About the engine oil analysis don't forget about cam bearings possibly being worn, if you do take the engine in for a hot tank treatment they will remove those anyway because otherwise they would be eaten out by the caustic hot tank solution.

On the stainless studs... There are a couple of grades of stainless bolts, 18-8 and 316 being a couple, of those, the 316 are stronger. There may be other grades in there too, as I know there are other grades of stainless plate steel.
As many studs as there are to carry the weight of the manifold stack, I think they will be plenty strong, just don't forget the anti seize. I mean torque spec is only like 10 ft/lb to hold the manifolds on to the head, certainly not enough to strip them.
And on torque specs, when you get that low in the ft/lb scale, I'd convert it to in/lb and use an in/lb torque wrench. I certainly wouldn't convert the other way for those fasteners that need that treatment.
I have several torque wrenches and I don't think any even go that low on the ft/lb scale. On a needle type probably barely enough to get any deflection of the needle at that point.

Honestly for those that have been at this a while, I'd say those bolts Don't get actually "torqued" very often, usually just tightened by "feel" especially when done in the car. By rights they should be torqued for even clamping force being as long as a manifold stack is.....

And you should be able to take the pan, the pickup screen, the rockers with the shaft, the valve cover and timing cover in to the machine shop so they can stick them in the hot tank as well.

Well it's been several months since our last update. During the cleaning phase of the project, Roma lost a bit of interest. Roma turned 16 a few months ago and recently got her license. She's been driving my wife's car for the past few months, until I told her that she can no longer work at her job until her car is done.

Well, that lit her fire (a bit). We finished cleaning the block, head, manifolds, etc. We painted most of it blue, except the exhaust manifold is black. This past week we did the final scrub down and began the initial assembly. The new cam is in. The new oil pump is in. Next up is degreeing the cam. Speaking of which: I apparently haven't purchased an adjustable timing set yet. Which one should I get? Rock Auto only carries the non-adjustable sets, and that's as far as my experience goes.

Further speaking of parts, I went to purchase the Silver Seal manifold studs and I see that they no longer make them. Additionally, their Amazon store no longer lists them. Where else should I source a new set of manifold studs?

Also purchased:

• fuel adapters (per the FAQ) and Wix 33032 fuel filter
• Gates 27003 5/16 fuel hose

I'd really appreciate any help with the timing kit and manifold studs, please. And sorry for the lack of photos. My other daughter bought a 2001 Beetle that also needs some TLC, and between those two cars, plus my own two cars, I'm turning wrenches as fast as I can.

The easiest thing with the timing set is use a non-adjustable unit, but drill out the cam pin hole and get some offset bushings (SB Chevy pieces will work, from Summitracing, etc). I always just get Dorman studs from the parts store.

Sounds like fun and happy building!

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

Just a word of warning on the timing set. Most of the replacement timing sets have a cam sprocket that does not have a "hole", but have a "slot". The only way you can put a bushing in these sprockets is to drill a hole in a different place. I think this is beyond the abilities of dgebhardt at this time. Just need to be sure the sprocket does not have a slot. Agree on the studs. I just go to a good nut and bolt store.

_________________
Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 225 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170

Best to get a timing chain with a hole rather than a slot, YES. If you have the slot, you can return yours and almost certainly get one from Rockauto or Ebaymotors with a hole.

Lou

_________________
Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

New timing set was ordered; one with a hole not a slot (Enginetech TS495). I also ordered a set of cam degree bushings and a reamer. I mostly a woodworker, and this metalworking stuff is a bit new to me, but I have a large drill press that I'm sure is up to the task of drilling out the cam gear and installing the bushings.

In related news, the city sent me a nasty-gram about the car. Apparently a neighbor complained about a derelict car that's been stationary for over a year. Well, I can hold them off for a bit, but I need to get this ol' gal running ASAP. This started as a teaching moment and a father-daughter project, but Roma has been focusing on school lately (she's in all advanced classes and also taking college classes as a high school 10th grader). I've stepped in and will be carrying the bulk of the rebuild myself.

I spent the last couple of days installing the crank and prepping the head. I've lapped the valves (since we manually did a backcut). Tomorrow they will be installed. The lifters were installed. Per the Doug Dutra book, I've placed a piston in cylinder 6 (without any rings) in preparation for the degreeing. The timing set will arrive any day now.

Roma also helped today with the carb rebuild. We replaced the 2 main gaskets, swapped the #61 jet for a #63 (thanks again @matv91), adjusted the floats, and cleaned it out. We found that the plunger for the accelerator valve (I think) was mis-installed previously and the rubber piece was torn. I also believe that the vent portion of my carb is missing the lid and whatever goes inside. Can somebody look back a few posts and let me know what I need to buy or is my carb good to go without the vent cap, etc?

So I have less than a week to get the timing set and cam degreed and the engine fully assembled. Then I need to install it back into the engine bay and get it ready to move (fingers crossed).

Well, there was a delay in shipping the new timing set, so I used the existing one, plus the degree bushings. I ended up setting the cam timing at about 103' (stock was 106'). The bottom end was assembled and buttoned up. The head was installed along with the valvetrain. I set the initial valve lash at 0.020", thinking that during break-in that the cylinder temps will rise as the rings break-in. I'll adjust them tighter after break-in. All the accessories were installed and the manifolds were bolted up. Those were the biggest pain so far. It took Roma and I the better part of 2 days to get the engine back into the engine bay and bolted to the trans. I think I made about 20 trips to the hardware store to get new bolts where needed. Good thing that my local Ace Hardware is just around the corner from me.

I installed the radiator, power steering pump, AC compressor (not working, yet), alternator, battery tray, and battery. Note that the battery tray was Swiss cheese, but I slapped a layer of fiber-reinforced Bondo on it, then ground it down a bit to smooth it out. All new hoses and vacuum lines were installed. I think I bought almost all of the 5/32" vacuum tubing in my local area. Fluids were added.

I struggled getting it started initially. Turns out that one of my coil wires had a break at a splice. And by the looks of it, I made that splice roughly 2 years ago.

Break-in went well. 2000+ RPM for roughly 30 minutes. Initial timing would not adjust past 0' (which was the sticker value) and I could not find the right tooth on the distributor to move to a new adjustment range. The initial test drive in the neighborhood showed that the trans was not working well. The muffler was rusted through and will need to be replaced. The left turn signal doesn't work but the right signal does. Inspection of the brake master cylinder showed that it was full of rusty liquid and very low. I topped it off but it will need to be flushed ASAP. Speaking of brakes, I hadn't driven a car without power brakes for a long, long time. I almost panicked when I had to really press on the pedal to stop the car. Cylinder compression is 150PSI across all cylinders. Plugs look black, so I will need to figure out why it's running so rich. No vacuum leaks that I could find with a can of starting fluid.

With a mental middle-finger to the person that reported us to the city, Roma and I drove around our subdivision for the better part of an hour, revving up the muffler-less car and waving at every neighbor that we saw. We also found one neighbor that was working on an old MG in his garage. I need to talk to him later.

Photos to come soon.

A few photos, as promised.









I also recently discovered that I'm missing the heater control valve. I was wondering why the vent temperature in the car was always hot. I ordered a new one and I will need to fab up a bracket for it.

I also found that the float in my carb was bad, causing a lot of issues. I posted another thread about those specifically. This is why the carb is missing in these photos.

Still to do:

• Fix windshield wipers
• Purchase wiper fluid bottle
• Purge old brake fluid
• Assess state of the suspension
• Drain and refill differential; check driveshaft and u-joints.
• Fix lightbulbs, blinkers, etc.
• find leak in AC; fix and refill with refrigerant
• drain coolant (water + radiator flush), refill with proper ratio of coolant & water
• fix radio
• replace broken fuel tank sending unit

The initial test drive in the neighborhood showed that the trans was not working well. Missing some parts. A spring and a clip. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=66287&hilit=spring

Thank you for your up dates and pictures, no spring in pictures, i should have mentioned that a long time ago. Any way with out return spring tranny lever will be at about half throttle all the time. Which will make all kinds of problems.Late up shifts late or no down shift etc.

Good progress! Way to go

We've made some good progress over the past couple of weeks. However, an event yesterday made us stop and take a step back for a minute.

We discovered that this car has some unintended supplemental heating installed. And by that, I mean that the evaporator/heater box was full of dried leaves, which caught on fire from the blower motor resistor. This filled the car with smoke like an old Cheech and Chong movie. Luckily the damage was very minor and I happened to be working in the area of the glove box, so I had the tools right in front of me to get to the heater box ASAP and put out the fire.

This is the bottom of the heater box, looking in from the opening for the blower resistor toward the passenger side of the car. The evaporator is in the upper left side.


Similar to the previous pic, but looking almost directly down from the resistor opening.


The bottom of the heater box, from the opening of the resistor toward the center of the vehicle.


The heater box recirc door. I expected the foam on this door to melt but it's in good shape.


The bottom of the heater box after the charred leaves were removed. We can see the hot spot for the fire. I did remove the last few small leaves before I buttoned it back up.

Prior to the fire, the dash had been apart for roughly 2 weeks. We had several items to address while we were in there:

1. We wanted to fix the radio (radio is fine, but the speaker had a broken wire).
2. We wanted to get the AC working, and I thought we might need to troubleshot the vacuum-operated system.
3. Roma was gifted some LED lights that are USB powered. She wanted me to install a 3xUSB plug for the lights, phone, etc. She also wanted it hidden.
4. The speedometer cable gave up the ghost, so a new one was ordered (actually 3 new ones until I got the one that I had the correct fittings on each end).
5. We wanted to replace all of the old light bulbs with brighter LEDs.
6. The wipers were not working due to the bushings were completely disintegrated. We also decided to fix the wiper arm seals and add a grease fitting.

With help from several folks on this forum, I managed to obtain the missing bracket for my factory AC system. A new dryer was also installed. I flushed out the AC lines, took the compressor apart and cleaned it out, filled the system with CO2 to check for leaks, then added the ester oil and pulled a vacuum. The vacuum held for several days, so I charged it with new 134a. However, even with the tensioner at max, there was a significant amount of belt slap at idle (new Gates belt). While waiting for Greg to ship me the brackets, I tried to fab one up, which was almost identical to the bracket he sent me, so I took my custom bracket and added it to the slack side of the belt loop. Once again, there was some belt slap, but once I ate my Wheaties and maxed out the tensioner, the slap went away. I ended up using 7 12oz cans of 134a to get my pressures above 25/225. This seemed like a lot, which was true as the over-pressure safety valve proceeded to shoot spurts of dyed freon all over the front of the engine area the next day. I guess 225psi was too much, although I routinely run higher pressures in my modern vehicles. The vacuum lines going into and out of the firewall (black and yellow lines) were hard and brittle, so I replaced them with new vacuum lines. Once done, the HVAC system started to work and we had cold air. I also purchased a heater control valve, which was missing when we bought the car.

I removed the old speaker and found the broken wire. The paper cone was shot. I happened to have a 4" round speaker from an old car, so I copied the outline of the original speaker onto some sheet metal to make an adapter and attached the new speaker. The new setup was about 1/8" taller, which made the install 10x harder, but it eventually went in. We now had music (or rather, sports talk radio, political talk radio, and several Mexican music stations).

The speedometer was jumping all over the place and making a lot of noise originally. The retainer clip was missing from the gauge side of the cable. It eventually stopped working altogether and when I removed the 7/8" end from the trans, I found the cable all twisted and bound up. The square end of the cable was broken off in the speedo gear, but was just sticking out enough for me to grab it with some pliers. I measured the cable and ordered 2 varieties from Rock Auto. One had what I thought was the correct gauge connector and the other had the right size for the trans end, yet neither had both ends that I needed. Further investigation showed yet another option, a generic Mopar speedo cable, 63" long with the clip end and the 7/8 hex end. It took a few days to arrive but I got it in yesterday. The speedometer still likes to jump a bit, especially when I goose the throttle. Any thoughts on a fix?

The wipers were straightforward enough, although I installed the bushings the wrong way on the main arm, so I had to remove them and reinstall them. I also used some lithium grease to help them slide into place after I mangled the first bushing. The seal kit went on fine. Tapping the wiper arms for the zerk fitting was a pain. I didn't have a flat-bottom tap, so getting the fittings threaded into the hole took some doing. I eventually used a short bolt to "cut" threads into the softer zinc.

The LED upgrade went fine for the most part. The glove box light uses a reverse polarity plug, so the directional LED bulb that I originally bought had to be replaced with a non-directional bulb. The socket for the ashtray lamp likewise has a strange setup. My non-directional LED bulbs have the connecting wire on both sides of the blade, so that you can reverse the orientation of the bulb if you need to switch it based on the plug's polarity. A normal 168/194 incandescent bulb only has a contact wire on on side of each face. However, the ashtray socket contact pad pushes against both sides of the bulb blade. For my LED, this creates a short circuit. And my directional LED bulbs are just too big to fit inside the metal tube. More to come on this one. The instrument cluster bulbs were installed fine, only breaking one of the sockets in the process. Luckily NAPA had one in stock.

The USB socket was installed inside the glovebox. I have it facing outward, so that they can run their cables out from under the dash without too much trouble, You can see the tail end of the socket inside the glovebox, but that's the best solution we could find to keep the socket hidden from normal view and have it fixtured enough to make connecting the cables as easy as possible. Power was run from the radio. I haven't tested it yet, as that's what I was doing when the fire started.

The key was in the ACC position, the radio was on, the blower was on low, and I was installing the USB setup with I smelled smoke. It got stronger and eventually began to pour out of the AC vent. I turned the key off and smoke began to come out the side of the heater box and then from the intake grill in front of the windshield. I grabbed my nearby fire extinguishers and called for Roma to help. We felt around until we found the hot spot, I ripped out the glove box, removed the resistor array, and poured water into the heater box. I initially thought that I had miswired something. But an hour of the slow fan speed without the AC on, plus a bunch of old leaves proved to be enough. Luckily this happened in my driveway and not while the kids were out driving.

Next up:

• Test USB socket
• Ashtray LED light
• Install LED-rated relays for the turn signals and hazards
• Initial oil change after engine break-in period
• Purge old brake fluid. Inspect brake shoes, drums, etc.
• Drain and refill diff oil
• Inspect suspension.

That is way too much R-134a. Factory r-12 charge is about 46 oz. Retrofit to R-134a should be about 36 oz if using the stock condenser. I don't remember what the factory relief vale is set for, but 225 should not allow "blowoff". R-134a will normally run higher head pressure then with r-12, and 250 is not an uncommon head pressure with R-12 with a high heat load and ambient temp.
I would check the gauges for accuracy, and also make sure you are checking the high side pressure before the blowoff valve, and not after it. A system restriction will between the blowoff valve and HS port could cause a higher system pressure at the valve, than at the gauge.

_________________
Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 225 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170

I agree with @Charrlie_S. At roughly 3 cans into the process, the high pressure was steady at 150psi and the low pressure was down in the teens. I typically shoot for a minimum low pressure in R-134a systems of about 25psi, and a high pressure of about 225 to 250psi on a warm day (200psi on a cooler winter day). While it's normal for a TXV system to have a steady pressure (unlike a fixed orifice system that tends to cycle up and down more often), I've never seen on that held steady at 150psi.

The high side valve in located at the "muffler", which is less than 12 inches from the compressor. From the muffler, it's roughly 3 feet of hose to the condenser, then the drier with the blow-off valve, then roughly 3-4 feet of tubing to the TXV. Next is the evaporator and then roughly 3 to 4 feet of tubing to the compressor, with the low pressure port located on the head of the compressor.

Do you have an EPR valve in the rear compressor fitting? If yes, don't measure low side pressure at the port on the head. Use the port on the suction line fitting. If you're not sure about a EPR valve connect a low gauge to the rear compressor fitting and also a gauge on the compressor head. If no EPR valve the pressures will be the same. If there is a EPR valve the pressure on the head will be lower. Actually if you don't run the blower motor, and have the compressor running, the pressure on the head will probably go into a vacuum. I'm not positive on what year they used the EPR valve and what year they used clutch cycling to Control evap pressure.

_________________
Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 225 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170