...those of you who have been in hysterics reading about my trials and tribulations at doing resto work will now have a chance to pause...and reflect.....i may actually have a good idea here (stop me if you've heard this one :rolleyes: ).........

..learned a LOT last year from the roadster about how to remove the 'diff....ok, right now the '66 bb's on jack stands and i did the diff completely differently...this time, for removing the diff, i followed the shop manual advice and it worked with no hassle (pull the bolts holding the diff, put the two lower ones back in real loose, smacked the crap out of the diff's nose to break the seal, drained the oil, snuck a floor jack up-n-under the diff, pulled the bolts and eased that puppy down)...half an hour, WITH martinis :yesnod:

...ok, so now, rocket scientist, you have the cover hanging by the third member....how 'ya gonna do that??????? :confused: :confused: ...i listened to the previous posts about using a large crow bar and popping out the third member after a LOT of grunting.....well, hell, i don't work that hard during the week and i'm sure as hell not going to work that hard on the weekend, SO, i let the WD-40 do the heavy lifting...i moved the third member enough on each side to soak the top of the sombrebo bushing, and with it's limited penetrating abilities, it basically loosened both bushings to the point where they both literally dropped off :cheers: ...of course, i let it set for one week but it proved the point......btw, caught the diff cover/third member combo PERFECTLY in a drywall cement bucket.............. OH YEAH A 3 POINTER!!!!! :lol: :lol:


[Modified by Kid_Again, 7:43 AM 10/1/2001]


[Modified by Kid_Again, 7:44 AM 10/1/2001]

 

Good catch. It comes out easier that way :cheers:

 

..another update for those of you fascinated with my "talents"....one trailing arm pivot bolt came out very easily (hmmmm :confused: ) but the other one was rusted solid, took about 3.5 hours' worth of reciprocating saw time (12 blades ) to get that puppy out :rolleyes: ...so now everything from the crankshaft-back is on the floor or being restored...damn, that's a lot of work just to get that stuff out......

...an interesting note is that i clearly have a totally unique car, worth scads of money because it has a 10 leaf spring :eek: ...i understand the factory only made one of those and IT'S MINE!!!!!....i'm certain that when my estate sells that car, the new owners will appreciate the unique, numbers matching spring

 

...ok, so i have the entire drivetrain removed (and now thinking about pulling the engine - another LONG story) and i'm staring at the trailing arms (12 sawzall blades later :mad )......i want to disassemble the trailing arms completely before i send them off for a resto because i want to refinish the arms myself :rolleyes:

ok, what's the consensus for removing the spindles from the arms...believe it or not, one guy that i trust says he swears he's seen a number of spindles just pop out by whacking the inboard side of the spindle on a solid piece of wood...btdt, used a 4x4 piece of treated yellow pine as the target and just wound up with some pretty holes in the wood...whacked the hell out of the spindle on my ever-trusty block of lead and made pretty holes in that :D

..checked the shop manual and they illustrate the use of a clamp that grabs the inside of the arm, tightening the center bolt pushes out the spindle...i should receive a 12 ton floor hydralic ram press in the next few days and would think that if i use a malleable collet as the contact surface, that would work.......................

....or should i continue to look for that magic piece of wood?

any advice? :confused:


[Modified by Kid_Again, 6:59 AM 10/23/2001]

 

Ive seen some that took 15 tons of pressure to pop loose, and if the arm isn't properly supported, you can destroy the arm in the process. Experience tells me that the best approach for this job is to send the assembly to Bair's or Van Steel and let them do it; they have the experience and the right tools, and have a great reputation for quality work. Bolt them back on and never worry about them again.

 

yeah, you're probably right but i thought i'd ask

thanks

 

...took the advice and went to a local shop (corvette paramedics) who popped the spindles...took me an entire day to to blast and refinish the components and they'll do the reassembly....much better feeling all around :yesnod:

 

well, it gets worse....so, i have every bit of the drivetrain out, the tranny's rebuilt, the diff's rebuilt, the shafts have new universals and have been balanced, the trailing arms are ready today - and i finally realize that the only thing left, really, is the engine :rolleyes: ...i was going to do the engine next year or so but wtf, might as well pull it now and warm it over :D

...finally decided to stay with the 427 and do it .30 over, that's easy...already have the tripower...not sure on the cam, pistons/cr yet as i want to run a few simulations and see how i can model the torque curve but settled on the heads - either 049s or 781s........been a pita trying to find a complete set without paying more for shipping than i put into the heads.........saw two sets on ebay, waited till the auctions were over, sent mail and struck a deal and the seller will bring them up on his next trip my way - what a country :cheers:

it's only money :blueangel:

 

Joe

It sure sounds as if you have your hands full -- again. If you are going to make an even bigger screamer out of your current 427, you may want to consider converting it over to a 4 bolt main configuration just to be safe. Are you using the suburban heads to lower the compresssion in addition to the increased flow ??? If the motor isnt smoking or pushing oil past the rings, you may want to consider putting the drivetrain back together just to make sure there are no vibrations before you also work on the motor. I know you said you had everything rebuilt and balanced however if you o/h'd the engine and had a vibration it may be tougher to find without a benchmark. It is a good idea to run the simulation software to detemine compatible cams, heads, compression, fuel flow etc. Of course I think they sell matching kits today based on the HP you are looking for. My guess you are looking in the 500HP range which makes my comment about the 4 bolt main conversion at least reasonable.

Oh by the way your car is not as unique as you might think regarding the rear spring. My freind Jim Abba's 66 350hp seems to also have an extra leaf. That makes the both of your cars and probably mine too totally and extremely rare - heh heh.

talk to you soon

john lolli

 

john.....good advice on the mains and the rebuild....about the heads, yeah, the 781's are from a suburban (i see you know your stuff)....i'll tell 'ya, when i first got back into cars, i read a book titled "the design and tuning of competition engines" by smith and wenner - it's a paperback, a bit dated and doesn't really even spend a lot of time on american v8's but it covered a LOT of theory in relatively layman's language (if you call a discussion of boyle and charles' gas laws easy reading :rolleyes: )...........

..what they say seemed to make sense but perhaps the strongest lesson was that an internal combustion engine is nothing more than an air pump and volumetric efficiency is the hallmark of racing engines (get it in and suck it out REAL fast)...so i'm trying to get that efficiency wherever i can - the heads flow real well and i've got 1000 cfm from three carbs spaced evenly over the heads.......interestingly enough, i'm not that concerned about compression ratio because the curves that i've see for bhp vs. compression shows that the relationship is not linear - i.e., it takes a hell of a lot of increased compression past a certain point (going from 8:1 to 9:1 gives 5 % more power, from 9:1 to 10:1 gives about 3.5 % more, etc) to obtain even modest increases in power...and besides, i'm really married to torque....those little blocks need the compression, i'll go with the torque, thank you :lol:


[Modified by Kid_Again, 8:58 AM 11/9/2001]

 

btw....in reviewing the corvette "black book", the 049's were OEM for the '73 and the 781's were OEM for '74...the heads i bought are off of a '74 corvette...i thought these were truck heads :confused:

 

Joe

You are giving me way too much credit. You had mentioned they were suburban heads in a previous offline email.

Good Luck

john lolli