'75 W300 repair/mod project - Ol' Blue

[gomopar440]

NOM NOM NOM...:nomnom:


Only broke a couple bolts getting this stuff out.


Notice anything strange about this clutch?


The trans side is missing a few big patches of the fiber material. These were just some of the chunks I found stuck between the flywheel and the engine block.


More painted parts.

 

[gomopar440]

More pics. Yay.


Much easier to go straight out the front rather that trying to go over the top of the whole front end.



Looks like someone tried turning the flywheel into one of those George Foreman grills.



More greasy clutch fibers. This pic was after a quick wire brush and shop towel wipe down.



That's where I stopped at for tonight. The engine is sitting right there wrapped up in a tarp for now.

 

[TheIronSausage]

Man, I've always wished that Ma Mopar would've made the LA motors like the B/RB motors.. No coolant in the intake. Wanna swap intake manifolds? Thirty minutes if you're lazy, no dumping antifreeze, no cleaning up the mess (I don't care how careful you are, that shit's like glitter, gets everywhere). Effing brilliant.

As for the clutch.. what's with the snout?

 

[gomopar440]

It works well enough that Edelbrock copied the idea with their Air Gap line of intakes. :toot:

And I haven't messed with or even really looked at the trans side at all yet, other than to take that one pic. I'll definitely want to take a close look at it though as I found some metallic dust in the end of the crank around the pilot bushing when I was wiping off the rear of the engine.

 

[68R/T]

That motor has been at least partially apart and repainted. The factory never got paint on the entire valley pan because they were painted with the intake on. :hmmm:

 

[gomopar440]

The valley pan has Fel Pro stamped on it, so it probably got installed with the Weiand intake. I've been finding traces of corporate blue under all the grease in a few places. Whoever painted it turquoise didn't do a very thorough job of getting all the old paint off beforehand.

 

[69.5CUDA]

but that tourqoise ..i love it

 

[gomopar440]

Me too, but...



And another part done as well.


The driver side motor mount bracket has a relief cut in it for a taller HV oil pump, but it was still hitting the pump's relief valve area. That interference could have been enough to prevent the oil pump from seating fully against the block and causing another oil leak. I'm going to mill the hole in the bracket about 1/8-1/4" farther so the mount can no longer make contact with the oil pump. After I clean the oily muck off it first.

BTW: That driver side exhaust manifold fought me tooth and nail getting the last two exhaust nuts to let go. I had to get medieval on it before it finally said uncle. The short one towards the rear came off with a cold chisel and a stubby sledge. The barrel nut didn't allow me to use that trick on it because of the way it's made. I knocked the end of the barrel nut with a punch and the sledge moving it back and forth, left and right, up and down for a while. Then I grabbed a sturdy 90* pry bar and slid the short end between the manifold and the head, with the bend resting on a head bolt. I gave the pry bar one good solid whack with the sledge and the manifold popped off, leaving the barrel nut threads behind on the stud. With that out of the way I was able to get a lot of the block and heads cleaned up and painted today. Tomorrow is supposed to have nice weather again, so I hope to finish cleaning the rest of the engine and painting what I didn't get to today. After that tearing everything else down the rest of the way won't be as much of a mess.

 

[gomopar440]

The other side of the engine is now cleaned and painted as well. I barely had enough paint left in my last can of engine paint to finish it. The oil pan, timing cover and all other tin work will be getting painted gunmetal grey.


I was less than impressed with the amount of blue RTV oozing out around the cork gaskets I was finding during the clean up. It looks like those cork gaskets were probably pulled and reused with the RTV as insurance against leaks (didn't work obviously). On the valve covers, one side had a composite gasket (torn) and the other side had a cork gasket (smeared with blue RTV). The oil pan and timing cover also had cork gaskets with RTV everywhere. While knocking off the excess RTV during clean up, I noticed the timing cover had a loose bolt at the bottom corner. Loose enough for the washer under the bolt head to be able to flop around freely. I checked the rest of the timing cover bolts and sure enough they were ALL looser than finger tight. :wtf:


HTH this thing survived the two hour drive home I'll never know.:hmmm:

 

[69.5CUDA]

blue rtv is garbage ...ultra black on the otherhand will keep most anything sealed even in small amounts

 

[TheIronSausage]

I'm a yuuuge fan of the Ultra Grey personally.

Anything that gets removed/replaced.. Hylomar

Ive had a lot of success with Indian Head shellac on cork caskets

 

[69.5CUDA]

if there is an option for replacing cork i will not use cork..hell if possible ill cut my own gaskets to avoid cork

 

[gomopar440]

I'm a fan of the Yamabond sealant, which is basically the same as the grey RTV stuff. Black works about as well though. Total hack job by whichever PO decided that using RTV (of any color) on old gaskets was a good idea. Those loose bolts though... :wtf:

I just got back in from fixing that inteference issue between the driver side motor mount bracket and the oil pump. I scribed a line where I wanted the end of the hole to be moved to before I removed the mount from the block.


After cleaning it up I clamped it in the mill vise and then hit it with a 1" end mill to remove the undesired material.


Here's a better look at the newly enlarged hole.:moon:


Next I removed the burrs with a file and then sand blasted the mount completely. A quick coat of satin black paint and it looks like it could have come from the factory that way. Paint runs and all.


Now I'm taking a break inside to let my sunburt arms cool off. It's supposed to be in the 80's today.:toot:

 

[69.5CUDA]

oh..did you get a punch in the face from summer too?..went from questionable to 80 and no clouds overnight 3 days in a row now

 

[TheIronSausage]

I honestly prefer cork gaskets on the old stuff. You can squeeze it a little more than you can the rubber. When I bought the head gasket kit for the truck, it apparently came with rubber impregnated cork valve cover gaskets with a wire stiffener inside. Those are the shit. I'm going to seek them out forever and ever.

 

[gomopar440]

oh..did you get a punch in the face from summer too?..went from questionable to 80 and no clouds overnight 3 days in a row now

More like a kick in the nuts.[smilie=k: Both arms and the back of my neck are torched. And it's been high 60's on Friday and mid 70's over the weekend. Yesterday was high 70's and today we broke into the 80's. Tomorrow? [url]https://weather.com/weather/alerts/localalerts/l/59711:4:US?phenomena=HW&significance=A&areaid=MTZ007&office=KMSO&etn=0001[/url]

 

[gomopar440]

Today I stayed out of the sun and wind by working inside the barn cleaning parts. Well I guess "part" would be more accurate actually. I chipped off the rust scale on the driver side exhaust manifold and then put it in the sand blast cabinet. I was less than impressed with the results so I took more drastic measures. I broke out the angle grinder and first removed all the casting flash on the manifold. Put it back in the sand blast cabinet and then the cast surface really looked dark and crappy next to the bright metal where the freshly ground areas were. Uggg. Ok, time to put up or shut up. I went to town with the grinder, using cut off wheels, grinding wheels and flap disks hitting the majority of the manifold surface. I also hit the gasket surfaces with a file to try to remove the petrified gasket residue that the sand blaster wouldn't touch. Back in the blast cabinet and try it again. Better, but the untouched areas still looked like crap and the angle grinder marks were a bit too pronounced for my tastes. I was also fighting with the various nubs and bumps cast into the manifold for other applications. I decided to get rid of all those parts of the casting that weren't being used on this engine. The angle grinder took care of all of those protrusions and from there I broke out the single cut fine mill bastard file to smooth it over. Well, at least now my blistered fingers are helping me to forget about my sunburn. One last trip through the sand blaster and the manifold is now about 80-90% done. The finish where I filed over the manifold is looking fairly smooth, sorta like the outer surface of a tube header now. I'll be finishing up the rest of the manifold tomorrow and then get a before and after pic of it sitting next to the passenger side manifold.

 

[69.5CUDA]

i assume youll paint it?..i had good luck with eastwood castiron exhaust manifold paint

 

[gomopar440]

Definitely going to paint it, but I haven't settled on what I'll paint it with. I have some Cerakote here, but I'll have to take a look and see what colors I have on hand. If I don't find a color I like, I'll just pick up some high temp header paint. I'll most likely go with a cast iron or gunmetal color if I do.

 

[gomopar440]

Well, the suckage of the manifold polishing job looks like it might be a moot point now. I found a 2" crack in the pass side manifold coming from the center double port and going right up the middle over the top.



I looked inside and sure enough, it's all the way through to the inside of the casting.



FWIW, here's what I had gotten done to the driver side manifold yesterday. It's sitting next to the untouched pass side manifold in these pics.



The dark spots on the driver side manifold are where I still needed to go over the rough cast surface.



Looks like I may be looking for headers sooner rather than later now.