General Tech What did you work on Today?
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- Start date
locknloadfzj80
Member
- Location
- West Valley
Blew the head gasket on the 306. Got finished ripping it apart at around 2am and didn't even notice this till the next morning:
Luckily the piston material didn't chew up the head at all.
Was about to order some pistons and rings when I then noticed this:
Split went all the way down the piston skirt. It gets worse the lower you go.
Luckily I was able to source a .20 over rebuilt motor. I wasn't sure if I would have time to get all the parts, machine work, and then put it all together before I head down to Myrtle Beach for Mustang Week.
10 hours later the it was back up on the road again!
Luckily the piston material didn't chew up the head at all.
Was about to order some pistons and rings when I then noticed this:
Split went all the way down the piston skirt. It gets worse the lower you go.
Luckily I was able to source a .20 over rebuilt motor. I wasn't sure if I would have time to get all the parts, machine work, and then put it all together before I head down to Myrtle Beach for Mustang Week.
10 hours later the it was back up on the road again!
Last edited:
Pile of parts
Well-Known Member
- Location
- South Jordan
Fast work! Now let's see the rest of the car along with some details.
locknloadfzj80
Member
- Location
- West Valley
Lol yeah I have a love affair with Fox Body Mustangs. I've built, broke, and sold quite a few of them.
Here's the rest of it.
It's a 92 LX. Motor is a 304 ( .020 over). Speed pro forged pistons, otherwise factory ( though balanced ) rotating assembly, ARP hardware through out the motor, X302 heads with minor porting and valve job, 1.6 FMS rollers, F303 cam, D1SC ProCharger, Treadstone FMIC, my own tune using a Quarter Horse chip, BBK equal length headers that I am going to shortly change out for some long tubes, catless H-pipe, and tubular GT40 manifold. Oh and it's got the AOD in it.
- Location
- Grand Junction, CO
Badass! How do you like the ProCharger on the 5.0? Does it build boost pretty quickly?
I kinda miss the days of ripping an engine apart over the weekend, then putting it back together so you could drive to work on Monday morning! I was younger then... and more willing to do that kind of back-breaking, night-consuming work.
I kinda miss the days of ripping an engine apart over the weekend, then putting it back together so you could drive to work on Monday morning! I was younger then... and more willing to do that kind of back-breaking, night-consuming work.
locknloadfzj80
Member
- Location
- West Valley
I love it! Centrifugal superchargers are the way to go for these motors. They naturally have that low end touque then around 3000 it gets to building the boost and pulls like a freight train to 140. I have pretty bad belt slip right now though so peaks at around 7-12psi depending on the pull. My damper crapped out on me a while ago and took the 12rib and radiator with it. I slapped a couple 6 ribs on their till the new belt gets in.
I actually liked the ProCharger enough to put a D1SC on my 96 Cobra. Though it is back to nitrous only right now. Since I got it used and can use a rebuild.
Yeah I still love it but it was definitely less enjoyable this time around. Though I literally just got done doing a bunch of work on the Cobra. Was pretty burned out on wrenching because of it.
TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
I'm still sorting out axle issues. In the interim, why not spend some more time on the engine? I found a heavy duty steel drive rod for the oil pump, one that has an integrated steel 'bushing' formed into it. This is a stronger setup than the OEM plastic bushing, and is supposed to be better for a high volume pump such as I have. Okay, sounds good.
My co-worker Mike kept bugging me about the unpainted engine. "It's gonna rust, ya know." Okay, fine--I found some silvery blue engine paint that reminds me of classic Pontiac engine paint (more or less) plus it kinda goes with the light blue car. After painting the block and heads, I installed the oil pump and the heavy duty shaft. Finally, the bottom end was complete and I could install the oil pan.
Flipping the engine back over, I installed the valve covers. We then prepared to put the sexy Air Gap intake manifold in place. We fiddled until it was precisely located, then we began bolting it down... only to find out that my OEM bolts weren't quite up to the task--some of them are too short to properly hold the Edelbrock intake in place. Hmm. We were out of time for today, so I guess I'll have to make another Ace Hardware run before my next wrenching session.
But, hey--it's looking more and more like a complete engine!
My co-worker Mike kept bugging me about the unpainted engine. "It's gonna rust, ya know." Okay, fine--I found some silvery blue engine paint that reminds me of classic Pontiac engine paint (more or less) plus it kinda goes with the light blue car. After painting the block and heads, I installed the oil pump and the heavy duty shaft. Finally, the bottom end was complete and I could install the oil pan.
Flipping the engine back over, I installed the valve covers. We then prepared to put the sexy Air Gap intake manifold in place. We fiddled until it was precisely located, then we began bolting it down... only to find out that my OEM bolts weren't quite up to the task--some of them are too short to properly hold the Edelbrock intake in place. Hmm. We were out of time for today, so I guess I'll have to make another Ace Hardware run before my next wrenching session.
But, hey--it's looking more and more like a complete engine!
TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
The more I look at it now that it's painted, the more I like it. I just hope I'm not offending the engine gods by painting my Chevy engine a Pontiac color.
A small block Chevy would make a good first rebuild: it is extremely well documented, parts are outrageously plentiful and affordable, and the sky is the limit for exactly how you'd like to build it. Go for it!
- Location
- Richfield, UT.
Fabbed and welded some crud on my buddies sweet xj. The ford dana 60 was trying to spin on him and pull out. It was bad enough that is was weeping gear oil out of it.
Plenty of pre and post to the center section. A chain from axle end to axle end underneath a floor jack preloaded it as we welded on the top truss we fabbed.
Crappy pics>
Plenty of pre and post to the center section. A chain from axle end to axle end underneath a floor jack preloaded it as we welded on the top truss we fabbed.
Crappy pics>
- Location
- Draper, UT
Made a new food grate for barbecue.
1/4" 304 stainless round bar. Closed the ring with added filler, the cross bars just got their ends melted and fused to the ring.
My first time working with stainless, very different heat conducting properties from mild steel.
1/4" 304 stainless round bar. Closed the ring with added filler, the cross bars just got their ends melted and fused to the ring.
My first time working with stainless, very different heat conducting properties from mild steel.
- Location
- Richfield, UT.
Just wrapping up this razor 170 roll cage. 1.25 cromoly all tig welded. client has two of them and his kids race them.
BlueWolfFab
Running Behind
- Location
- Eagle Mountain
Had an exhaust leak on the civic so I decided to replace the exhaust from the cat-back. The existing exhaust that I needed to tie into though was 2 3/16". (2 1/4" adapter too big and 2 1/8" too small) and no one sells a 2 3/16" adapter that I know if so I bought a 2 1/80 one and tried to use the Autozone "tailpipe expander tool and broke 2 of the before I even got it open that extra 1/16". So I took a 2 5/16" trailer hitch ball and lathed off almost 1/8" and used the shop press to shove it in. Worked great, then just flipped it over and used a bearing press plate to get it out.
you can tell how the top lip is not perfectly round, that's from the stupid tailpipe expander tool. It broke before I got a chance to rotate it to make it round, but the trailer hitch ball made it round down where I needed it to be so it should be fine.
you can tell how the top lip is not perfectly round, that's from the stupid tailpipe expander tool. It broke before I got a chance to rotate it to make it round, but the trailer hitch ball made it round down where I needed it to be so it should be fine.
BlueWolfFab
Running Behind
- Location
- Eagle Mountain
Btw, has anyone used those tailpipe expander tool with good success?
Nope, but I did split a tube when I tried to expand it. Kinda the opposite problem you had with them.
BlueWolfFab
Running Behind
- Location
- Eagle Mountain
Nope, but I did split a tube when I tried to expand it. Kinda the opposite problem you had with them.
Yeah the first one I broke the crappy powdered-metal part that held the back nut, and the second one stripped out the back nut and got locked on crossthreaded. The second one also was not wanting to expand square to the pipe and act more like a flaring tool ha. What piles of junk.
muleskinner
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Enoch, UT
Nope, but I did split a tube when I tried to expand it. Kinda the opposite problem you had with them.
I had the same problem when I was building the frame for my wall tent. I took mine to an exhaust shop and had them expand the pipe for me, but probably one out of five would split.
BlueWolfFab
Running Behind
- Location
- Eagle Mountain
Yeah ideally I would have just had Rick's expand one up for me but I had to have this project done before the holiday weekend was over so I could drive to work today ha.
- Location
- The Land Northward (Bountiful), Utah
Nice Chance
anderson750
I'm working on it Rose
- Location
- Price, Utah
I can't really take any credit for the work but this is the starting of an unplanned project. I see a compound turbo set up from ATS in the near future.
