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Some things happened last week but I didn't have time to update my thread....
For something this big, it's amazing how light the whole assembly is.
This was supposed to just be a test fit to figure out what wasn't going to work. It turned out the first problem was the Camaro style water pump. The outlet hits the control arm. This was a big problem, because I was using an M10 hole in the water pump to lift the engine. However, a jack and an old belt around the crank soon solved the problem. Anybody need a GenV Camaro water pump?
I used the Dirty Dingo engine mount adapters. The price is right and they knew where the holes go to make the bellhousing surface line up where it's supposed to.
It worked because the holes in the magnum line up exactly with the holes in the crossmember. (I did have to drill the holes larger though, 'cause the bolts are bigger). I'm going to have to shim the trans mount to get the driveshaft angle right, but I don't know how much until I drop the body on. Soon!
So far this has all seemed too easy. There's one thing I'm not happy about though. The oil pan is now the lowest point on the car.
I can get a shorter pan, but I'll lose the stock water to oil cooler. I really don't want to do that. I know a lot of people replace it with a traditional cooler, but these engines like to be hot, and the water to oil system is as much about warming the oil warm as it is keeping it cool. And thermostatic control of a traditional oil cooler isn't cheap. I haven't decided yet how to fix it. Either I'll bite the bullet and swap the pan, or I'll fabricate some bolt-on sacrificial protection for this pan.
After about 100 phone calls to Chevy parts departments across the country over the last 6 months I finally found an engine controller kit in-stock. The harness came with no routing instructions - just a big pile of wire in a box. It is nicely labeled though, so a few flips and it started to make sense.
My next job is fuel. I don't have parts yet, so I need to decide what I want I need.
It's getting a returnless / PWM fuel system. It's what the engine calls for, and it just makes more sense to my electronics-oriented brain. That means the car has more fuel lines than I need.
I also intend to have a functional EVAP system, but not the complicated self-test bits. Just the parts that keep the fumes out of the air.
The frame came with new stainless lines installed where the original supply, return, and vent would have been, and I'd like to re-use them as much as possible.
Key
6AN tube nut, 6AN tube sleeve, 6AN braided hosew/ 1 male end & 1 female end, 1/4 ID ethanol rated fuel hose, 2x stainless hose clamps
6AN tube nut, 6AN tube sleeve, 6AN braided hose w/ 1 male 90 & 1 male straight
1/4 ID ethanol rated fuel hose, 2x stainless hose clamps
90 degree 6AN to SAE quick disconnect, 6AN male to male elbow, 2x 6AN tube nuts, 2x 6AN tube sleeves, 3/8 hard line (6"), 6AN braided hose w/male ends
1/4 ID ethanol rated fuel hose, 2x stainless hose clamps
6AN tube nut, 6AN sleeve
3/8 hard line (36") 2x 6AN tube nut, 2x 6AN tube sleeve
Finally making some progress on the fuel system. Parts have been hard to come by; other projects have been distracting... Anyway...
I'm on pump #3. All three came broken, but this one is the least broken so I'm going with it. It's a GM MU2379, highly modified.
I didn't want to replace the OEM tank with an EFI tank (I should have). So my plan is to fit a Camaro pump to the original tank. This has several complications. The first is mounting. The original assembly has the typical hat that gets secured to the top of the modern style tank. I plan to use the original sending unit and filler, so that had to go. The pump module itself is the part I really want because it is designed to prevent fuel starvation. It was attached to the hat with two rods and some springs to keep it pressed firmly to the bottom of the tank. The rods and springs were not long enough for the C3 tank, so they needed to be replaced. I cut new ones, and added a pair of snap ring grooves and some 1/4-20 threads out of some drill rod.
These screw into a piece of 1-1/2" UHMW that I sawed in half the long way, transfer punched from the rod-holes in the pump, drilled, and tapped. I then rounded off the sharp edges, as this piece will press against the top of the tank with spring force to hold the pump down. The stainless strap will bolt to the sending unit to prevent lateral movement.
The next modification was to remove the provisions for the Camaro's saddle-style fuel tank. The white nylon fitting in the smaller tube on the pump used to be a tee. The Camaro gas tank bottom is relieved for the drive shaft. There is a venturi style pump on the the far side of the tank that is powered by fuel pressure out of that tee. The bottom of the module in the picture also has a venturi pump for a remote pickup in the near side of the tank, so the line couldn't be eliminated or plugged. I like this feature though; I will offset the pump to the passenger side, and put a remote pickup at the end of a nylon line on the driver's side. That means fabricating a remote pickup.
The remote pickup is a fuel pump sock on the end of a tube. There is already a quick-connect fuel fitting on the side of the pump module to attach one. I made a brass fitting out of a hardware store elbow to attach a Walbro style pump sock to. I won the NAPA clerk lottery and he let me rummage around in the back to find a fuel sock I liked.
The fitting is turned down to 11.1mm to press fit into the sock,.
To get power in and fuel out of the tank I drilled the original sending unit for a -6AN 90 degree bulkhead, and a fuel-rated four conductor cable gland. The cable gland was hard to find. It is McMaster part number 1777N19
Let's update the build thread. Because updating the build thread doesn't make the number after the dollar sign go up like updating the parts list spreadsheet!
Some... stuff happened. Between December and now, and a lot of it didn't involve Corvettes. But some did.
For example, the fuel system is done!
The power lines to the fuel pump need to be twisted ~4 times per foot to prevent EMI.
The fuel pump control module needs a pressure sensor to know what duty cycle to run the pump at. The module came with the ECU kit, but it's got an M10x1.0 fitting on the bottom. Adapting it into the fuel system was oddly difficult. Nobody seems to make metric fuel system fittings for hot rods. All the AN fittings with fuel pressure bungs are NPT. Eventually I had to use two fittings. A tee, and this fitting from Russell Performance (670470). Not shown: generic viton O-ring out of the "box-of-o-rings".
At this point it's just a matter of sealing everything up. But since it's all custom and hard to take apart I needed to know it all worked first. That meant hooking up the ECU and the ignition and the fuel pump power module, and putting 5 gallons in the tank, and then turning the "key" to pump it back out. It works! (Sadly I don't think I can upload the video)
I seem to have forgotten to take a picture of the wrapped up pigtail, and the tank with the steel shield back on it.... Oh well.
The tank has a vent to the interior and exterior of the bladder. They are teed together, but the hose to the vent outside the bladder is supposed to have a restriction in it. It's shown as part 3991301 in section 8D sheet 3 of the assembly manual.
I don't have the original, and nobody seems to sell them or make them. There's a drawing of the part in the assembly manual though. So I made one. It's in there, but you can't see it. The only way to know is because I made a note here.
Next up: Engine accessories. I took the easy way out and went with the Holley Mid-mount accessory kit. (HLY-20-200). There isn't a lot of room between the control arms, and it was the only setup that was documented well enough that I could be SURE it would fit. I didn't want to be buying and returning tons of parts like with the fuel system.
This all bolted up pretty nicely so there isn't a lot to say about it.
Removing the factory bolt from the end of the crank requires heat. Not a lot, but enough to melt the sealant they used under the flange of the bolt. 5 seconds with the torch is the difference between it coming out easy, and swearing at it for an hour while trying not to hurt your engine.
There were a few complications when installing the new damper. You're supposed to install the old bolt and torque it to 240 ft./lbs, then remove the old bolt and install a new bolt to 59 ft/lbs +125°. The flange on the old bolt was bigger and didn't fit in the new damper. And it's a hardened bolt. So it needed to be turned down in the lathe with carbide to get it to fit. THEN, something had to be done to hold the crank still while torquing the bolt. I don't have a flywheel locking tool, and neither did the local parts store. So I made something....
Here it is all finished. It comes with dress-up plates to cover everything, but they're going to stay safely tucked away in boxes until the very end of the project.
The thermostat housing in the kit hits the passenger side control arm. You have to use a swivel housing. It should have just come with a swivel housing. Anyway I didn't buy the Holley one. That one is by Spectre P/N 4939.
With the fuel system and accessories done it was time to drop the body on and see what wasn't going to fit. But that meant lifting the body up off the dolley. I had no trouble lifting it with straps when it was rough. But now that it's painted I needed a bit of finesse. Also I was sure it wasn't going to fit the first 19 or 20 times, so I needed to be able to lift it and keep it lifted for a while.
I ended up making adapters for my lift. With the prices of steel these days, I cheaped out (Yes, on lift arm adapters. I know. I know.) and made them out of steel pipe instead of proper 2 1/4" steel rod stock. But the body doesn't weigh that much. It'll be fine (Spoiler: It was already fine! I didn't die!) The worst part was welding the galvanized pipe. It doesn't matter what you do, there always seems to be some zinc left. Before letting these touch my car, I wrapped the relevant bits in Tesa tape so nothing would scratch. $12 for some custom lift adapters, and free TIG practice!
Last edited by JV2; Jun 7, 2022 at 07:52 AM.
Reason: spelling
Thanks to the guys at Gilbert Driveline in Manchester NH for making me a custom driveshaft with the bearing straps on the weld yoke, since T56 slip yokes with straps are unobtanium right now.
Last edited by JV2; Jun 6, 2022 at 10:13 PM.
Reason: Inaccuracy
With the driveshaft in, I was able to get proper driveline angle measurements. I knew I was going to have a problem with tunnel clearance when I finished shimming for output shaft angle, but I didn't anticipate problems on the pinion end. My pinion pointed downwards. A LOT. You can see in my driveshaft photo earlier that I had completely removed a VBP solid snubber bushing. Even without the bushing I still had 3 degrees downward angle. And I didn't understand why.
Eventually I figured it out. The differential crossmember bushings had been replaced with solid aluminum disks (also from VBP). This had two effects, one intentional and the other unintentional. The intentional effect is raising the differential up in the frame by 7/8ths of an inch. This seems to be desirable for drag racing and aesthetics.. It's not desirable for road handling, or driveline angles. The second, unintentional effect was due to the way the solid bushings index with the factory bushing holes and cones in the crossmember and frame. Specifically, they don't. The holes in the crossmember aren't precise until at least 0.250 down into the holes, and the VBP bushings interface with the imprecise chamfered portion of the hole. Also, the "precision" surface on the frame is a taper up inside the mounting hole. The bushings don't reach the taper. At all. So they were in crooked, and it would have been quite an ordeal to get them to seat properly. "Luckily" I had to make them 7/8" thicker anyway. I kept the original discs, and made shims. Having them in two pieces meant I could get them in there without disassembling the entire rear end. And because I wanted a taper to interface to the frame I was able to index them both to the VBP donut and taper the bore to seat properly in the frame. They look something like this when they're out on "the bench".
When they're installed they look like..... well you can't see them at all. But after installing them, and removing 0.375" from the solid snubber bushing, I had a 0 degree pinion angle. After that I could get the drive angle dialed in just right by shimming the back of the transmission 0.125" and cutting the entire top out of the transmission tunnel. Which meant it was time to procrastinate and do a full restoration on the pedal box.
Rusty....
Fake Evap-o-Rust (Rust911 from Concentrate!). For this I left the pedals dirty and greasy. I used the off-brand chelant instead of real Evap-o-rust because it doesn't have any detergent. And because I'm cheap. The greasy bits of the pedals aren't rusty at all, and I don't want to remove the grease or have to figure out how to get grease back in all those places. So it goes straight in the bucket dirty.
And the results:
They had to be dunked at other angles later because my bucket is too small. Then a little bit of rust reformer, primer, and satin black:
And if you're a purist who hasn't been scared off yet by the unholy things I'm doing to this poor Corvette, look away now before you see:
....model year inappropriate pedal bling.
I also gave a similar treatment to all the bracketry that holds up the steering column, and hit them with some cold galvanizing compound. Better pictures of that later....
The switch to brake pedals and sound deadening mat wasn't entirely because I wanted to put off cutting my tunnel as long as possible... It's because I wanted to get as much work done to things on the firewall as possible while I had good access.
Since I installed a hydraulic throwout bearing, I needed a clutch master cylinder. And the clutch master cylinder needed to live in the space occupied by the brake booster. Which meant installing hydroboost. Which meant pulling the pedal box.
The hydroboost is a remanufactured Astro Van unit like many people install in their C3. It has the right bolt pattern and everything to slot right in..... except for the pushrod. It's too long and the connection to the pedal is different. I chose to fix this by cutting the end off the rod, and the end off the original brake booster rod, and welding them back together.
Of course, it got wire wheeled and cleaned up nice before reinstalling it.
The tricky bit was getting the rod back into the hydroboost. The rod swivels, and it's crimped into a cup on the end of the internal rod. I ended up crimping it back in with a hydraulic battery terminal crimper.
The rod at the other end of the hydroboost needed attention too. The hydroboost comes with a paper seal over the hole the master cylinder mounts to that tells you to "re-use the original pushrod". Except I'm not installing this in an Astro Van, so I don't have one. It's not just a rod, but also a spring, disc, and spring retainer. Apparently they're similar but there are many different lengths. powerbrakes.com sells a kit for cheap enough. You just have to cut the rod to length. There are instructions to do it with a file and a hacksaw, but it's an excuse for a lathe project.
First I installed the rod and measured the gap between the mating surfaces with gauge blocks. Then I mounted the rod in a collet and parted it off to length.
The end of the rod needs to be rounded. A file while it was still spinning in the lathe took care of it.
Hopefully this trickle of fluid doesn't mean my "new" booster is going to leak.
The best spot for mounting the clutch master has a pitch to it. I want to have the clutch master mounted level. The reservoir is small and I want maximum capacity. I want to be able to fill it without trouble. I don't want a remote reservoir. It looks better that way. Etc.
It's a problem though.
A problem that can be solved with a custom bracket.
Today was a good day, because it was the first time my Corvette ran since the years started with a '1'.
I have a lot of things to update here, but instead just a quick hit... My original key was looking tired. I've always wanted a Pak-a-Punch key punch tool, but I've never been able to justify the expense. "Recently" a lower-tech tool made by Lishi came out that lets you punch keys for cheap, except that you have to do all the positioning and measuring manually instead of with fancy jigs.
I picked one up, and a GM "C" blank, and i measured my old key. I cut all the depths to the next smaller cut - it was quite worn. Now I have a shiny new key that looks like it was cut by a dealer:
\\\
Please don't copy my key from the internet and steal my 'vette! Though I'm sure if you were so inclined you'd just rake the lock. They're not very good....
