Engine Block Wrestling

Two days ago, my "safety" bellhousing arrived.

I bolted it to the transmission to make sure it would fit, and just to see what it looked like:

A "safety" bellhousing or "scattershield" is made of 5/16" steel, and is designed to prevent the clutch from sending shrapnel through floor pan and into the car, if it shatters from heavy strain (from say... a 575hp supercharged 302). Besides the safety factor, this bellhousing also allows me to bolt my 64 1/2 Ford Toploader 4-speed to a modern '68+ 302 V8.

Today, I worked on getting my mock-up engine bolted in, to check for clearance and fabricate some mounts. This is the engine that I bought complete and taken apart for $50. After wrestling the block into the engine bay, and fighting the non-standard motor mounts, I finally got everything bolted in:

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get it started up today... I don't think a new battery or dousing the entire thing in ATF will help, it's in pretty poor shape:

Finally, I unbolted my bellhousing from the transmission, and bolted it to the back of the engine:

Bolting the bellhousing on was a 6 hand job. It was impossible to lift the bellhousing from underneath, pin it up against the block to keep it from falling, and starting two bolts all by myself.

Next, I'm going to push the transmission up against the bellhousing (with the aid of a large jack), bolt it up, and fabricate the transmission mount out of some left-over Suzuki leaf spring bushings that I've held onto over the years.

Rear End/Floor Panels/"Engine"

I've finally finished up the rear end. I've de-rusted the discs with ATF (a non-automotive related trick), mounted the calipers, and plumbed the hard line on the axle. Also, I reworked the axle tube breather, removing the factory Maverick brake junction block and machining a spacer for the breather. I removed the junction block because my new Explorer hardware has the junction block on the passenger side, rather than the Maverick's driver side setup.

Anyways, here's two pictures (left and right) of the rear end, all ready to go. The semi-gloss spraypaint will oxidize and flatten out here in a day or two, but for now it's pretty shiny:

This was my first time bending up hard lines, with the correct bender and a double-flare tool. I'm pretty happy with the result, it fits into the factory hold-down tabs, but still mates to the Explorer hardware.

So far, the Explorer brakes work great (well, they fit really well). The entire installation was fairly painless, the most complex step was indexing (rotating) the caliper mounts up and out of the way of the leaf springs. The Explorer bolt pattern would have placed the calipers parallel to the springs.

After working on the rear axle today, I also fixed [more] rust holes on the driver's side floor pan:

There's been quite a bit of rust, and it's a pain to fix. I'm assuming the car sat for a long time with wet carpet holding moisture against the sheet metal- the rust is pretty extensive. I'll try and pound a screwdriver through the floorboards to test the integrity of the metal, but it never fails that I'll find a weak spot with the welder and burn through. Once that happens, I add a little more sheet metal at a time until I start hitting solid parts of the floor again. I shot on a coat of semi-gloss black to keep the rust at bay.

Finally, I worked on the "engine" last. I bolted on these 1969 F-100 motor mounts to my mock-up engine:

The pan full of bolts is the contents of one of the bags full of random fasteners that came along with the engine.

These truck motor mounts allow me to use the factory 6 cylinder frame mounts:

This engine will be used for mock-up only, mainly to determine how/where to build the transmission crossmember, and to be able to judge clearances for the two master cylinders that will be mounted on the firewall (I'll be using a hydraulic clutch). I will definitely not be using this engine. I picked it up complete, but un-assembled off of Craigslist for $50 for these mock-up purposes, and to eventually be a core for a new 302.

My bellhousing and safety block plate should be arriving this next week, so I should be able to start building the mount sooner than later.

More slow progress

I decided today to spend some time working on the car. I really want to get it to the point where it is somewhat operational. Once I get to the point where I can move it under it's own power from the back yard to the garage, it won't be such a big deal to work on it.

Working on it today was a big deal. Since the rear tires de-laminated last summer, it hasn't been roll-able. So today, I had to work in the dirt, in the sun (sort of), in the heat, in the back yard. Before mentioning anything about the car, I should draw attention to this:

It was 113 degrees at 5:30. The high today was 117 degrees. I'm sure it was 117 about the time I was yanking and struggling to remove the old 4-lug Maverick axle from the car. I should point out that air temperatures are measured in the shade, over natural terrain (open desert-type terrain), not in the direct sunlight, next to a wall that is radiating at 130 degrees, or with an aluminum jon boat nearby reflecting sunlight and heat.

Needless to say, it was HOT today. I put up my awning, and had a mist system running the whole time. I also had to go sit in the garage from time to time, with the 60,000 BTU swamp cooler blowing on me.

Anyways, so here's what I did:

I removed the old 4-lug, drum brake, 2.47 gear ratio axle.

To do that, I also had to remove the old gas tank, which I was meaning to do since it has a fist-sized hole rusted in the bottom.

With the gas tank out, I was able to put the frame up on jack stands, and start wrestling with the U-bolts, and ripping the axle out. It was a lot of work to remove the factory axle, as I didn't want to take the rear shackles apart. The shackles are set up similar to some older 4x4's, where one side of the shackle has the bolts welded in. To remove these, I would have had to pop the shackles all the way out of the frame- that seemed like a lot of work. Instead, I opted to grunt the old axle up and over the leaf springs, and remove it from the side. The new axle went into place the same way:

For now (I had to quit and go jump in the pool) I have the axle hanging from the springs. I'll put the U-bolts back on tomorrow morning. I now have a 3.55 geared, 5-lug axle with modern disc brakes. All that will be left to do is de-rust the discs (ATF eats rust), mount those, the calipers, and find a set of cheap roller tires. I don't think the old ones are good anymore:

The next step will be to mount the transmission in the car. I'm getting close (item wise, not time wise) to being able to move the car under it's own power.