John Ibele
10-24-2021, 04:47 PM
Well, my engine is sitting in its permanent home in the car. I'll get full details and photos in my build thread soon, but I wanted to get this out there while it was fresh in my mind.
I took the week off work to jumpstart progress on my slowwww build, and had hopes of getting the engine dropped in by the end of the week. Never having done any of this before, and knowing full well all the things that can come up, I didn't get too devoted to that specific outcome but pushed hard to make it happen. I poured over the manual and the forum, made up a list of items that needed to get checked off, talked multiple times with Gordon Levy (who sold me everything between the engine and the drive shaft) and with my engine builder during the week. So, prepped as I could be. Still, stuff does come up, as everyone knows.
1.) I finally get all the prep in the engine bay done by the end of the week, but as of Thursday afternoon the engine block was still sitting separate from the transmission, and I realized I didn't have the 4 bolts mounting the transmission to the bell housing. No time for shipping; not gonna count on the Ace bolts for this item, no way. The response of my local engine builder to my last-minute call: "If I'm not using ARP bolts I'm getting them straight from Caterpillar, let me know what you need and I'll have them ready for you in 2 hours". Problem solved.
2.) I shot Fixit a text to see if he was around to stop by ... Friday afternoon he pulled up in his beautiful roadster to look things over. Perfect timing for my older brother to see the car and get a ride. Some shop talk and car tour, plus a gracious couple of rides take up a few hours, then an inspection of the engine bay ("looks clean") and some invaluable tips give some confirmation that I haven't missed anything major. Big confidence boost.
3.) With various other prep, Friday ended with everything but the transmission mated up. That job waited until Saturday. Spent 90 minutes 1/4" away from success. Measure everything again, convince ourselves we're way past the point of getting the splines lined up with the clutch, must not have the clutch perfectly aligned with the pilot bearing despite using the alignment tool ... answer's obvious to anyone who's done it before, but we've never done it before...
After trying everything we can think of, I figured why not try calling Gordon. It's Saturday, he can either skip the call completely, or figure I'll call back on Monday, likely tired of me bending his ear all week ... but he picks up, gives me exactly the advice I need ("You're five seconds away from being done - take a pry bar against the clutch fork, the clutch'll move and the shaft will drop into place in the pilot bearing"), and a minute later we're mated up and moving on.
4.) I wouldn't have even gotten to Monday of last week without the willingness of all those folks on the forum freely sharing their knowledge and advice. This is one of the most positive and helpful forums I know of.
Its always nice to know you've got people around you who have your back. I'd count on this community of builders and vendors to get me out of a jam any time.
One photo to prove it happened:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51624950057_7b41cbbb88_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2mDVn4P)
Untitled (https://flic.kr/p/2mDVn4P) by John Ibele (https://www.flickr.com/photos/familycobra/), on Flickr
I took the week off work to jumpstart progress on my slowwww build, and had hopes of getting the engine dropped in by the end of the week. Never having done any of this before, and knowing full well all the things that can come up, I didn't get too devoted to that specific outcome but pushed hard to make it happen. I poured over the manual and the forum, made up a list of items that needed to get checked off, talked multiple times with Gordon Levy (who sold me everything between the engine and the drive shaft) and with my engine builder during the week. So, prepped as I could be. Still, stuff does come up, as everyone knows.
1.) I finally get all the prep in the engine bay done by the end of the week, but as of Thursday afternoon the engine block was still sitting separate from the transmission, and I realized I didn't have the 4 bolts mounting the transmission to the bell housing. No time for shipping; not gonna count on the Ace bolts for this item, no way. The response of my local engine builder to my last-minute call: "If I'm not using ARP bolts I'm getting them straight from Caterpillar, let me know what you need and I'll have them ready for you in 2 hours". Problem solved.
2.) I shot Fixit a text to see if he was around to stop by ... Friday afternoon he pulled up in his beautiful roadster to look things over. Perfect timing for my older brother to see the car and get a ride. Some shop talk and car tour, plus a gracious couple of rides take up a few hours, then an inspection of the engine bay ("looks clean") and some invaluable tips give some confirmation that I haven't missed anything major. Big confidence boost.
3.) With various other prep, Friday ended with everything but the transmission mated up. That job waited until Saturday. Spent 90 minutes 1/4" away from success. Measure everything again, convince ourselves we're way past the point of getting the splines lined up with the clutch, must not have the clutch perfectly aligned with the pilot bearing despite using the alignment tool ... answer's obvious to anyone who's done it before, but we've never done it before...
After trying everything we can think of, I figured why not try calling Gordon. It's Saturday, he can either skip the call completely, or figure I'll call back on Monday, likely tired of me bending his ear all week ... but he picks up, gives me exactly the advice I need ("You're five seconds away from being done - take a pry bar against the clutch fork, the clutch'll move and the shaft will drop into place in the pilot bearing"), and a minute later we're mated up and moving on.
4.) I wouldn't have even gotten to Monday of last week without the willingness of all those folks on the forum freely sharing their knowledge and advice. This is one of the most positive and helpful forums I know of.
Its always nice to know you've got people around you who have your back. I'd count on this community of builders and vendors to get me out of a jam any time.
One photo to prove it happened:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51624950057_7b41cbbb88_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2mDVn4P)
Untitled (https://flic.kr/p/2mDVn4P) by John Ibele (https://www.flickr.com/photos/familycobra/), on Flickr