for safely removing the rust in the most efficient manner possible. I will also probably try to find some allen head screws for reinstalling the timing plate to the block. Gotta clean it up first, though... it's pretty gnarly.

It's baby steps, but it's progress. Thanks for staying tuned in.

Damon

 

Oil pan !

Damon

There is one for sale here , maybe you could bargain on the price if you give him a call ?. There are some good pictures aswell from the pan. Your engine work looks good. As they threads get pretty dry from the cleaning proses have some copper grease on the valve lifters & and nuts before mounting them , other mounting studs and bolts aswell.

Keep up the good work Martinius.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Chevy-1953-PG-1954-1955-fisrt-series-235-261-oil-pan-pickup-old-pump-fittings-/150881264799?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item232139649f&vxp=mtr

 

Damon:
I don't remember if it is Chevy specific, GMC specific or common to both, but there is a procedure that can be done to a GM six cylinder engine that involves drilling holes in the timing cover for easier servicing later. This would be a good time to do this.

Maybe someone with a better memory than mine (probably 98% of subscribers to this forum) will remember why and how.

Bill

 

Timing Cover Bolts

This applies to the 216 , 235 & 261 engines , the front lower main bearing has two bolts facing outwards , you have to remove the oil pan to access them , drill them out and tap for inward facing bolts to make life easier .

235 oil pnas from 1955 > 1964 pretty much all interchange , the later ones have much smaller drain plugs and slightly different " dumps " .

I *may* have a good 1962 Impala 235 oil pan in my back room if anyone needs it , reasonably priced of course , the shipping might be expen$ive as it's bulky .

BTW : they day I stop reading and responding to these messages , is the day I drop over dead , I live for this , the 1960's was a busy yet slow time for me as no one else cared about STOVEBOLTS back then .

Busy as there were dead Chevies littering the landscape so I had much to do as I was learning but slow as NO ONE wanted to talk about them or answer my insessant questions .

 

Well, that didn't take long.
Thanks Nate.
Tell me what the bolts are for.

 

Martinius - Thanks for the link. I've seen a few 235 oil pans for sale online, but most of them aren't in any better condition than the two I have.

Bill - I remembered something about the front main bolts being a pain when I disassembled the engine. Since I'm hoping not to have to disassemble it again any time soon, I left them as-is.

Nate - I'd be interested in your oil pan if it's in really good shape, do you have photos?

I stopped by O'Reilly's this morning on my way home from work. I bought a gallon of a product called "Evapo-Rust" to try it out on my engine block. Again, since the engine is halfway assembled, I want to avoid (if I can) using a rust removal method that is going to cause rust particles and dust to become airborne. This stuff I bought today is designed to have parts immersed in it, freeing the rust from the cast metal. Since my engine is half assembled (and too big to soak anyway), the directions recommend to soak paper towels with the product, then cover the affected area of the metal. You then press out all of the air bubbles, and cover the item with plastic so the rust remover doesn't evaporate. My block has been soaking for three hours now, and I've seen a noticeable difference. Soak times vary between one and 12 hours, so I'm going to let the stuff stay on the engine a while longer. In the meantime, I'm going to head back out to the garage and attempt to clean up both oil pans that I have, then maybe I can make a decision on repairing one of those two to use... or maybe buying Nate's and giving it a good home.

I will post "after" photos of the engine block to show how much rust this product removed. If you'd like to read up on the stuff, here's a link to their website:

http://www.evapo-rust.com/

More to come later today (I hope).

Damon

 

Evap o rust is good stuff, restorers love it. By the way, it is also available at Harbor Freight.

 

Evapo-Rust.

This rust remover liquid looks very efficient. I `ll hope that it gives the wanted result ! Thanks fore the information. It would be intresting to know how your experience with the product turns out to be ?

Martinius.

 

Russ - Glad to hear it's a popular product among those in your business (and our hobby). Hopefully I'll have good luck with it. It's probably a good thing there isn't a Harbor Freight outlet anywhere near me. I'd be broke from filling my pick-up bed with tools every chance I got.

Unfortunately, things aren't going well with the rust removal. I failed to notice an unplugged oil gallery hole in the side of the block - I believe it's part of the optional filtering system - and some of the Evapo-Rust may have gotten into the block. Since this stuff is non-toxic, non-corrosive, etc. I wasn't all that worried about it, but I still wanted to clean out the oil gallery anyway. In the process of removing the pipe plugs (I had the machinist tap the oil gallery holes for threaded plugs when I had the engine rebuilt), I stripped the head of the plug at the rear of the block. It's only partially removed, barely a thread or two from flush, so it's going to be a trick to remove and replace. The machinist had put something on the threads, possibly to keep the plugs in place. I may have to heat that area of the block to see if I can remove the plug. Or... is that not advised? I don't really know of any other way to remove the plug. There isn't enough of the plug sticking out to grab onto it with Vice Grips. I'd rather not drill it and use an easy out, as that will introduce metal shavings to the inside of the engine. Thoughts??

It's rather frustrating when the hobbies we choose for stress relief and a release from the grind end up causing a headache. At this point, I'm finding myself very tempted to:

1. Disassemble the engine.
2. Remove aforementioned plug by whatever means necessary.
3. Finish the rust removal with a bare block.
4. Go ahead and modify the oil passages for full-flow filtering like I had planned to in the first place.
5. Reassemble the engine.
6. Paint the engine.

What do you guys think? Does that make sense? Or am I overreacting? I really wanted to do the oil gallery modification, but the machinist had my engine work done before I got with him on the plans for the full-flow filtering modifications. The modifications seem simple enough, I've read several articles on the work. I guess my question is: Does it seem like a waste to tear this thing down, perform more work to it, then reassemble everything? I suppose it's as inefficient as it could be, but to me, it seems like I'll get a better end result. Maybe not?

Thanks for your thoughts, sorry to vent so much.



Damon

PS. On a positive note, the Evapo-Rust seems to be doing the trick on getting rid of the corrosion on the outside of the block... I forgot to mention that.

 

Oops

Don't ask me because I'm always taking things apart to replace some stupid niggly little part or bolt , gasket etc. because it bugs me knowing it's not how I like it..... .

Full flow oil filtration is very good indeed but these Stovebolts seem to run forever with basic care so prolly not worth the effort , I've certainly never done one .

 

Trust me~

If you are planning on keeping that 6, Listen to Nate. I once was so pi$$ed that I took my lap top out to my 228 and cranked up Nate. He said "start" and it did!
He knows these old 6 bangers, and it's our good fourtune that he hangs in here with us.